Animation Source Forums

I think people just copywrite things to show that they're their's. People should just put a watermark at the bottom of their drawings so people don't steal it.

The "copyrights" people add on their creations are merely for moral reasons, but they have no legal value.
It's more a polite way to say : "do not use my characters without asking for my permission".
Even if they have no legal value, everyone should respect them, to avoid problems.

Pretty much what Steet and JC already said.

No one could actually claim copyright to a character (I thought that you trademarked characters anyway?) without it being registered with some actual legal copyright thing, plus they could only copyright individual pieces of art/music - not the characters.
Fan characters I don't think you can copyright or anything at all unless it magically ends up totally different to the original.

It's mainly just an easy way to let everyone know that that character/art belongs to them.

Shouldn't this of been in the rant board?

I know I'm late with this topic, but I find it quite interesting.

If you check the link JerseyCaptain has given, you'll see that it is a long and complex issue. And extremely confusing. If you don't spend time reading up on it, you won't understand it. Trademarks and patents are other things entirely applied to the same issue.

1) If you post something of your own creation on the internet - it is yours by law. However, this applies to the completed work. Characters, however, cannot be copyrighted. In that case, you'll have to look into trademark law. Mickey Mouse, for example, is a Disney trademark. (I don't know a lot about trademarks or patents so I'm not going to claim any knowledge on them, but by all rights I think they have the same protections as copyrights - Disney has gone after trademark violators as often as they have copyright violators).

2) If you post something that contains material that is copyrighted to others, you cannot hold the full copyright. For example, if you use a photograph or a still from a film, you may be able to make an icon - but you cannot claim full credit.

3) Artwork, photographs, stories, etc that are completely out of your own design are legally yours - once they are 'published' - posted that is, on the Internet. This is under US Copyright law, though it is recommended that you register the work. This also means that if you post something whether it is a photograph, artwork, story, etc that belongs to someone else you can get into serious trouble.

(And here's two more links that may help if you have further questions: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html and http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resourc ... ght-guide/ )