Chris and copyright

Chris's copyright registration certificate.

“	...anyone using my characters and all Without My Consent are Criminals, and such people should be reported to the Police immediately.	”
Chris, CWCipedia's Copyright page

As with many things, Christian Weston Chandler has a very limited understanding of copyright and of how it's enforced.

Sonichu as a copyrightable work

Crooks!

Chris is vaguely aware of what copyright is: some sort of a legal right that creators of things have that lets these creators to tell others what they can and can't do – a very naïve view, though not entirely incorrect.

He has really only had one real first-hand experience on the copyright questions that formed the basis of everything that followed: the creation of Sonichu. According to Chris's "autobiography", Chris was making a CD cover, and his teacher successfully explained to him that Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu are characters created by others, and he has no right to use them and he has to create something original instead. In the call with Kacey's father, he also says the teacher told him he had been in the clear with the beginning as far as copyright is concerned.

However, the fact that teacher accepted Sonichu cemented Chris's vague understanding of the law, and now he's unwilling to learn the truth. In his mind, mashing together two different characters and "[putting] a little C-In-A-Circle and [his] John Hancock" creates completely new intellectual property that is his and his alone.

In reality, any work that uses previously copyrighted work as a basis is a derivative work. This means that while it may have substantial original elements that the creator definitely holds a copyright on, it cannot be published or distributed without permission of the original copyright holders. The reality isn't entirely clear-cut, however, and there are several exceptions to this rule, both well-understood (Fair Use doctrine, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for journalistic and scholarly purposes) and less well understood (there's an ongoing debate about the emerging copyright issues like digital rights and the remixing arts).

Unfortunately for Chris, Sonichu is a fairly clear-cut case of a derivative work. While the character design itself has some originality despite its blatantly derivative style (and as such might have passed the teacher's inspection), as far as backstory is concerned, Sonichu explicitly said to be a fusion of two existing characters - by Chris as its creator and in the comic story itself.

In other words, if Chris had elected to merely ape Sonic art style and plot elements from video games, he might have something that is borderline acceptable. There are way too many explicit references to the games, however. Fundamentally, Chris wanted Electric Hedgehog Pokémon; if they are just some made-up characters and not Pokémon, they just aren't true enough for him. Unfortunately, Chris doesn't understand that such "made-up" characters are how people define creativity.

Chris as an enforcer of rights

Don't look right into their eyes.

Chris is very paranoid regarding his copyright, and will frequently hand out all of his personal information to complete strangers if he thinks it is being contested. This has backfired in a number of ways.

Chris has encouraged people to report copyright infringements to the police. The police, unfortunately, can't do much when random citizens report civil offenses such as copyright infringement. Even if Chris had the rights to the works in question, suing people for copyright infringement would be Chris's job and his job alone, or that of a representative whom he has specifically appointed to that specific task.

Unsurprisingly, Chris is a total hypocrite when it comes to abusing the work of other creators. In the space of 11½ issues, Chris pulled characters and concepts from innumerable franchises and even went so far as to steal "original" characters from fans and sweethearts with little respect shown to their creators. He's even had the balls to take another creator's characters, alter them and demand that thenceforth they be portrayed the way he has made them in the original material. Despite how firmly Chris holds on to his views of copyright, when directly challenged on why it's okay for him to rip things off but not for other people to do the same to Sonichu, he's unable to think of a response.

Furthermore, Chris refuses to listen to the original creators of these "original" characters when they ask to have their characters removed. The best example would be the fight between Evan and Chris over the character Simonla Rosechu, a ripoff of Evan's original character Simonchu. When Evan demanded that Chris remove Simonla from the comics in an on-page death, Chris refused because it would take Wild Sonichu's girlfriend away. As time went on, Chris fought tooth and nail to keep Simonla in, going so far as to write out a scenario where Simonchu is told to tell Evan that Simonla likes CWCville. In the end, it took two shut downs of the CWCipedia for Chris to finally surrender and kill off Simonla.

Licensing and terms of use

The MediaWiki software used on CWCipedia had various built-in settings for content licensing. During installation, MediaWiki defaults to GNU Free Documentation License, which states that the content can be reused elsewhere for any purpose, as long as proper copyright holder attribution and license references are given.

On 6 September 2009, a fan wrote to Chris and thanked him for allowing this reuse, which provoked an uncharacteristically swift response from Chris, demanding WikiSysop not-so-politely to remove the obviously erroneous "GDU FDL" license.

This prompted Chris to write his own Copyrights and Terms of use pages.

The legal problems caused by Chris's terms are detailed elsewhere in this article. The Terms of Use are even weirder:

• "Any and All Visually Grotesque, Shocking and Offensive works will be Immediately Deleted and NOT be uploaded, or seen ever again; NO RESUBMISSIONS ALLOWED of such pieces."
• ALL letters addressed to any NAME other than "Christian Weston Chandler" or "Christopher Weston Chandler", will be Immediately disposed of with Paper Recyling, or be "Returned to Sender" with a frown face on it. ALL Visually Grotesque, Shocking and Offensive art works and letters will be disposed of properly as well."
• Fan sites should be pre-approved by Chris.
• Sending spam to Sega and Nintendo about making official Sonichu games is apparently part of Terms of Use.

Copyright registration

It appears that Chris has actually paid US$45, and somehow got Sonichu approved by the United States Copyright Office. On 12 November 2009, he also posted a scan of the confirmation letter he received to CWCipedia and posted a highly predictable my-Heart-Level-just-went-to-100%-again video.

Psychologically, this copyright registration represents a big win for Chris, because it gives him what he thinks are bragging rights, even though he has no idea what the copyright registration actually means. Copyright registration isn't an official recognition of copyright, however. Copyrights are granted automatically, and copyright registrations are only an official assertion that a specific work has been created at a specific date by the registrant; the registrations are only needed when suing another party for copyright infringement. It is also not a registration of a trademark; Chris has no special rights for the name "Sonichu" itself. Finally, Chris made a critical mistake in filing the registration application: he described Sonichu as a "work for hire" in the apparent belief that this meant that the comic was his primary occupation, when it really means that he created it on behalf of someone else, who is considered the creator for legal purposes.

If Nintendo or Sega sue Chris, they can easily demonstrate that they've held the rights to original characters like Sonic and Pikachu and Chris's work is derivative.

IN SHORT: Chris's copyright registration doesn't mean his comics are non-infringing.

Use of copyright notices

The way Chris maintains his so-called copyrights within his works is also baffling. It's possible he goes by the assumption that almost everything he draws must contain copious copyright notices, usually in a large disclaimer:

“

© Christian Weston Chandler, March 2000-????

”

It's worth noting that Chris obsessively includes copyright symbols in pictures he draws of Sonichu, including a picture he drew in the snow in his Holiday Greetings video and a doodle he drew on his ticket to the 2005 Anime Mid-Atlantic convention.

However, only daily newspaper comic strips have constant notices reminding about copyright due to their daily nature. In most forms of media throughout the world, one copyright notice at the beginning of the work is enough to assert rights, and only the year is noted in a copyright notice.

Finally, the year of the creation of the specific work in question should be noted in the copyright notice; for example Sonichu #10 should be "© 2009-2010 CWC". If Chris would want to specifically emphasize that Sonichu in general has existed since March 2000, he'd need to do so in an additional copyright notice (e.g. "Sonichu #10 © 2009-2010 CWC. Sonichu character © CWC, March 2000.")

Chris's motivations

In any case, Chris doesn't really care so much what his copyright registration means and what it might or might not be good for, practically speaking. To him, it's mainly just a crutch for his ego. In the aftermath of his feud with Liquid Chris, he sees it as the final and clinching proof that he himself is the TRUE and ORIGINAL creator of Sonichu. On 26 November 2009, he posted the following as part of an announcement on CWCipedia, which is quite illuminating:

Also, I have been thinking, although all Sonichu "Merchandise" sold online in the past I have labeled false; I did that, because it came as a surprise to me then, I felt outraged appropriately (most everyone can relate to that; it's comparable to if Godzilla or Clover [the Cloverfield monster] came to YOUR Metropolis and suddenly attacked your city). I realize now that even though it is still considerably Not Official, it all still is an homage to my creation. So I will make it clear to ALL those Vendors. As long as it is NOT printed copies of my books' pages, or bootlegged copies of my "Christian Weston Chandler, Yep, I'm On T.V." DVD, AND As Long As I am quoted on ALL websites' and vendors' locations as Original Creator of Sonichu, Rosechu, Cwcville and all of such, I, Christian Weston Chandler, approve of such merchandise from Day Forward. At least to give you all, my patient, loyal Fans and Trolls, something to quell your pallets [sic] until Official Merchandise is sold in Official Stores such as Toys 'R' Us, GameStop, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etcetera and such. I have spoken, and I wish everyone a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving. --ChrisChanSonichu 02:17, 26 November 2009 (CET)

In other words, Chris doesn't really care if other people use his supposed intellectual property, so long as he's the one that gets the credit, not some impostor in brown stripes. The idea expressed here is not unlike that in the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Chris's views

Main article: Parody

Chris is very protective of his characters. Chris believes that his characters are officially "parodies", thus, he is allowed to create his multimedia empire on a legal loophole. What Chris fails to realize that is that parodies are essentially mockeries of something they're based on, done for laughs or as a commentary on the original work. According to the US Supreme Court, parody "is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works." So if Chris was, say, making commentary on commercialization by making a pastiche of what was popular at the time, it would be fine. The fact that it is parody and not plagiarism must also be made obvious.

Sonichu and Rosechu are not parodies, just shitty recolors. Chris doesn't mean to make fun of the characters they're based on, nor make commentary of them. He slavishly imitates the kind of adventures they have in an attempt to tell his own stories. Even his most original characters are either based on someone he knows or are cribbed extensively from existing characters.

See also

• Liquid Chris
• Robert Simmons V
• Jimmy Hill
• Parody
• Asperchu