Poll of the Day > Do content creators have to pay licensing for their merch?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like when poketubers have Pokemon themed merch, are they free to just sell whatever Pokemon themed shit without paying anything to Nintendo?

---

Idk how anything works

typically they aren't actually allowed to sell pokemon merch, it's very unregulated and Nintendo could just slap them with their Bowser dick at any time.

However, many times they aren't actually selling their own pokemon merch, but rather getting a percentage by advertising for an existing licensed merchant.

Alternatively, they can make their artwork fully distinct enough to count as an adaptation.

---

Depends on the person and how they're presenting their merch.

Most savvy content producers (ie, the ones who don't want to get sued) will put out merch where whatever IP they use is changed to a "legally distinct" version that's different enough to fall under fair use or parody laws.

This is why various members of the Yogscast play as Kermit the Frog, Emperor Palpatine, Winnie the Pooh, and the cat from "Night in the Woods" in their Trouble in Terrorist Town games, but if you buy merch of those characters you're basically getting "generic frog person", "random old man wearing a hood", "bear wearing a red shirt", and "cartoon cat with a bat" merch. They change every character enough that they're not quite the same character, and can skirt around copyright issues.

If you see someone selling merch that is clearly and obviously the exact thing it's supposed to be, then either that content provider explicitly got permission from the original creator to use it (extremely unlikely in any scenario involving Nintendo), or are essentially selling bootleg merch illegally and are leaving themselves completely open to a future cease-and-desist order or outright getting sued for all profits.

The former case (where a content creator gets permission to use someone else's IP) is rare, but it does happen. That's how Rooster Teeth got away with selling Red vs Blue t-shirts and merch (where all the characters are literally just Spartans from Halo) - they got direct permission from Bungie (and later 343/Microsoft) to do so.
---

Lokarin posted...

typically they aren't actually allowed to sell pokemon merch, it's very unregulated and Nintendo could just slap them with their Bowser dick at any time.

This. And Nintendo will really come down on people.

That said, Nintendo has a lot of licensing deals as well, but they aren't big into co-branding.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Depends on the person and how they're presenting their merch.

Most savvy content producers (ie, the ones who don't want to get sued) will put out merch where whatever IP they use is changed to a "legally distinct" version that's different enough to fall under fair use or parody laws.

This is why various members of the Yogscast play as Kermit the Frog, Emperor Palpatine, Winnie the Pooh, and the cat from "Night in the Woods" in their Trouble in Terrorist Town games, but if you buy merch of those characters you're basically getting "generic frog person", "random old man wearing a hood", "bear wearing a red shirt", and "cartoon cat with a bat" merch. They change every character enough that they're not quite the same character, and can skirt around copyright issues.

Also this.

---

For funsies, here:

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1380/9059/products/pins2_7884bfff-cfd4-429a-b20f-289928424836_300x300.jpg?v=1598536415

Those are pins for 13 of the content creators for Yogscast. 8 of them are blatantly other people's IP, 3 kind of fall into a fuzzier grey area, and 2 are effectively unique.

I've already mentioned a bunch of them, but go back and compare the ones I've mentioned to the images they have to use for their merch. Then throw in Thomas the Tank Engine, Phoenix Wright, Sailor Moon, Solid Snake, and "Left Shark", and you can kind of see how they had to change things up to either be "generic" or "legally distinct".
---

It depends

---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

For funsies, here:

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1380/9059/products/pins2_7884bfff-cfd4-429a-b20f-289928424836_300x300.jpg?v=1598536415

Those are pins for 13 of the content creators for Yogscast. 8 of them are blatantly other people's IP, 3 kind of fall into a fuzzier grey area, and 2 are effectively unique.

I've already mentioned a bunch of them, but go back and compare the ones I've mentioned to the images they have to use for their merch. Then throw in Thomas the Tank Engine, Phoenix Wright, Sailor Moon, Solid Snake, and "Left Shark", and you can kind of see how they had to change things up to either be "generic" or "legally distinct".

I'm honestly kind of surprised Disney hasn't given them shit about that Winnie the Pooh pin.