Browsing makerworld, etsy and others, I see things like Mickey Mouse STL file for sale on etsy for 2 bucks. This isn’t sold by disney, just a person created a model of mickey for sale, is that legal? Can I sell a drawing of a character I didn’t create? Can I sell a model of a NFL or NHL player? Can I sell a model of a Ferrari?
User-content market sites allow you to do anything you want. Literally. It won’t stop you. Their profit motives are aligned with you uploading anything and everything that keeps users clicking around.
If Disney, Nintendo, $insert_rightsholder_here sees it, one of the things they are allowed to do is request to have your items taken down. After that, one of the things they are allowed to do is pursue legal action in court that will compel the user-content market to disclose the revenue you received from the items. Then another fun thing they can do is to sue you for that amount, plus legal fees, plus punitive amounts.
Depending on the country/jurisdiction you live in, some of those things won’t apply.
If you didn’t design it and it isn’t clearly in the public domain, assume you need a licence. Etsy is full of unlicensed fan models, but “everyone else does it” won’t stop a takedown, a DMCA notice, or even a lawsuit once the right-holder notices.
Try to use the term “lego” in Makerworld and you can see, that there was already something…
Depending on your country laws, you aren’t allowed to use rightsholder-figures/symbols/etc. without permission, if you have (re-)created from scratch.
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The copyright for “Steamboat Willie” expired so mikey mouse is now in public domain, therefore mikey models are legal, as long as it’s not direct copy of company’s own mikey 3d model.
Other things - depends on copyright status and legal jurisdiction but generally “no”
What’s interesting, there are sites that have a special agreement with copyrights holders allowing people to profit off of “fan art” like eg redbubble, however i sincerly doubt etsy has this since they have a “Fan art and fair use facts and myths” article that basically says “dunno”.
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