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Greater Basilisk wrote:
Okay. I’m kinda confused by now as to what constitutes copyright disregard and what doesn’t. Don’t mind me, I guess. 😛
You see, I can’t copy scales from her if she didn’t come up with it in the first place. Again scales are scales, there are only so many ways of making them. Melody did not invent that scale pattern it’s found in fish and has been used in Japanese pottery for hundreds of years. It’s not her original design or anything & you can’t put a copyright on something like that. Now if I had made a Kirin with the same scales & painted it the same colors then yes that might fall under copying. But also my scales all come to a small point while the Kirin and Oriental dragons of Windstone are rounded. Hope that makes sense again I hate being accused of copying other artist.
Greater Basilisk wrote:Okay. I’m kinda confused by now as to what constitutes copyright disregard and what doesn’t. Don’t mind me, I guess. 😛
That’s because it’s complicated! Windstone owns not only Copyrights and Trademarks, but something called Trade Dress. Trade dress is a protection (that you have to pay for and police yourself, unlike copyright) that is made for the overall look of a product. Since Windstone is art and a product, it is highly protected. For trade dress to apply, the product must be inherently distinctive; that is, it must have its own look and style and have a precedent of such. As Windstones are distinct (especially back when they started in the 1980s) they have a trade dress on their product. This protects the overall look, and style of the pieces. There are obviously parts of each piece that taken by themselves cannot be protected… e.g. no one ‘owns’ wings, no one ‘owns’ scales, no one ‘owns’ the idea that a dragon can be green. However the look as a whole, or a combo of elements can lead to infringement. e.g. specific scale patterning that Melody does (think groups of scales, specially on say the PYO keeper), or the style of the head shape, the specific poses, the use of a color combined with gold accents, the use of an established Windstone color scheme even on a piece that looks nothing like a Windstone in shape can be an infringement … such as this one, which Windstone did stop the company from making:
Notice that the dragon looks nothing like a Windstone? But the color scheme is identical to an Old Brown, even has the turquoise markings.It’s a complicated thing.
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My art: featherdust.comCopyright it a super complicated thing, that’s why I have a copyright attorney I work with. Like my plush, dragons with fairy wings is not a new thing, nor did I come up with it, but my needle felted dragon with it’s style of wings and distinctive face is trademarked, so it the pattern which I designed so it’s copyrighted. If I had made a mold from a kirin & then made my scale then that would be breaking the copyright Windstone has. But my dragon is hand-sculpted and only 2.5″ tall. It’s sort of like dragons can only be made so many ways a head, 4 legs and wings, and scales (yeah I know dragons can have 6 legs and no wings if you want) but my point is a dragon a dragon, as feathers are feathers, scales are scales, etc. If I had sculpted feathers you could not say “hey be careful when copying Melody’s griffin feathers”
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