Chris and copyright

“	...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

Like with many things, Christian Weston Chandler has a very obscure idea of what copyright entails. In his mind, it's perfectly reasonable to take two very popular fictitious characters and mash them both together in a failtastic rainbow of incestous electric rodents. This means you've created a completely new thing, and therefore are entitled to the rights of said "Original Characters" regardless of how crappy, unoriginal and disgusting they may be.

Chris is very paranoid regarding his pseudo-copyright, and will frequently hand out all of his personal information to complete strangers if he is contested about it. This has backfired in a plethora of astounding ways.

Chris doesn't even know what a copyright is, legally speaking. He can't copyright Sonichu, but he can trademark Sonichu. He could copyright individual works using Sonichu, in theory, but given his characters' illustrious pedigree, he might have a hard time of it. Too bad he can't do research. Or use Google.

Chris's views

Main article: Parody

Chris is VERY protective of his characters. Well, as protective as an autistic manchild could be to such unoriginal monstrosities. 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 just mockeries of something they're based off of, done for laughs or as a commentary on the original work.

Some examples: "Weird Al" Yankovic's songs are considered parodies--note, however, that he obtains permission from artists whose songs he covers, going through the necessary legal process to make his work. He also does his own work, including pastiche of artists' styles--and impressively so, with a Devo frontman commenting that Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid" encompassed his entire body of works in one gag tune. Mel Brooks's works are considered parodies, but his most famous parodies either use works from the public domain (such as Young Frankenstein, based on the novel and done in the style of classic Frankenstein films) or cover similar plot points without actually lifting characters. Likewise, the creators of another famous parody, Airplane!!, acquired the rights to a film they were very closely parodying so there would be no legal trouble. Works that "parody" scenes by copying them verbatim, like Scary Movie or perhaps a theoretical animated sitcom of some sort, are usually looked own upon for simply relying on constant references in lieu of actually parodying the original work.

Sonichu and Rosechu are NOT parodies - they are just shitty recolors. As mentioned on the "parody" page, Chris doesn't mean to make fun of the characters they're based on, he slavishly imitates the kind of adventures they have in an attempt to tell his own stories. The stories he makes aren't commentaries on the style or message or story of Sonic or Pokemon, he simply lifts elements and characters wholesale in lieu of creating his own world. Even his most original characters are either based on someone he knows or are cribbed extensively from existing characters. He might be able to claim a trademark on Flame the Sunbird, of all characters, because he's merely relentlessly derivative as opposed to stolen wholesale. The non-Chris-Chan core of the comics, though, most certainly cannot.

Regardless of how much claim he's really entitled to, Chris will go to great lengths to protect his work. Whenever Chris finds his work being used elsewhere without his permission, he ends up demanding that the offending work be taken down within 14 days or he will pursue legal action, sometimes accompanied by a picture of Chris and Sonichu glaring at the offender as if they can actually do something.

See also

• CChanSonichuCWC
• Jimmy Hill
• Parody