People trying to recreate a unique character combo
The Diigitals
Posts: 380
Who really owns the rights to how a character looks?
I mix and match lots of different texture sets and character shapes with moph packs to create what I would percieve as a unique character.
But would what stop someone picking up all the same products and recreating 'your' character for themselves and their own stories?
I've seen so many 'what character is this' threads and I can't help but feel a little sorry for artists who create beautiful characters (albeit from a variety of pre-made sources), only to see them ripped off by someone who took a fancy to their work.
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You can't copyright or protect how someone looks. Even if it's a cartoon character. One minor variation in looks & it's done. Identical twins are powerless to stop the other twin from capitalizing on a famous' twin's looks. Celebribrity impersonators make a lot of money. You can copyright artistic works and exactly how those works were created but not how the characters look. The entertainment industry has a long history of copying each other's successes and they go well beyond the physical apperance of their star actors.
It's not a big deal as it's the story, the game, the movie, and so on that needs copyright protection not the stars in it. Anybody can run around looking like Elvis Presley but it's only going to earn money in a place like LA or Vegas where impersonators are in big demand.
If that’s so then why do companies such as DAZ shy away from creating celebrity look a likes and selling them? If it’s just one tiny variation. There’s clearly rights issues at play there and can’t the same be said if someone’s character became famous in its own right?
As I understand it (not a lawyer), people own the rights to their own appearance, but not to the appearance of look-alikes and artistic reproductions. and even then there's some variation on who owns the image, the celebrity or the photographer (or else paparazzi would be sued into oblivion). SAV over at Renderosity had some wonderful celebrity look alikes, most of which are still on sale. (SAV, regretably, is no longer with us) Jepe also had/has some really good celebrity look alikes, though he makes a point to have some elements different so it only reminds you of the actor in question, rather than looking exactly like them.
As for someone replicating my dial spum characters - there is nothing to stop them. But the odds that they'd recreate the character exactly are very low.
The only ones that ever properly get "recreated" are the ones where the artist used one morph and one texture. If you take the time to dialspin yourself it gets progressively more and more unlikely anyone will ever match it. If you create your own morphs even more so.
They surely don't shy away from it. See the Infinite Variations of Jolie.
There's a thin line in what can be done in this. There was vendor at rendo that did digital likenesses of several celebrities, however, he did a Bruce Willis likeness where Bruce had a agreement with a digital studio giving them the rights to his digital likeness and their lawyers went after him and Rendo. Rendo closed their store while he redid EVERY likeness in his store making each one look cartoonish instead. So even though some artists do likeness they take a real risk in doing so. If you don't have the money to defend yourself in court, it's best not to do them and work on unique characters.
It's as well to remember that copyright is not the only potential issue - there's right of publicitly, trade dress, trade mark and related rights, etc. too.
Mickey would like to have a word with you. Or more precisely, Disney's lawyers would like to have a word with you.
They win cases where people are actually infringing by trying to profit off their characters. Where it's a genuine lookalike that isn't actually one of their characters: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/23/deadmau5-and-walt-disney-settle-mouse-ears-legal-dispute
Yeah, but Deadmau5 and Disney "settled," meaning some financial agreement was made that we aren't privvy to.
DAZ doesn't shy away from looks and styles if they think they will be profitable. You only ever hear that they do in the forums and when they don't it's because they must believe it wouldn't be profitable or the ideal didn't occure to them.
As far as Bruce Willis goes, real or unrealistic, if they didn't name the character Bruce Willis, and didn't use photographs of him to automate the creation of the 3D image of him (eg FaceGen) but it was hand digitally modeled instead, he wouldn't have had a leg to stand on in the law. And if goes without saying it would be pretty easy to find a look-a-like of Bruce Willis and use that person as the basis of the digital likeness instead. So you can't copyright a general look. Of course when you get to the level of detail that you have digital copies of Bruce Willis' fingertips and such well then that is another measure altogether.
With the way the law works it is better to rely on trademark, not copyright, but trademarks cost money and are a loosing proposition until if a venture becomes successful.
With game development creation also coming to the masses there are countless variants of the same game ideal with very nearly or the same 3D or 2D art, using the same game coding frameworks to so it's hardly only the 3D art world affected by this.
The novel, music, and film industries have been dealing with this reality for years. Famous modern music artists routinely copy the centuries old classics and produce and arrange them to sound original and modern because what is the chance that you or I have even heard those old classics on the radio or television? Practically none.
So let’s say I produce an entire graphic novel using DAZ assets, and it’s a hit! I get business deals and it’s really taking off.
What would stop a person here buying the same assets piecing them together exactly the same and profiting off of the likeness to your now famous characters?
Is it really nothing?
If so that’s kind of scary.
Trademark the characters.
Definately trademark the character would be your best protection really, that and well a big payroll for lawyers, possibly. If you had a hit it wouldn't be expensive or a waste of money. It might be the most sensible money you ever spent if you had a hit. You have I think it's like 3 or 6 months after something becomes well known to file a trademark. You're basically trying to beat others trying to file trademarks on your own intellectual property and yes, there are people out there that are doing that and businesses created just for trolling for trademarks, patents, and so on.
Interesting thank you.
That's not what settled means. Settled just means they resolved the case without needing a court verdict, which is what happens when companies realize they're wasting huge amounts of money on a case they're not going to win. The end result was Disney no longer attempting to block deadmaus's trademark application, this is not something they would have sold because it would dilute their trademark if they really had a case (which they didn't).
If you can. Content made using third-party content, for which you have a non-exclusive license, may not be easy to trade,ark - you would need legal, not forum, advice.
I would probably not go through the individual character in this case but with grafic novels and the like you create intellectual property. Quoting Christy Marx here from "Writing for animation, Comics, and Games :" if you create ... grafic novel, comic book series, online comic ... its IP (interlectual property). Its a creation of your mind, a creation that has commercial value - or at least the potential for commertial value."
In this case it's under the topic copyright, and you own the right to that automatically in the moment you create it. There is that. More about it you can find with the World intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, they have a website .int).
Now the next step is to make evidence that you own the copyright so nobody can claim that its not your work later, you can do that by registering your works with the www.copyright.gov (thats for the US).
This is the path I plan to go as well with my story
Well, I believe that's called fan art. It's all over Comic-Con! You can do a cease and desist if someone imitates you or ask them to call it fan art and have a link to your website which would just be good PR for you.. And do a LOT of dial spinning with a variety of morph packs or do your own sculpting when creating your characters so it would be hard for someone to create them exactly. And the style of your graphic novel should be specific to you too..
It’s all very interesting to me because the process is very similar to Photography or film making, in that, I don’t hand sculpt the models, I don’t do the makeup or hair, but I as the photographer have rights over the images I create and the style I create them in.
Thanks for the answers so far, from what I’ve gathered a lot of people here are very open with their creations, I guess maybe because for a lot it’s a hobby. Asking how to recreate characters to me seems a little... rude? Especially given that from what I understand about the Useage agreement with DAZ, we cannot make 3D models that are derivative of 3D models that are for sale... yet I see it happening all the time...
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The creators of Neon Genesis Evangelion (and tons of other anime/manga) did not feel they had achieved a given level of success until theyt started seeing fan-made hentai using their characters. Square-Enix knows there are a ton of Lara Crofts out there in 3D land. Disney went into Star Wars knowing there is an existing and massive fanbase of 3D hobbyists with the entire catalog of vessels, vehicles, and characters and that these are largely distributed freely (though some skeeves do charge for it).
If your characters are so simple to replicate, you're not doing it right. You might want to contract a 3D artist and have them build you a model of a character figure you specced out with exacting detail, and not one built from DS characters and existing morphs, or you need to get more creative with how you mix and match morphs and skins.
Or, you might just want to let it go and proceed with your project. You will drive yourself nuts trying to monitor every piddling detail like this. Maybe if your project actually turns into a valuable property it will be a concern, but at this point, unless you're a big name well known somebody in the industry, you need to focus on more important things like becoming a big name well known somebody in the industry before you worry about someone copying your character designs.
Yes, if you ever make a financial windfall from your stories or whatnot in the entertainment business the first thing you'd want to do is retool the characters by hiring 3D modelers to model your characters for you and disentangle yourself from 3rd party EULAs, even if you did buy interactive licenses or what-not. So that is a case when 'a style of look not being copyrightable' reasonably protects your interests.
...back when Genesis was first introduced and I made a comment that Iwasn't redy to turn my back on all the work I did on developing my Leela Teen chracter from Vicky/Steph4 and definitely interested in going through getting the diffeent morph sets I needed and going though the process all over again. A couple days later someone posted portrait of Genesis (the base figure) dialed up to look almost like shecould be Leela's twin sister. Needless to say I was both a little bothered as well as impressed at the same time. This was over a year before YT5 Julie was released.
The bit where it gets really sticky for me is that when you buy a DAZ character it specifically states in the EULA that you cannot create derivite 3D works.. Now if I create my characters as a proof of concept using DAZ3D products and then wish to commission these characters to be resculpted custom for me by 3D modellers, it's my understanding they cannot bear any resemblance to their DAZ3D counter parts, otherise it could be said they are derivitive.
The more I learn about DAZ3D the more I realise it's limitations for anyone serious about creating any kind of series or brand from the products provided.
Also this is all hypothetical based on my hopes and dreams of success haha I want to know wether I should stay invested or be looking around.
..."resculpted", as in a physical rendition of the character?
Wow, really don't think a lot of the representations of law are accurate here; best to check everything (including what I've posted here) with an actual IP attorney. Karuki, besides your actual images being protected, there is certainly a chance that your characters are copyright protected as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
http://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/protection-of-graphic-characters.html
Hard to discuss on a general basis because it's going to be case-specific: likely going to depend on the "original" creation, and infringement is going to depend on the other work and the similarities between the works.
a character is more than visual
anyone could reproduce an image made using DAZ assets presumably but they don't have the right to your story etc just like I cannot post a picture of a vampire and call him Lestat for example as the late Anne Rice fiercely protected her characters not liking fan fiction. I could without naming probably reproduce themes from her books though as an image is very open to interpretation.
The obvious solution is to incorporate elements unique to your art be it textures photoshoped, a morph import or dform something not buyable off the shelf.
That's not what that part means at all. The EULA says this: "User may not reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, or create derivative works from the Content except as set forth in Section E above." It's just a restriction from doing things you aren't licensed to do. And then Section E lists the things you can do, like make 2D renders, 3D content addons, etcetera.
Yes, Apple, and others, have long tried using lawsuits to attack their competitors based on the look of their competition's products and they failed. I remember Apple's lawsuit against Microsoft because of the Microsoft Windows User Interface went on for years and years. Xerox then tried to do the same to Apple and lost too. The judge awarded Apple a token judgement that Microsoft's trashcan infringed on Apple's property before tossing the whole lawsuit in the trash.
It's really down to whether the game, story, music is liked and not whether Milli Vanilli are fronting your music. So DAZ 3D models are a convenience and one that makes them money but look in the world of successful games, movies, books, comic books and so on and you understand DAZ models and the way they look are definately not a necessary prerequisite to that success.
If you're concerned, get legal advice; make sure its from lawyers/solicitors with the necessary legal training and experience.
The worst thing you can do (IMO) is feel comfortable because one of us 'experts' told you something.
is still very much alive.