Mascot Rights

[thornbeast.livejournal.com]

I have recently had my mascot ripped off, and I am a tad concerned.
I would like to know if there is any way I can trademark my character to be my business mascot
My character is here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6921917/
And the Watermark: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7270444/

I would also like to know how to file a DMCA to websites such as DeviantArt and FurAffinity

Thank you for your help.

Edit: This is for the character, not the species. Also, the journal on my FA page has nothing to do with this entree.

Comments

[excessdenied0.livejournal.com]

Dude, the character you use in most of your avatars on this site is a Norn. A species that legally belongs to Creatures Labs.
Not to start a fight, but as far as things that are wrong on the internet, don't you think you might be a bit hypocritical here?

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that when I said it; however, whatever such rights there are were specifically disclaimed by the creators for non-commercial use. This resulted in an explosion of unofficial norn breeds (http://creatures.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Unofficial_Norn_Breeds) (among other things), of which mine is one (http://www.creaturesvillage.com/wafuru/e/kai.html).

The point I was trying to make is that I don't need to go to either CL or the breed creator if I want to commission a picture of my character - regardless of rights - because you can't "legally own" a whole species; just specific depictions of them; or their names/similar depictions when used to mark a product; or substantially similar depictions if protected by a design patent.

The issue I had with was that the typical position of fans is not logically consistent - some argue for ownership of their own species while copying others. (This is not true for everyone in the fandom.)

[excessdenied0.livejournal.com]

Creatures Labs is very open to the creation of fan-content for their games, that's true. However, your point above(before you edited it out) was that characters are almost never original because they may resemble ideas already thought of by one or more of the population, past or present.
Frankly, the hypocrisy had nothing to do with legalities. Just because you had permission to use another person's ideas and expand on them, does not mean that your derivative is original.
In fact, to expand on that, your fan-norn is certainly a substantially similar depiction because it uses original game sprites.
I don't see how your argument is even relevant to the original post, or why you're still trying to prove something by arguing further here, and editing the crap out of your comments/replies. The OP didn't ask how not to legally protect an idea, she asked what ways she actually could protect it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think editing your own posts and going outside of A_B from a post to make post-related comments are both against the community guidelines. It's a lot easier to debate when you can go back and change what you said. ;)

Anyway... Just my opinion as an observer. This is getting a bit off-topic so I'm gonna stop here.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Editing the actual journal post to add info is allowed; editing to remove is not. I don't think there is anything against editing your own comments, only deleting. People edit their comments here all the time.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Editing to get rid of typos and the like is fine, and we don't have a solid rule against editing your comments, but if you break the rules in a comment and then edit it to try to remove that, you'll still get a warning if we saw what it was before, so that won't save you.

IE, don't think you can go 'Blah blah blah u jerk' so that they get to see it, but then you edit it out in hopes a mod won't see what you did. We totally will, most of the time, and you'll still get in trouble.

And yes, you can't edit the actual entry to remove information, only to add.

Hopefully that clears that up!

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I typically edit a comment when I realize I haven't made the point I actually intended to make. I admit, it happens a lot - I'm an editor, so I'm picky! Unlike an initial post, you can't edit a comment after it has replies, so I don't think it greatly affects debate.

To address your point: My character is absolutely a substantially similar depiction, albeit with some original characteristics (mostly history and personality) but because I am not using it to pass my own goods off as those of Creatures Labs, and because it is not protected by a design patent, it is not prohibited.