One character, many drawings
Unicode gives an emoji a shared identity: a code point that devices can recognize and exchange. It does not prescribe the exact picture. When a phone or app displays that character, its software selects artwork from its own emoji font or image set. That is why the same eggplant can look long and glossy on one screen and shorter or differently shaded on another.
The distinction is like the difference between a written word and a particular illustration of it. Unicode helps the character travel between systems; each company decides how to draw it.
What copyright covers
A company’s emoji artwork may qualify for copyright as a specific visual creation. That protection concerns the drawing—the particular shapes, colors, and details—not the Unicode character itself or the general idea of an eggplant emoji. Another company can make its own version without copying that artwork.
This is why emoji designs are not automatically interchangeable assets for anyone to reuse. A platform controls the artwork it creates or licenses, and the terms for using that artwork can depend on the platform and the context. Sending an emoji through a service usually means sending the character, which the recipient’s device renders in its own style; copying an image of the emoji is a different matter.
The design choice has consequences
Vendors make these small illustrations part of their interface, so they can give them a recognizable house style. But the freedom to draw independently also means a message can look different after it crosses platforms. The character stays the same; the picture—and the rights attached to that particular picture—can change along the way.
