Moulinsart cannot stop people creating fanworks or parodies. It's the distribution of this material (on the internet, etc) without permission which they
are able to challenge.
jockosjungle said:
as far as I'm aware nobody has ever taken up the challenge in court when Moulinsart demands a closure of a websiteThen you're not aware of the case surrounding Eric Jenot's TintinParodies website which called into question many of the aspects surrounding
Mouinsart's charter**. For anyone interested, details on the case can be read
here, albeit in French.
EDIT - For those who don't read French (or can't be assed) I've given some details of the case here.
The main thrust of Moulinsart's case against Eric Jenot was that he had used the internet to distribute material without respecting the rights of the authors. Moulinsart were seeking 15,000 euros damages. (possibly even leading to a prison sentence?) Eric J had argued that the accused site was only one the many which contain parodies and pastiches and was intended for fans of Hergé's work to take part "in the continuation of the adventures of Tintin in the form of a parody, stripped of mercantile" spirit.
TintinParodies was composed of two parts, the first freely accessible to any Net surfer, the second, called Canal RG, accessible to the members of the forum provided with a password. The final ruling was that the site did contain reproductions of the work of Hergé "of an obviously illicit disorder" and he was fined 1500 plus 2000 costs, so he got off relatively lightly.
--
** = the English-language version charter referred to above exists no longer; the French version can be found at
http://www.tintin.com/home/legal/droits.html(05 Jan 2015)