Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,
I felt the need to take a moment to explain to you all our rules on Copyrighted characters as it relates to Heromachine art and all sites Owned and Ran by Heromachine founder and creator Mr Jeff Hebert,
Now while this information is posted all over our forums ( Stickied to the top of each sub forum ) I know we have a lot of new members as well as many members that do not frequent the forums at all so:
Firstly the Rule:
It is strictly forbidden for you too post pictures created with the use of any version of Heromachine to any official Heromachine site ( This website, the Facebook page, etc ) of any and all copyright characters (including amalgamations of copyrighted characters ).
Now for the reasons for this rule:
If you create a Heromachine picture of a character from a comic book, game, movie, or other existing work (i.e., Wolverine, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, etc.) it has the potential of causing legal issues for Jeff, whom has already had threats of lawsuits in the past over Heromachine. Jeff does not want any additional legal troubles and so he forbids the use of his program for copyrighted characters and while he can not actually stop you from using the program to violate this rule he can control what content is posted to his sites.
Now I know some of you are thinking to yourselves that the fair use clause in the copyright laws should protect heromachine, and that Jeff would win any lawsuit brought forward against it, I will just say that this is not necessarily the case since Jeff makes money off of heromachine through ads. But let us assume for the moment that it is 100% assured Jeff would win a legal battle, he does not have the deep pockets that a Marvel, or DC Comics, or a BBC, etc does; which could grind him into the dust with delays and other legal moves designs to drain his pockets before the case ever reaches a court room. But again Let us assume Jeff has the money to successfully fend off a legal challenge he simply does not want to headache of having to do so thus the likely result of such a lawsuit would be the closing down of this site and all Versions of Heromachine forever disappearing. None of us want this to happen and so we have rules in place to help prevent it!
It is my Job, and the job of all my fellow moderators to be the bad guys and see that our rules are adhered to. I know that sometimes our decisions are unpopular but believe we when I say we do not delete or edit your posts for the fun of it. We do it to protect Jeff and to keep our community alive!
And I very much appreciate it, Kaldath, thank you!
As long as you don’t demand that we stop making re-makes of copyright characters at all you are not even bad guys. I’m fine without posting them here, not as if my opinion matters.
You all are the bestest bad guys ever–maybe that would be a good villain contest?
I am an artist and I think that your rules are justified. I would hate for one of my ideas be stolen by another. So if you are upset over these rules people remember the Superman creators ended up penniless because the Action Comic stole Superman from them. Saving people from infringement is very important. I applaud Jeff for protecting the rights of those who created copyrighted characters.
It sucks, but the alternative is worse.
However, this does beg an intresting question for me. Would it be possible for Hero Machine to be licensed for people’s own projects?
I have nothing in mind, it’s just a question I thought I’d ask.
Jeff’s Stance on this has always been, the Art is His, but the characters you create with them are your own, that you are free to use as you please so long as you give proper credit to him and HeroMachine.