Sony Pictures, Defenders Of The Creative Industry, Appears To Be Using Fan Art Without Giving Credit
from the that's-theft,-right? dept
It will come as no surprise that we have done many, many posts at Techdirt that involve Sony. While not all of those posts are critical of the company, many of those posts deal with Sony wielding IP law about while claiming it is doing so to “protect creators” of content. We’ve also discussed instances where some of these IP-wielding companies, that are supposedly the vanguards of the creative community, also have managed to use the art created by their own fans without bothering to credit them. To be clear, that likely doesn’t run afoul of copyright law, given that the fan art typically uses IP owned by these companies. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s both quite hypocritical to not bother even crediting the fan that created the art, as well as being just plain shitty.
So back to Sony: the company appears to be both quite hypocritical and just plain shitty to one fan that seems to have found his fan art used on a movie poster for Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Reddit user RealJohnGillman posted to r/Spiderman and several other Venom and movie-related subreddits a day after the poster’s release, claiming the poster art was “traced from fanart.” The fan art in question, posted to DeviantArt in October 2018, depicts Michelle Williams’ She-Venom, who appeared briefly in Venom. The character poster teases Williams’ return in the sequel. The Reddit post shows a zoomed-in version of the poster next to the fan art to emphasize the similarity. The poster art appears to be a silhouetted version of the fan art; however, some areas, like the curve of the shoulders, don’t completely match up.
You can see the images in question below, including a zoomed in image of the part of the poster in question. Poster on the left, fan art on the right.
You can say the images don’t match up precisely if you like, but they’re certainly very damned close. As mentioned about similar past cases, this likely isn’t a copyright infringement issue; the fan artist doesn’t own any rights to the character he drew. But, again, if the copyright industries are going to do their maximalist routine under the guise of protecting those that create content, well, fan art is content. And if we stipulate that copyright isn’t at issue here, we should certainly be able to agree that Sony or its sub-contracted marketers could at least have given the original artist credit if they were going to use his art, no?
Commenters on the post were quick to discuss the possible copyright-related consequences of the alleged theft. “Whelp, someone is getting an unexpected paycheck,” one user wrote, while another replied, “Um… no. You have no ownership over an image you create using a licensed character you don’t own; it’s unethical to use it without compensation, I’ll agree, but they own the character.”
It’s hard to imagine any argument that any of this is ethical on the part of Sony. Protector of creators though it claims to be, it seems the company is also happy to just use art created by others if it suits them.
Filed Under: copyright, culture, fan art, venom
Companies: sony pictures
Comments on “Sony Pictures, Defenders Of The Creative Industry, Appears To Be Using Fan Art Without Giving Credit”
Since it doesn’t line up exactly, is just a silhouette, and is a generic female silhouette that you’d expect from a comic, I’d think it’s more likely it’s just similar and not a ripoff personally.
Re: Re:
One where the fingers, arms and hips(basically everything but the shoulder, which is slightly different) all seem to line up exactly?
Re: Re: Re:
You start really looking at it, and especially if you look at a blown up version like in buzzfeed separated at birth with a close up of the poster that’s -not- cropped to the knee, you start seeing more, the knees in the poster don’t like up vertically like they do in the fanart, you can see the lower leg curve out again higher on the right, where the outward curve of the lower leg is absent entirely in the fan art, the body is a bit thiccker in the poster, and the meeting of arm and body isn’t behind she-venom’s busom. And if you’ve looked around, that curled/splayed hand pose is incredibly commonly used, if for no other reason than they’re both easier to draw than most other hand poses.
Re: Re:
I disagree, since there’s a lot of direct similarities. Just the contour shapes of the arms to so similar that it’s unlikely they got there by accident.
But, Sony don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt in this sort of case. They have a history of attacks based on threadbare accusations and expecting others to jump through hoops to prove that their own work is not infringing, so I fail to see why they should be treated any less harshly than they themselves judge others.
Re: Re:
"Since it doesn’t line up exactly, is just a silhouette, and is a generic female silhouette that you’d expect from a comic…"
Which has always been enough to drag copywrong cases to court in the past.
"…I’d think it’s more likely it’s just similar and not a ripoff personally."
Maybe, but similar enough by accident or deliberate action has never mattered where Imaginary Property Law is concerned.
From my own perspective…normally I always like to invoke Hanlon’s Razor. Never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence. But this is Sony. A company which has kept on being casually malicious and openly contemptuous of other people’s property ever since they invented the precursor of DRM and installed it on the sly on the computers of their customers way back when – the infamous rootkit scandal.
Given their avaricious focus on IP I’m guessing the only debate they had around whether they stole someone else’s art was a risk-threat assessment among the legal team over how likely it would be they could just bury the lawsuit of some peon.
Re: Re:
Are you blind? What are driveling on about? Look at the fingers for example. That’s a coincidence, is it?! You utter fool.
Under the ContentID model, Sony now owes all its revenue from the movie to the artist.
Ah copyright hypocrisy...
‘We must protect creators, we need to have someone to leech off of after all!’
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Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
There’s still the alternative that both of those pictures ripped off some pic that we’ve not yet seen…
Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
And that makes it different how? Plagiarism is still plagiarism and considering your earlier arguments and stance on copyright, why aren’t you condemning Sony as you usually do when it comes to any possibility of perceived infringement?
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Re: Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Well, after copying has been established, the remaining issue to decide is that who actually owns the content. While the creation date skews the analysis initially against sony, it’s still not decided properly. It’s still possible that Sony is using content they they own themselves, i.e. reusing material created for old song album covers or something like that. But to establish that, they need to show 1) they own the material 2) it’s also the other person who did the copying… I.e. the odds are against sony at this point, but burden of showing copyright infringement just moves to the other side of the aisle.
Re: Re: Re:2
please seek professional medical help for your mental illness
Re: Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
taps his large collection of “Pose File” artist reference books that are published with the express intention of the pics being used in that manner
Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
And since you’ve previously ripped off a 3D model from Five Nights at Freddy’s, we can assume the same of all the work you’ve used for Meshpage, and therefore demand a full and permanent takedown of Meshpage based on "stricter copyright rules"?
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Re: Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
You cannot demand anything until you have a proof that you actually own the material. Of course you can hint the original owner of the material that something bad is happening with the content, but you cannot demand anything until you’re actually the author of the material. Basically random trolls on internet has no rights to demand anything. You actually need to prove ownership of copyright first.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Prove that you own the images on Meshpages, and note "I created them" is not proof, as it is only you word and not an independent proof.
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Re: Re: Re:3 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
I have actually the source code that renders the images.
Noone else can say that.
Then there’s the fact that I can actually pinpoint which area of the source code renders which part of the image. Simple test like commenting out that part of the code will reveal if I’m right. Noone else can reliably do that.
Then I can summon my brother to the stand to testify that I spent over 8 years creating the source code that renders the images.
Then there’s the github version control logs that show when exactly was each piece of the source code that renders the images written.
Then there’s the paperwork from my previous workplace that explains exactly which date they fired me from my previous work, and that date happens to match that 8 years of development start date.
There’s paper trail from unemployment byro where they can specify that I actually received unemployment benefit during the 8 year development time, and their paperwork includes links to the web site.
Then there’s various random trolls from irc channels who saw the development process and can produce irc logs when they were horrified of me always talking about my gameapi/meshpage projects over several years, including discussions about features like frame rates, phong shading, performance tuning, texture mapping, etc.
Then there’s some company in helsinki who is using the engine for real use cases and can testify that I can actually make changes to the engine without problems
The copyright notices in the source code has my name on it
I have trademark registration to the finnish copyright office.
The web page has copyright/trademark notices with my name on it
I’ve shown the work to many people over years, including hookers, co-workers, my mother, random dudes on irc, techdirt, etc…
//—–
So how much proof is required?
Re: Re: Re:4 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
All you have said is that you have the paint and paintbrushes used to create the image, which does not prove you have not copied or derived images from someone else’s work.
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Re: Re: Re:5 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
It’s more like automatic printing press that can take any 3d model as input and distribute it anywhere in the world. The image design is outside of the scope of the system. But it is limited in such way, that we know the users of the system actually created the images themselves, instead of cloning someone elses work, simply because other people’s work are not compatible with the system. For example, taking mp4 file of a hollywood movie and trying to pass it to my system will simply fail for one of the followinig reasons: 1) either the file format is not compatible 2) or script size limitations are breaking when trying to encode it to our primitives 3) or memory size limits are breaking
So it’s simply not possible to do piracy with the system.
Re: Re: Re:6
says the dude who ripped off a model from one of Scott Cawthon’s games
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Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
This is wrong since I just licensed the model from sketchfab. No rippng activity was done.
Re: Re: Re:8
no it isn’t
Re: Re: Re:6 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
You are claiming the impossible, as if one person can create work with your software, another person can create a copy using your software, which does not require a file copy, just the creation of a work that looks the same. That it is not capable of producing something like Toy Story or a Mickey Mouse cartoon means it is too limited for re0al world use.
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Re: Re: Re:7 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
This would require copying of the internal save files which are normally not shared. So you’d need to hack into author’s home computer to get a copy of the save file. Without that file, you need to do all the work involved in creation of the model again, bringing it again to your ownership.
The software simply do not accept the released "codegen script" as input… I.e once you generate codegen script, the software refuses to further manpulate the data.
While there is simple conversion procedure between codegen scripts and internal save files, the work amount required to do that is still significant enough that you’d get a copyright for the new model. Basically its like the old magazines with source code printed which you can type to your computer. The typing process, while its still manually replicating existing work, still involves enough steps that you can assume to receive your own copyright for it. All the data needed will need to be retyped.
Re: Re: Re:8 Ah copyright hypocrisy..
Which contradicts you statement at the head of the thread:
And it is not consistent with you comment.
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Re: Re: Re:9 Ah copyright hypocri
Well, they didn’t use my software, so they have more copyright problems to deal with.
Re: Re: Re:10
Not using Meshpage does not constitute copyright infringement.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Stricter copyright rules mean you don’t have to. For that matter, most existing copyright systems don’t actually require you to prove you own the copyrights to the material; you just need to raise a complaint and "stricter copyright rules" oblige the host to take it down until further notice.
In fact, the entire premise of "notice and staydown" as copyright enforcers have demanded intentionally skips over the need for this proof. It intentionally lowers the standards of evidence, because that’s what your heroes at the RIAA have consistently requested.
Actually no. Your hero Richard Liebowitz caused a lot of damage by demanding settlement monies on works that he didn’t own the copyright to, for one. Granted, he eventually got heavily penalized for it, but the point is that the system as it stands has little to no recourse or penalty for even egregious offenders until way, way after the fact.
Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
So you’re defending the visible plagiarism from Sony by making up an imaginary situation where they’re both guilty? You do know that this still means Sony is guilty, right?
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Re: Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
All alternative scenarios need to be considered. It’s still possible that Sony licensed the images from the fan with some small amount of cash… The alternatives anyway need to explored when such proof of copying is presented.
But we’ll never know.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
To TP [for my bunghole]:
Your argument is raising hypotheticals when our argument is facts. Get lost.
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Re: Re: Re:3 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
I’m just raising legal requirements what is needed before you can go claiming that someone is violating copyright laws. Two elements are required, ownership of the copyright and copying of the copyrghtable elements. You simply have troubles fulfillng those requirements even though you have clear case of copying in your hands. More formal approach is just needed.
Re: Re: Re:4 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
"I’m just raising legal requirements"
No, you’re raising a fantasy in response to your heroes being caught stealing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
"All alternative scenarios need to be considered."
Yes, any scenario with supporting evidence should be considered. Not the raving fantasies of an idiot who doesn’t realise that his failed attempt to defend Sony still leaves them guilty of plagiarism.
"It’s still possible that Sony licensed the images from the fan with some small amount of cash"
I’m sure they would have remembered such a thing, which would mean they wouldn’t have raised this complaint.
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Re: Re: Re:3 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
The ownership of the assets probably changed hands several times during the years, and the last one who received the ownership decided to go after anything they can find. So you cannot rely on copyright owner’s memory of the issue one bit, they’ll just sell the assets to anyone who is willing to take the risk.
Re: Re: Re:4 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
And if copyright owners’ memories can’t be trusted, by your admission – what reason is there to trust that anything you maximalists say is accurate? What’s stopping you from suing people who don’t even download or pirate or have heard of your content?
Oh, that’s right. You already do. Which is why judges have increased scrutiny of your claims and have actively begun fighting your vexatious litigation.
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Re: Re: Re:5 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Judge can see from miles away if the defendant has no idea what activity the planitif is complaining about. It’s stuff like "I didn’t know my coffee machine even has internet connection in it"
Re: Re: Re:6 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Judges regularly do. Yet plaintiffs continue to push on, with your full support, because you insist that it’s the responsibility of innocent people to fund copyright trolls.
Unfortunately for you, the activity of such plaintiffs is going to bite them in the ass at the end of the day. Malibu Media sued innocent people like you wanted and now their business, their marriage, their funds, and their lawsuits are all in shambles. Congratulations 🙂
Re: Re: Re:4 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
"The ownership of the assets probably changed hands several times during the years, and the last one who received the ownership decided to go after anything they can find."
So, you’re saying that someone could have permission, then be sued later by the person they sold the copyright to without the person being sued knowing they no longer had permission?
As ever, I appreciate you pointing out the broken nature of copyright and the need for an effective registration database for people to check against, but I somehow think that’s not what you intended to say
Re: Re: Re:5 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
They still have the permission, but they just need to prove it themselves. Basically storing all your communication with the copyright owners is a valid plan. You simply cannot trust copyright owners to know who of the 2 million people actually have a license. The proof must come from different direction.
Re: Re: Re:6 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
As the sellers of licenses, they are the very ones whom I would expect to have carefully maintained records. Failing that, they should not sue to enforce, because the burden is supposed to be on the plaintiff to show infringement.
Re: Re: Re:7 Ah copyright hypocrisy...
but plaintiff can fulfill their requirement by flimsy evidence related to ip-addresses. They don’t even need to examine their records.
Re: Re: Re:8 Ah copyright hypocrisy..
"flimsy evidence related to ip-addresses"
When even you admit that the evidence is flimsy and really doesn’t prove anything (hint: you cannot possibly tell what copyright ownership status is from an address that does not relate to a specific individual) then you failed your argument before you made it.
Re: Re: Re:9 Ah copyright hypocri
Well, copyright owners are NOT REQUIRED to provide watertight evidence. The assumption is that copyright owners do not have large lawyer organisation that can discover proper evidence. The copyright lawsuit needs to be possible for copyright owners coming outside of commercial publishing organisatons. This means that the proof required for copyright infringement is very small, and judges will need to examine the evidence in such way that the copyright owners are the small guy who needs proper protection against evil giant publishers who didn’t bother to take permission from the small guy.
Of course RIAA kinda turned this thing upsidedown, but still the proof required for copyright infringement has never been too accurate or even vald. It’s enough that there’s some flimsy evidence pointing to the correct direction.
This is the reason why RIAA gets their ip-addresses accepted as valid copyright infringement evidence.
Re: Re: Re:10
The law shouldn’t allow people to be punished for crimes they didn’t commit—and in a more fair world, it wouldn’t allow people to be punished on the basis of weak claims backed up with flimsy evidence. To wit: Replace “copyright infringement” with “murder”, “theft”, or “kidnapping” to see how fucked up your statement sounds. Then remember that people have been convicted of, and jailed for, crimes they didn’t commit on the basis of flimsy evidence (e.g., the Central Park Five).
Does punishing innocent people—or lowering the standards of evidence for proving guilt—provide any sort of justice, or do you not even care so long as other people get fucked over by the legal system?
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
You have to understand that copyright owners worked hard to be in position to be able to sue infringers. Copyright owners spent years and years time developing copyrighted works and co-operated with the publishing companies to get their works published. Then publisher backstabs the author and distributes the work without permission. This is when copyright infringement lawsuit need to begin.
The already spent work amounts need to be taken into account when deciding appropriate standards of evidence. It’s not appropriate to force copyright owners do the hard work 2nd time just so that infringers can get away with their criminal acts. At this point, copyright owners can already rely on the hard work they did, and rest of the world will need to follow their flute.
Re: Re: Re:12
No one—including you, of all people—should ever be punished by the legal system for a crime they either didn’t commit or can’t be proven to have committed. That system shouldn’t be lowering the standards of evidence to convict people of any crime, including copyright infringement. You’re arguing in favor of making those standards all but non-existent in any case involving copyright—all so corporations can crush other people into paste.
what the actual fuck is wrong with you
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
but this is exactly what you’re doing when you take away copyright owner’s work without permission… Basically copyright owners did nothing bad to you before you leeched their work, but still you want to punish these poor copyright owners by taking away their life’s work and turning it to useless bricks which generate no money to the author.
Re: Re: Re:14
You’re literally arguing in favor of changing the law so copyright owners—including giant corporations such as Disney—can have people convicted of a crime based only on evidence that may not even prove what the accuser says it proves.
what the actual godforsaken fuck is wrong with you
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
That’s the current law. Copyright owners are enjoying significant amount of rights currently, simply because they worked hard to get the product to the market. It’s similar to how startup companies are handled, i.e. government is trying to make the system work well enough that every startup can survive. Still there’s 90% failure rate in that area.
Re: Re: Re:16
You seriously believe copyright holders—including large corporations—should be allowed to ruin lives based on evidence that may not even say “this person committed a crime”.
You seriously believe people should have their lives destroyed over copyright infringement they may not have even committed.
You are a horrible person.
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
Eye for an eye.
Re: Re: Re:18 Re:
No, eye for an eye would be if the studios got back losses they actually suffered from the person who committed infringement.
You’re advocating for people who have never done any such thing have their livelihoods destroyed, even though there’s plenty of historical examples of them accusing the wrong person based on the flimsy evidence you support.
Only someone as wilfully and psychotically ignorant would advocate for innocent lives being destroyed because a corporation lied about them, but here you are.
Re: Re: Re:19 Re:
This flimsy evidence does not mean that wrong persons are being accused. It means that the burden shouldn’t be placed on the copyright owner, but instead the burden for obtaining guarantees against wrongful convictions need to be assigned to the legal system and the judges, not to the copyright owners. Basically there needs to be small amount of communication between copyright owners and judges in such way that a judge can verify the claims to be true. But the final determination cannot be placed to the copyright owners, since they have no experience of the criminal system.
Basically you need to decide who you’re going to trust. The legal system enjoys significant amount of trust from the general public and you need to trust that they will do their best to avoid outcome that isn’t just. Copyright owners have earned slightly different kind of trust, stemming from the work that copyright owners allow general public to use in form of products, services and technologies which are all protected by copyright laws. The accused pirates have slightly different kind of trust, the system trusts that those pirates are stretching the limits of the legal system, always finding different way to use the copyrighted works that copyright owners created. But compensation needs to flow.
In copyright laws, while copyright owners make a selection from among most notorous pirates who to sue for copyright infringement, they could choose anyone who they deem to be against the law for some reason. But because of efficient use of resources, copyright owners can only sue small number of people and the damage award need to be high enough that the damage caused by the whole pirate ecosystem and the damage awards are balanced. One unlucky pirate needs to bear the burden of his whole community. This is reverse lottery.
Your claim is that these people who participate in the reverse lottery are being wrongfully accused, but this isn’t likely true. Instead the legal cases in our table shows clearly that copyright owners are choosing the persons who they have biggest chance of success in eventual copyright lawsuit, and the end result is that copyright owners are winning the lawsuits, making first instances of reverse lottery actually working as designed. This Joel guy who lost copyright infringement lawsuit, were clearly admitting that he was outside of the law when he pirated the music, event though he likes it to be just speeding in the internet superhighway. The other cases are not much different.
Settlements are obviously a concern among pirates. Copyright owners are deemed to receive unjust compensatiion from the pirate ecosystem when the pirates are accepting settlement amounts even when judges have not yet decided about the person’s status in the criminal justice system. But that’s the purpose of the settlement, the accused pirate can decide themselves if they want to pay the settlement and be saved from possible life-ruining legal process, or if they want to stand firm against overwhelming ip-address evidence of wrongdoing.
And here we have it. Copyright owners have fulfilled their responsibility to point out what activity they are complaining about. This needs to be enough, and the courts and the justice system needs to work even with flimsy evidence. It is responsibility of every player in the system to ensure that accused pirates are not in a bad status for no good reason.
Re: Re: Re:20
The plaintiff in any legal case is required to prove their claims—especially in civil torts, which copyright infringement often is. You’re asking for the courts to do the job of the plaintiff once a claim has been made, and to do it in such a way that a conviction is guaranteed—even in cases where the defendant is wholly innocent of the crime they’re accused of committing.
That isn’t justice. That isn’t even revenge. I don’t even know what the fuck to call what you’re advocating for, other than “fucked up”.
Re: Re: Re:21 Re:
Because of facebook’s BGP blunder, you need to "trust the government" for a while. The message that activated the above was too powerful for me, so response is automatic. Basically automatic messages are all dangerous. Facebook’s BGP blunder is extreamly dangerous, so I didn’t over-react one bit.
You can recognize automatic messages by examining the quality of the offered information. If it feels too accurate and good information, and it’s large wall of text, something bad has happened.
Re: Re: Re:22
I don’t know what the fuck you just said, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re advocating for a system of law where a plaintiff can accuse someone of an unlawful act and have the accused punished by the court without any serious evidence that the accused committed the unlawful act.
what the fuck
Re: Re: Re:23 Re:
I said that you need to trust the government. Nothing can be closer to government than govt appointed judges in a court of law.
Re: Re: Re:24
For what reason should the government be allowed to punish an innocent person over an unlawful act they didn’t commit only because someone with power and wealth accused that person of committing that unlawful act?
Re: Re: Re:25 Re:
You need to trust the government to do the right thing, even though you might not understand why it is happening. Trusting the government is important skill to have. When it looks like innocent people get punished by the government, you’re just not seeing the full picture. Some more important problem might require this action. They simply cannot explain it to you. You just need to trust the government to work correctly.
Re: Re: Re:26
For what reason should I trust any government if it is willing to punish innocent people over unlawful acts those people provably didn’t commit?
Re: Re: Re:27 Re:
since you cannot change the government without moving to cuba, you simply have no other choice than learn to trust the government. Its worse situation if you fail to do it, given that changing the government is not possible and trusting the govt allows you to use government’s services to your benefit…
Re: Re: Re:28
For what reason, then, should the government be allowed to punish innocent people without question?
Re: Re: Re:29 Re:
For example if putin comes to visit the president, I expect some crazy people to be locked away while the visit is happening. That’s clearly punishing people who have done nothing wrong except be on government watch lists.
Or if the rich and famous are keeping drunken party, the rock-themed music fans from the neighbourhood is having trouble with the police so they don’t disturb the elite.
Or if large company ceo happens to visit airport, all the jimmy wales fans begging for more money will be escorted away.
Can you see where this is going?
Re: Re: Re:30
All I see is someone trying to justify hurting innocent people only because they exist.
Re: Re: Re:31 Re:
You were never able to see the boulders from the pebbles.
Re: Re: Re:32
And you want innocent people to suffer for the sake of copyright.
Re: Re: Re:33 Re:
some amount of suffering is necessary for the greater good.
Re: Re: Re:34
Making innocent people suffer for no reason serves no greater good.
Re: Re: Re:35 Re:
Sacrificing the goat to the altar of copyright is perfectly good plan.
Re: Re: Re:36
You’re not “sacrificing goats” here—you’re trying to harm innocent people.
Re: Re: Re:36 Re:
If your plan ever comes to fruition, may you be the first goat sacrificed (and hopefully the last).
Re: Re: Re:37 Re:
Its more cunning than that. The copyrighted work I created will be sacrificed in small pieces. One section of the market gets meshpage, others builder and some people will get 3d model viewer. Making the copyright bit unstable is very trivial operation, I’ll just change the license availability slightly at carefully designed due dates. Then market will consume the work only when copyright allows it. Some poor souls looking for late christmas presents will need to disappoint when the product was only available to the early birds. The after-christmas pirates will be obviously sued for copyright infringement. Etc… The plan is cooking wonderfully…
Re: Re: Re:38
You are a monstrously horrible human being and I sincerely urge you to seek help for your obvious mental health issues.
Re: Re: Re:39 Re:
you didn’t yet apply to the etiquette training either, so guess we’re even.
Re: Re: Re:40 Re:
You don’t need etiquette training to point out when someone else is being an asshole.
Re: Re: Re:34 Re:
May you be the person to suffer, instead of the many innocent people you wish to destroy so that you can chase your fantasy of your incompetence being rewarded.
Re: Re: Re:35 Re:
This is actually the brilliance of copyright. Authors are doing their work even when such activity is not being rewarded. Instead of a money reward, authors receive ownership to their respective writings, i.e. a promise that some day he can reap the benefits of the work. The mere promise lets authors do their work, even when the whole world is against them.
It just isn’t too profitable to be an author, and the popularity of writing copyrighted works instead of watching tv on a sofa idling and spitting to the ceiling is getting thinner every day and soon authors without compensation has no other choice than pack their backpacks and move to some other country.
I.e. it’s the modern day equivalent of slavery.
Re: Re: Re:36 Re:
Welcome to the rest of the world. Plenty of thankless jobs don’t get the rewards they should.
Then wait for that some day. You don’t get to financially ruin someone else because you’re impatient.
You copyright tards keep listing all these doom and gloom scenarios. And yet that is clearly not the case. When your whining is as inaccurate as your evidence it’s no surprise nobody believes you enough to give you the money you want.
Re: Re: Re:26 Re:
This coming from the guy who keeps insisting that the government has to use his software. You obviously don’t trust what the government is doing and refuse to accept why it is happening. You’re in no position to give advice.
Re: Re: Re:20 Re:
"This flimsy evidence does not mean that wrong persons are being accused."
In many cases, it literally does. Your fictions depend on ignoring these many examples, but they exist.
Re: Re: Re:18
You don’t advocate for justice—you advocate for revenge, even against people who’ve committed no wrong against those you feel should seek and have their revenge.
You are a sociopathic monster of a human being, and you should seek legitimate professional medical help for your obvious mental health issues.
Re: Re: Re: Ah copyright hypocrisy...
Tell me how imaginary it is,since people publish pose books for just that purpose.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/546272629801560467/
Take a look at #11 there..
That pose file is literally the first thing when you google catwalk poses.
Sky is blue
Water is wet
Copyright maximalists are hypocrites
So, what else is new?
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Just because it’s not at all surprising doesn’t make it any less worthy of attention and condemnation.
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Sure. But its fun to point out how unsurprising it is.
Hello, someone at home at Techdirt?
Hedgehogwash. The fan art may use IP owned by these companies, meaning that it cannot be sold or otherwise distributed without the companies’ permission. But that does not magically grant permission to use any derivative works back to the companies.
I am surprised a Techdirt author makes such a rookie mistake. Such a grantback does not happen automatically even in the case of GPL violations where licensing under the GPL would be required to bring a party in compliance with licensing terms. Even if it the only thing they are allowed to do, it doesn’t happen by itself.
Re: Hello, someone at home at Techdirt?
Zero precedence for this at all, it’s a fine theory but no Fan Artists is bringing the copyright owners of the character they literally just violated the copyright of to court in order for incalculable compensations like their art being silhouetted and background for a movie poster – and no court would rule in their favor.
Ironically the artist would have had a very strong case if they had silhouetted the original art in the first place, as they could have argued it wasn’t She Venom at all. But no, theoretically you might have an interesting idea, in practice you are wrong.
Re: Re: Hello, someone at home at Techdirt?
This actually came up in a FNAF poster, the marketers who put it together used art of one character from online.
Leonard french, a practicing copyright attorney that discusses law on his youtube, noted at the time that while scott cauthon owned the design of the animatronic, copyright is still ascribed to the artist. Therefore neither fully owned tge rights to the derivative fan work. Under the law it was a work with joint ownership. As with so many works over the years, that means the work can’t be distributed without both creators’ agreement.
You probably can’t get damages, but you could get an injunction.
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Good luck surviving the steamroller that is a corporate copyright lawyer.
Re: Re: Re: Hello, someone at home at Techdirt?
Control over the creation of derivative works is part of copyright. Therefore, the artist violated Cawthon’s copyright when they created the derivative work. It doesn’t strike me as difficult to imagine a lawsuit demanding that the copyright for the derivative work be transferred to the holder of the copyright of the original work would likely be successful. And then the "joint ownership" issue is resolved.
Its only bad when THEY do it, not when we do it.
Originality?
Not actually all that surprising, since they all Sony produces nowadays is basically reboots, remakes, prequels and sequels. Not a grain of true original content to be seen. They just buy some exisiting IP and rehash it.
So they must have thought ‘well, we bought rights to this Venom character, so basically all Venom-inspired material is now ours to use?’
Common mistake if you’re a copyright maximalist…
Re: Originality?
Or some lazy "artist" tasked with making the poster figured nobody would notice if they just copied something off Google.
If you "buy" something copyrighted, you’ll only have to "pay" for it again after a change in distribution format, operating system change, company goes under, whatever. If you "make" something that is "yours", the culture and ideas it references are still going to be claimed as "property" of somebody else.
The present system of so-called intellectual property is a twin sister to slavery, born in the U.S. constitution, and what they really claim to own is not a scribble on a piece of paper, but the mind that would view it.
Probably traced, but this is all too common in comics and comics adjacent media. Some ‘artists’ have built careers out of tracing porn stills, see Greg Land.
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I’m an artist, I’ve done a bloody lot of fan art in my time, but the mutual use of sexy menacing catwalk strut #1, ( https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/celebrity-style/articles/a31869/an-analysis-of-the-most-iconic-supermodel-runway-walks/ ) does not copyright infringement make. It’s suspicious, sure, but in the end it’s suspicious like late night mail-in ballot dumps for Biden were. When it comes down to it, saying this copies the fan art is the same argument about being able to copyright the “feel” of a song folks here say should be rejected in the Blurred lines case.
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https://youtu.be/7hi2PrOCQ7E
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So, reasonable considering the circumstances?
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Yeah, both Sony and the fan artist using a stupidly commonly used pose is a quite reasonable explanation.
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None of those images in your link match the images above — who both match each other pretty closely.
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I wasn’t going for an exact match, just demonstrating the generic class, one foot in front of the other, hips and shoulders tilted,simply becUse the body does that when walking, one hand curled one hand flexed is a pretty generic “catwalk” pose, I detailed some of the other difences above, the most glaring being that the Sony artist didn’t fall into the “legs tapering off at the knees” bad artists anatomy trap the original did. The Sony artist may well have seen the fan art, and took inspiration on the pose in his picture from it, but that doesn’t change the fact that’s it’s a very commonly used pose in pin up art.
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"I wasn’t going for an exact match"
Which is weird, considering that the complaint is the fact that there’s a pretty much exact match.
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It’s not wierd, the point was to illustrate that the pose is a generic catwalk strut. I grabbed the first link I found of catwalk poses, to demonstrate. iAnd as I’ve mentioned above, the contours have more differences than just the slant of the shoulders, what caught my eye is that the Sony artist got the anatomy at the knees and lower right, where the fan art blew it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"It’s not wierd, the point was to illustrate that the pose is a generic catwalk strut"
But, the pose isn’t the thing in question, it’s the fact that the arms and contours seem to be virtually identical. Which, unless I missed something is not true when compared to the pictures you showed.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
It’s not wierd, the point was to illustrate that the pose is a generic catwalk strut. I grabbed the first link I found of catwalk poses, to demonstrate. iAnd as I’ve mentioned above, the contours have more differences than just the slant of the shoulders, what caught my eye is that the Sony artist got the anatomy at the knees and lower right, where the fan art blew it.
Remember Big corporations always mention we must protect creators when they bring in laws that restrict creativity fair use and acess to public domain art. I think it’s going a bit far to say a black piece of art is copyright infringement although outline although it look likes it’s traced .
I hope art does not go the way of music where people are being sued for using a few common chords or notes or a song that has a similar groove or feel
The great thing about fanart is that it allows art to be created and shown without asking for permission from the ip owners art which would never exist in a commercial setting
Did they hire Gene Simmons kid to make the poster?
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My brain… serving up some of the deepest cuts…
As Mike once noted, I seem to remember everything that ever happened on Techdirt.
Old Insightful Post Comment
So they let Greg Land do the poster?
But then again, it’s not based on porn, so maybe not?