Just wanted to add my two cents and make a recap of what I understood regarding the new situation between Zag and fanart.
I know Thomas tweet could have been misinterpreted as harsh. I, despite not being a fanartist (still don't know in which category I fall but this is beyond the point), was taken aback too by it. For a moment I also thought someone was messing with his Twitter, but then he started replying more clearly and the context started to appear.
If you have no idea what all the fuss is about, he basically said that selling fanart is illegal (be it objects or commissions), but using it for charity or as a donation is legal. Note the choosing of words, he never said he doesn't like/approve/appreciate fanart of his creation (quite the contrary), he is talking about laws.
Despite Thomas is the creator of Miraculous and its characters, Zag (the company/Jeremy itself) is the producer, aka the one who bought the rights for the show and the characters, the one who decides. And recently he/Zag's staff decided that they're going to be very strict about the use of their copyrighted material, meaning that if they want to legally pursue someone who is selling fanart of Miraculous they are going to do it and win.
What Thomas said has been a warning, not even him has the rights to create and sell art/products of his own creation without the approval of Zag. And if you ask me, I find this a very shitty situation.
There are two ways that have been suggested by Thomas or other artists to go legal and don't have trouble with Zag: the first is to buy the rights from Zag and they could give you approval to sell your fancontent with their characters in it, but it could be very expensive and I don't know if it can be really done by any selling artist in this community. The second idea was to create trades, where artists offer art/goodies in place of other art/goodies, in this way there aren't money involved and all falls into the donations category.
That said, part of the fandom yet again reacted as immature as someone who've been here for some time would have expected. They started offending, pointing fingers and some weird witch hunt have been spreading around to "report" artist who've been selling art. A witch hunt not even moved by sense of legality, but pure sense of personal hate and twisted avenge.
Now, let me finally add my two cents, in this issue that should be treated like adult stuff and not like some kind of petty revenge. Zag, the same person whose butt a quite large part of the fandom keeps kissing while hating on Thomas, has always been drawn by money. You can say he writes/composes songs at times, whatever you want, but first of all he's a producer, he owns a company, he's not a creator in his every day, he's an investor. His and his staff's first goal is to make money and expand the company.
Haven't you noticed how the Zag store expanded in this last year? How he basically cut off the distribution of the Miraculous merch (toys included) around the world, make it basically only available to find and buy in the online store or in the physical one located in America? Doesn't it remind you of the strategy of another company that in the last years expanded so much that most people started hating its monopoly in the industry?
A company that, wouldn't you know, has a very very strict policy about its copyrighted characters/titles. A company whose vertexes gain millions, cause again, these are people driven by money, not creativity. Zag is just following this lead, this company model, Thomas as little to nothing to do with these decisions, his role in the company is to keep creating the show, Zag deals with most of the earnings, the partnership with other companies and so on.
And the fun and sad fact is, Zag is a company that doesn't own only Miraculous rights but other stories/characters too. But Miraculous is its goose laying golden eggs, the most successful show it owns, cause it's a fucking good story thanks to Thomas and his staff, and the company is profiting from it to the bones. An example is the amount of toys that have nothing to do or contradict the show itself, tons of promises of adaptations that rewrite the entire story leaving characters as empty shells. This is not Zag the Saint finally making what the fandom asks, this is Zag the business man attaching the Miraculous label anywhere, overprice whatever it is and call it official, even if it has nothing to do with the canon story.
That said, you can still sell/buy fanart of the show, but if Zag decides to go legally against you don't act as if there has been no warning. And, for the love of God, don't blame Thomas or bring other known people in to pay for your decisions. Try to act mature for once.
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