How to handle props based on real items with distinct logos or brands.
5200north
Posts: 249
i'm going to try my hand at modeling (pray for me) a daz prop this weekend.
how do you handle creating textures for an item that is based on a real item without violating copyrights or something.
basically, if i created a package of cookies based on a package of oreos - what's the guidline here. i know i could just find the lables on line and slap them on the prop but that' not legal right.
can you fake it , i could easily make a texture and fake the lable. i coudl call them smoreos or rios or something. is that okay?
i was going to put a visa/mastercard sign on the door to a store i was rendering but hesitated to upload it to a online gallery.
johnny
i attached an image that illustrates my question.
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Comments
As long as you're making those for your own use you're free to do most anything even when showing it in the gallery. Once it gets commercial it's a different thing though.
With commercial brands, it's always better to play safe and avoid them entirely, and also avoid copying the designs directly.
What I do is either make up silly and completely nonsensical brands that make the product sound terrible (eg, "Zombie Plague-Os", "Mr Awful's Fishcakes", etc), or go extremely generic (eg, "This Soda", "Here's Cereal", etc). If you do a little googling for various brand names, you'll see most of them follow some pretty basic and common design choices. Bold, easy to read text, bright colours, swooshes and simple eye-catching geometry, etc. Once you can recognize those trends, it's pretty simple to create some fake brands that won't offend and won't get anyone in legal trouble while also looking plausible.
double deleted
Hi
do you plan to sell these items or use them in any commercial venture including
raising money on crowd funding sites or any other commercial activity??
Do you plan to publicly Disaprage the brand owners(Apple sucks !! etc)
or use the image in some political campaign or other contentious public discourse??
If not use whatever name brands you like
I posted this image to my Illustration portfolio
11 years ago amidst dire warnings from Daz/ poser users to "REMOVE THOSE LABLES!!!"
https://www.coroflot.com/anabran/3D-ILLUSTRATION
The owner of commercial brands are generally not sifting through amature web galleries
looking for their products depicted in 3D renderings.
and certainly not having their $$$legal$$ teams hunting down the providence of every
Discovered instance of their brands being depicted in CG rendering.
And in the highly unlikely event that they did so.
The worst case scenario would be a request to the web host /gallery to remove the image.
I'd avoid using any brands or trademarks. Even if the image is not for commercial use now, there's no knowing what you might want to use it for in the future and so there's no point in limiting yourself. Furthermore, although the image you have in mind at the moment might never have a commercial purpose, the chances are that you'll create others which will and so you might as well get into good habits like guarding against violating copyright from the outset.
You are only "limiting" yourself from future use if you are literally
physically Carving an object out of solid granite.
This is CG
Things can be easily altered ,retextured & re-rendered for some different
purpose if you later decide on commercial use.
Whilst true, what is about your image that it needs a recognisable commercial brand on it? Unless there is some sort of commentry on the brand in question, if it needs said branding, you image composition and story-telling needs looking at.
Avoid brands and trademarks, that's a general rule, it will save you the hassle. Make the 3D model of a bag of cookies. There are literally hundreds of possible variations. Steer clear of the top market easily identifiable ones. Because trademark usage requires licenses, but it only becomes an issue if someone who cares about infringement, notices.
...now what about a model of an item that is highly "iconic" (easily recognised and identifiable with a specific maker or company) appearance, could that also create an issue (there was a case a few years ago where this occurred which I will spare the details of for now)?
So let's say I create a model of something with an iconic appearance that will be used for illustrations in a story that likely would go commercial . The item would be a Turbo Lockheed Constellation which the characters would be flying on. Now The Constellation is is a fairly "recognisable" aircraft with it's four propellor engines, sleek lines and "unique" triple tail. In RL the original plane was only built and sold as a piston engined airliner, however, one was fitted with turboprop engines as a test bed for development of another aircraft, and never was intended for going into production (yeah, one has to be a real "aviation geek" to know this). OK so back in the "history line" prior the story, events are a bit different than in RL, the Turbo Constellation was produced and saw service for years before jet transports took over the market (civilian jet development took a little longer in the "alternate history" due to other factors).
So back to the model. If I created it for my own personal use it probably woidn't cause an issue since I'd make mo money off of it. However if I used ot for illustrations in the story, would that constitute a breach of Intellectual property even though the turbine powered version never saw production in real life as I mentioned above?
Companies can be pretty fickle sometimes.
Reference images.
Constellation Super-G intercontinental airliner.
Rare photo of the turbine test version for the development of the medium range Electra airliner.
This. It's just easier and good practice to avoid trademarks and copyrighted stuff entirely. You might wanna sell something or give it away someday. It'll save you the extra work. While like wolf359 says, most companies aren't skulking around looking for their logos and trademarks on 3D renders, you do have some rabid companies that might potentially want to make things hard for you. Disney comes to mind ;). I've heard of them going after a church group for showing one of their videos to a Sunday school class because theoretically anyone could have come in and watched it. They're sticklers (and I'm being REALLY nice....lol. I was thinking something else).
Laurie
Well, you could take a look at my packs - Everyday Groceries & Everyday Groceries 2 to see how I handled it. Which was basically to spend weeks inventing labels, brand names, bar codes and lists of ingredients and nutritional values. It's an extremely tedious process, but necessary if you want to sell anything you make.
Agreed, but time being money, I'd rather do it once knowing that I'd never need to look at it again. It also frees me up from having to note or remember that the image shows something of my own that I created in a long-forgotten hour, or whether it shows some obscure brand that doesn't linger long in the memory either.
If you really need to include an existing brand, you could always ask the brand owner. As long a the brand is depicted in a good light, often brand owners agree, if politely asked.
That's not a bad suggestion, but I wouldn't count on cooperation from the owner. The reason is that the creator has no control over how the item will be used once it's been released, so can't guarantee favorable use.
I came up against this very issue when I was making Everyday Cash. I contacted the Bank of England to ask about using specimen reproductions of banknotes. They refused on the grounds that I would no longer be able to control their use once it was out of my hands.
I know banknotes are a particularly sensitive item, but the priniciple's the same for most products. In the end, it's far less hassle to just invent your own brand.
Bear in mind that trademarks must be defended by their owners - if they don't they risk losing the trademark status. While asking permission may work you need to bear in mind that giving permission in a legally binding form that doesn't risk eroding the trademark status will take time (and therefore money) for the owner, so in most cases I would not be optimistic.
@kyoto kid "now what about a model of an item that is highly "iconic"
Do the DarkEdgeDesign Warhawk, P-40, F4U, and B-17 not answer this question for you? How about Mattymanx's, Lamborghini's? There are a number of other examples in the store.
They are watching.. Disney and Warner Brothers are like the SS Squad of their trademarks, as are all the sports teams, etc. When I still had an embroidery business in the 90's, we had forums like this, and a guy in Canada made a Mickey Mouse embroidery on the front of a sweatshirt for his grandaughter. Like clockwork, Disney came to his house, took his computer, all his drives, emb designs, his machine and he was arrested. It's like someone in the emb community ratted him out.
I used to test elsewhere in the graphics community, and if you modeled a car or something, you couldn't use the trademarked name of that car, or it's logo. They can come right after you. We turned a vendor away who'd modeled a rodeo belt buckle that was an exact replica of the original one from the organization who own the rights. We told him he had to change it enough so it didn't look like a copy of the real one.
It makes you nervous..or it does me.
My local grocery store sells 5 or 6 different types of round, dark cookies with white fillings, it is not the looks so much as the NAME and also claiming to be the product or trying to cause the viewer to believe it is the product. This last part gets tricky, so I use odd names Ores is NOT a good choice Qreos looks to close too from far away. So be wise.
Not so fast. Much of what gets produced with Daz studio could be considered fan art. While you sometimes see a lawsuit with fan art happen, a lot of it goes on without issue. There are even multiple long lasting threads dedicated to fan art right here on these very forums, Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr Who, ect, ect.
There are many practical reasons for this, but I'll compress them into 2.
#1 By definition, fan art is made by, duh, fans. Few creators desire to sue their best fans. This can even backfire and cause a backlash against the creator and brand. The pork foundation got burned hard by ThinkGeek over an April Fool's Day joke that pork issued a cease and desist letter over. The ThinkGeek response went viral. Today's social media is an important weapon in keeping such frivolous actions at bay.
#2 Fan art can be seen as free promotion. Fans can get excited for these works while waiting between official releases.
So not only can suing your best fans backfire, but allowing them to continue can actually benefit your brand. Imagine that! Obviously there are lines that can be crossed, and there are exceptions to every rule, but that is also a perk. Fan art is an exception to the trademark rule that you lose your trademark. Maybe not officially, but I dare you to find a judge who would would rule differently.
Not pursuing legal action against fan art has never resulted in a loss of said trademark. Magic The Gathering has a vibrant fan art community that could be seen as crossing the line, many sell their fan art for profit and this is a well known fact. This has not caused harm to MTG, nor has it caused them to lose their trademark. And it never will, just like people posting their Star Wars created characters here. Now if a fan tried to create actual MTG cards or a new card game ripping off MTG, that is a different story.
There is a ton of fan art based around video games, more than I could possibly ever list. You have entire websites dedicated to fan art, often making money (after all, the website has to pay the bills to stay open). Plus many artists do profit from this, either by directly selling works or as is becoming more common, by Patreon donations. If you think they skate by simply by being too small to notice, you are mistaken. Many game makers are very well aware of what is going on and where it is coming from. After all, you don't have to sue the artist, you can sue the website. And thus sites like Deviantart would be taken down in an instant with all the fan art they have there. But that doesn't happen. Deviantart is still up today, and the game makers still own their trademarks. How does that happen if they are so required to defend their mark?
You can also look at Japan, where many mangaka get their start drawing and selling completely unofficial works. Sometimes even well established mangaka will still make unofficial works of their favorite characters. Again, nobody loses their trademarks over this. This tradition also plays a part in video game and other fan art you see.
Disney can be very brutal, though. However, as the Star Wars thread here proves, they are a bit less nasty to Star Wars fan art. They probably know what would happen if they tried to pull more Star Wars fan art.
..well for one these aircraft are not sold with their known designations but their "nicknames" and all markings (manufacturer/engine maker) are absent. Just like cars sold here that have names like "AM Muscle Car", Limousine Prince, "Spy Car", "Teuf Teuf" etc which are facimiles of the real cars to an extent and don't carry the marque badges of the actual makers.
I brought this up as the case I breifly alluded to was a Consolidated B-24 Bomber model that appeared on Share CG several years ago. The creator was approached by a major aerospace firm (which also happened to build the Constellation) to remove it even though it was built by a now defunct manufacturer (which that firm bought a part of), the plane had been decommissioned for decades as obsolete, and would never be built again.
Like Sapat mentioned above, some companies can be very, very picky.
...yeah Disney gets me more than a little worried particularly after my Merida project (which the late Wancow once asked in jest if I had downloaded the actual character mesh).
I thought the initial discussion was about trademarks on real products - cars, appliances, gadgets - not creative fields like film, TV, or comics. While trademark may well be involved there the creating of fan art doesn't tend to make the trademarked term geenric and so isn't a threat (on the other hand, using a franchise-specific term in another context may bring trouble, if it's noticed, because it risks making the term generic).
...the reason many RL branded models on the pro sites often only allow for an "editorial use" licence. If you plan to use them for say assets in a game or other commercial product (like an illustrated novel) you are advised to contact the trademark holder for permission (why I am so glad Protozoon released the concert grand piano as the only other truly accurate one I could find was a Kawai EX Grand on Turbosquid for which I would have needed to acquire permission from Kawai Pianos in Japan to use in my story illustrations).
As mentioned above, some well known and respected 3D sites have no probs using brand names and descriptions with apparent impunity. My policy is to always play it safe and avoid tempting fate. I will say no more because once we start talking about legal issues the threads inevitably gets locked.
I modeled these merely as an excerise in modeling&rendering.
Forgive me for being so bold as to forego cowering in the corner
in fear of a financially devastating legal onslaught from the samsung corporation
in civil court.
Most of the people here are hobbyists.
Not even doing freelance work for paying clients.
This fear of "them coming after you" with some big civil lawsuit, just seems a bit
silly in the context of people rendering "gallery art" with their Daz program
and in fact very nearly sounds a bit like tinfoil hattery IMHO.
You know in advance if you are rendering something for money
or commercial promotion, political commentary etc
in those cases use common sense and avoid trademarked IP.
Probably true in most cases. However a very recent dustup on Youtube says it can happen. A Star Wars fanatic there wanted to make a fan film about Darth Vader. He reached out to LucasFilms to find out the rules. They told him, he complied with all of them. He even hired a composer to create new music so he wouldn't be using any of their music or imagery. However the fan film started getting lots of buzz, "better than The Last Jedi" sort of buzz. And LucasFilms (a.k.a Disney) claimed ownership of it to Youtube. He didn't get in trouble or sued or anything. Instead Disney claimed and were granted 100% of the ad revenue. The fan community went nuts . .you'd stifle a loving fan and steal the peanuts he was getting! ... and Diskey backed down. But it says that if your art is noticed because it makes a splash, even if you follow all the rules, there are no guarantees that they won't come after you.
Again, this is for a film and the franchise in question is a film franchise. And the creator was making money off it, indirectly through ad revenue on Youtube. So they may be more protective of their IP in that form than for, say, fan fiction. But still, it happened.
As someone who is just starting out with Daz3D and is starting to modify some minor graphics in a commercial package to fit my needs (just some wall posters and signage), I am amazed at the level of detail and creativity you are putting on your props!
Thanks! It's nice to know customers notice and appreciate the little details.
And thats why Mac is one of the best! :)