Upon hearing this, I searched some Cpoyright info sites and I found a very informative one on Side7, and it covers copyrights on pics. Shall we take a look?
"Before talking about what a copyright protects, let's talk about what it doesn't protect. Copyrights do not protect:
Simple character names (Joe, Star, Amidala, etc.)
Character likeness (do not confuse character trademarking with copyrighting)
Clothing
Drawing style
Any other ambiguous artifacts in an image.
Copyrights protect image content. It protects the image in its entirety. That means, if you draw your character jumping rope in a gym, with another character timing him, and Joe Blow comes along and posts an image that looks identical to yours (line for line), Joe has committed a Copyright violation. In order for a copyright violation to take place, an image has to be plagiarised, i.e. copied exactly in the effort to pass the copied work off as the plagiarist's own work. This includes tracing, image manipulation to change small details in an image, copyright notices altered to reflect the copier's name, etc.
If your character shows up in someone else's artwork, there is no copyright violation. If a character shows up that looks like your character, there is no copyright violation. If a character shows up, that looks just like a character you drew, in the same pose, with the same image artifacts (similar backgrounds, props, clothes, etc.) this might be a copyright violation. If you post an imagewith a character that looks very much like a copyrighted character (like Micky Mouse©), in surroundings that that copyrighted character would be found in (like an amusement park), and claimed it was your own character, you'd most likely be committing a copyright violation.
Please, before you cry "foul", please make sure you're correct in your accusations."
-Side7's Copyright FAQ, section 5.4
Now, you may have noticed I underlined a section of the Copyright info regarding someone else's character being in your work (Or vice-versa). The only time you DO violate copyright laws is if you take a character, ANY character that you did NOT create, and claim it as your own.
What's the bottom line? Drawing Neopets is okay, as long as you don't claim it as your own (The character, NOT the picture, mind you).
So all you people afraid of being frozen for drawing Neopets, don't be so paranoid! Pick up your pencil and start drawing 'em again! ^_^
