Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ackmondual]

Evidently, the cover of the Intrigue 2E shares a strong likeliness with a photo used by the New Jersey Renaissance Faire...
https://www.facebook.com/150086671796964/posts/1267936960011924/

OP for that "thread" on Facebook...

Hmm, looks like someone over at Rio Grande Games decided it was okay to use the likeness of two of our cast members (Aileen Cairns and Curt Foy) for their Dominion: Intrigue game without asking NJRF!
 While imitation IS the greatest form of flattery, we have costumers who spent weeks custom-designing these costumes, actors who spend months working to become these characters, and photographers like Anja Mutschin who graciously come out and take amazing pictures like this one because they love our faire and want to help us grow. Meanwhile, our fan base are the people who play these games- So we truly appreciate the flattery, Rio Grande Games, and are ready to start negotiations...

From the tone of that post, it sounds like they aren't really pissed about it, but would still like for that case to be 'resolved'.  The comments proceeding that go both ways, and everywhere in between.

[Seprix]

Clear copyright infringement, there is no dispute here. It's the exact same!

[greybirdofprey]

Does Vampire exist in real life too?

[Watno]

I also find it disturbing that the guy is on the cover twice.

[crj]

Hmm. Might be time for someone, somehow, to run through the rest of the artwork Joshua Stewart has done for Dominion. At first glance, I notice that Canal is deeply reminiscent of Canaletto's work, but he's too dead to care.

I wonder what the contract between Rio Grande and the artists says about such matters?

[Seprix]

Hmm. Might be time for someone, somehow, to run through the rest of the artwork Joshua Stewart has done for Dominion. At first glance, I notice that Canal is deeply reminiscent of Canaletto's work, but he's too dead to care.

This also explains the uncanny valley Swashbuckler art and why it's so awful...

[Donald X.]

Hmm. Might be time for someone, somehow, to run through the rest of the artwork Joshua Stewart has done for Dominion. At first glance, I notice that Canal is deeply reminiscent of Canaletto's work, but he's too dead to care.

Jay has asked Joshua what other art of his might have this problem.

I wonder what the contract between Rio Grande and the artists says about such matters?

I dunno, but it seems impossible for a company to ever catch this themselves, so I sure hope he can stick it to Joshua.

[ackmondual]

I also find it disturbing that the guy is on the cover twice.

That's what makes it so... Intriguing! :x

[buckets]

I also find it disturbing that the guy is on the cover twice.

Yes I really didn't need that pointed out.

Also what is with the dude's hair in the middle.

[theory]

I also find it disturbing that the guy is on the cover twice.

That's what makes it so... Intriguing! :x

He's clearly exiting a Throne Room

[Asper]

I feel the reaction to this is a bit harsh. The artist took a real person's likeness as a basis for an illustration. So what? A real person isn't copyrighted. The person whose photo was taken didn't agree, so I guess you could claim infringed privacy, but, well, it's an artistic rendition, and based on a public appearance, too. And what apart from the people should be copyrightable in that picture? I kinda doubt it even fulfills the threshold of originality principle. If anything, it's the clothes he wears you could complain about - just that, those are standard run-off-the-mill (pseudo) medieval clothes, no big art to be stolen here. I mean, it's intransparent, and of course he could have done a better job conceiling the model, so I agree this is NOT something you want. But being "disgusted" about it...? Really? Many world-famous artists have gone much further there.

[singletee]

I feel the reaction to this is a bit harsh. The artist took a real person's likeness as a basis for an illustration. So what? A real person isn't copyrighted. The person whose photo was taken didn't agree, so I guess you could claim infringed privacy, but, well, it's an artistic rendition, and based on a public appearance, too. And what apart from the people should be copyrightable in that picture? I kinda doubt it even fulfills the threshold of originality principle. If anything, it's the clothes he wears you could complain about - just that, those are standard run-off-the-mill (pseudo) medieval clothes, no big art to be stolen here. I mean, it's intransparent, and of course he could have done a better job conceiling the model, so I agree this is NOT something you want. But being "disgusted" about it...? Really? Many world-famous artists have gone much further there.

The photograph itself is copyrighted as well.

[crj]

And the indications are that the outfit is custom made rather than off-the-shelf, so will be the cosplayer's intellectual property, too.

[Asper]

If I was a lawyer, I would argue that the art is different enough from the photograph, in that it uses a completely different technique and another composition. Any person who was at the New Yersey Renaissance fair could have drawn that guy without ever knowing that picture. Sure, the pose is the same, but again, as a hypothetical lawyer, is it unique enough to be protected by copyright? I'd say no. You can use a pose as an argument on a world famous picture like Michelangelo's divine spark in the sistine chapel, but hardly for a picture of just two regular people, which don't even appear together in the copied picture.

About the outfit, sure, but again, is it unique enough?

It's not like I disagree that this was wrong. I just think that as an artist, taking a real world model to base your art on isn't exactly a felony. Sure, he SHOULD have altered the costume, and also tweaked the pose, but I can't quite share the same level of contempt that RGG replied with. It's not like he stole somebody else's drawing. I guess he implicitly passed the costume design as his own, so I can see why you'd be mad about that.

[Donald X.]

If I was a lawyer, I would argue that

Since you're not a lawyer, you don't know what you would argue if you were a lawyer. You don't know! You don't know. It's just automatically wrong to say "If I was a lawyer, I would argue that..."

I don't know what you can get away with here legally. But, in terms of our attitude towards our artists, copying the people's faces is for sure over the line. That is not anything we ever want to see, yes, unless the person knows and is cool with it, and it doesn't matter if it turns out there's some legal way to get away with it. Consider that if a Google Maps car had driven by that fair, Google Maps would show the outfits, but the faces would be blurred.

I don't know what RGG negotiated with NJRF, but word on the street is that we are getting a new cover for Intrigue (it was conveniently due for reprinting).

[Seprix]

Intrigue's new cover had better have another codpiece.

[Asper]

If I was a lawyer, I would argue that

Since you're not a lawyer, you don't know what you would argue if you were a lawyer. You don't know! You don't know. It's just automatically wrong to say "If I was a lawyer, I would argue that..."

I do have some knowledge of copyright laws from my studies, so I actually have a rough idea of what might be a reasonable defense. You don't need to be a lawyer to know that a human face isn't copyrighted, and the reason that google blurrs them is because of other laws (which I admit I know barley anything about).

Anyhow, it's true that I'm indeed not a lawyer, so I'm not getting paid for defending a lazy artist. This was just me enjoying to play devil's advocate occasionally. And I' m not even disagreeing that the cover should be replaced and he shouldn't be hired again and whatnot. The more I think about it, the more problematic it seems to me, in fact... I still think it's not a copyright issue, but I can't think of why it is.
Anyhow, apparently this isn't of interest to the general public at this point, so I won't bother you with it.

[faust]

I don't know what you can get away with here legally. But, in terms of our attitude towards our artists, copying the people's faces is for sure over the line. That is not anything we ever want to see, yes, unless the person knows and is cool with it, and it doesn't matter if it turns out there's some legal way to get away with it. Consider that if a Google Maps car had driven by that fair, Google Maps would show the outfits, but the faces would be blurred.

Hilarious that we have come to a point where Google serves as an example of good privacy protection...

[Awaclus]

I don't know what you can get away with here legally. But, in terms of our attitude towards our artists, copying the people's faces is for sure over the line. That is not anything we ever want to see, yes, unless the person knows and is cool with it, and it doesn't matter if it turns out there's some legal way to get away with it. Consider that if a Google Maps car had driven by that fair, Google Maps would show the outfits, but the faces would be blurred.

Hilarious that we have come to a point where Google serves as an example of good privacy protection...

More like terrifying.

[Donald X.]

I do have some knowledge of copyright laws from my studies, so I actually have a rough idea of what might be a reasonable defense.

Well that makes a difference.

You don't need to be a lawyer to know that a human face isn't copyrighted, and the reason that google blurrs them is because of other laws (which I admit I know barley anything about).

I don't know what they call it; you're the one bringing the term "copyright" into our exchange.

Here is something that comes to mind:

His breakout role was as George McFly in Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future, an international box office success in 1985; his character was the father of Marty McFly, despite being three years younger than Michael J. Fox in real life. Glover and the producers could not agree on suitable terms for him to appear in the sequels, so the role of the character was greatly reduced and recast. In Back to the Future Part II, Zemeckis reused brief footage of Glover which had been filmed for the first film. Glover was billed as "George McFly in footage from Back to the Future" in the closing credits. The older footage was combined with new footage of actor Jeffrey Weissman wearing a false chin, nose and cheekbones, and various obfuscating methods – in the background, wearing sunglasses, rear shot, upside down – to play the role of George McFly. Because these methods suggested that Glover himself had performed for the film, he sued the producers on the grounds that they had used his likeness without permission, as well as not having paid him for the reuse of the footage from the original film. As a result of this suit, there are now clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements which state that producers and actors are not allowed to use such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors.[12]

[Asper]

It seems that it was indeed me who brought that in first. I kinda carelessly assumed that copyright was what this was about, and argued against it. Sorry, I didn't intend to do a strawman.

And that is an interesting quote. Sadly, it goes beyond me to understand the legal grounds of that case.