Capcom Sued By Photographer Claiming They Used 80 of Her Photos Without Licensing (polygon.com) 136
Long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool summarizes a report from Polygon:
Photographer Judy Jurasek has sued Capcom for copyright infringement of at least 80 of her photographs in their recent game, Resident Evil: Devil May Cry and other games. Jurasek claims the textures in the video game where copied from her 1996 book Surfaces which contained 1,200 images of surfaces and textures. The book was sold with a CD-ROM with digital copies of the images. Jurasek's damages could total $12M from Devil May Cry alone.
Jurasek claims that Capcom never licensed the images for use in their video games. The initial filing is over 100 pages with many detailed photographic examples of her claims. Part of her evidence comes from Capcom's 2020 data breach. The data breach leaked among other things files and filenames of images used by Capcom. At least one filename appears to match those found in the CD-ROM from Surfaces.
Jurasek is also seeking additional damages of $2,500 to $25,000 for each used photograph for "false copyright management and removal of copyright management," according to Polygon's report, which says she's alleging her photos were used for "everything from marbled textures to ornate sculptural details that are recognizable and abundant in Capcom games," and even the shattered glass texture used in the Resident Evil 4 logo.
A Capcom representative told Polygon that the company is "aware of the lawsuit" and has "no further comment."
Jurasek claims that Capcom never licensed the images for use in their video games. The initial filing is over 100 pages with many detailed photographic examples of her claims. Part of her evidence comes from Capcom's 2020 data breach. The data breach leaked among other things files and filenames of images used by Capcom. At least one filename appears to match those found in the CD-ROM from Surfaces.
Jurasek is also seeking additional damages of $2,500 to $25,000 for each used photograph for "false copyright management and removal of copyright management," according to Polygon's report, which says she's alleging her photos were used for "everything from marbled textures to ornate sculptural details that are recognizable and abundant in Capcom games," and even the shattered glass texture used in the Resident Evil 4 logo.
A Capcom representative told Polygon that the company is "aware of the lawsuit" and has "no further comment."
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Re:Entirely reasonable (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about, the 90s were just ...
Wait ...
Forget I said anything. Carry on.
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> Jurasek is also seeking additional damages of $2,500 to $25,000 for each used photograph
Seems entirely reasonable. That would be something on the order of $200K to $2MM. Kind of an egregious violation of current copyright laws by a company that can afford to pay.
Yes, those fees are entirely reasonable, as that's about what licensing would have cost, if they had done it legally. I license photographs reasonably often in my work and pay the lower end of that range for non-exclusive use of images that are expected to have 10,000 impressions. A big game is going to have in the tens of millions of copies in sales, and perhaps into the billions of impressions total. We're talking about textures, apparently, which don't carry quite the value as representational images,
Re:Entirely reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the purpose of copyright? Hint: You (and me) making a living is just the implementation, not the goal. Want to keep getting paid? Keep working like the rest of us. Or, alternatively, you could pay your plumber $2 every time you flush a toilet, forever.
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He's not an idiot, he's making a valid point.
Why should your photographs have different monetary value to you, depending whether they were taken for someone else or for yourself? They're the same photographs taken by the same person with the same artistic merit yet you seem to support a model that lets someone else profit off some of them while demanding that you profit off the rest.
Then there's the whole purpose of copyright. Why should you profit off photography in the first place? What are you doing that
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So, did you go out and find and make the composition?
Did you invest in camera bodies and lenses to be able to capture images on that fidelity level?
Do you know enough about lighting to make the image what it is?
Do you know enough about p
Re:Entirely reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
I have used a wedding photographer. I used one who handed me the films the Monday after the wedding. True work made for hire. I still have the negatives and when film scanners became cheap enough, I even scanned them into my computer. I OWN them all.
The ones you're referring to obviously have a different arrangement. Remember, it's all a contract. Both sides agree to it. The bride and groom who used the photographers like you mentioned were obviously okay with the terms of the contract or they would have taken their business elsewhere.
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One photographer told me I would never find someone who would sell me work for hire for my wedding. The next one happily sold me a set of unmodified raw images with unrestricted license to print.
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I bet that if you were a photographer, you'd see it differently.
That doesn't mean much; anyone whose livelihood or business model depends upon "imaginary property" likely would. Nevertheless, Capcom should bleed - it's simply the right thing
Re:Entirely reasonable (Score:4, Interesting)
"imaginary property"
As someone who used to identify as a libertarian, and still holds to the principles that got me there, this concept of treating IP as "not real" or "imaginary" needs to die. It's irrational.
All property, by the same logic that gets us to "IP = 'not real'" is "imaginary." Property is not tangible goods themselves being owned, property refers to a claim. Remove government, remove laws and you have two people fighting over a scarce good saying "That's mine" and "No it's not it's mine!" If one party manages to win out through brute force, they protected their claim via the non-government solution. But we could say their claim is illegitimate or "imaginary." The point is that the concept of property refers to the recognition and social-sanction of who has control over a given "thing."
The idea that ideas themselves are not scarce or "not real" is ridiculous. All property starts with an idea. The idea that you can use that raw material or that pre-built home for some sort of actual real utility that will have a measurable and objective impact on peoples' lives.
The concept of "intellectual property" is the recognition that your thoughts, your ideas and the products that you derive from them are yours. All claims of ownership start with an idea. Whether it is an idea for a new industrial process, or a new type of building structure, or a type of material never before seen, or what your family can do with that used-house that you're buying from someone else. You had an idea, you took action, your idea and your action had a measurable affect on the state of reality. And so the government recognizes your claim of ownership. Whether it's to an idea that you originated by thinking it up or an idea that you that led to the acquisition of a tangible good that you acquired through legitimate means. That's what property is. Recognizing who has the legitimate claim to the sole control of a given thing.
The notion that ideas aren't "real" and that you cannot recognize a claim to have been the originator of a said idea is ludicrous. The rational discussion to be had isn't whether or not IP is real or imaginary. We can directly measure the impact that ideas have on the natural world and therefore we can prove that ideas are very much real and affect production and peoples' lives in huge ways. The rational discussion to be had is "Under what circumstances and to what extend should a given claim be recognized and protected and why?
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> Property is not tangible goods themselves being owned, property refers to a claim.
Property is indeed a claim - the question is whether people should respect claims on ideas.
> The concept of "intellectual property" is the recognition that your thoughts, your ideas and the products that you derive from them are yours.
There is a difference between acknowledging creation and preventing retelling/duplication.
> You had an idea, you took action, your idea and your action had a measurable affect on the
Sounds like an acknowledgement they are right (Score:2)
GP said essentially that the fruits of your labor are yours - whether that's mental labor or physical labor. Your response:
> Not all IP prosecution claims fit this bill. That's what patent trolls are about. Or people taking down YouTube videos that aren't theirs (and demanding all revenues). etc.
Your response is that false claims are false.
"people taking down YouTube videos that aren't theirs".
Kinda like somebody taking a bicycle that isn't theirs.
Your response to the idea that what you make is yours is
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All ideas are original. They all differ in some small way from the ideas that came before them because one additional person has added to them their own particular context and perspective. The simple fact that it's in the head of someone else means that it's different at the moment that they write it. Indeed, I'm laying out to you my particular idea that all ideas are original, and the moment that you read it, whether you agree with me or not, the idea is transformed and you now hold a slightly different id
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> this concept of treating IP as "not real" or "imaginary" needs to die. It's irrational.
The concept that someone can "own" a number is irrational much like Imaginary Property. It is how we get bullshit like Illegal Primes [wikipedia.org]
The reason we use the phrase "imaginary property" instead of "intellectual property" is because:
* Intellectual Property is neither Intellectual or Property.
* Imaginary Property == Artificial "Property", which 9 times out of 10, is nothing more then blatant GREED.
* UNLIKE physical prope
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Why don't you let the homeless sleep in your home with you? Your ownership or security is just a concept.
I... do let the homeless sleep in my home with me. They kind've appreciate a shower and a safe place to sleep, now and then.
That's a gem of a quote, though. I'm sure you felt it made you look like a gentleman.
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Re:Entirely reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet that if you were a photographer, you'd see it differently. As someone who has earned money through selling my photos, I know I do. Although my photographs from the 1990s aren't nearly as good as my later work, they are my photos, not yours.
Nonsense. Those are the words of someone who thinks everyone else is just as greedy and lazy as they are.
For the record, I put my money where my mouth is and release old work to the public domain, CC 0, or whatever I think will keep it the most free at the time.
Selfishness is destroying us. From litter on the roadside to near infinite copyright terms, we're slowly killing our civilization.
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That's different. Nobody cares about your old work. It's easy to give away something that is valueless.
And being an artist who wants to be paid for their art is reasonable. Not everybody can be a gentleman farmer.
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I bet that if you were a photographer, you'd see it differently.
Sounds like a "bet" that has little to no merit, or relevance - copyright doesn't need to be as long as it is now to work, or exist, and it being that long doesn't allow it to properly serve its intended purposes... that, and there are plenty of copyright holders out there who would probably agree with the idea of copyright being too long (which is not at all the same as, or even close to implying it not existing, or whatever anyone else can strawman the argument to be).
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I've bought several of those, and buying the book gives you a license to use the digital content on the CD
I would read that license as not every license may grant commercial re-use. For example clip-art CDs generally grant some commercial re-use for those specific images. Also the license could be very specific like the low resolution images were free to use but you had to pay additionally for high resolution versions.
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Though I'd argue current duration of copyright protection is excessive
I agree.
and works from the 90s should have entered the public domain already.
Really? The copyright act of 1790 allowed for 28 years (14 initial+14 renewal), and that was the first real copyright law passed in the U.S. People live a lot longer nowadays. I don't see works from 90s (basically 31 years ago) being covered under copyright as being unreasonable. Makes me wonder how old you are that you think 30 years is a long time.
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Have to agree on the age of the work in question. It's a double-edged sword for Capcom, though.
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There is a small problem. Only the book was registered for copyright, not the photographs. So when suing it is not 80 copyrighted items but one, so you can get punitive damages for 1 item (max something like 250k USD) or actual damages which is probably much lower and then you cannot get lawyer fees.
Jurasek park (Score:3)
Part of her evidence comes from Capcom's 2020 data breach.
It sounds like Capcom is about to find out what happens after the fence came down.
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Similar to "Shaka, when the walls fell"?
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Capcom at the river.
Umbrella, their arms wide.
Jurasek, when the walls fell.
Capcom and Jurasek at Tenagra.
Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:3, Insightful)
It is good to see collective Slashdot accepting the concept of Intellectual Property — earlier we'd see someone argue, that the photographer hasn't lost anything, because she still has her originals of the pictures. Oh, and information wants to be free anyway...
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason why Slashdot folk are not saying this is because of the hypocrisy of a software maker who would have no compunction in suing the hell out of a single user that used their software without license. In addition, the use looks especially egregious. Finally, there's the whole David vs. Goliath factor to take into account. There are many reasons why people would not rush in to point out obvious issues with the copyright system in this case.
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this is all about this "factor".
And yet, the law is — should be — exactly the same for David and Goliath. And not only the law, but the ethics — and our treatment of both. That it obviously is not, is the hypocrisy I'm mocking here.
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it's hypocrisy.
1) Goliath made the rules.
2) We don't like the rules.
3) The rules usually favor Goliath but this time they favor David.
4) Yay David fuck Goliath real good, using the rules we don't like, so that Goliath might have reason to change the rules.
It's all perfectly consistent with "these rules suck".
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This is a rare slam-dunk where there's an easy win and an obviously quantifiable pot of money for a lawyer working on contingency. Normally Goliath gets to make expansive claims of his rights and David has to suck it up, because Goliath has an in-house legal department that David literally can't afford to argue with.
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And even that had to be converted into a battle against giant corporations, record labels, because claiming it's ok to not pay the artist doesn't generate much sympathy.
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That's not hypocrisy. You can speak to societal ills while living in that same society. In fact, it's the only way that your criticisms will have any credibility!
Your post is intellectually lazy. Not only has it been endlessly repeated, it doesn't address the parents argument in any way. I'd tell you to try harder, but it doesn't appear that you've tried at all.
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Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:4, Informative)
The only reason why Slashdot folk are not saying this
Slashdot folk never say the above in relation of the general concept of copyright infringement. The only time the above is mentioned is in relation to the term "theft". Do you see the word "stole" or "theft" in the summary? I don't. No need to conjure up some bizarre conspiracy about hypocrisy or David V Goliath.
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The only reason why Slashdot folk are not saying this is because of the hypocrisy of a software maker who would have no compunction in suing the hell out of a single user that used their software without license.
Bullshit. The only reason Slashdot folk aren't saying it is because they are hypocrites.
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been my experiene that Slashdot is a lot more acceptable of works that are primarily those of a single individual or a very small group, and where the copyright holder continues to make the work available as opposed to intentionally taking it out of print. Slashdot also seems less opposed to copyright when the creator-owner is still alive.
Slashdot's objections tend to revolve around things like large corporations holding copyrights that persist long beyond the lifetime of any contributor, works being taken out of print, and continued extensions on copyright even when an owner has no interest in maintaining the work. I also object when a copyright owner has managed to get their works deep into culture and then doesn't continue to maintain their reasonable availability.
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Donâ(TM)t forget works being artificially restricted using technology to certain regions of the world to maximize the profit that can be extracted while avoiding the potential of a work being exported From a region where it sells cheaply to a region where it sells for a more expensive price
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rsilvergun opined:
I think almost everyone on this forum agrees that the current effectively unlimited copyright, where every time the mouse is in danger of going into public domain it gets extended, is clearly unconstitutional.
Except that it's not unconstitutional. Ethically indefensible? Yes. Unconstitutional? No.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 [wikipedia.org] of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" via patents and copyrights. It specifically does not dictate the length of either type of intellectual property right. That deternimation is left up
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Slashdot's objections are, by and large, "stick it to the man and give me free shit."
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earlier we'd see someone argue, that the photographer hasn't lost anything, because she still has her originals of the pictures.
Umm maybe, but that would have been an article about a downloaded MP3 when the music industry was fighting tooth and nail to prevent you from buying anything but entire albums. This here is a story about a profit being made without licensing the original works, a topic completely unlike music piracy but very much in line with the general views around here of OSS.
Oh and the reason I said 'maybe' is a lot of the noise you're trying to will into existence with your strawman is that the 'nothing was lost' arg
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It is good to see collective Slashdot accepting the concept of Intellectual Property — earlier we'd see someone argue, that the photographer hasn't lost anything, because she still has her originals of the pictures. Oh, and information wants to be free anyway...
You win the internet today. Enjoy it, and don't spend it all in one place.
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't recall the collective argument to have ever been in favor of completely abolishing all copyright. The general sentiment has been for as long as I can remember that copyright terms are excessive and have become more so as time as gone on. Copyright is a social contract. We create artificial restrictions to encourage the creation of new works for the benefit of all. Nothing more, nothing less.
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There was even a case where an artist wanted to deny a political party to use their song during a convention (there are frameworks in place to let you do this robotically).
Anyway, the court said, no, that's not what copyright is for. Copyright is to earn you money, so that's not a valid restriction on use, costing you lost money.
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Copyright is to earn you money
Surely copyright is to prevent others from earning money on your work and by so doing inhibiting your ability to do so?
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The key difference is that if an 8 year old downloads an MP3 then it doesn't equate to a lost sale.
Capcom made a solid profit off that game. They copied the images with the intent of making a profit.
It's a lot like the old home taping arguments. Most people accept that time shifting or even recording a movie so your kid can watch it over and over, is not a big deal.
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:5, Insightful)
We've come a long way from "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" to letting rights holders milk these works indefinitely. Yeah, they tore up, chowed down and shat out this social contract decades ago. So pardon me for not holding up my end of that "deal".
Length of copyright (Score:2)
Seems fine with me, actually — it is not even a patent, which someone else could have arrived at independently. It is artwork — why should not the artist's descendants be able to benefit from it forever?
An entrepreneur can start a company [businessnewsdaily.com] — his descendants will own it in perpetuity (unless they choose to sell it), it does not revert to the State after 120 years. Why should not an ar
Re:Length of copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies require upkeep. Annual reports, registration fees, etc. If that isn't done, they get dissolved.
You could do that with copyright as well. Patents do, sort of. But we've decided that works of art contribute to the shared cultural heritage of mankind, and so should become the shared property of mankind after a reasonable period.
Seems reasonable to me. Damn kids should make their own art if they want to profit from it.
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These problems are not why companies do not revert to state after their owners pass away.
Nor is absence of such hurdles a justification for artwork becoming "public domain".
"We" have decided? Four wolves and an artist voting for what's for dinner, eh?
This is irrelevant though — an artwork can still be "cultural her
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I hate to tell you, but a *lot* of artists are in favour of shorter copyright terms. Today it's quite rare for an artist to actually own copyright to their own work, and artists tend to be quite into the whole remixing, mashing up, whatever stuff. So yes, we, as a society. If anything the wolves, those immortal corporations of which you speak, are the ones pushing longer copyrights.
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This (unsubstantiated — and therefore likely untrue) bullshit is the same non-argument as "a lot of millionaires would like to pay more taxes". Because nothing prevents one from releasing one's artwork into public domain (nor from sending the government additional funds [treasurydirect.gov]).
Which is clearly irrelevant to TFA — where the photographer in question is the owner.
The
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What's wrong, did some ancestor of yours write something interesting a century ago and you're mad because you can't milk their produce?
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And here, ladies and gentlemen, we see a classic example of the "ad hominem" fallacy [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]: unable to debunk what is being said, the losing debater attempts to attack who said it...
Remember to logout, loser.
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why should not the artist's descendants be able to benefit from it forever?
Because that's not how copyright works.
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Seems fine with me, actually — it is not even a patent, which someone else could have arrived at independently. It is artwork — why should not the artist's descendants be able to benefit from it forever?
Think how this would work with music - every individual chord is owned by the first player of that chord. We've already seen this in action where some snippet of a song that merely sounds similar to another brings about a copyright case.
Now imagine that every note in every new piece of music created has to be reviewed and all the previous artists attributed, and their % of royalties mapped out and recorded somewhere for reference for each time the music is performed.
I would imagine every note has been pla
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Yup, Congress has no authority to pass laws for "securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" unless those laws are "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". There's no reason to follow fantasy made-up rules, unless you have a gun to your head.
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because there is little empathy for a company making millions out of abuse of other's ip and which probably would sue anyone else to oblivion for the same reason at the slightest opportunity.
this doesn't change the fact that current thinking and laws around ip aren't toxic for culture and society in general and only really exist for big private interests.
in fact this piece of news doesn't tell anything new about the clusterfuck that ip laws are, this is just an anecdote about corporate world playing the usu
Re:Good to see /. accept Intellectual Property (Score:4, Interesting)
It is good to see collective Slashdot accepting the concept of Intellectual Property — earlier we'd see someone argue, that the photographer hasn't lost anything, because she still has her originals of the pictures. Oh, and information wants to be free anyway...
You sound like someone who has a vague understanding of what goes on on Slashdot without ever having actually read any of the comments. Here's a hint: Slashdot and the overwhelming majority of its users have never been against intellectual property.
- They have been against perpetual extension of intellectual property rights.
- They have been against excessive damages claims on intellectual property.
- They have been against using the word "stolen" to describe copyright infringement.
You'll be pleased to know that none of the above have happened in this article. Now in the future I recommend actually reading Slashdot before commenting on the general positions on IP of its patronage.
Strawman B.S. (Score:2)
We, the free software community are not again copyright, in fact the whole open source depends on it. The GPL, BSD, et.al. use copyright for protection.
We are against B.S. like IP trolls buying up patents, DRM that prevents people exercising statutory rights.
You are constructing the usually strawman B.S.
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It is good to see collective Slashdot accepting the concept of Intellectual Property
Well good thing slashdot isn't a hivemind. It's kind of obvious, but clearly not to you, since, well, you're not very smart. Citation: your sig.
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Those would be issues for a jury, if it ever went that far.
I got the feeling these were photo bitmaps, which would be trivial to prove, but don't know.
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Yes, and no. If you went out and took your own pictures of snow or sand or water or whatever and use those then good on you no problem. However if you use the digital files off of this womanâ(TM)s CD or took pictures of the textures published in her book thus making either a copy or a derivative work then no youâ(TM)ve infringed her copyright.
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The "textures" are pixel for pixel matches to the (fairly unique) original pictures. They're not all just tiled and blended textures either. One of the examples in the article is a statue. Another is a picture of broken glass that's the background of the logo.
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Hit their ISP with a DCMA notice of violation (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming some of these games or packs are distributed online, the copyright owner should be able to put a stop to this right away, with no real recourse for Capcom.
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If a host ignores the request as the photographer is small fry, sue after the Capcom suit is won.
Possibly even with PR saying you'd like the rules changed, but these are the rules.
For those new to the asset class in question, digital cameras or film+drum scanners used to be very expensive. Both the eye for, access to and time taken to get images of interesting, useful and unique textures for a
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If Capcom hosts the servers themselves, the DMCA takedown process does not apply. If a third party hosts the files for download, Capcom's recourse is to file a DMCA counter-notice, which allows the third party to put the files up after a few weeks -- long enough for the complainant to file a lawsuit and get a temporary injunction.
If this photographer thinks she can get such an injunction, she should just request one in this lawsuit. If granted, it could block all sales and downloads of the game, not just
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Not as clear cut as implied (Score:2)
Looking through what she cites as examples of commercial use by Capcom, the connection is rather tangential, if it exists at all, hardly the 1:1 case implied. It looks like they could have potentially used some of her images as a reference upon which they created heavily derived works, but a lot of these examples of violations are really a stretch. If Capcom did indeed use some of her material as a source, they should certainly cover the costs of not having licensed that appropriately, but this lady is livi
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this is business, not really justice. you ask for the moon in order to get the best settlement you can. if those images aren't fake the use is pretty evident.
Re:Not as clear cut as implied (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking through what she cites as examples of commercial use by Capcom, the connection is rather tangential, if it exists at all, hardly the 1:1 case implied.
There are some examples of exact copying that the photographer cites. For example she argues her photo of a spider web pattern that was in shattered glass is unique enough.
It looks like they could have potentially used some of her images as a reference upon which they created heavily derived works, but a lot of these examples of violations are really a stretch.
While Capcom could have sourced those photos from somewhere else, it would be a very large coincidence that Capcom got these photos from multiple sources that just happened to be in her book. For example, a very ornate wooden door is shown; the door appears to be very unique. The photographer can cite exactly where in the world that door exists. Yes Capcom could have found another photograph of the door or even sent someone to photograph the door. But what are the chances Capcom kept doing that for the 80 photographs she is claiming.
If Capcom did indeed use some of her material as a source, they should certainly cover the costs of not having licensed that appropriately, but this lady is living in a fantasy land if she thinks she has a massive payday coming from the evidence she's provided.
1) It is called statutory damages [wikipedia.org] which is at the discretion of the court to award over actual damages. Generally in a lawsuit a lawyers asks for the max damages. 2) This is the initial part of the lawsuit called the "filing". Filings should disclose the basics of the case. The only reason her filing was 100 pages long was the need to document the 80 photographs she is claiming. She has not disclosed all of her evidence yet.
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This is how all assets are typically used in videogames. Textures are combined and blended into the final in-game surface. Raw audio samples are combined and processed into final assets. That doesn't abolish the copyright of the original pieces in any way, simply because the game uses derivative works.
That being said, I'm not sure this was malicious on Capcom's part. Companies often have a large stockpile of raw assets for their artists to use. Someone may have misunderstood the original license from t
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Capcom is a japanese company, and copyright in Japan is a VERY SERIOUS thing. They are extremely aggressive with copyright protection, to the point of "no cameras allowed" inside museums since copyrighted material is on display [japantimes.co.jp].
I hope she sues them in Japan as well.
It’s a common thing for 90s games (Score:2)
Specifically (Score:2)
A rogue developer walks in with a floppy with the best images copied to it, "Hey team, I made this, lets use this". It gets copied into the code base and no one thinks about it.
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Years later no one knows anything about the images in that directory especially if Bob is not there any more.
If you don't know you have the rights, you have to assume that you don't have the rights, and go looking for something to which you do to replace it. Otherwise... this.
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That would require that every person is an organization knows every single thing about every file. I am pretty sure no one has that kind of omnipotence.
What it requires is keeping records, and if you find that too arduous, you probably don't know how to use computers. They are ideal for such tasks.
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And if this were 1990 and Capcom a guy in a garage, you might have a point. But they are gigantic and well aware of issues like this, and must protect against it.
I assume maligned record labels do a similar thing before releasing a new album and crossing their fingers the artist wasn't a congenital plagiarist.
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You act like steps weren't taken. Go and look at all of the capcom re-releases done over time. They do not match 1:1 to the original counterpart because of EXACTLY this problem. However when you go hush hush and try to sweep the problem under the rug, don't be surprised when someone lifts up that rug and exposes all of your dead bodies.
Sure they tried to remedy the ongoing copyright infringement, but they are still liable for the cost of past actions (already released games made money on the back of some
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Doesn't matter. Copyright is a huge thing in Japan.
Try using anything Capcom without their permission and find out.
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This happened a lot with sound effects as well. In particular, there is a well-known, massive collection of sounds on CD-ROMs (still sold today, in fact) that many games made use of. I used a bunch of sounds off that same collection from an early game I worked on, and when browsing through it, was highly amused to hear many of the DOOM sounds (original game), completely unchanged. Those types of libraries are sold with a non-exclusive license, so seeing reused textures doesn't *necessarily* point to anyt
And they come out of the woodwork (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice (Score:2)
It's good to see that the ones suing others for copyright infringement are such criminals themselves.
Resident Evil: Devil May Cry? (Score:2)
Re:it came with a CD-ROM so people could use it! (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like fucking bait and switch to me. This is how the book and CD-ROM was advertised.
Ummm no. The book and CD ROM were for PERSONAL USE. Nowhere in your text does it gives a license for commercial re-use. Nowhere. This is no different than an audio CD. You can use the music for your own presentations. You cannot make a video game with it and sell the game without licensing the music.
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The book is called "Surfaces: Visual Research for Artists, Architects, and Designers" - it's not aimed at people sitting in their bedrooms making hypothetical artwork to be kept in a file drawer.
First of on the title: Surfaces: Visual Research for Artists, Architects, and Designers" . . . You do know what the word "research" means right? Research != license granted for commercial re-use. Second, the title of a work does not grant implicitly or explicitly any licensing when it comes to copyrights. By your logic any work with the word "free" means I do not have to pay for it.
it's not aimed at people sitting in their bedrooms making hypothetical artwork to be kept in a file drawer.
And I never claimed it did. What I am saying and you do not seem to understand is that publishing something does not grant c
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Absolutely this. It's the 90s equivalent of someone saying "but it's on the internet, so surely I can use it?". I work with books, and you wouldn't believe how often I ask an author for proof of their license to include the pictures they have provided me with for their book, and they say "Oh I don't need a license, it was on the internet so it was free, right?". This is the same; just because it came with a CD, it doesn't mean copyright no longer applies. People misunderstand copyright in many ways, but the