Render with celebrity look-alike used as book cover
Rose Reaper
Posts: 10
in The Commons
Hi everyone!
I'm writting a novel, and I plan to make renders of my characters for my website, and maybe book covers as well. As some models are based on real-life people (like Eva Green for my main character), could I encounter legal issues (especially for the book covers)? There are laws for photographs of people or reproductions of photographs, but what about a picture generated thanks to a 3D model?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
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Comments
A lawyer will advise you better if you have concerns, or just play it safe and use a more generic model.
In case you want to make that novel publicly available or even make money from it my personal advice is to steer clear from real persons (historical figures are a different thing I believe).
But to be on the safe side follow Cris' advice, ask a lawyer
Thank you both for your answers. I'll see if I can have answers from lawyers on Quora, maybe. If not, I'll try to stay away from models based on real persons. But it's sometimes hard to know when you've never heard of the real person who inspired a model.
Short answer: yes, you can encounter legal problems if the rendered character is so similar to a real person that the rendered character could easily be mistaken for or identified as the real person, particularly if the use of the person's likeness can be construted as an endorsement of the the underlying product or the setting is likely to cause reputational damage to the person.
Thank you very much. Guess I'm going to sculpt my own models, then. A lot of characters sold here are based on celebrities, so I won't use any of them just to be safe.
About five years ago I was working on a card game and wanted to use an image that looked like Vincent Price. Short version of the story: A brief discussion with an attorney and with the reps of his estate deemed it would be too expensive for me to pay for usage of his likeness. So I changed to a more generic figure.
Don't mess with celebrities, even dead ones. Chances are they would never notice what you're doing, but if they did you could be sued for appropriating the actor's likeness.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience!
You shouldn't need to go as far as sculpting them yourself if you mean doing it in Zbrush or Blender etc.; most of the models that resemble celebrities also arguably resemble dozens of other people, and there are only a few I can think of where the naming and design are clearly "you are buying a model of This Person" vs. the artist using reference they found attractive, and it could be argued the resemblance in those cases is subjective. Customizing the figures within DS using morphs or different skins and hairstyles will pretty much wipe any identifying features, I think.
Eh ... maybe; maybe not: depends on what the identifying features are and the nature and extent of the transformation. In and of itself, at least in the US, a simple change of skin color or superficial attributes such as hairstyle or clothing isn't sufficiently transformative, as defined by copyright and/or trademark case law, to pass legal muster. So, for example, taking a photo of Lebron taking off for a dunk, reducing it to a 256-color image, and inverting the color profile to negative isn't sufficiently transformative to put you in the clear legally. Even a change of medium—from photo to a line drawing or an oil painting, for example—in and of itself, is not generally considered sufficiently transformative to pass legal scrutiny.
Also, "transformation" does not necessarily require removal of identifying features. Take the original image of Lebron, replace the basket with a render of Xi Jinping (Chinese president) holding out a bag of money, photoshop in Michael Silver (NBA commissioner) and Tilman Fertittaa (Houston Rockets owner) applauding from the sideline, and drop in bunch of dead bodies and torn "Hong Kong Democracy 2019" placards scattered on the court between Lebron and Xi, as editorial commentary on the NBA's reaction to Daryl Morey's (Rockets' general manager) tweet in support of the Hong Kong protests, and you're absolutely in the clear, even if the resultant image is subsequently commercialized.
Again, it depends on the nature and extent of the transformation.
In that case, it's the specific photo that is copyrighted, not lebron's "likeness"
If you use a celebrity's likeness, and had the money to hire a good firm to defend you, cances are you would win against a lawsuit. But can you afford a legal battle against the likeness you are looking to use? If not, stay away, someone like rockstar can fight it, us average joes would probably just have to fold lol.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsay-lohan-loses-grand-theft-auto-v-lawsuit/
Thanks everyone, I have all the answers I need now. I'm going to be more careful when I select my models, then
always change a prominent feature, noses are good or chins
So is brow line.
Nope. A person's "likeness" is protected under the legal doctrine of "image rights," aka "personality rights" or the "right of publicity," which is an individual's proprietary right in their personality, and include the right to prevent unauthorised use of their name, physical or style characteristics, signatures, or slogans. The first scenario above would also constitute Passing Off, that is, falsely representing the depicted individual as having endorsed a particular product, service or brand. See, e.g., Michael Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc. and SuperValu Inc.
The Lohan ruling rested on the Court's finding that the representation of the character in question was not IDENTIFIABLE as Lohan.
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So, if I render an image of Luke Skywalker making the iconic Vulcan hand sign, and Mark Hamill doesn't approve do I have to desist, or just deal with Disney, regardless of how Mark feels? Where does "Fan Art" fall into all this Legal-Smeagol? (Half joking question, but serious about Fan Art part)
I did a Battlestar Gactica spoof with a Tricia Helfer-like character (that I morphed myself.) I met her at a party and showed it to her and she loved it and even wanted to sell it on her website to donate proceeds to charities that help stray cats. (She LOVES cats lol.) But I got a cease and desist from NBC Universal prior to that when I was selling prints. The image was satire though, which I thought was supposed to be legal,..
Thanks for that, Wonderland . I always hear so many conflicting stories. Seems like the safest bet is to get licensed and if you do that, you HAVE to have a pretty steady income from it just to break even at which point it is a case of diminishing returns. I know the crucial pivot point is if you start selling, but I can see where the owner of the IP may have an issue with what you're doing with their property just on general prinicpals alone. (For instance, Disney might not care to see LukeSkylwalker being stupid, racist, or otherwise offensive as much as I prefer NOT to see artwork or videos of Darth Vader Force choking puppies. ) <sigh>
Mine wasn't negative though and if anything, brought back an older series back into the limelight and could have been good PR. I think think they just get young business affairs interns to scour the internet for key words involving all their IPs and send automatic cease and desists. If I had followed up and Tricia herself had put it on her site, they may have let it alone.
I trod delicately here and repeat the proviso of "talk to your lawyer" but fan art has the same problem as commercial art; you can not legally use someone else's intellectual property or likeness without their permission "for an exploitive purpose. That includes making a sellable product or just making a freebie that enhances your reputation. Often fan art is accidentally overlooked (companies have bigger fish to fry} but, if you are caught, a company can use its considerable amount of lawyers to use you as an example and sue you in multiple juridictions.... Even the rules of making transformative art is not recognized universally so the broad advice is to trod carefully.
Which reiteration of the advice to seek advice seems a good place to close this thread.