Doujin is built around the idea that a group of like-minded people can share an interest in something. Doujinshi traces its origins to doujin zasshi or “fanzines”. It’s a common misconception that doujin is synonymous with fanart. For the majority of doujin culture’s history, it was comprised of original works created by small circles who were fans of a medium, not any particular series. Doujinshi is not inherently derivative work and becoming parody work is a much more recent event. It was only born around the 70s at doujin faires.The entirety of the doujin/fanart for Japanese media is built on this symbiotic relationship.
This little history lesson brings us back to the original topic. The whole point of a convention/market/faire like Comiket, is that copyright holders allow their work to be sold by giving a permit/license during the event. We can look at the rules and guidelines of these conventions. Take Otakon for example.This is the way it works. It's how you get comiket, with these companies having their own booths/announcement right alongside 4 warehouses of people selling porn of their work.
The Following Items may be sold:
- Any product featuring an artist's original character.
- Commissioned and hand-drawn works made during the convention, provided that they do not violate any other rule.
- Unique, individual, hand-made items
- Fan art which clearly shows that the work is produced by the artist, rather than by the license holder.
- Props that are clearly made by the artist that are original rather than of a licensed nature.
- Any work with trademarks, logos or official artwork owned by a person or company other than you or your own company, regardless of whether or not the work is original, unless express written permission to sell same is provided.
- Bootleg products.
- Copyright-violating traced, photoshopped, or transferred art. This includes but is not limited to work from "redraw" projects, and pixel artwork, such as perler or other forms of sprites, which directly copy a licensed work.
- 2nd or 3rd party art/sales.
- Products that can be bought at a store either in Japan or the US that you did not create.
- Props that are a replication of a copyrighted and/or licensed nature.
- Images must be original artwork, not referencing or using another person or companies’ intellectual property to create, unless commissioned or authorized by the copyright holder.
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