Because I think you may not have seen another post where I go into copyright infringement - in both relevant countries - step-by-step to show how this does, in fact, fall under copyright infringement, I'll link it here.
I'm actually glad that people are coming in and trying to bring up new 'arguments' against the points being made on if this counts as copyright infringement or not. It gives me the chance to get even more in depth about all the points involved. If you think I haven't thought of something? Well, there's a likely chance I already have. Or, if I haven't, I love to research and reason things through.
"TV heads, steampunk, and 1920's aesthetics were all popular right around 2013, especially on Tumblr. Accordingly, TV heads in vintage formalwear are extremely common. Vox is another example of a TV head in vintage formalwear."
"Monochromatic color schemes are older then both characters."
The fact that these traits were individually popular and common or existed before either character is not relevant nor the point being made. Popular traits are implemented in characters all the time, to the point where many even becomes design tropes. The aspect of them sharing one or two themes or similarities wouldn't be an issue. The issue is that they share such a large amount of them to be frequently compared or even mistaken for each other by random individual accounts of separate different people online. And this is along with actually uncommon or unique features being copied in both designs. Also, I would argue that TV heads in vintage formal wear are in fact NOT that common, and those that are wearing formal wear are often seen wearing styles vastly different than RGB and Mr. Puzzles - typically something similar to a regular tuxedo.
It's good you brought Vox up. Vox is, admittedly, the closest I could find to RGB and Mr. Puzzles style of clothing. However, there is still a LAUNDRY list of differences that differentiates him from the other two - not just one or the other specifically, from BOTH of them. And the elements of his design that differ SPECIFICALLY are themed to the character and personality he is in the show (trying to appear bigger and grander than others while not living up to that same image underneath or in the function of his clothes). The same number or types of differences can not be found between RGB and Mr. Puzzles. And the same similarities pointed out between their characters can't be found in Vox. (link for the stiff upturned collar noted in the image above)
Going a little bit into detail for the hats, because I wanted to be sure to source the information, here are the wikipedia pages for bowler hats, boater hats, and top hats:
Bowler Hats and Boater hats: Popularized in the 1900s, everyday hats most commonly worn by the working class.
Top Hat: Popularized in the 1700s but worn throughout the 1900s, often used by the upper class or as formal wear.
I'll collect your other design points here:
"The "vintage style hat" on Mr. Puzzles is a bowler hat, and the "stripe" is just part of the actual, real-life hat."
Yes, it is a bowler hat. And there is often a fabric stripe on a bowler hat. However...
This is his bowler hat next to an image search of bowler hats. The search term I used was literally just "bowler hat". I zoomed out to get a decent number of top results, just to show the numbers. By and large, the ribbons are typically either the same color as the hat, or darker - including the reference image you used for a bowler hat in your post. There are a few that are a lighter color than the base hat, but from what I can see, they're typically brown. Light gray does not seem to be a common choice for black bowler hats, at least not in the reference images. Is it possible they just chose the gray just because? Sure, of course. But I'm specifically bringing it up to show how your point that 'ribbons being a natural part of bowler hats' to try and excuse the stripe does not apply here, because the 'light' ribbon in particular is not.
"Mr. Puzzles doesn't have a "mid arm ribbon", that's a ball joint."
By that argument, none of his clothes would count as similar because his clothes as a whole are just facsimiles of clothes, not actually clothes. It may be ball joints in the actual 3D model, but in his full design you can see that they were specifically DESIGNED to look like armbands. His arms or 'sleeves' are bunched as 'cloth' above and below the ball joints. That is an intentional design choice they made, and that's undeniable. You can see similar when his sleeves bunch in when his sleeves end at the wrists, as they are tied tighter with a cuff. Unless, of course, you want to claim that those aren't shirt cuffs either and are something akin to metal shackles instead.
"The knob placement is a real CRT thing. So are side vents."
Yes, these knob placements are a real TV thing. Yes, so are side vents. The point that I am making is that the specific orientation they chose, the specific style of vents, and the specific combination of traits they chose, are not only one in a million different orientations and options they could have gone with, the specific combination they went with in particular is not often seen in reference images that they could have potentially referred to.
Here's a selection of TVs I found, just grabbed from another 'retro TV with knobs' search. I included both an unedited view of the TVs as well as one with the specific points emphasized:
Green lines: When they have the same type of knob as RGB and Mr. Puzzles, the Green lines indicate the angle the knob is turned.
Red circles: When there is a knob, but it is a different style from what RGB and Mr. Puzzles has.
Yellow boxes: The front facing vents and where they are on the TV front. Notice some TVs have multiple vents, and some TVs have vents that continue even behind the knobs.
Pink circles: Additional buttons/levers/other features alongside the knobs.
And this is just a small collection. Knobs for retro TVs can differ in style, size, orientation, number (in the reference I provided, the number of knobs range anywhere from 1-3 typically), placement, etc etc. And since knobs are generally able to be turned to any angle, each knob it has is able to be angled in ANY direction to control things such as channels or volume. Alongside the knobs, the placement of the vents and possible addition of extra features such as buttons, sliders, levers give you that many more different types of retro TVS you could design. Now, compare that with this.
Same number of knobs, same angle, same placement of vent/box underneath the knobs. RGB has a reset button too, but that's really the only difference. Now, this alone wouldn't be a problem - coincidences do happen after all. But it's the fact that these 'coincidences' keep piling up that make the whole thing so damning. As the saying goes, "once is an accident, twice is coincidence, and three times is a pattern."
And that's JUST the knobs. Lets get into side vents.
For this one, I JUST focused on TVS with vents on the side. As I have shown before, and continue to show now, and what is evident even in the two television pictures you used as reference, retro box TVs with knobs having vents on the side is NOT common. Even in the additional search today, I didn't find another TV that matched that specific combination of features. Not saying they're not out there (cause I have found one matching that kind of TV in the past), just that they're very, very uncommon, at least in an image search. I even included two TV head characters I had on-hand that had vents on the sides of their heads.
I'm not picking and choosing. I am doing my best trying to find these images, because I want to give the points you brought up as much due diligence as I can before I come to the conclusion that, no, the points don't stand. I was TRYING to find evidence that matched your points. I looked up multiple differently worded search terms to try and find more TVs. Hell, I used two different search engines man, just to be sure I was getting a good variety in case one of the search engines was missing results the other one had. Between every TV with a vent on the side, I ended up getting a bunch of results of TVs with no vents on the side. This was the case even in the searches that specified 'TVs with vents on the side' in the search term.
For the TVs with vents on the side I did find, almost all of them were more modern styles of TV than the ones RGB and Mr. Puzzles are modeled off of, or they had embedded vents (if those are vents at all) that aren't like the ones on the sides of their heads. The vents also ranged on their placement/position on the side of the TVs, the style of vent that were used, whether they were framed or not, being vertical or horizontal, etc etc. I wasn't able to find them as well this time, but I've also previously seen old style TVs that had vents with holes in them instead of lines. There are a number of different styles available for vents.
"The simplification of 3 or 4 lines for the vent is a very common shorthand when drawing things with lots of rows, like vents or speakers."
Potentially. But I added the two TV head characters I had on-hand to show that even artists differ in how they choose to display vents that are on the side of their TV heads just like RGB and Mr. Puzzles. Both have different number of lines to represent their vents, AND for Robo-san at least, their vent lines are even vertical.
"The color bars are also just a real-life TV thing, including the order. There's often a couple other colors at the bottom, but if you google "crt color bars" you'll see plenty with just the long bars."
I know. That's why I've always labeled them as 'Color Bars' when marking them on the pictures I included. They are 'TV Color Bars' mouths. That is part of what Modmad got complimented on as part of the design - it wasn't just the fact that the Color Bars were included in a TV head design, it was that she thought to implement it in a unique and innovative way as his method of expression, similar to a mouth. It's that the color bars only take up part of the face, and the part it takes up is used to smile, or frown, or express shock, etc etc. AND the additional visually interesting aspect of seeing them drip like liquid out from said mouth? That's pretty creative. If you're honestly trying to say that all of that would be an automatically intrinsic design choice for anyone just from this?
I'm not sure if I agree with you there.
Seriously speaking, how much research are you actually putting into this? Do you actually believe in the things you're saying, or did you happen to just go off of the most surface level skimming before jumping in with your 'conclusions'? I am begging people to think for two seconds before they say something, especially if the person you're going up against is willing to sink hours into mundane research to make sure they have a good amount of references and information to bring to the table. You're so focused on grabbing the first thing you think fits your point and rushing in to make it that you don't bother to spend any time in trying to see how your argument might be wrong and accounting for that. If you had spent just a little bit longer thinking things through, you may have been able to catch on to everything I just said before you decided to post your 'argument'.
You were not pointing out flaws as easily as you thought you were. I thought about all of these points. I considered all of these points. And just like I lined out above, they were points that I already saw didn't hold their own against the whole of the copyright infringement argument. If you think this case wouldn't be able to have the potential to hold up in court, then I don't think you have much experience with copyright infringement cases, because there have definitely been cases that have won on less.
You have no idea who is behind the harassment. Trying to say that it's only preteens or what not without any actual evidence to back you up is acting like adults don't have the capability to be cruel and immature.
And then you immediately disprove your own point because, unless you're a preteen, you yourself are doing something relatively cruel and immature by trying to threaten Modmad with potential future harassment that may or may not come from a character redesign. Resorting to threats is not a great way to get any kind of point across, and reveals you as someone who has approached this discussion in bad faith rather than wanting to actually contribute anything of value based on truth or reason. You don't have any actual facts, all you have is a desire to excuse a channel of clear copyright infringement because you don't want to deal with the inconvenience of having to - I'm sorry - get used to seeing a new mouth color on a fictional character? Learn to sit with discomfort and stop trying to lecture artists on issues you clearly haven't done any research on and have no actual knowledge about. It is not your place to say if this argument has any validity to it. Judging by the clear lack of knowledge, research, and logic you've shown in your reply, your confidence on this issue doesn't mean much. The only one who can make the official decision on if this is copyright infringement or not is a court of law once presented with the facts.
Though hopefully things don't have to resort to that and this can be resolved with a simple conversation between the involved parties.
