Ideas can't be copyrighted. Maybe true, but really dirty and shitty if one does steal another's idea ;). Know what I mean? LOL

Laurie

Ideas can't be copyrighted. So if you send your wonderful script to a studio and they decline to use it, but two years later, they've made movie with precisely the same plot and characters (even names), but none of your text is reproduced, you're completely out of luck. Titles can't be copyrighted. Names can't be copyrighted. Storylines can't be copyrighted. Designs (such as clothing designs) can't be copyrighted. However, all of these things can be trademarked. And designs, if they have some functional purpose (such as a new type of zipper or button or pocket) can be patented. 

The reason companies have been so rigorous about protecting their IP, even from fan art and fiction, is that, unlike copyright, which you can choose to defend against or simply ignore infringements, trademarks are required by law to be defended or you risking losing your trademark. Many companies, I'm sure, would love to permit fans to do what they want with these trademarked stories and characters, but in the past, they have been unable to. Today, you see that many companies are much more lenient about fan art/fiction than they ever were in the past, and I expect that there have been some subtle changes in interpretation of trademark law that permit a less rigorous defense against infringement. But as I'm not a lawyer and haven't researched the topic thoroughly, I can't tell you what those changes might be.

However, regardless of how the law is currently interpreted, this does not stop companies with a dedicated legal department from initiating a lawsuit in the hopes of getting 1. a judgement in their favor with a different interpretation 2. intimidating another company or artist by the mere threat of a lawsuit 3. winning a suit simply by outspending the defendant.

So, unless you're a lawyer who specializes in IP law or have one in your family who just loves doing pro bono work, OR you have $10,000 to $250,000 sitting around that you have no other plans to use, it's probably not a good idea to test the waters. Poser content creators can probably fly under the radar from most big entertainment companies, but they'll never go unnoticed if they infringe on the IP of a company that serves the exact same market.

And, yes, I agree that it's dirty and unethical to steal another's idea. On the other hand, a great many ideas are expressed or described, but never used. It'd be a shame if just coming up with an idea meant it couldn't be used by anyone else. If you've ever sat around with a group of artists and drank a few beers -- and I'm sure you've done something like that many, many times -- you know how easy it is to come up with ideas. It's putting them into a usable form that takes effort and skill.

---

PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.