Quote - But it's EA (the release company of the property) that's probably put out the cease and desist letters. It's foolish. First, neither EA or the creators sell 3d meshes. Secondly, anyone who creates artwork inspired by their product is giving them free advertising. Thirdly, people looking at the artwork often research the theme, discover the game, and possibly buy the game. So what have we learned. EA games wants no free advertising. Let's do them a favor and ban all EA related game talk. Any artwork that happens to be inspired by such, well artists shouldn't mention or give them any credit. If EA games.

Think what you would like about how "fair" it is for you to be able to use a copyrighted character to create fan art, but when it comes to a vendor or marketplace profitting off of a copyright that is another issue entirely. 

Copyright owners do not look kindly upon others profitting from their work.

Furthermore, Renderosity (or any marketplace) has a standard license agreement for the customer that grants them usage of items purchased for commercial use.  Renderosity cannot back that license up if the item sold does not have legal clearance.

Anyone who finds anything in the marketplace that might be questionable should report it.

Content creators should keep things that are fan-based as free items clearly marked as not available for commercial usage.  This does not excuse them from copyright laws, but it usually places them far enough under the radar to avoid legal entanglements.  (ie: fan-fic, fan-art, etc...)

Since people seem to think that images are somhow immune to copyright laws, let me use the following as an example.  You cannot publish and sell a Batman comic book unless you are DC comics (or somehow get permission from DC as Dark Horse once did).

Why would you think you can publish and sell a 3D morph and clothing set of Tomb Raider? (granted, shorts, t-shirt and holsters are pretty generic on their own - we can all identify the combination and we all know what was for sale since the advertising gratuitiously rode on the groundwork laid down by the copyright owner.)