"Printing official art or fan art to a phone case" is it legal?

[KatoShuu]

(No, I'm not making them. Just curious)
Is it Illegal?
Will I be sued by the company (or by fan artists), because I used their character/art (fan art or official art) without permission?

Edit: for selling. Wow, I didn't expect this many replies

 

[Pika]

Well, if you don't sell it or redistribute it, they will never know. Besides they really won't really bother if one guy decides to do something for himself using one of their work.
About the legality, you can always check what they have written on their page or mail them if you really want to know. A lot of fan artists write "NOT FOR RESALE OR REDISTRIBUTION WITHOUT PERMISSION" or something the like.

 

[negavamas]

If you are making a profit from printing copyrighted material, distributing it even if you do it for free or claiming ownership, yes, it is illegal.

If you just put them on your wall to decorate, no, just don't show it on social media, you never know what author is not right in the head.

 

[421cookies]

@KatoShuu Considering the printing side get profit by those custom print, I believe it can somewhat breaking the fair use law.
To be safe, ask their permission before doing any sort of materializing works. I'm sure the artist would be quite happy too to see someone appreciate their work enough to want to make a copy of it.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

Is it legal if, let's say, I give out free digital copies to patreons who donate $5?

Spoiler

^{Subscribe to Pewdiepie}

 

[FireFish5000]

..... why did I not see that coming?

Yes, its illegal. Unless they explicitly grant you permission, they own all rights to their work. Check the license though, because some will upload their works with very permissive license.
On a side note, it doesn't even need to be an exact copy. Derivative works are equally illegal (unless license says otherwise), like it or not.
Will you be sued? Probably not by your fellow fans (who are probably in an equally undesirable situation), but the big companies might.
What if I turn it into a cake instead?
Selling?
Personal copies?

I was taught how to think by my parents, teacher, friends, the media, and all the weebs on the interweb. All my ideas are derivatives of theirs. In respect to that, I grant all rights to the statement on this line to them. For rights to the other line, they will have to sue.
<sub>I will never understand the concept of owning an idea.

All contents of this post, except where explicitly stated otherwise, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</sub>
Keep in mind, lack of a license doesn't mean fair use or public domain, it means ALL RIGHTS RESERVED! Just like how a drivers license grants you permission to drive, which without you may not do, a copyright license grants you permissions to do things with someone else's work. If you aren't given the license, it means you do not have permission to do it.
You can read more about that here. I would quote them, but the license they gave me only grants me permission to do so if I match my license with theirs.
(this post is only valid in the US, and I have no clue to what extent as copyrights elude me)

 

[shouldsleep]

Is it illegal? In many countries yes.

Does it matter? Most of the time no. Unless you distribute it (commercially or not), it often is a non-issue.

For example: Did you know that it is technically illegal to take photography of the eiffel tower at night, because the lights are not part of public domain.

 

[Holo]

Printing for personal use should be fine as it falls under fair use.

If you are looking to make a profit, then that's breaking fair use.

 

[Aichan]

(No, I'm not making them. Just curious)
Is it Illegal?
Will I be sued by the company (or by fan artists), because I used their character/art (fan art or official art) without permission?

It's certainly not legal, if you sell them, or distribute them in any way. If you just make it for yourself or to give as a birthday gift to that dude you think wouldn't have ratted on you, it's fine.

It's still illegal and if the owner of the copyright or trademark decided that they want to sue you, they can. So don't sell them if you decide to make them one day. There's still a big chance they won't care, but just so you know, if they want to sue you, they can.

Fair Use allowance is strictly for education purposes or something that improves humanity or its culture. Fan art hardly improves humanity unless you have a way to make a 2D picture holographic that projects a real 3D image into thin air. In that case, you're still breaking copyright but it's permissible because you've made something awesome.

Fair Use is not an out of jail card. Just because you make something for yourself doesn't make it Fair Use. If you sell it or distribute it, it's outright illegal. However, if you are not offending the owners, they won't care.

That being said, manga fan translation (since we're talking about Fair Use) is not Fair Use. It is derivative work which infringes the original owner's copyright. The only reason it's still not being hunted down is because the copyright owners have no interest in enforcing their rights (probably because it's expensive to crack down on everything).

If you translate for your own use, there is no problem, but when you share it, it becomes illegal. I suppose you can stretch the definition of Fair Use to say that you're providing a service to teach Japanese, Chinese of Korean to non-speakers. However, that doesn't fly with what we have. For you to use this justification, you need to have the original dialogues untouched, with the English translation written beside the original language page, or for each page to have twin pages of original language and English translation.

As for the answer to will you get sued for making something for your own use? The answer is very unlikely. If they don't know what you did, you won't get sued. If they still find out somehow but you're only making it for yourself, it's quite unlikely they'd care either unless you somehow offended them.

 

[FireFish5000]

Now, ignoring legality, Consider the following scenario. You create a Christmas decoration with a picture of Micky Mouse in a Santa suit. Will you be sued if:
1) You display it inside your house
2) You display it in your front yard
3) You display it in your very well decorated front yard that makes it on the news every year

I would say your safe except possibly for number 3, but I see no reason they would sue you.
Now, consider the following variants:
a) You put up a donation box
b) You gave Micky a AK-47 and put some political message in a speech bubble

Now you have a real problem. It looks like Disney is endorsing you or your political message, which they probably don't like. That news reporter may be the death of you.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

*Mickey voice* "And remember kids! [insert politician here] is always wrong!"

 

[KatoShuu]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN
Already subscribed since long ago

 

[Xzayer]

Think of the Soulja Boi situation with him selling Chinese emulators with licensed games. If you plan to make a profit on it there could be legal ramifications.

 

[Evoku]

It's okay if they're just for personal use, but you might get in trouble if you're distributing/selling them. 😱