Well,US Copyright and trademark law can be a hopeless abyss. I once spoke to the Copyright office to ask them if something I wanted to do was all right and they told me they did not know, that the only way I could be sure was to have a court of law rule one way or the other on my specific question. The situation has become ludicrous.
Not sure DAZ would ever open that can of worms since there is even risk in using characters and images in books clearly in the public domain. Mega-corporations, like Warner Bros & Disney, who have made an embarrassing amount of money using free stories and characters, now fight for exclusive rights to them (The Wizard of Oz comes to mind). It’s not the only battle going on for the public domain either.
BTW, I’m not surprised about the problems with pressure applied to the modeller of the old aircraft. We had that happen at DAZ too with the old Indian Summer freebie a couple years or so. Content Creators and brokers choose to remove these items when there is a question re copyrights or trademarks rather than fight against the claims, even though 3D models of vehicles, structures, and other items may fall under different laws (especially given that these virtual replicas cannot be confused with the actual items).
Because of the legal minefield I would never purchase a trademark/copyright model especially if it was of a character or element easily identiable with a particular comapany or production.
We’re not supposed to have polls so it was removed? OMG the one blooming thing that someone found a use for on the forums was REMOVED? Maybe we should have a poll on who wants to use polls? As respectfully as possible to the mods: sheesh guys this is beyond ridiculous. In my opinion as an outside observer, the removal of the poll above was handled rather abruptly.
/OT
RCT_Spankey: I agree I would love to have access to those figures, but it won’t ever happen because the owner of those brands will want to retain full control of usage and distribution. I don’t see them selling a license to use the characters in a way they cannot monitor and control, i.e. us
1) I, for one, would love it to pieces if polls were enabled and allowed for users.
2) I would love some Marvel-themed stuff. Don’t care much about other mentioned properties, but if it makes others happy, I certainly would not mind.
I have nothing against Batman, the X-Men, Pluto & Mickey, or the like, but I’d rather see original content that doesn’t have oppressive usage restrictions.
Given what’s available, free and paid, I don’t see a reason to use licensed characters. ‘Course, I never was into comics and a talking mouse scared the bejeebers out of me when I was a small little person so I do have that to contend with.
I don’t like movie remakes and music remixes either.
Agree on the former, not so much on the latter. It depends on who’s doing the remix - Mike Oldfield creating a remix of Tubular Bells, for example.
BTW: I DO think polls should be allowed. People enjoy them; they are useful; and they don’t hurt anything as far as I know. What’s the rationale for disabling or deleting them?
Yeah, yeah, yeah! We need a poll to see how many support having polls.
BTW, I’m not surprised about the problems with pressure applied to the modeller of the old aircraft. We had that happen at DAZ too with the old Indian Summer freebie a couple years or so. Content Creators and brokers choose to remove these items when there is a question re copyrights or trademarks rather than fight against the claims, even though 3D models of vehicles, structures, and other items may fall under different laws (especially given that these virtual replicas cannot be confused with the actual items).
...the issue I have with this is the fact they will never ever build that aircraft again so there is no threat to the company’s profit margin. In a way it’s free advertising for them. Heck, they allow injection moulded plastic models of the same aircraft to be released so why not allow 3D meshes as well?
Personally, I’d rather see a bunch of “close too..” models instead, just to keep the cost down and availability up. Something like the Sm*rf style chara here at Daz, the Schmoes ( http://www.daz3d.com/shop/schmoes/ ) on the Genesis/TriAx figures instead. I remember at one point, someone had a character named Toxin at another site- looked enough like Spiderman where just a few edits in the texture, and he was ready to go.
That all said, I’d love to see some Mr. Mouse type chara’s, or the classic toons done to go with the Genesis anime style morphs.
Lets do an example. I can do a generic creepy clown and it would be okay. If I bought a licensed version of Ronald the clown and then turned him into a creepy clown I might get into trouble.
I think it isn’t too hard to do superheroes with a little work, but cartoon characters like the aforementioned mouse might be pretty hard without specific morphs. Maybe what would work would be something like the Creature Creator sets, but aimed at doing toon heads, faces and bodies. That might be especially useful for people who don’t want to copy specific characters, but still want to do toons.
I actually brought up this issue in another forum posting a few months ago.
First, keep in mind that it could be a major project tracking down the licensing department AND convincing them that Poser/ DAZ products will be a commercially viable project for them.
Then, how much would these companies charge for a license? Would it be for one character? Would it be a large deposit or a cut of the sale price or both? Would a company really be interested in getting 50% of a $10 product sold at Renderosity or 50% of a $1.99 product sold here?
Next, these companies would impose licensing restrictions on any products made with their properties. A while ago, DAZ released an Anna-Marie Goddard character and Poser users complained about the restrictions that came with that figure. I can only imagine the complaints from people when they’re told they can’t use Wolverine or Batman in their commercial projects.
Another point is that most of the people who replied to my forum posting said they wouldn’t be willing to pay higher prices for officially licensed products. They also said they preferred look-alikes which didn’t include any legal restrictions from the copyright owner.
BTW, I’m not surprised about the problems with pressure applied to the modeller of the old aircraft. We had that happen at DAZ too with the old Indian Summer freebie a couple years or so. Content Creators and brokers choose to remove these items when there is a question re copyrights or trademarks rather than fight against the claims, even though 3D models of vehicles, structures, and other items may fall under different laws (especially given that these virtual replicas cannot be confused with the actual items).
...the issue I have with this is the fact they will never ever build that aircraft again so there is no threat to the company’s profit margin. In a way it’s free advertising for them. Heck, they allow injection moulded plastic models of the same aircraft to be released so why not allow 3D meshes as well?
I essentially agree with you, but I don’t think it is just about profit margin or whether or not a company or product exists anymore. As I said before, courts are even hearing CR TM violation cases involving items, objects, structures, characters, and stories clearly in the public domain. It is about control. (The lights put on the Eiffel tower specifically to copyright it at night is a good example here.) It is also about setting legal precedence. People have been successfully sued and sanctioned for copyright Infringement / trademark violation when they didn’t make any money at all. Some may even have lost money. Hell, just downloading one copyrighted music file from the Internet or publishing a single photo of a zoo animal in the US could cost a person thousands of dollars without counting legal fees.
Corps and other business are lobbying hard to expand their rights and forge others in the area of new media & technology. Some of the rulings are so restrictive that it virtually keeps anything from falling into the public domain unless it is actively placed there (and even that may not work.) One example of this extreme, thanks in large part to the Music Industry’s “war” on piracy, is the rulings regarding sound recordings, most of which will not begin to enter the PD in the US until 2067, even if they are in the PD everywhere else in the world. I understand that businesses have a right to protect their interests. I just think the protective factors have leaned entirely too far in one direction—toward mega-corp interests and away from small interests and the public in general.
Oh, another example of how companies battle for the public domain is the phrase “Who Dat” after the Saints made it to the Superbowl. (No one cared before that.) The NFL tried to crack down on merchants for selling “Who Dat” merchandise and using Saints colors, sending out numerous cease and desist orders. The City of New Orleans fought back and eventually the NFL claimed it was just a huge misunderstanding. Why mention this case? Because it sparked some good discussion. Was the phrase public domain? Did the City own it? Did the Saints? Did the NFL?
“Who Dat” was worth fighting for in New Orleans. But the mayor, city officials, and others in that dispute had the resources, energy and support they needed to hold their own against such an opponent. Not sure what we, as individuals, can do to keep our rights regarding 3D content creation, but allowing these companies to bully us into just removing items every time they say we should is probably only going to make it worse. Are 3D models different? If so how? If not, why not? Are they like plastic models or replicas or historical artifacts or old photos or something different altogether? In what ways can 3D models be confused with the actual items or can they? If we let mega-corps answer these questions for us, I can pretty much guarantee that the answers are not going to be in our best interests.
Unfortunately, as the copyright office said, the questions would most likely have to be hashed out in court. Otherwise I just might say put the 3D plane on the market and screw the naysayers. And therein lies the problem. Disciplined to be docile, as Foucault said?
