[Clipart] Main online Website "Quick Stat" discrepancy?

[Greg Bulmash]

Obama is not a fictional character, and even with PD, there are limits 
in the use, but those limits are based on his rights of publicity and 
separate from copyright.

Anyone looking at your caricature, if asked which fictional character it 
resembles, would say "Darth Vader".  His look is iconic.  And since he 
was originally named "Darth" and there's a record that he was named 
that, I'd ask a lawyer if changing the name down the road would actually 
offer any protection.

The works containing Darth Vader ("Star Wars" movies) are copyrighted. 
His image is licensed for Star Wars merchandise, ranging from t-shirts 
to the Darth Tater Mr. Potato Head.  He's a licensed character like 
Spongebob or Lightning McQueen.

Can't address the DeviantArt stuff because their server is down, but 
unless they're redistributing those Vaders under a PD license, it's not 
an apples-to-apples comparison, is it?  They may well be running afoul 
of copyright law, but in a different way that creates less harm to 
Lucasfilm.  IANAL and neither are you, but I think it needs to come down.

Nicu Buculei wrote:
> chovynz wrote:
>> Sorry Nicu. However it is important to raise this issue. This precident 
>> means we can't have famous characters (Donald Duck, MickeyMouse, Bambi, 
>> Darkwing Duck, DragonballZ, James Bond, Starwars, etc) with their 
>> EXPRESS PERMISSION. This has always been a bane of Clipart, I feel, 
>> however there's nothing to be done about it.
> 
> There are some things to note:
> - the character is not called Darth Vader, is just Darth and his name 
> can be changed to Masked Villain or something
> - it is not a depiction of the Star Wars character but a caricature
> - how about this? http://openclipart.org/media/files/rejon/11042
> - but those? http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=vader
> 
>> Except:
>> 1) Get permission for the Darth Vader Comic character.
>> 2) If unsucessful, delete it from the database.
> 
>