Copyright of my renders
tombraider4ever
Posts: 751
One of my renders was stolen and is now for sale (prints) on ebay without my permission, so I reported it to ebay. They have replied asking me to send in any documments I have proving my copyright. I have read here that I own copyright over my own renders, is that correct? if so: is that written is the Daz Eula somewhere? I googled it yesterday and tried to read it but it's written so it's hard to understand, can someone confirm that it's written in the Eula and give me link to it so I can give it to ebay as part of the evidence?
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You do have the right but places like Ebay, Youtube etc don't care about you at all. I've had problems with them before. Basically unless you do the paperwork for the copyright, they won't respect the default copyright protections you have granted by law.
A lawyer is expensive too. You could win in court with some basic evidence you were the creator, but it would be a long painful process.
PM me the seller so I can avoid them.
Sorry to hear about your loss, it happens to a lot of us.
A copyright has nothing to do with daz studio EULA really. Your works are copyrighted upon creation. What ebay probably wants is a copyright registration, which is not required for a copyright. Unfortunately the only way I have been successful in getting people to stop selling a few of my works, was to get a lawyer to do it for me.
One of the reasons why all my final woks on the internet are now watermarked. They can be stolen still, watermarks cropped out, or cloned out, but it would not be easy work.
Anything you produce that is all your own work is your Copyright. Whether it is a photograph, painting, render or just scribbles on a piece of paper. Proving it can be a little harder.
Thank you so much for the replies, is it written down by Daz 3D somewhere that users own their renders so I can point ebay to it? otherwise they have just my word that I own my own renders I mean. larsmidnatt I'd rather say out loud the name of the sellers so he/she is exposed and people on this forum can look his store up on ebay, he has a big store with lots of prints, so more than mine was probably stolen, the store/sellers name is: name and link removed I have also all my renders from now on watermarked, and I upload them as jpg with my name written in the "jpg info" , and I only upload in 72 dpi. I was also adviced to make my renders mutch smaller, but I can't bring myself to do that, I must be able to showcase my renders at it's full size, that's very important to me. I really hate that I must do theese things, it takes away quite a bit of the joy of making renders when I think of this :(.
Someone should report him to Disney, he is violating their copyright as well. And they have the money to do something about it as well.
I don't know where in the Eula it is, but what you are looking for is definitely there.
FWIW, my understanding is that a notice is optional, and a lack of notice is not a waiver of any rights. It is also my understanding that copyright is automatically granted upon creation, so therefor perhaps showing proof of creation may persuade them to do something?
- Greg
Your argument to Ebay should be:
I am the copyright holder of the work in question and I can prove it in court.
You Ebay, are allowing someone who is not the copyright holder to auction my copyrighted work on your site.
Have them prove it is their work, which I know they can not do because it is my creation.
If the auction is not stopped immediately Ebay will hear from my lawyers.
Well you need to embed a digital encrypted unique to yourself identifier in your images. Or some provable way to show that that image is yours. The gallery it was stolen from likely has a timestamp of when it was uploaded, although such timestamps are easy to forge.
As such things as digital watermarks no doubt cost money because they require 'disinterested' 3rd party arbiter to maintain the unique identifiers association with unique individuals and unique organizations that might be expensive to buy & maintain. There used to be a business in the 90s I remember that you could buy such digital watermarks from for Photoshop & other images. Those were very expensive then but maybe they are cheap now?
I would keep any intellectual property you plan on making money or similar from off line. e.g. developing a game. If you are in it for fun or do one-off comissions that you need some online examples as advertising then just start embedding a visible signature on your renders, although they can crop that off. And when someone steals those they are just stealing mostly worthless to the thief ad copy. The thief has no motive if they can't profit substantially from a theft.
Not that it matters I guess, I regularly see ads using intellectual property of famous characters offered on t-shirts and lots of other products that people and organizations clearly not affiliated with the intellectual property owner have just taken and used for their own profit motives on Facebook and elsewhere. It's grown way beyond the fake Calvin & Hobbes t-shirts & paraphenalia. I'm pretty sure all these businesses trying to profit off of 3rd party IP are going to flounder so, so what? As an individual it's up to the IP owners to police what they think are violations and what are not.
I'm pretty sure though 'looks' without 'identity' can't be copyrighted so the image stolen needs to be your actual image.
but the interweird is made of theft oncool stuff.most graphics programs have a copyright featureto add a lineto the file with your nameand the regognized (c) in itwith the year.
Fill out and send in a DMCA Takedown Notice. Here is a sample where you can copy and insert your own information.
LOL, it is true. Many new 'internet celebrities' got recognized only after complaining about their work being stolen. You should complain to print media in NYC or somewhere instead of DAZ forums to maximize your chance that the theft of your work can work in your favor.
People steal images from places like deviant art all the time not to mention how many images re traced and copied even by supposed professionals.
Thanks for the replies, I have begun adding a watermark on my renders, the problem is doing the same on my entire Deviantart gallery, I have over 1500 images there, so for now I will only mark new renders. I have no money for a lawyer unfortunatly.
I have the original psd file with all the layers saved, it's the render and under it three layers of the background photo, with two of thoose layers with blurr added to fake deapt of field. I will send it to them, hopefully they have access to photoshop, and I will also send in a version of the render with only the background photo behind it, without the blurr. It would be difficult I imagine to make something blurred crystal clear I think. Hopefully that proves it. I got some good advice on a facebook group for 3D renders, to take screenshots of the screen while it's rendering, with the scenefile open, I think I wlll do that for all my renders from now on.
If it is the one I think it is, you created it as fan art, which is OK, but the seller is selling it with a signature clearly linking/identifying it with the copyright holder (the Laura Croft image??). If that is the image in question, you may be able to get the sale removed by providing them with your original, and stating that it was done as fan art, and not commercial art. you might also mention that if they don't remove it immediately, you will contact the owner(s) of the copyright, and let them deal with the issue. You might also mention that the seller has other images that may be in violation of copyright laws with Disney and Marvel Comics (Disney now). Since Disney is well know for their aggressive pursuit of all copyright infringement, this might make ebay change their stance with the seller and make them prove they have proper licensing for the images/prints they are selling.
That should work fine as proof to cause the take down but good luck anyway. I've written to Amazon plenty of times about fake products (mostly to do with gardening) and never managed to get them to a take down, even for products as blatantly fake as claiming a rose seed 3rd party seller was selling will turn out true blue.
Thanks!
That should work fine as proof to cause the take down but good luck anyway. I've written to Amazon plenty of times about fake products (mostly to do with gardening) and never managed to get them to a take down, even for products as blatantly fake as claiming a rose seed 3rd party seller was selling will turn out true blue.
Edited by a mod to remove quote of removed post
In the meantime others can report the item, ebay does have a facility for reports. although it's a wee bit limited.
Please don't name or link to specific alleged infringers.
Always keep early versions of the art and also post clear watermarked versions (with your website if you have one) immediately on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or even Deviant art or here to show a time stamp. You probably have a specific artistic style as well and the the thief probably doesn't have a consistent look because they are probably stealing from multiple people. You should also have a website of your own (there are several easy to do free ones) where you can post your watermarked art immediately and maybe blog a bit about it. The more you post in social media with a clear watermark with your name the better. It will be very obvious it is your work and harder for them to alter. Also, don't post anything high res unless you have to for sale purposes. But a time stamp is everything, as well as showing your early versions. If it is a 3D render, ask them to prove they even own the assets with purchase receipts from Daz or wherever.
Before uploading art, print out a physical copy, take a photo of it with a newspaper (and date) clearly visible.
Email a copy of the artwork to yourself (or other item) I've done it with written work in the past.
there is a reason I said PM me hahaha. no worries.
Thanks all of you for the kind and good advice!
I have now sent my email to ebay with the psd, the render without the blur effect in the background, links to a forum where I upload my renders, links to my devinantart gallery, links to a website that has been kind enough to have an album of my renders on it, work in progress shots of my Lara Fmv model (from the render, that I havent shared with anyone) in the making. I also added that I have the scene file and I can re-render it and take screenshots of the screen when it's rendering if it's necessary. I think I have a good case, but I don't have any copyright documments so perhaps they won't care. I feel a little better no that I have done what I can about it.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to post the name and link. I feel that I should be able to post the name and expose him, why should he/she be protected ? but I guess Daz is thinking they could be sued. Anyway I accept the rules ofcourse, it won't happen again. larsmidnatt did you have a chance to use the link or should I pm you?
tombraider4ever, like Phoenix says, you should send a DMCA takedown notice if they aren't playing nice with you. This has more legal weight than just telling eBay you own copyright.
You do not need copyright documents to have copyright.
Thanks for the advice, agent unawares, I will send one if they don't take it down after my email. What exactly is a DMCA takedown notice? I have never heard of it before.
The only drawback to a DMCA for an individual is that it has to have valid contact details.
The really annoying thing here is, the violator can set up an auction without any proof of copyright, but the true copyright owner has to jump through hoops to get it removed. The default should be, prove copyright ownership in the first place to have the right to sell.
God no. No one has any right to make me demonstrate anything in order to do what I want with someone I own.
When it comes to the assets here, you acquire a "License to use", you don't own the assets. You acquire a copyright to the finished render when it is rendered in 2D form as per the terms in the EULA but the copyright of the asset themselves remain with the PA and/or Daz. Even Youtube has started demanding proof of copyright ownership before they'll monetize videos uploaded by users. Ebay should as well.
If people were required to show proof everytime they wanted to sell a render, I think the customerbase would drop dramatically.