Due to some upcoming life changes, which are really just me sitting back and going "fuck you, old life, I'm done with wasting my entire adult life", I've got to basically get rid of a lot of my stuff.

This means a veritable shit ton of stuffed animals, books, manga... you name it, I've bought way too much of it over the last 15 or so years, and most of it is still in pristine condition. Most of the plushies still have tags on them. They've been stored in a non-smoking, pet-free home that's been kept in ridiculously clean condition because my disabled father lives in the home, so the environment has to be kept extra-clean for him.

What are some of the best places to offload stuff like this? I know I can use eBay, of course, but are there other options that might get more traffic for certain items? For example, does anyone even still USE places like FurBid and FurBuy? XD What about the Dealer's Den?

I've even got some statues/figurines from Patch Together, which appears to be defunct now. (??)

Some of the stuff is so old, I could probably put it up on Etsy and call it "vintage" AHAHAHA. But seriously.

I'll also be making some pre-made plushies and selling those, and eventually opening custom plushie commissions too. I also have WAY too much fur and fabric lying around, and I have to offload some of that too.

It's really hard to try and get rid of the physical representations of, essentially, the last 20 or so years of my life. But what IS more important, the material, or the immaterial things? If I need to leave this life behind and move on, I can't do it if I have to haul truckloads of shit with me. :/


I'm going to be going to Califur this year!

It's my very first furry convention. I've been to gaming/card game conventions (L5R) in the past, but this'll be my first time doing anything "furry" IRL XD

I don't have a fursuit (or even a partial), but I'll be making and wearing a Lakotatail and Lakotahat, so you'll be able to identify me by the blinding yellow and black fur. >_>;

I'm really looking forward to going and just seeing what it's all about!

I don't have any furry friends in the area, nor do I know anyone at the convention, so feel free to drop me a line here if you want to meet up, hang out, or just say hi :}

I'll also be at Anime Expo this year in July, but I'll be dressed as Haku from Spirited Away and not as Lakota XD

I was poking around some galleries today, and links led to more links until I found myself in a gallery with a lot of different character designs. Each of these designs was liberally plastered with "THIS CHARACTER IS COPYRIGHT ME" in several places, along with the usual threats of bodily harm if you dared to "steal" their design. A little more poking around led me to discover that this artist often went to other users' FA pages and accused them of stealing their character designs.

I know most people don't act like this, and I hope most people don't think like this. But the truth of the matter is...

Unless you have a TRADEMARK, your character is not "COPYRIGHTED".

You do not own a legal copyright on your character, no matter how much of a unique special snowflake they might be. They might be the only puce-colored anthro husky in the world with rainbow polka-dots on their left ass cheek - but that design is not "copyrighted" to you. You do not own any legal "rights" to the design. You do have copyright on ANY and ALL artwork that you create of the character - along with any written material pertaining to the character - but you do not have a copyright on their design, colors, or name.

Someone cannot draw a cat with wings on their butt and proclaim that they copyright "cats with wings on their butts", so no one else can draw heiny-winged felines EVER. Cats with wings on their butts are an idea, and thus not covered by copyright. If someone draws dragons with a innovative wing design, they cannot copyright that wing design. It's an idea. For the most part, people can't copyright a species either, no matter how clever or intricate the species is. Let's take Anne McCaffrey's Pernese dragons for an example - she didn't have a "copyright" on leathery-skinned, compound-eyed fire-breathing flying critters, but if you tried to write books with "dragons" that were pretty darn similar to Pernese ones, she could probably claim some kind of trademark infringement, but that's a gray area that most artists on FA with "copyrighted species" will probably never get to.

http://www.copyright.gov/

I know I used to act like this myself. I plastered "LAKOTA IS © ME" on all my old artwork of Lakota. I was pretty possessive, and I got myself worked into pretty good hissy fits if I saw ANY other yellow-and-black wolves on the internets. XD I'm pretty ashamed of my old self, but I was a kid then. I got older, did some actual research into copyright, and realized the error of my thinking.

Now, it just makes me kind of sad when I see other artists getting attacked because someone else is accusing them of "stealing" a character or a ref sheet layout design. Neither of those things can be copyrighted! You cannot copyright an idea; it is immaterial.

I'm not trying to get self-righteous or plant myself on a soapbox (well, maybe a small soapbox. Like the size of a shoebox) and I think any artist who happens upon my lonely, lonely FA page is probably of the intelligent sort who understands copyright. But sometimes frustrations just spill over, and it can get a little saddening to see how some people treat other people.

So remember - if anyone ever accuses you of "stealing" a character and they threaten to call down an army of lawyers on you, remember that they don't have a legal "copyright" on that purple lion with the white stripes on the nose. But if you DID outright steal their character, then that's not cool - even if it's not illegal ;p