Otaku@nashville.com (James Bateman) wrote:

Now what you DON'T want to do is write Kitty, or Shogakukan, or Takahashi
and ask to use their characters.  In order to protect their copyrights,
they will have to tell you "no" [...]

Huh?  Why would they have to tell you "no"?  If someone using your 
characters has explicit written permission from you to do so, that doesn't 
weaken your copyright, does it?

------RM