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

Like with many things, Christian Weston Chandler has a very obscure idea of what copyright entails, let alone its legal ramifications in US law. He believes that all copyrighting something involves is "[putting] a little C-In-A-Circle and [his] John Hancock".

Chris doesn't even know what a copyright is, legally speaking. He can't copyright Sonichu, but he could trademark Sonichu. He could copyright individual works using Sonichu. Too bad he doesn't know anything about anything.

Sonichu as a copyrightable work

Crooks!

In Chris's mind, it's perfectly reasonable to take two very popular fictitious characters and mash them both together in a failtastic rainbow of incestuous 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.

Here in real life, however, any work that uses previously copyrighted work as a basis is a derivative work; this means that while it can be copyrighted by the creator, it cannot be published without permission of the original copyright holders. There are very specific exceptions to this rule. One way to avoid this is to simply not use too much of the previous work's material to begin with: complete works or significant portions of them are copyrightable, but you can steal general vague ideas as much as you want (though Chris is stealing way too much to qualify for this). Another would be Fair Use: use the copyrighted work to provide criticism, journalistic or educational information, or parody (of which more later). In short, Chris has no excuse.

Moreover, any attempt to argue that Sonichu is not a derivative work would be entirely self-demolishing. Sonichu is explicitly stated to be a fusion of two existing characters, both by Chris as its creator and in the comic story itself. Chris has worked the fact that the two original characters were merged into Sonichu's backstory and the Sonichuverse in general. His process of incorporating copyrighted properties into his works is both unabashed and deep-rooted. He can't talk his way out of this.

Apparently, the idea of Sonichu being a publishable work stems way back into the character's creation. According to Chris's "autobiography", when Chris ended up backed into a corner as to what to put onto a CD cover, he decided to fuse Sonic and Pikachu, whom he couldn't use because they were copyrighted characters, and turn them into Sonichu. When his teacher accepted the hybrid character, Chris automatically assumed that he was free to create his multimedia empire from them. 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.

So let's remember that Chris is so naïve that he would treat the advice of his high school teacher as if it were the law of the land.

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 plethora of astounding 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 and complete hypocrite when it comes to abusing the work of other creators. In the span of ten issues, Chris pulls characters and concepts from numerous franchises and even goes so far as to steal "original" characters from fans and sweethearts without an ounce of due respect to their creators. He's even had the balls to take another creator's characters, alter them and demand that they be portrayed the way he has made them. It's easy to say that, if Chris were to make money off Sonichu somehow, he could easily be sued by those who created the characters he stole. 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.

Even worse, Chris refuses to listen to anyone, especially the original creators of his "original" characters, when they know Chris has done wrong. The best example would be the fight between Evan and Chris over the character Simonla. When Evan demanded that Chris remove Simonla from the comics in an on-screen death, Chris refused because it would take Wild Sonichu's girlfriend away. That's right: Chris refuses to remove a character because of a meaningless throw-away relationship between minor fictional characters. As time went on, Chris has fought tooth and nail to keep Simonla in, going so far as to write out a scenario where Simonchu appears in CWCVille, tries to bring Simonla back, only to be beaten back by Wild and forces Simonchu to return and tell Evan Simonla likes it there, proclaiming it's his "Great Director Chandler" powers that lets him do it. 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 has various built-in settings for content licensing. This is reflected in HTML metadata, license logo on the bottom of the page, and the copyright note is also displayed in MediaWiki's edit screen. 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. GNU FDL and Creative Commons licenses, which projects like Wikipedia use, have been written by real copyright lawyers and have been used for successful defenses against copyright violators. Chris's important legal pages instead focus on promulgation of his not-so-menacing drawings.

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

• Chris forcefully asserts that re-submitted sick fanart will magically not reach him, because it cannot even be sent because is clearly not "allowed": "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."
• Few people knew or noticed that the Ian Brandon Anderson episode caused Chris to plot ghastly atrocities in his odiously packed room: 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."
• Chris will monitor the Internet for things he doesn't like. He will give you fourteen days to remove nasty things until he sues you.
  • "Christian" and "Christopher" are protected terms which Chris will defend with honor against all misuses. Fear not, followers of Jesus and fans of Columbus! The father of Sonichu will also fight for you!
• 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. In his confused state, receiving a registration from the US Copyright Office means that he has been right the whole time and now he officially has all imaginable intellectual property rights regarding his character and creations. In his mind, he now has the right and the power to tell everybody how Sonichu may or may not be used. The most annoying thing about this is that unless Chris actually sues someone or someone sues Chris, we can't make him shut up about it - the state of intellectual property legislation is such that people can make all sorts of weird assertions ("I patented forks and knives when used over the Internet"), and if someone's wrong, that is up for the courts to settle.

Now, here in reality, copyright registration is not an official recognition of copyright. It is an officially registered assertion that a person or company has created a specific work at specific date. Every new work automatically has copyright whether it's registered or not. The registration of copyright is only required if you're suing people for copyright infringement. One party asserts that a work has been created at one time, another party has used the work at another time, and then it's up to a judge to decide who is in the right. 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. More important, Chris does not have a trademark on Sonichu; he has never had it, and this registration doesn't have anything to do with trademark rights.

We know Chris messed the registration up, but the sad thing is that without complete documentation of exactly what he submitted, we may never know exactly how badly Chris messed this up. The documentation Chris published doesn't show exactly what he submitted. The application appears to be for "digital files", which is probably to say specific image files, created in 2000. (We'd need actual documents, because Chris will probably say that he has official copyright on a character he created in 2000 and babble some more confused nonsense.) It's also possible that he has submitted files that weren't created in 2000, and he's just insisting that the character was created at that time. These kinds of distinctions and little details can be extremely important in a court of law.

There's also one more oddity in the registration: the registration is listed as work made for hire, a whole different and more complicated tango that deals with transfers of rights as part of work contracts, typically in situations where workers create works for corporations. If Chris ever goes in court over this, someone will start asking inconvenient questions on who hired Chris, or whom did Chris hire, to create this work, and what sort of contracts were involved in this alleged transfer of rights. While such contract may have been made and we've not heard of it, nothing that Chris has said indicates anything otherwise, and it looks that he just checked a wrong box in the application form.

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 amounts of copyright notices, usually in the form of this disclaimer, written in large cursive any third-grader would be embarrassed to maintain (pity any poor bank employee who must look at his checks).

“

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

”

However, only daily newspaper comic strips have constant notices reminding about copyright due to their daily nature, and usually these notices are edited out of strip compilation books for basic aesthetic purposes. 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. The way his copyrights are written, they are not in the traditional "mouse type" which is unobtrusive to most readers, but in large written letters which distract incredibly from his work.

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" (abbreviations are allowed in notices). 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 Issue #10 © 2009-2010 CWC. Sonichu character © CWC, March 2000.") Due to this highly confused specification of work creation dates, if a copyright lawyer were hired by Chris in an attempt to maintain his copyrights, it would be questioned and would take considerable time to sort out; not fixing the dates would likely put his whole case in jeopardy if this ever went to court. The Sonichu character itself would have its copyright written as "Sonichu © 2000 - 2010 CWC" as months, and fucking question marks are not ever included in copyright dates. The series, however, would be written as "Sonichu © 2004 - 2010 CWC".

Chris also 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.

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)

Translated from jackass, he's saying that he doesn't actually understand or care about the legal and economic ramifications of other people using his supposed intellectual property, so long as he's the one that gets the credit, not some impostor in brown stripes. Money isn't as important to him as his precious e-fame. This paragraph also shows another example of Chris's ego; he equates seeing himself being mocked with seeing millions of people being killed by giant monsters.

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 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 unless 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.

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. Technically, as parodies, he wouldn't need to, but he does so out of good will, as the artist doesn't own the song, but rather the record company does. He also does his own work, including pastiche of artists' styles, and impressively so, with Devo's frontman commenting that Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid" encompassed his entire body of works in one gag tune. It's a known fact that Yankovic actually has one of the tightest, most competent legal teams in music to make sure his parodies don't get him in legal trouble down the road. Mel Brooks' 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. In the case of Spaceballs, which closely parodied Star Wars, Brooks actually obtained permission from George Lucas in person, just to avoid even the possibility of trouble. 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 a certain animated sitcom, are usually looked down upon for simply relying on constant references in lieu of actually parodying the original work.

Sonichu and Rosechu are not parodies, just shitty recolors. As mentioned on the "parody" page, 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. The stories he makes aren't commentaries on the style, message, or story of Sonic or Pokémon; 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. If he'd just acknowledge that his stuff was crossover fan fiction, we wouldn't have this problem, but then, Chris would no longer be able to use his comic as an excuse for why he doesn't have a job.

Regardless of how much claim he's really entitled to, Chris will make a great deal of noise about protecting his work when he feels it is being threatened. Whenever he 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. Thus far, there is no evidence of Chris actually pursuing legal action against anyone. Whether the Chandlers even have access to a lawyer is questionable.

With the use of Sonichu, the Chaotic Combo and Chris himself in the Asperchu comics, Chris has used a brand new method to get his characters away from others - by death threats.

See also

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