Yesterday I published some bad news. When it rains, it pours. There may be a copyright issues with our mascot. A friend mentioned that our sheep looked similar to Shaun the Sheep.
It turns out that our designer was inspired by Shaun. However our mascot is very different in some ways, for example our mascot has purple limbs and a very different face.
But I needed to look further into this. I’ve contacted Shaun the Sheep’s website (he seems to be very famous!) and asked them to take a look. I like our mascot and would rather keep it.
Copyright law on the internet is not so simple. Jurisdiction is not always clear. But lets assume US law. Copyright infringement is defined as : copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.
In the case of our mascot we may fall under the category of a derivative work. So lets focus on this : Copyright infringement liability for a later work arises only if the later work embodies a substantial amount of protected expression taken from the earlier, underlying work.
I am not a lawyer and I would like to understand this more. One thing is clear, only protected expression counts. So for example our mascot being a sheep is not infringing because Shaun is not the first sheep to be drawn. So what is the protected expression in relation to Shaun ?
I think the color is very important because Shaun and his friends all have the same grey skin. Shaun has thumbs, a huge tail and his limbs look like they are made from plastercine.
There is no denying that our mascot has some resemblance to Shaun, this is because they are both cartoon representations of sheep. If we put our mascot into a scene with Shaun and his friends it would look weird and most people would say that our character does not “fit”.
So I feel that our mascot is not infringing. Your point of view is more than welcome.