Child Entrepreneurs/copyright infringement

[Jeanne in MN]

My kids are always trying to figure out how to earn money. They love playing Club Penguin on the web and have been working on sewing 4" tall penguins out of felt to look like their penguin in the game.

If they could do a decent job sewing, I thought *maybe* they could make more and sell these stuffed, different colored, felt penguins somewhere like on ebay or a craft show or something. They even thought about making Puffles out of little pom poms with little googly eyes to go with them.

Is there a copyright infringement when doing something like this? Or are there other things we should be considering? Thanks for any thoughts!

[JFS in IL]

Knowing Disney, any attempt to make $ off a Disney-owned image would bring their lawyers down on you like a ton of bricks. :mad: I mean, they won;t let our local bakery decorate cakes with Disney-characters (unless the mom-and pop owned bakery pays some fees they can't afford. So they have a sign up instead saying please don;t even ask for a Buzz Lightyear cake for your kid.)

[AmyinPA]

however rarely does an outfit like Disney bring down lawsuits on a small crafter. Still, it is illegal.

[Jeanne in MN]

We'll have to think of something else. :)

[PariSarah]

I mean, you can't copyright a penguin. But you can copyright an easily recognizable and clearly unique cartoon character of a penguin.

If they just do penguins, and happen to mention that they like to play this video game that has penguins, they're not in any trouble at all. But if they put the name of the video game on the penguin (or on any advertising about the penguins), then they've got problems. And if the penguins are recognizable as almost-exact copies of the video-game penguins, again, problem.

But think of Snow White: Disney can't copyright the name or the characters or the plot line. It's public domain. You can absolutely have a Snow White and Seven Dwarfs birthday cake. You just can't make them look recognizably like Disney's version of the story. They can copyright their image of the story. If you make Snow White with long black hair instead of the fifties' bob their Snow White has, you're fine. See what I mean?

[3littlekeets]

however rarely does an outfit like Disney bring down lawsuits on a small crafter. Still, it is illegal.


Sadly, quite frequently. Disney has whole teams of lawyers just to stop small businesses and individual crafter/artists from making anything remotely Disney.

[Jeanne in MN]

I mean, you can't copyright a penguin. But you can copyright an easily recognizable and clearly unique cartoon character of a penguin.


they wanted to make them in the colors of the penguins at Club Pen. and make Puffles. Even if we tried to keep them generic, the intent wouldn't be morally or legally right. Nothing I care to mess with anyway. :)

thanks for your insight and help!