Alec Benson Leary said:
Marvin said:
Plus no large company is going to pursue someone like Chris unless they were doing something extremely fucked up, which Chris isn't.
Technically speaking, every fanfic and recolor on the internet is a copyright infringement, even though they don't make their authors any money. My Asperchu was a copyright infringement on every property I used. But yeah, Sega and Nintendo would never pursue Chris or anyone else like that because they're insignificant.
Nah, copyright applies to specific works. Like, if I drew a picture of a dog, I have copyright on that picture. If you drew a picture of Sonic, you have copyright on that picture you drew of Sonic.
Now, some works incorporate prior copyrighted works, like fanart. But even so, you still have copyright on your fanart. You can forbid people from distributing copies of your fanart, because they're still your copyrighted works.
If your work incorporate some prior work, which fanart does by definition, your work is considered a "derivative work." When it comes to derivative works, anyone who has rights to whatever you incorporated can forbid you from publishing your work.
As far as the Sonichu comics go, Chris does have a valid copyright on all of them. Although, he is a dipshit and fucks up how he declares his copyright (plus, declaring your copyright hasn't been required for a long time). The Sonichu comics that incorporate Sonic himself are probably derivative works. Well, plus Sonic is probably also a trademark, and there are separate laws involving trademarks. But I think the rest of the Sonichu comics are probably OK if he clears out any mentions of Sonic. They all have their own plots that could be disconnected from anything Sega might have rights to. Chris could probably legally publish them.
Now, as people have said, it's not worth it for Sega to pursue Chris in court. But! If they did want to pursue him, even if they didn't have a good case for some of his comics, I bet it wouldn't be worth it for Chris to defend himself. They could probably win, even if Chris had a good case for some of his comics.