Quote Originally Posted by Feign View Post
Even those three examples, you can copyright the character concept if you can prove that you indeed originated that concept. In fact, with the Marvel characters you mentioned there are multiple copyrights, covering graphic elements of the characters and therefore products derived from those characters. The copyright documents often read like "graphic black spider element with elongated legs for use on the chest of a character's costume" and "Red and blue web pattern with central points on the center of mask and center of chest." Otherwise there is a pretty good chance of someone coming forth with previous art to invalidate your copyright claim. Also, you can copyright a character name, which is the route most content makers take.

Copyright filings cost a non-trivial amount of money, and copyright challenges are practically free. It is highly unlikely that a lawyer in his right mind would put together a copyright claim for "Blue Cartoon Shark with legs" or the name "Left Shark".

EDIT: the issue of Marvel and copyrights is something kind of near and dear to my heart from my days playing City of Heroes and following the attempted Marvel lawsuit against the game in its early days.
I understand what you mean, but they somehow managed to do it, otherwise they wouldn't have send that person a cease and desist letter. One could argue about whether they were bluffing to make him bow out, but that's all speculation.

But something similar comes to mind, look at all those Pokemon and 3D printing related cases. A Pokemon isn't really more detailed then LeftShark, but a lot of people who were selling and even those on Thingiverse got cease and desist letters for sharing Pokemon "related" things.

Quote Originally Posted by ram3d View Post
Just wait till Halloween. I'm sure there will be tons of people dressing like Left Shark. I wonder how Katy Perry's legal team will deal with that.
Why should they do anything about it ?

As long as someone without a license isn't trying to deliberately make a profit with it,they won't do anything at all.