#copyright free characters

[lostfriend0087]

Project witchmas

Project witchmas will be the latest character line project in the works. The characters in this project are based on the Christmas theme about traditional fantasy.

Neve:

She is a witch who's clothes are themed based on Santa

Aubin:

He is basically a Christmas elf given a more heroic feel

Bodhi:

He is an ice fairy, the inspiration for hem was from the legend of zelda,he will be a guide for Neve.

Silas:

He is a wood elf, the inspiration for hem was the Grinch.

[mickeymouseispublicdomain]

Download from the Internet Archive here.

Download from Itch.io here.

You are encouraged to print or otherwise share these with as many people as possible!

[ID: A single-page pamphlet titled, "Mickey Mouse is now in the Public Domain!", with "public domain" underlined and bolded for emphasis. The body of the flyer reads:

"The copy-rights for the animations “Steamboat Willie”, “The Gallopin Gaucho”, “Plane Crazy”, and several promotional posters for them have expired!

But what does this mean for you?

Let’s start with the shorter list:

What you cannot do:

Trick people into thinking the art you are selling of Mickey Mouse is official Disney merch, or sanctioned by Disney

Sell art of Mickey that includes *specific designs* still protected by Disney’s copyright

What you can do:

Share, edit, remix, remaster, and sell the original animations that are now in the Public Domain.

Sell digital, traditional, and written art that you have made of Mickey, Minnie, and Pete, with no permission required!

Add new colors and patterns to Mickey, Minnie, and Pete’s classic outfits, or design them brand new outfits altogether!

Create new stories with Mickey, Minnie, and Pete, as animations, movies, books, or comics, and sell them!

Some common misconceptions…

Some people think that you have to stick to the original designs to the letter, IE: keeping them black and white, not having gloves on Mickey, and not letting them talk – but this is just a misunderstanding of what the Public Domain is! You can design and use them in any way you want, as long as you aren’t using a *specific design* still protected by Disney’s copy-rights. They can have color outfits, gloves, and talk! They belong to all of us now! Have fun!"

Framing the flyer at the top right, middle left, and bottom right are three pictures of Mickey Mouse with red shorts, a tan face, brown shoes, and gold buttons, with a pink tongue when his mouth is open. In the first, at the title, he has his arms thrown into the air with joy. In the second, at the "what you can do" section, he is looking excitedly at something in front of him. In the last, at the "common misconceptions" section, he's wearing a black hat with a red stripe, posed with a smile as he looks at something in front of him. Each is posed to be facing the text, as though they are reacting to it with excitement. End ID.]

[sages-of-hell]

watched metropolis (1927) last night and i’m genuinely disappointed nobody ever cared to tell me that it has freder fredersen in it who is possibly the first case of babygirl in film history

[lisasnarts]

Favourite characters: Kaladin Stormblessed

[daily-public-domain]

Day 239: Drawings by Ironimus

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–These images are part of the public domain, meaning you can do anything you want with them! (you could even sell them as a shirt, poster or whatever, no need to credit them!)–

[boggyboats]

Genuinely atrocious how much I’m in love with Yoshioka Mamoru- despite the fact that he literally has no canon personality, shows up one season (for like one episode), and only is ever seen since because the folks at bones are down bad with that man and has dimple possess him in official art

[didderd]

(deleted th poll bc i felt weird abt. kinda being told to do it by an anon lmao. but i got 25 votes on ye, which's good enough for me. so i'll at least attempt to do th thing)

(feel free to suggest prompts in th replys or tags for th fell sans drawings :3)

[timewontwait]

( listen. )

it’s not that you don’t believe your friends will have your back when you need them, that you can’t lean on them for support and confide in them, or that they aren’t fully capable of helping you fight tooth and nail for what’s right. it’s quite literally the fact that, every time you lost or came close, it ended up costing you on a catastrophic level. the flooding of station square, the ark almost blowing up the planet, your literal death leading to all of space time being nearly destroyed, the PLANET being split apart by dark gaia, the whole war in forces after being beaten by infinite? those were all very real things that happened, and you were at the forefront of it all. 

would it be any different if it were someone else in that position? WOULD the world still be here if you hadn’t stepped up all these times? you have no idea. MAYBE. maybe it would be different. maybe less people would have died. maybe NOBODY would have died. maybe you’re not as cut out for this as you say you are, and there’s someone else out there who can do this job ten times better.

or maybe, the world would have been lost a long time ago, had it not been for your selfless bravery. you don’t know, but you just keep going anyway.

after enough times where things like this happen however, you start to feel like it’s no longer a choice you make, helping people, putting your life on the line, driving yourself to the brink of collapse to save the world from impossible threats. it’s no longer because ‘a hedgehog’s gotta do what a hedgehog’s gotta do’. it’s either you do it, or people will die. you can’t control every devastating outcome, you know that, and you try not to kick yourself over it because that doesn’t get results and you hate feeling sorry for yourself. but it’s still the burden you’ve taken upon yourself. it’s still loss, and you feel it in every destroyed town you pass, every mile wide crack in the ground you scale, every night there's a full moon and you can see the shattered remains of the once whole celestial body. you’re not the reason it happened, but it’s still something you tried and failed to prevent from happening. 

and it’s not something you can just talk about - even to your trusted loved ones. you don’t want them to feel guilty, like they aren’t doing enough to help you -- and you sure as hell don’t want them throwing themselves into potentially life threatening danger just to make up for something none of you can control. that’s not a conversation you’re eager to have, it’s not even one you want to think about. but your reluctance doesn’t stop the people on the streets from whispering about you, or the hecklers in the crowd asking you, ‘why?’ why did this happen? why couldn’t you do this for us? it makes you miss the days where nobody knew your name yet. where you were just a quiet, scrappy kid on the street standing up to an egomaniacal bully. back when you still had a choice. and there’s a smaller, darker, quieter part of yourself that begins to resent it, even though it’s your own doing. you just wish it wasn’t always imperfect, impulsive, inpatient you that they all have to rely on to survive, when you can barely stand to face them every time it feels like you’re letting them down. 

so what do you do with all this? how do you cope with the weight in your heart that you must carry? how do you still manage to defy the odds, even when it feels like all hope is lost? you don’t really know. you don’t have an answer for that, because you never stop to think about it. but you know that you must keep going, no matter what. as long as you are still breathing, there is still hope. even if in the end, being their hope is what runs you into the dirt. you just keep going.

you just keep going.

[rainyynightz]

Dreamland - a music box/lullaby I created 🎧

https://youtu.be/f6XRjUohIrY?si=bw6sc1G4K0TOhmfr

Hope you like it 🤎 [check it out on my YouTube channel]

Thanks for watching 🕯️🌧️

[free to use with credits 🎧]

[businesscatfelix]

i wish paywalling individual images was less frowned upon in the western online art community bc i would love to make some sexy artworks of graha showing hole and charge like $5 to download them at high res but there’s a few problems with that as a business model

[smolgirlbigdreams]

Can I ask y'all something? Was it hard when you were first sharing your OCs online? I've had these OCs for like ten years and most of them and their stories have never seen the light of day because I'm so scared to post about them. I guess I'm paranoid that someone is gonna steal from me. 😅 Have you guys ever dealt with that or just me? Any tips for coping/starting out posting original content?

[lostfriend0087]

New characters, Sun hero line is here!!!

[freakpercent]

please look at this funny ass title on a post we found yesterday

[prokopetz]

Mickey Mouse's entry into the public domain comes with significant caveats. While the Mickey Mouse who appears in Steamboat Willie (and other media published in 1928 or earlier) is free to use, there's established precedent that specific elements of a character which appear exclusively in later works which still fall under copyright may be protected, if sufficiently distinctive.

(This is the basis of, e.g., the infamous "Sherlock Holmes can't respect women" lawsuit: the Doyle estate, which at the time owned only a tiny handful of the latest-written stories, the others having already fallen into the public domain, argued that specific personality traits which Holmes exhibits only in those later stories are sufficiently distinctive as to be the valid subject of an infringement claim.)

With respect to various elements of Mickey's visual design, such as his red shorts and signature gloves, the matter is clear: just don't use those for another few years. However, there's another thing Mickey's public domain iterations don't exhibit: speech.

The present consensus among copyright scholars seems to be that "a character speaking" is not sufficiently distinctive as to qualify for protection, but the vocal characterisation with which Mickey Mouse is famously associated may so qualify. So, if you want to be scrupulously safe, you can have him talk, but not in that exact specific voice.

Which raises a fun question: what voice would you give him? Wrong answers only.

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

why taking commissions for fanfics can KILL Archive of Our Own and fanfic culture as a whole

okay, so thing is, fanfics are allowed — as in they’re not banned — because nobody is supposed to be profiting off of copyrighted characters.

this is why popular site like Archive of Our Own is allowed to be up and running, because no one is supposed to be making money from fanfics.

the fact AO3 is allowed to be up and running, unfortunately, can and will most likely change if people start normalizing commissioning fanfics and making profit off of them.

because the second those big companies learn people are profiting off of their copyrighted characters, the target they will attack after you (in terms of legal action) is a platform like Archive of Our Own, which will likely ruin it all for everybody and every fandom.

imagine Archive of Our Own getting shut down because fanfics were banned because people were profiting off of them. (I know AO3 isn’t only about fanfics, but since it’s mostly known for fanfics, it will most likely get targeted and that will most likely mean it’ll get shut down if worst comes to worst.)

honestly. most people write fanfics in their free time for free out of passion and love they have for their favorite characters.

people read fanfics for free because that’s their source of happiness.

I’m not saying there will be no fanfics left in this world if they really are banned, because people will always find a way. but it WILL be so much harder having to sneak around and find a way to post fanfics without them getting removed at best, the authors getting sued at worst. and it WILL be harder for readers to find your works if we have to censor key words and character names in order to avoid getting caught.

it’s so much easier like this, we can freely post fanfics without having to hide and censor key words or worrying about anything.

no, I’m not making this post for the sake of those big companies. this post isn’t about “hey, don’t profit off of their characters”. it’s about “hey, don’t risk ruining fanfics culture as a whole for everybody by profiting off of them and putting a platform like Archive of Our Own in jeopardy.”

if you don’t want to live in a fandom without AO3, keep fanfics free.