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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fast Learner" data-source="post: 5238434" data-attributes="member: 649">Copyright doesn't require any "iconic" sense. If I draw a crappy picture of a horse (which is the only kind of drawing I could do of a horse), it instantly is protected by copyright law. No matter how crappy my horse, you cannot use the image without my permission, period. If you used it without my permission I could sue you and win the amount of money I lost on sales of my horse picture because you were using it.If I filed for copyright protection prior to your using it then in addition to that money, I could also sue you for court costs and for harm to my reputation or my brand, etc.The trick with the lightsaber suit is in the court determining whether the laser design is so close to existing lightsaber designs that it's clearly an infringement or whether it's sufficiently different to escape the idea of it being directly derivative. The unfortunate reality of intellectual property law, though, is that if one of you is LucasFilm, with a vast treasury and legions of lawyers, and the other of you is a small company that makes lasers and probably turns only a very small profit, LucasFilm can make the court process so lengthy and expensive that it is in no way worth your time or money fighting it. Even if you won you'd be long out of business and bankrupt.</blockquote>