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PC Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Graffiti Artist Sues Grand Theft Auto Creators 145

Posted by simoniker from the dazed-over-copyright-infringement? dept.
Thanks to EvilAvatar for pointing to an Entertainment Law Digest synopsis about a graffiti artist suing over unauthorized use of his work in Grand Theft Auto III. The article says that "Christopher Ellis asserts that Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive Software copied, used, and distributed his artwork, [made under the name] Daze" in GTA3, and Daze's official website has examples of his work, which was allegedly scanned into Grand Theft Auto's gritty urban environments without his knowledge.
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Graffiti Artist Sues Grand Theft Auto Creators More

Graffiti Artist Sues Grand Theft Auto Creators

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  • Poor Poor Take Two (Score:4, Funny)

    by wrexsoul ( 48981 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @07:52PM (#6896304) Homepage
    How about we take a poll: Is there anyone out there that doesn't want to sue Take Two or Rockstar games for something? Everyone raise your hands high so we can see them. Nobody? What gives?

  • Screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @07:54PM (#6896329) Homepage
    Can anyone provide a link to some GTA screenshots that contain this man's work? I mean this would be interesting if true, but I can't just look at this guys work and say "Yeah, that's in this part of this level", I don't know the GTA series that well.

    Surely he has given examples somewhere. Can anyone provide the links? This is sort of like a "Man produces largest beer-bottle pyramid" story without a photo. It's intersting, but rather meaningless.

  • So.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sevn ( 12012 )
    Who is going to call the cops so they can arrest him for defacing public property since he so graciously volunteered his guilt?

    • Re:So.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by neostorm ( 462848 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:39PM (#6896560)
      There seems to be a large misconception that all graffiti artists are vandalizing property without prior consent.
      Yes, there is a large amount of work that is created by general people who tag anything from subways to bilboards, but 90% of graffiti "artists" actually get city permission to do their work on certain buildings. Some are even commisioned for it.
      If you take a look at the guys website, you'll see he's not exactly showing off street signs and railroad cars with his signature scribbled in paint. It looks more like alley ways and school buildings that he was most likely asked to paint or got permission beforehand.

      • Re:So.... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Uberdog ( 73274 ) <jay-slashdot@org.4st@org> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:03PM (#6896692) Homepage
        If you take a look at the guys website, you'll see he's not exactly showing off street signs and railroad cars with his signature scribbled in paint.
        Actually, this [dazeworld.com] whole section of his site is exactly that.

      • Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:35PM (#6896840)
        Even assuming that work is legitimate, at what point can the games company be assumed to have made every reasonable effort to contact the creator?

        If there is no statement of ownership, no reasonable means of finding out who did create it, the building owners/occupiers no longer have a record, it was created under an untracable alias, etc. At what point can they be considered to have done everything reasonably possible to contact him and get to use it by default? Does there ever come a point where being uncontactable releases copyright?

        Also, who owns the copyright? The artist who created the artwork or the owners of the building that he created it "for"? If you had someone paint a mural in your lobby, unless there was a contract - which I'm assuming most graffiti artists don't use - wouldn't the building owners, not the artist, own all further rights?

        • Re:So.... (Score:4, Informative)

          by YellowElectricRat ( 637662 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @10:50PM (#6897205) Journal
          Well, Smilebit/Sega managed to get his permission to use his art in Jet Set Radio Future on XBox - I don't think Rockstart/Take two should have any less of an obligation in this department.

        • Re:So.... (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          If there is no statement of ownership, no reasonable means of finding out who did create it, the building owners/occupiers no longer have a record, it was created under an untracable alias, etc. At what point can they be considered to have done everything reasonably possible to contact him and get to use it by default? Does there ever come a point where being uncontactable releases copyright?

          Copyright is never released for this reason. If you can't contact the copyright owner (or someone else who has perm
        • If there is no statement of ownership, no reasonable means of finding out who did create it, the building owners/occupiers no longer have a record, it was created under an untracable alias, etc. At what point can they be considered to have done everything reasonably possible to contact him and get to use it by default? Does there ever come a point where being uncontactable releases copyright? Actually most graffiti artists incorporate their names in their artwork. In fact a lot of their pieces (Daze's incl
        • Here is a great versatile censorship tool being created. Imagine that I am a police officer and I don't TV crew filming me beating innocent people. I will just wear a shirt (or a badge) with original copyrighted artwork, or one of my teammates will hold a poster with such artwork. We can even use DeCSS code there for extra protection. :) Now if the TV channel broadcasts the material, we can sue them for theft of our property. Intellectual property, that is. The same can be done by theives. Just hold such po
      • Uh, yes he is - right here [dazeworld.com]

  • Confused... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rich3929 ( 138593 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6896373) Homepage
    So, wait a minute. If I go out and spraypaint a building and get caught... does this mean that I sue the makers of GTA or this retard?
    • So, wait a minute. If I go out and spraypaint a building and get caught... does this mean that I sue the makers of GTA or this retard?

      Apparently you can also sue them if you kill people [slashdot.org] too. I wonder when someone will sue them because all that sitting in front of the TV playing GTA made them fat [google.com]? :-/
    • "So, wait a minute. If I go out and spraypaint a building and get caught... does this mean that I sue the makers of GTA or this retard? "

      Apparently you can sue Take 2 if you run a red light.
      • Apparently you can sue Take 2 if you run a red light.

        That's not a bad idea. Just because a murder is so much worse, if your kid speeds or runs a light or even hits drives to fast into your garage and dents your bumper why not sue? They're all things that happen in the game, aren't they? In fact, given that they are actually required as opposed to shooting randomly, you'd have a better case!

        Obviously, I think the death and this lawsuit are bogus. Suing over tickets would actually be a good case, th

  • I don't think so. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xenothaulus ( 587382 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:03PM (#6896383) Homepage
    I looked through Daze's work [dazeworld.com] and nothing was recognisable. Now, I realise that I can't say for absolute sure that it's not in there, but I've played both GTA3 and GTA:VC extensively (read: too many hours to think about) and I believe I'd've recognised something. So I reckon one of two things:
    1. He's lying and hoping to settle out of court to make some bucks. or 2. It's so hidden that only someone who painstakingly explored
    every single area would have discovered it.
    Given the extremely low odds of either "Daze" himself discovering it, or said player in case 2 also being a such a fan of Daze's art that they recognise it on site and are able to get in contact with him and tell him about it and then show the requisite proof, I'm going with scenario 1.
  • Why shouldn't Take-Two be allowed to make scans of public property? Defacing it with your 'art' doesn't make it yours.
    • I think the point is the scanned HIS images off of HIS site, or at least thats what i got out of this.

      • Re:Public Property? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 )
        "I think the point is the scanned HIS images off of HIS site, or at least thats what i got out of this. "

        Actually it was too vague to really get that out. They were saying that they should have known he was an artist because he was publiscized.

        It's not clear where the photos came from. If they scanned from a mag or grabbed from his site, they're busted. If they took a photo in the city, then it's not so black and white. They could still potentially be in trouble, but they could still worm out of it.

    • Re:Public Property? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:50PM (#6896634) Homepage Journal
      "Why shouldn't Take-Two be allowed to make scans of public property? Defacing it with your 'art' doesn't make it yours. "

      That's a touchy aspect of public work. If I'm making a movie and there's a copyrighted poster on the wall of the set that was there when I arrived, am I breaching copyright?

      When I read your post here, the first thing I thought of was the makers of the Spiderman movie getting into legal trouble because they digitally removed adverts in NYC. So if you use the work, you're in trouble, if you don't, then you're in trouble. WTF?

      I'm an artist. Copyright's supposed to help me. But to this point it's simply scared me.

      • Re:Public Property? (Score:5, Informative)

        by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:49PM (#6896929)
        Have you seen a cop show or MTV video lately? Notice all of those blurs on shirts/hats? Those are usually trademarks or copyrights that they don't want to acquire rights to use. Examples could include a Nike hat, a Simpsons shirt, etc. IIRC, on the Dogma special features Kevin Smith's shirt was blurred on some of his extra stuff, and when he was talking about his original distributor on the commentary it was bleeped out. Intellectual property law is a convoluted subject right now, and most are erring on the side of caution to avoid this kind of lawsuit.

        • Re:Public Property? (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Have you seen a cop show or MTV video lately? Notice all of those blurs on shirts/hats? Those are usually trademarks or copyrights that they don't want to acquire rights to use.

          I've heard another explanation, that MTV doesn't want to give free advertising to Nike, so they won't run a video unless the logos are blurred out (though they let it slide sometimes).

          Not sure about cop shows though, maybe they don't want to offend any potential sponsors in that case.

        • Actually... I never quite got that. If you're "Cops" and you're doing what is essentially a weekly documentary, aren't you allowed to show any trademarks you want? After all, you're merely reporting the scene in its most accurate detail. I always figured there was some sort of provision for that, since it's a form of reporting. (although not very intellectual, you can't really say that cops is anything more than the filming of real-world events)
        • Huh, the first time, I noticed it I figured it was something explicit, and later when I saw the logos in an uncut video, I assumed that it was something to do with them not wanting to give free promotion to brands that didn't pay for it, Viacom being cheap and all. It never crossed my mind that they would be sued by the IP owners for use of their trademarks, but that does make the most sense.

        • Re:Public Property? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @12:41AM (#6897615) Journal
          You know Intellectual property laws are messed up, when you cant show real people using real products without bluring of the names/logos. You cant even mention the name of the product without approval. Amazing freespeech has taken this kid of hit.
        • that the logos were fuzzed out because the vendors didn't want to pay COPS (or whoever), and COPS or MTV didn't want to give "free" promotion to these brands. Is that not the case?
          • I'm not certain, but I think it's the other way around. Cops certainly doesn't plan on making money from incidental adverts, so why would they go through each show like "That logo's on for 12.3 seconds. How much should we ask for?" Also, it's blurred out at Cops' or possibly the network's expense, which would seem extraneous to me unless they would themselves have to pay more if they didn't.
        • I don't want to sound like a troll, but America is clearly sick if what you are saying is really true.
  • I must say that I'm flabbergasted. A graffiti artist who defiles NY metro cars for the sake of what? Making a name for himself? Wanting to be noticed?
    And when he succeeds, and people copy his work, he sues them! He should be happy he is finaly being credited for all the hard work he has done in making the city a less pleasurable place to live in.
    Fair is fair. If it is his work they are using, they should have asked him beforehand. And they have to compensate him in some way.
    • NYC subway cars rarely fall victim to graffiti nowadays. And even if they do, the vandalism is removed within 48 hours.

      Over the past decade, subway vandalism has shifted from graffiti (spraying your crappy initials onto a subway car) to scratchitti (scratching your crappy initials into a window or piece of plastic on the subway car - more costly and time consuming to get rid of than graffiti).

    • He should be happy he is finaly being credited for all the hard work he has done in making the city a less pleasurable place to live in.

      He's suing because he's not being credited.

      Fair is fair. If it is his work they are using, they should have asked him beforehand. And they have to compensate him in some way.

      So did he leave his name and number at every place he vandalized? Take Two, in this instance, must assume that the "copyright holder" either didn't care or would step forward later and ask for money.

  • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Unanswered questions.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:31PM (#6896524) Homepage Journal
    Lots of the textures in both GTA games are photographic. Since there's little to go on from the article (i.e. which graphic and where it came from) I can only hypothesize.

    What I think probably happened was they took some photos of graffiti they found and used them as textures. If so, they probably assumed that graffiti artists (in many cases being vandals) aren't going to step forward and take credit for it. In that case, was Take 2 really that much in the wrong? Yeah yeah, his work is in magazines and stuff. But unless there's a copyright notice, I don't think it's all that surprising that they wouldn't have knowna bout it.

    Sounds to me like he should have approached them and said "uh that's my art, can I get some compensation for it?" but now it's a legal battle.

    As I said, though, there's little to no info. For all I know, Take 2 scanned his work from a magazine and used it. Since the article didn't go into detail, then everybody's own views of Take 2 are going to surface. "Well, even though I've never played it, I know from what CNN tells me that Take 2 makes immoral games. It's therefore logical that they'd have no moral objections to steal some artist's work. Yep, they better lose badly!"

    • I'm sorry but all artists deserve the same respect, would you like it if I took your art and used it to sponsor something you will not profit by?
      • Actually I am an artist. And yeah, I would be upset about it. However, that's not related to what I said. If I drew my logo on the side of a building and didn't put copyright info or anything, I'd feel like a big dumbass if shirts with my logo on them started floatin around. I'd be upset to a degree, but I can't imagine feeling like anybody owed me anything if I failed to let them know I claimed ownership of that image.

    • Re:Unanswered questions.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <<ieshan> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:37PM (#6896553) Homepage Journal
      The copyright notice is one of the biggest pieces of misinformation in modern law.

      There's no requirement for the creator an a work (public or private) to put a copyright notice on his work - instead, original creations are considered copyrighted material until proven/made otherwise.

      Of course take-2 is in the wrong, but how wrong are they? They've highly publicized this man's creations, which weren't originally signed, it appears. In other words, they're no different from the originals, and while he isn't getting credit in the game, he isn't getting credit on the street either.
      • "here's no requirement for the creator an a work (public or private) to put a copyright notice on his work "

        For the record, that's not what I was referring to. What I was saying was that graffiti artists (the illegal graffiti specifically) would rather not have their name plastered on their work so the police can rack up a series of charges for them. If this guy was doing legal graffiti then it was a bad idea for him NOT to put a copyright notice on there. "Hey, I'm a special case here. I'm a proud ar
      • What if I take and publish a photo of one of the painted public buildings ? What if a news report or published security camera footage happens to show it in the background ?

        I have an idea, if this works, celebrities could just wear a cap with some copyrighted text on it, and no one could ever publish their photos without infringing on some copyright. Hah!

        • Interesting idea, but I believe it could be bypassed by just blurring the copyrighted material, just like is often done now with logos, etc. in various media (for example, in skater footage in Tony Hawk 4 for Xbox, various Playstation 2 logos in the skate parks are blurred).

          Now, maybe if the celebrity somehow modified themselves so their look itself was copyrighted (so you would need to blur the celebrities themselves!)...
      • I don't know much about graffiti, admittedly, but I know this Haze artist does like to incorporate his nickname into lots of his work. I imagine this would be fairly common among the professional artists who do this.

        (for reference, see the Jet Set Radio games)
      • Yes, the rights of the artist are protected by default, but I don't see them being infriged in this case. This is fair use and hopefully the case will be thrown away from the court.

        In some cases, the amount of material copied is so small (or "de minimis") that the court permits it without even conducting a fair use analysis. For example, in the motion picture Seven, several copyrighted photographs appeared in the film, prompting the copyright owner of the photographs to sue the producer of the movie. The

  • Grafitti != Vandalism (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WiKKeSH ( 543962 ) <slashspam@downmix.com> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:39PM (#6896562) Homepage
    In some parts, grafitti is considered an artform and there are places where you can paint freely. All graffitti is not vandalism.
    • It's just copying his graffiti, for god's sake, he should be flattered. It's not like they fucking stopped his car, kicked him off from the passenger side and then drove off with it, mowing down a few grannies on the way.

  • tricky (Score:4, Interesting)

    by evilWurst ( 96042 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @08:54PM (#6896645) Journal
    Hmm. There's not nearly enough information in that article for us to judge. However, I'm leaning towards the opinion that if it's work on public buildings, and the game has those buildings in it, then his art's allowed to be shown. I don't think you can copyright the likeness of a building... and even if you could, as it's in public, showing the building as it is in real life would be Fair Use.

    Further, if it's under a pseudonym in the first place, then 1) if they've got the signature in the game also then they're even giving him credit (attributing the work to him) and 2) he's got an uphill battle proving something is his and not the work of a copycat.

    Further still, if he sprayed that stuff on the buildings without permission, he's shit out of luck. You can't copyright a crime, even if it counts as art and you're famous.
    • Sorry, but you CAN copyright the likeness of a building. Filmmakers and photographers often have to get permission or pay fees to photograph many buildings. Since it's used as part of a commercial product, and not news, it would NOT be fair use.

      While you might not be able to copyright a crime, the artwork is copyrighted. The crime is putting the artwork on the building, not the art itself.
    • If distributing photos of a painting is fair use, then why not a camcorder recording of a film/play? Oh wait, cuz its NOT.
  • It sounds like an after-the-fact shakedown. Something he alleges to have created happens to get captured into the background for a game.

    Ka-ching. He cashes in on it.

    Just an aside: 'Graffiti Artists' may be credentialed, and some may even have permission and/or a commission for their 'work' on the street. They legitimize a lot of graffiti that is not legimate by their actions, however.

    Why not call it 'mural art' and let loose of the term 'graffiti' which is closely associated with vandalism?

  • dear pot, you are black, sincerely the kettle (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:31PM (#6896821) Homepage
    I hope that those on here who are so absolutly certain that graffiti isn't art will remmber their narrow elitist notions of what is and isn't art the next time someone says that vidoegames aren't art either...

    Read this [amazon.com] and then let me know if all graffiti is still vandalism.

  • Notices? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:34PM (#6896835) Journal
    Maybe we'll start seeing copyright notices like this:

    This graffiti (C) GNAA, 2003. All rights reserved.
    • Of course, they'll have to be sure to leave their names and adresses, too.

      Daze

      aka Jerry Dorsey

      111 Anyplace Ln.

      New York, NY 00026

      The key is under the mat.
  • If this guys work was on a building that didn't belong to him or was in public, sues and wins, does this mean that any architect whose building is used in a game can sue, too?

  • What about other art? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dexrow ( 703242 )
    So if we are to assume that this is true, and that this case is actually won. What is the differnce from someone who takes a picture of a building and in the picture there is someones graffiti? Does this person now have to go out and some how find the artist to ask if its ok that they took a picture of the building and it has their artwork in it? I really would doubt that the games artists would just go out and scan pictures into the game, perhaps I could see them taking pictures of random graffiti and s
    • Taking a photograph of a copyrighted visual art is the act of making a copy. So, you cannot photograph it without copyright. BUT, you are not likely to get in trouble for this if you just take the picture home and look at it.

      When you put it into a multi-million selling game (thereby making multi-millions of copies) you tend to gather attention. Thats the difference, not the legality, just the attention gathered.
  • As far as I can recall from my active writing days, it was all about being part of the underground subculture. When somebody's piece appeared in a movie or a magazine or gained publicity through some other means, it gained the artist respect and credibility in the scene. This was generally regarded as a GOOD THING!
    What I see here is some guy - admittedly a brilliant graff artist - who seems to have lost all his integrity and is just selling out.
    It is not about the legality or illegality of graffiti as suc

  • I have played GTA3... (Score:2, Informative)

    by floydman ( 179924 )
    And after looking at his website, and skimming through his art work (which he claims is in the game), i cant see a single one of the images that i have seen in the game, or at least remember i have seen. One thing to mention though is that they both have the same approach of drawing, but they are not copied or scanned as he says, the images in GTA are toally different, as i recall.
  • Just thought I would mention that lots of graffiti in the Jet Set Radio games were done by this artist. So if you have played them (and why wouldn't you?? Especially the original!), you have seen Haze's work.

  • Funny thing is.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by unclethursday ( 664807 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:04AM (#6898125)
    One of his graffiti pieces depicts Secret Squirrel [dazeworld.com]. I wonder if he got permission from the owners of Secret Squirrel (Hana Barbara? I forget) to use Secret Squirrel in his artwork.

    Something tells me the answer is no.

    Hypocrisy at its best.

    Thursdae

  • If they copied photos from his web site or anywhere else and used them in the game then they've infringed someone's copyright. Certainly the photographer's, possibly the artist's too.

    But if they went out and took a photo of grafitti that had been sprayed on walls/trains/whatever in a public place then I don't think they've done anything wrong, either legally or morally.

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