I've enjoyed your site since I first got here, having gotten a chance to put some of my more random thoughts into a form to poke fun at myself and my friends. It's been a blast. Recently, some of my friends found the site, and one of them contacted me asking for my permission to use one of my strips in a private newsletter.

He didn't understand, apparently, that I did not draw the characters involved.

So I'm curious. How far does the usage of these artist's intellectual property extend for this site? (I am working under the assumption that it extends *just* to this site.) Am I stepping on major toes if credit is given to the artist in the newsletter to let them publish the comic strip I created that he wants? The newsletter is free, a labor of love, and so no one is actually making money off of it, but I was unclear if even in that instance, with credit given, if I would be commiting a grave sin.

My instinct was to say no, and I already did, actually, but then I got to wondering, as I don't actually know a great deal about this sort of thing, so figured why not learn, and ask the folks here.

Advice please?

You could always do what I do: Xerox a syndicated strip, white out the dialogue, and write in your own.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer.

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So I'm curious. How far does the usage of these artist's intellectual property extend for this site?

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Advice please?

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That's sort of what I figured. Thank you for the direct reply to the question.

As I had said, I already said no on gut instinct to the "publishing someone else's work" thing, but then I got to thinking about how the internet has screwed up basic "gut instinct" thinking on a lot of issues of "ownership" and "property" and began to wonder if embedding your comics into your homepage breaks the agreement, etc etc, and asked mostly for my own education. I tend to do that when I am not super familiar with something.

Thanks again.

Hey... what's wrong with drawing a three-pannel comic strip with similar-looking characters by your own hand and just copying the dialog from what you've already made here? It's not like every comic here can only be drawn ONCE.

Just a thought. And, oh, I treasure them when I do get them.

I personally would think that the art used here would be more than protected by the parody thingie...