Hii! I was at a big con for the first time the other day. Everywhere artists sold their fanarts and my sister had the idea to sell fanarts herself. I did some research on the internet and found out that selling fanart is illegal. But everyone is doing it! What is your experience with it?

Sorry about this specific question. PS: love your art. It is stunning.

Hello there! I'm very happy you like my art, thank you!

Selling fanart is kind of a grey zone. There are certain circumstances in which you can do it, even though it is technically illegal. Through the years in my own experience, the very basic rules are this:

Only sell artwork you made yourself. This should be obvious, but don't ever sell merch with official artwork on it, because those are bootlegs and that's a whole new can of worms;

Don't ever ask an official account or spokesperson if it's okay to sell fanart. This is an unwritten rule that has many nuances, but the very basic gist of it is that most companies do not care if you sell fanmerch. Some companies like Hasbro for example have always had a pretty friendly co-existence with fan merch and fan stories, and they know that fanart is a way of introducing more people to their shows etc. That's why a lot of companies turn a blind eye to fan merch selling. However, if you ask them if you can sell your fanmerch of something they own the copyright to, they will usually have to say "no". Because yeah, it's usually illegal. But because they know that fanmerch is usually niche and small and doesn't actually hurt them, they can allow it as long as nobody asks about it. Again, this is a very summarised basic explanation bwaha

Don't sell anything that is in direct competition with official merch. For example, if there's an official pin with a specific design, don't try to copy that design and sell it yourself. That's when you are a technical negative factor for their own sales, and when they might have to intervene with you.

Don't mass-produce fanmerch. This is another unwritten rule, but fanmerch usually operates under the idea that you only do limited runs, and you don't have thousands of pieces of something that you sell. Imo it's kinda implied that you shouldn't be able to make tons of money with it constantly.

Don't try to sell fanmerch in an official store. Just keep it to conventions and online shops to be safe!

Don't make Disney merch. They will fuck you up if they find you.

But all in all, even though it's technically illegal, it's fine to sell it in limited doses :) I've been selling fanmerch for six years now and I've never had any trouble because I've been abiding to the rules above, so honestly if you don't try to become rich with massproduced fanmerch, you should be fine! <3

I wish you good luck with it!