Copyrights

The pictures on this site are purely fan appreciation and erotic expression and are not now nor ever meant to infringe upon the respective company’s copyright to those characters. The artwork within may not represent the characters in the way that their respective owning companies wish to have them represented; therefore said the art is not necessarily an accurate representation of said character’s personalities or physical traits.

No artwork within the site should be taken as canon. Further no artwork within is meant to depreciate the aforementioned companies or their characters in any way and is only meant to heighten appreciation for the represented characters. No harm is or ever will be intended or affected towards the financial earnings of the respective companies’ merchandising, representation or production of said characters as a result of this artwork.

All rights of the respective owning companies towards the represented characters are reserved; existence of their likenesses on this site shall not in the present or in the future be interpreted as voiding any rights of ownership, copyright or production of the respective owning company. You will not distribute or link to the URL of the main site or any other related pages instead referring others who may be interested in the contained images (and for whom it is legal and permissible under the above paragraphs to view this site) to this page or the index page only.

You WILL NOT enter the site if you are acting, either in actual employment or otherwise, as an agent, lawyer, or representative of Warner Brothers, Disney, Viacom, Sega, Nintendo, Archie Comics, 20th Century Fox, Fox Kids, Hanna-Barbara, Church Groups or any other company that produces anthropomorphic characters in animation, games or comic books.

Persons presently affiliated with said companies may enter the site provided that they will do so on their private time, for their private use, and will without exception keep the knowledge of this site strictly to their private and personal dealings, separate and unrelated to any dealings they might have with the respective company or persons acting as representatives thereof. You are not entering this site seeking material to fuel, begin, or support a lawsuit or legal action against the artist on any grounds, and furthermore you or any company affiliated with you will not seek legal action against sharkzym.com or the artist(s) whose work is collected on this site as a result of your viewing this material, in the present or at any time in the future.

Your viewing and/or downloading of this material is for private use only, and will not be distributed to individuals for whom viewing such material is illegal nor to representatives of the aforementioned companies for the purpose or possible consequence of legal action against the artist or sharkzym.com, nor shall you yourself derive any monetary gain from downloading or possessing the files you may obtain from this site.

Copyright Infringement

The Websites use of the characters is fair use of any copyrightable elements of the characters being used and therefore does not constitute copyright infringement. Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 107, and the abundant case law applying and interpreting the statute, four factors are considered in determining whether a use of a copyrighted element is fair use and therefore non-infringing: (a) the purpose and character of the use, (b) the nature of the copyrighted work, (c) the amount and substantiality of the portion of the work used, and (d) the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the work. The uses of the original characters are artistic parodies, are covered by fair use and are not infringing the owners’ copyrights. An application of the four factors shows that the works of “sharkzym.com” are undoubtedly fair use of the original works.

The first factor, “the purpose and character of the use,” asks “to what extent the new work is transformative” and whether it “supplants” the original work. Where the new work adds something new to the world, with a different purpose or character from the original, that work is considered to be “transformative”. This factor is so important that the Supreme Court has stated that the more “transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of the other factors.” As an artistic work of parody, this website works completely transform the purpose and message of the original works by placing the characters in situations completely outside expectations – one of the hallmarks of parody (defining parody as “literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.” (quoting American Heritage Dictionary 1317 (3d. 1992))). Given all the above, the first factor weighs heavily in favor of the website and is more significant than the other factors.

Regarding the second factor, “the nature of the copyrighted work”, though the original works are creative works within the sphere of copyright protection, this factor weighs little in the ultimate consideration. In the case of parody, this factor offers little help too because parodies almost invariably copy publicly known, expressive works.

The third factor, “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”, weighs in favor of fair use because “sharkzym.com”  uses only so much of the original works as necessary for its purposes. First, it should be noted that “sharkzym.com”  does not simply copy the original works verbatim. No direct clips from the original works are copied by us. The artists illustrate all of its works from scratch in order to make the immense changes necessary to accomplish its parody purposes. While the characters on sharkzym.com look similar to the original works, these similarities are incorporated into the new work and emerge imbued with a different character.

The fourth factor considers “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work”. It’s obvious that sharkzym.com sexually explicit encounters between characters in the original works will serve as a market substitute for the originals themselves. It’s clear that the works on this site specifically will not usurp the original works, and in the case of parody, the copy will never affect demand for the original at all, much less ‘supplant’ it. In light of all the foregoing, the determination factors weigh heavily on this website’s side, including the most important first factor. Given this analysis, and the supporting case law, this site use of the original works constitutes fair use and therefore does not infringe the copyrights in the original works.

Trademark Infringement

To the extent that the right holders own trademark rights, in the appearance of the characters that are used by “sharkzym.com“  in its works, the website’s use of the characters is (a) not causing confusion, (b) protected by the First Amendment, and (c) nominative fair use. Each one of these factors is sufficient for a finding of non-infringement. But where, as here, all three defenses exist, sharkzym.com is not found to be infringing any of the trademark owners’ trademark rights in the original works.

The purpose of trademark rights is to avoid confusion for consumers by “preventing others from duping consumers into buying a product they mistakenly believe is sponsored by the trademark owner”. Where there is no confusion as to the source of the product, there cannot be trademark infringement. It goes without saying that a consumer would not be confused to believe that the works on this website have come from the trademark owners. The style of the drawings is slightly different. The characters are engaged in acts that wouldn’t be advanced by the trademark owners. The website features characters from many properties owned by many companies. And neither the names of the television shows or the companies that own them are listed anywhere on the website. Each of these factors would be enough to dispel any likelihood of confusion in consumers, but all of them put together make it effectively impossible for any reasonable consumer to be confused.

It is unquestionable that those works have artistic relevance to the original works- they are parodies of the original works. The works of Sharkzym are constitutionally protected expressions of artistic relevance both in-and-of-themselves and as a critique of the originals. Because the works have this artistic relevance to the originals, the work of Sharkzym cannot be infringing. This is especially true in light of the fact that, as explained above, Sharkzym neither explicitly nor implicitly misleads anyone as to the source or the content of the work.

Finally, Sharkzym use of the trademarks in the original works is nominative fair use. Sharkzym uses the appearances of characters in its works to conjure up associations of the originals, but at the same time it is identifying its own works, which are parodies of the originals. There are three part tests to determine whether a use of a trademark qualifies as nominative fair use: “First, the plaintiff’s product or service in question must be one not readily identifiable without use of the trademark; Second, only so much of the mark or marks may be used as is reasonably necessary to identify the plaintiff’s product or service; and third, the user must do nothing that would, in conjunction with the mark, suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder.”

Sharkzym easily satisfies the first element because its use of the likenesses of the characters from the original works is reasonably necessary in order to conjure up the characters. We also satisfy the second element because it uses no more of the likenesses than is reasonably necessary under the circumstances. “Sharkzym“ simply uses the likeness of the characters as drawn by the artists. There is no way for Sharkzym to create its art without using the likeness of the characters.

Thus, sharkzym.com does not infringe on the rights holders’ trademark rights in the appearances of the characters from the original works (if in fact any such rights exist).

“sharkzym.com” is not liable for actions of copyright infringement and trademark infringement. The use of the likeness of characters from the original works is non-infringing and protected by principles of fair use and free speech.

Creative Commons License (For Original content)

All the original characters, texts, Blog entries, tutorials or any other original content are released under the
Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

You are free to share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• Non-Commercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where you use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation. No warranties are given. The license may not give you all the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.