Yeah, it made me think that ... did SEGA already had rights for Sanic?
Since Sanic was also showing up in Sonic movie.
I "think" Sega owes a degree of rights to all Sonic fan characters, but they can't use them because... well, Sega can't use them because they're half-original and the fan's can't use them for profit because they're half-Sonic characters if that makes sense.
Sanic however they can use because as far as I'm aware YouTuber 0nyxheart made no ownership claim to Sanic and I don't think they legally could because it's just a badly drawn Sonic. Sega can use Sanic because... it's a badly drawn Sonic.
I myself dunno how I feel about Sanic. Ever since Sonic Colours the games just feel... I dunno, I'm still a Sonic fan and I want to stay loyal to Sonic until I'm done with life, but ever since Colours it feels like Sonic Team think "No one takes Sonic seriously, so why should we?" sort of attitude and went ahead to emphasize the toung-in-cheek humour the games usually have to just cringe.
It's why I am not at all hyped, psyked or even care at all about Sonic Colours: Ultimate. It's the game where the Sonic series embraced it's self-joking meme culture when I'd rather have more thought-out dialogue like the Adventure games or Unleashed had. Why don't
Sonic Adventure or
Sonic Unleashed get the Ultimate treatment? Seems unfair to me.