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[MPLe]

Why doesn't Fanime just sell the tables as exhibit spaces (which is what they are selling to artists after all), and just make very straight forward clear cut rules about what can and can not be sold? Attendees love buying fanart in artist alleys too.

There are so many gray areas that clear cut rules tend to be difficult. Keep in mind that regardless of what rules change (for better or worse), discussions such as the ones in this thread will pop up.

A lot of artist alleys and dealer's halls are really starting to get in the individual's business about what they sell and such.

If we do end up selling the spaces as-is, keep in mind that this would make it so that we would be punishing our Dealers for paying more to sell their goods. What would be stopping them from shrinking the amount of merchandise they sell and claiming that they created it?

There is also the overall view that we (as convention staffers) have to show to copyright holders that are do make efforts to protect a company's licenses. If we didn't, companies would refuse to work with us and the overall trade off to letting artists/dealers sell whatever they want would be that no official company would want to work with us.



One of the things that I restate every year is that we're never going to please everyone and that no single person knows everything that goes on during a convention planning (cons also are run different from one another, too!). I assure you that we would love to only have one rule ("Be fair!"), but it would quickly be abused. This is why we (as staffers) work very hard to ensure that all rules are as fair as possible.

In the end, someone will hate whatever change is created/implemented/etc., someone will work on finding a loophole, and others will think that it is completely fair. This is why we do have various contact methods for you all to let us know what you think. I can personally vouch that we do get all feedback and deliver them (at least the ones that aren't completely outrageous) to the department/division heads that it is directed to.

[reaver]

Fanime can have whatever policies/procedures they want, that is their decision.  However they should NOT make one rule for one person and then another rule for another person.  That is where the staff is being horrendously unfair this year.  Yes someone will always dislike a rule here and there, you can't please everyone.  But at least the staff could say that they were fair and upheld the same standards for everyone.

[chibimonster]

As bad as it seems, I think the staff actually have to be "unfair". Art is a very subjective area, and it gets even worse when we venture into the legal gray area of fanart. There are no black and white rules regarding fanart, and I think it will be very hard to make them because every piece of art is different. Everything is basically left up to the admin's judgement. Artists draw in different styles, and admins may interpret styles differently. It's just the way things work.

I just looove hypothetical situations:
Say buttons are a big deal and the dealers might complain about them being sold in the artist alley. Staff then have to make sure that buttons are unique enough so that they do not compete with the merchandise in the dealer's hall.
Artist A and artist B both draw buttons of Naruto. Artist A does a lot of work and doesn't steal any existing work. Her style of drawing makes the Naruto on the button look similar to the actual manga. Artist B puts in the same amount of effort, but draws a chibi Naruto instead; the art on her button looks nothing like the art on the existing merchandise.
The staff review the art of artist A and artist B. They tell artist A that she can't sell her Naruto button, but they let artist B sell hers. Both of them drew non-stolen Naruto buttons, but only one of them was allowed to sell hers, simply because of a difference in style. It's these subjective judgements that cause the strange variations in rules; it's a case-by-case thing.

Art can't really be judged objectively because each work is unique and each artist has a different style. to throw them all to the same category would almost be an insult to the artists. We need to acknowledge the uniqueness of each artist, and, in order to do that, the rules must be interpreted somewhat subjectively. We need to take the good along with the bad, I think.

[LiL Moon]

I'm happy to report that I finally got a reply from the staff about the rule on fanart plushies. We are allowed to make plushies of characters or items provided that there are no officially licensed versions of that plushie already being sold. While I wish I could sell all my plushies with no problems, I can deal with this rule. I mean, I think it's fair and understandable. If this rule were set prior to my questioning, it would explain why my friend was given the ok to sell her plushies as opposed to myself since she was making plushies of characters that were not officially made yet. I have a mix of both. So, in the example of My Little Pony plushies, the only ponies we can't sell are Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, but all the other ponies are ok. I must admit, it's gonna be odd having some characters missing from certain sets, but it's better than no character plushies at all. 

[ttyls]

Thanks for letting us know! Is that only for plushies? I know some people have had questions regarding things like fanart on buttons and the like -- is there a ruling on those yet?

[LiL Moon]

Thanks for letting us know! Is that only for plushies? I know some people have had questions regarding things like fanart on buttons and the like -- is there a ruling on those yet?

Your welcome. This rule is just for plushies. I'm not sure what the rules are for buttons and such.

[lilindar]

Errrr.... skimming thread and only reading admin comments .... I hope the rules won't be drastically changed this year. I mean that the con is only a month and a half away. I've already done a bunch of prep work. ^^; And invested a bunch of money into inventory. When I put money down on an AA table, I'm expecting the policies I've read before buying the table will remain pretty much the same AFTER buying the table.

If you want to consider big changes for 2013, that's totally ok, I'll wait and read the policies for 2013 and then buy or not buy space accordingly.

Just putting that out there .... I consider my purchase of an AA table and my agreement to existing policies to be pretty much a contractual obligation on both of our parts. Changing the contract after I've signed it is in bad taste.

I do totally empathize with both sides of the fanart debate, and I'm super grateful to the admins here for putting thought into the issue. Just please don't change it up drastically right before the show. T____T If there's going to be big changes, isn't 2013 early enough to implement them?