Woo

you cannot give a corporation the power to decide what is "too derivative" without it snowballing further and further, because corporate greed for their IPs outlasts all else

that awful ripoff you're thinking of has as much right to exist as the ip it's stealing from, because to decide otherwise with legal action gives any capitalist empire the ability to say "your art is too similar to mine, so let me ruin your life".

The true most ordinary object is beautiful, horrible sounding, very smelly, intangible, and delicious.

i think the second one works well for our hypothetical object. so we can use that.

therefore, the Default Object is:

beautiful

makes a horrendous sound

smells absolutely awful

is very fragile

tastes delicious

fanworks (fanart, fanfiction, and any transformative work utilizing copyrighted characters/settings/other assets) are unambiguously illegal and violations of copyright law. im sorry if someone told you otherwise, but title 17 of the us code specifies that the copyright owner has the exclusive right to produce derivative works based on their property. "fair use" is not a right, it is a circumstantial provision that may be used as a defense in the case of a copyright infringement lawsuit, and the only party that can determine whether a derivative work falls under "fair use" doctrine is a federal court. if "fair use" is even on the table, youve already violated copyright law.

you might say to yourself, as many bootlickers in my replies have, that fanworks automatically fall under "fair use" because theyre not for profit. this is both a misunderstanding of "fair use" and deeply ignorant of what typical engagement with "fandom" actually entails. profitability is only one of multiple factors the court takes into consideration of a "fair use" defense, and perhaps more importantly - profiting off of fan works is extremely normalized (and imo justified!) in fandom.

ever bought or sold a commission featuring copyrighted characters or settings? thats a fair use violation. ever bought or sold an art print (or a sticker, or a button, or some other kind of merchandise) featuring an anime character at an artists alley? thats a fair use violation. have you ever donated to a fanartist or a fanfiction writer, even without the expectation of receiving something in return? as of yesterday, thats a fair use violation - the court held that the archive's publication of copyrighted books was "commercial" because the website solicits donations from its users. sorry about your medical bills, but linking your gofundme or ko.fi on the same blog where you publish genshin impact a/b/o yaoi or whatever the fuck means that, under the precedent set by the ia ruling, your works are not defensible under fair use, and mihoyo or whoever is fully entitled to drag you to court and wring you dry for exploiting their property for profit.

I don't feel like cropping out the capcut at the end so here guys 😋

Being unpleasant, weird, socially difficult, off-putting, uncomfortable to be around, annoying, obnoxious, etc does not equal being a bad person

And it definitely doesn't mean others don't have a duty of baseline care about you

They don't have to like you but there is a baseline "we live in a society and I care about what happens to the people around me" type of duty that you are owed

They can think you're unpleasant to be around and even stupid and cringe in your presence but there is a duty of care to your existence

And if you are doing bad things you can stop

There are always chances to think about your actions and why you're doing them and if you really believe it's the right thing

There is always an option to stop

And some people do

And some people don't

But if people do that doesn't mean they aren't still maybe unpleasant to be around or awkward or uncomfortable

The "bad guys" in Terry Pratchett tend to

1. Believe they are in the right

2. Never question that belief

3. Have multiple opportunities to not be doing what they are doing but fully commit

4. May have points that at least feel reasonable on a surface level if you don't think about them too deeply

5. Face consequences of their own actions. Which includes the protagonist having to slap them down. If they didn't put the stuff in motion and refuse to back down they wouldn't be getting slapped

They aren't cartoon baddies they are really realised characters with convictions that they believe in and truly tend to believe their actions are the best thing to be doing. That they are doing what others should have already done

But in Terry Pratchett what makes you on the wrong side of the narrative is not your personality or your looks or how sociable you are

It's your continuing actions that define you AND your unwillingness to change