Otakon 2006’s Convention Chairman Jim Vowles posted on Otakon’s forum that they are not out and out banning fanart. The proposed policy is under legal review and Otakon is asking everyone to hold questions until the final policy is posted.
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It appears that our efforts at Onezumi.com and our hosting of the unedited, uncensored discussion on this topic at Harknell.com has shocked Otakon into finally realizing that the direction they were going with their Fanart policy was distinctly at odds with 90% or more of the artists who attend and present at their con. As we’ve stated time and again, all we wanted was a chance to debate this issue and question the sudden effort to mark artists as thieves or at best “living photocopiers” who only go to rip off license holders.
Otakon’s first announcements were definitely over the top. It looks like now they are working on a way to focus on the abusers instead of dumping fanart totally. If they stuck to their original guidline then I think they would have been left swinging in the wind. I don’t mind conventions tightnening up what goes on in the artist alley. Too much abuse would cause US companies to start enforcing some of their rights. Hopefully this way we can keep a large fanart “grey area” alive in the US they way it is in Japan. That grey area covers a lot of anime fandom, not just the art in the artist alley.
I’m very interested in seeing what rules they have with after the lawyers are through.