Well, the character is a lot harder to steal and a lot harder for people to want to steal, lemme tell ya. Characters are creations of the originator, yes of course they are. So, when someone makes the decision to dedicate themselves to an original piece of work, do you think they want to steal ideas from another work? Unless it's something really famous, people most always want to think of their own characters and their own intellectual material, and just steal the sprites. Even for those select few who steal the whole character and not just the sprite, their comics always turn out to be really stupid and they always get caught/ridiculed/killed. I'm sure nobody on the interbutts has ever gotten a (good) reputation from a stolen comic.
