Photographer sues capcom for 12 million dollars for using her photo in their games

[Bombastinator]

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I haven't really seen too many people with the stance that negotiations failed.

 

But yes this was merely a filing, in it it only mentions her sending a copyright infringement notice.  My assumption would be like a classical cease and desist letter.  While there might have been a settlement talk before, I would imagine that she might have just jumped straight to a lawsuit and working on a settlement after.  At this stage, Capcom might even submit evidence that could have the case thrown out (like a license agreement).

 

Effectively it means there is a judge assigned to the case, and Capcom has to respond.  Actually looking at it, it looks like the court might have set a deadline for Capcom to respond (not entirely sure because I can't access the court docket...or at least not without buying stuff).  So we should know Capcom's initial defense shortly.  After that then they probably will try reaching a settlement before a trial date, assuming Capcom doesn't have a license (at least that would be my guess, as it would be cheaper that way)

So because it’s possible no communication between the two parties even happened and this could actually be the first mention of the thing capcom has heard it could all be crap.  Sounds like this is something that might possibly become news depending on capcom’s response, but isn’t yet.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Bombastinator

[wanderingfool2]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So because it’s possible no communication between the two parties even happened and this could actually be the first mention of the thing capcom has heard it could all be crap.  Sounds like this is something that might possibly become news depending on capcom’ are sooo serious but isn’t yet.

Well there was communication at least in terms of a cease and desist, but yea it could very well be the first that Capcom is really learning about the extent of things.

 

This could be a moot case anyways if Capcom reveals a license agreement (it's happened before, I can't cite my source, but I remember watching something similar to this happen before where the case was just tossed once the other party provided the license agreement)

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Well there was communication at least in terms of a cease and desist, but yea it could very well be the first that Capcom is really learning about the extent of things.

 

This could be a moot case anyways if Capcom reveals a license agreement (it's happened before, I can't cite my source, but I remember watching something similar to this happen before where the case was just tossed once the other party provided the license agreement)

A cease and desist with no explanation whatsoever would be unlikely to be followed. That’s just a “someone wants you to stop but won’t say why” kind of thing.  There are so many fraudulent take-down notices and whatnot floating around it very possibly may have gotten simply ignored.

[Npiet1]

Lol, they didn't even rename the files.

[JZStudios]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

I didn't say those images were procedurally generated, I said they could easily be.

No, they couldn't be. The fact that you think that is pretty astounding. What you're arguing is that this image could be done procedurally, which is a fucking laugh;

 

So let's get this straight, you make some bullshit claim, I prove that it's false, then you double down on it? I don't understand what you think the problem is. Capcom didn't make their own textures. What the fuck is the issue here?

 

Again, why are you talking about the Gamecube version? The version doesn't matter. If they used her textures AT ALL, of which, THEY DID, the question is simply and solely whether or not they licensed her art. Why do you POSSIBLY think the game version matters? It's a fucking mistake to ask, because you're going to go on about procedural textures again, like they just miraculously made a procedural image exactly identical to hers.

 

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

The creators of the book did false advertising 100%

No, it's not false advertising. You can sell stuff for private use. Happens all the fucking time. Unless the book explicitly states "Ready for commercial use," it's not. End of story.

 

5 hours ago, Master Delta Chief said:

Keep on twisting my words, I don't care and I'm not going to repeat myself again. The two companies you brought up are sort of relevant, just not in this particular case since we're talking about pictures, not actual 3D models or textures designed by them ready for usage. I know in the case for Quixel they do scanning of certain environments, but you can't really compare this with the current situation really.   

That's not twisting your words, that's what you said. You don't think they own their work.

Quixel has a LOT of 2d textures, and Poliigon is almost exclusively 2d textures, so I'd say they're 100% directly comparable. How can you not compare it when it's literally the same thing? They take pictures of stuff, turn it into textures, and sell it. That's... quite literally exactly what this woman did. According to you, Quixel and Poliigon have no ownership and shouldn't charge for their own products. Even over the 3d models, since those are photogrammetry, i.e. just a whole bunch of pictures of things they don't own the copyrights to merged together into a 3d file. Why would they own the 3d file if they don't have copyright over the actual object or any of the images that went into creating the 3d object?

Brain buster huh?

5 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

And even an explicit disclaimer that such use is disallowed is not needed, because in absence of clear language, you can never assume implied permission.

 

4 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

It going to court though seems odd then.  There has to be something that has not been mentioned or is being missed.   Many statements here imply massive open and shut guilt on the part of capcom.  If this were the case a settlement would have been done long ago.  

Not really, it was recently filed, and it's not like CAPCOM is going to just hand over money without being forced to. They used her images, the question is the licensing. She may or may not have contacted CAPCOM privately about it before, but I'm still willing to bet CAPCOM would've ignored her.

 

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

No, they couldn't be. The fact that you think that is pretty astounding. What you're arguing is that this image could be done procedurally, which is a fucking laugh;

 

So let's get this straight, you make some bullshit claim, I prove that it's false, then you double down on it? I don't understand what you think the problem is. Capcom didn't make their own textures. What the fuck is the issue here?

 

Again, why are you talking about the Gamecube version? The version doesn't matter. If they used her textures AT ALL, of which, THEY DID, the question is simply and solely whether or not they licensed her art. Why do you POSSIBLY think the game version matters? It's a fucking mistake to ask, because you're going to go on about procedural textures again, like they just miraculously made a procedural image exactly identical to hers.

 

No, it's not false advertising. You can sell stuff for private use. Happens all the fucking time. Unless the book explicitly states "Ready for commercial use," it's not. End of story.

 

That's not twisting your words, that's what you said. You don't think they own their work.

Quixel has a LOT of 2d textures, and Poliigon is almost exclusively 2d textures, so I'd say they're 100% directly comparable. How can you not compare it when it's literally the same thing? They take pictures of stuff, turn it into textures, and sell it. That's... quite literally exactly what this woman did. According to you, Quixel and Poliigon have no ownership and shouldn't charge for their own products. Even over the 3d models, since those are photogrammetry, i.e. just a whole bunch of pictures of things they don't own the copyrights to merged together into a 3d file. Why would they own the 3d file if they don't have copyright over the actual object or any of the images that went into creating the 3d object?

Brain buster huh?

 

Not really, it was recently filed, and it's not like CAPCOM is going to just hand over money without being forced to. They used her images, the question is the licensing. She may or may not have contacted CAPCOM privately about it before, but I'm still willing to bet CAPCOM would've ignored her.

 

Already talked about this one with @wanderingfool2.  The issue seems to be if this was or was not effectively a first contact with capcom or not.  If it is it probably shouldn’t be news though.  Or at least the kind of news worthy of such discussion. Chances are quite high that it comes to nothing.

[Kisai]

22 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

No, they couldn't be. The fact that you think that is pretty astounding. What you're arguing is that this image could be done procedurally, which is a fucking laugh;

 

So let's get this straight, you make some bullshit claim, I prove that it's false, then you double down on it? I don't understand what you think the problem is. Capcom didn't make their own textures. What the fuck is the issue here?

 

 

You are reading something completely different in this thread than everyone else. No that is nothing like what I am arguing about. At no point do I make the claim that people can be generated, and neither does Judy make any such claims about people. 

 

Wood, Metal, Ceramics, Plastic, Glass, Clouds, Dirt, Brick, Cement, etc that is all things that can be procedurally generated. That is stuff that someone could, if they wanted to generate textures to look like, which is what that pdf I linked suggested. 

 

Or are you seriously thinking that Resident Evil is built upon just the 80 images referenced in the filing? Because that's just laughable.

 

Here, I'll even prove it. Here is an actual texture from RE4 GC

Now, what does this look like to you? Dirt? Leaves? A bunch of trash on top of a metal panel?

 

 

What about this one

 

Rocks? 

 

Notice the repeating in the image. Were these made by Capcom? Were they borrowed from some texture library? Does it matter? one 256x256 texture is 360kb out of a game that is 3GB. So let's assume for the sake of argument that all 80 of the images claimed were in RE4. That's 29MB out of 3GB, or a little less than 1% of a back-of-the-envelope estimate. It's likely the HD PC version is even less, as it's 15GB, and the vast majority of that is going to be voice acting in more than one language.

 

If the damages were based on how much these images make up the game 1% of all global sales of RE4 (10.4 million), she would be entitled to maybe 110K. That's less than what she would get for the claim on the infringement of the book, which is 150,000 for a single infringement of the book as a whole.

 

There's a lot to look at here, and quite frankly, everyone in this thread is just speculating on things that they don't know about. 

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Notice the repeating in the image. Were these made by Capcom? Were they borrowed from some texture library? Does it matter? one 256x256 texture is 360kb out of a game that is 3GB. So let's assume for the sake of argument that all 80 of the images claimed were in RE4. That's 29MB out of 3GB, or a little less than 1% of a back-of-the-envelope estimate. It's likely the HD PC version is even less, as it's 15GB, and the vast majority of that is going to be voice acting in more than one language.

 

If the damages were based on how much these images make up the game 1% of all global sales of RE4 (10.4 million), she would be entitled to maybe 110K. That's less than what she would get for the claim on the infringement of the book, which is 150,000 for a single infringement of the book as a whole.

 

There's a lot to look at here, and quite frankly, everyone in this thread is just speculating on things that they don't know about. 

Sorry, I don't mean to be critical, but I really don't think you understand how copyright works in a scenario.  Aside from statutory damages, she could elect to be going for actual damages.  I also wonder if since they wouldn't be able to recall all copies (and likely wouldn't stop selling it), if that would create more for damages.

 

With your argument as well, 10.4 million copies sold; if you assume a $10 profit per game (they likely actually gained more though), that's $104million, which 1% of is roughly 1 million.

[Kisai]

49 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Sorry, I don't mean to be critical, but I really don't think you understand how copyright works in a scenario.

No, I very much know how copyright works thank you very much, and have been sending DMCA's on behalf of artists for years. I wish some of y'all would realize that this a field that I have experience with. 

 

Quote

 

  Aside from statutory damages, she could elect to be going for actual damages.  I also wonder if since they wouldn't be able to recall all copies (and likely wouldn't stop selling it), if that would create more for damages.

I repeated Leonards argument about "there only being one registered copyright" , which is at most $150,000. Actual damages are not going to to be 80 x $150,000, because first of all, she can not prove that all 80 images would count, and second she has claimed to have licensed others before, and I somehow doubt she was licensing them for $150,000 each either.

 

Quote

With your argument as well, 10.4 million copies sold; if you assume a $10 profit per game (they likely actually gained more though), that's $104million, which 1% of is roughly 1 million.

Did I flub the math? Let me try again.

 

I back-of-the-envelope went:

360kb x 80 = 29MB, 29MB is close enough to 30MB of a 3GB game. The actual size of the disc images are 1.3GB, so it's really 2.6GB, but I rounded up for the sake of making the math less confusing. Because the other thing is that it's likely there is duplicated assets between both discs on the gamecube, because otherwise you can't backtrack in the game. So for the sake of simplicity I assumed the game itself is 3GB and not "perhaps duplicated on both discs"

 

So let's use slightly more accurate math.

360KB x 80 =29MB of a 2.5GB game image. That is 0.01152

 

If that held true for all 10.4 million copies, not just the GameCube copies, that is 119,808 units. Now who knows what the retail price was globally, but let's assume your number, $10 per unit, you get $1,198,080

 

Now the thing is, we wouldn't know what the actual numbers are for any of this. This is just to prove a point of how little "80 images" might conceivably contribute to the game. This is also ignoring the point that not every single one of those images were pointed to RE4, but instead DMC. DMC (the first game) sold 2.16m on the PS2 and is also part of a HD collection on Steam. Where as RE4 is 10,888,067  (1.6m GC, 2.3m PS2, 2.0m Wii, 1.2m PS3/XBox 360, 1.4m PC , 2.2 PS4/X1)

 

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Devil_May_Cry

 

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Resident_Evil

 

For the sake of utter simplicity, let's assume those 80 images used in both RE4 only, on all versions. That is gross sales of 378.04m for RE4, which would 1.152% would be  4,355,020.80 if we look at gross sales, and assume that the % stayed the same on all versions.

 

That's a far cry from 16m, but also much greater than the 150k she would get from just the registered copyright on the book. And since it's likely these assets also got used in all later games, it's entirely possible those assets show up again in all Capcom games after 1999.

 

Like if I was looking to maximize the damages, I would be asking Capcom to license the entire cdrom based on the amount of sales each game that contains even a single image from it, since you could reasonably claim there are 12million unauthorized uses of at least one image just between the two games. Once you start picking it apart each game, it's likely bear out that there are even more images than just what was discovered from the hack, in more titles, and it will waste a substantial amount of employees and lawyers time.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

No, I very much know how copyright works thank you very much, and have been sending DMCA's on behalf of artists for years. I wish some of y'all would realize that this a field that I have experience with. 

If you did know so much about copyright, you would know that it doesn't matter if you can achieve similar results from procedural generated items.  The fact is, they used her photos as textures within the game.  That is clearly copyright infringement if they didn't have a license.

 

Like I've said in my other posts though, the damages could range drastically and will be the most up in the air thing I think about this case (assuming Capcom doesn't have a license)...actually thinking of this...if Capcom doesn't have a license, and depending how she licensed her photos they could be in a world of hurt.

 

This is a hypothetical, and unlikely to be the case...but imagine if she licensed the photos to other people based on a fixed commission of sales (like if she requested like $1 for every item sold or something like that.  It wouldn't be an unheard of practice, but boy that could add up fast for Capcom.  As I've said though, damages will be the wild card in this case (whether it's drastically smaller, or worse case massive)

[Mihle]

@KisaiFrom what I remember, in court filings that have to do with money, it's quite common for the side that demand money, to demand an amount that is more than what is realistic, in hopes that that pushes the end result higher up then what it otherwise would have been.

 

Correct me if wrong tho...

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Mihle said:

@KisaiFrom what I remember, in court filings that have to do with money, it's quite common for the side that demand money, to demand an amount that is more than what is realistic, in hopes that that pushes the end result higher up then what it otherwise would have been.

 

Correct me if wrong tho...

While that is true, if the number is too large it can backfire.  This might.  12 million is 20 times or more what they would have likely been paid for the work absolute maximum. Even more if they go by AIGA scale of the period. The AIGA had a scale for pricing various types of work,  and as it was developed by the designers it was.. healthy. An upper rather than lower target.  This passes that like it was standing still.  It’s not like asking 3 grand for a decent video card. It’s more like asking 30 grand.

[maartendc]

After a quick look at the comparative images: I think she has a strong case.

Shame on the game devs for being lazy and not paying someone for their hard work. If they had just licensed the images from her...

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you did know so much about copyright, you would know that it doesn't matter if you can achieve similar results from procedural generated items.  The fact is, they used her photos as textures within the game.  That is clearly copyright infringement if they didn't have a license.

Please stop interpreting what I say as "is" instead of "could" regarding procedural generation.

 

The point I'm making here is that Capcom's artists had the opportunity to re-create a lot of those "pattern" textures, that doesn't mean those textures from the cdrom are in the game. The hack only proves that some of those images were used in the development of the game, not in the game itself. I'm not about to sit there and do a LP of a game just to prove or disprove this, especially since I don't have Judy's cdrom to even know what I'm looking for. 

 

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Like I've said in my other posts though, the damages could range drastically and will be the most up in the air thing I think about this case (assuming Capcom doesn't have a license)...actually thinking of this...if Capcom doesn't have a license, and depending how she licensed her photos they could be in a world of hurt.

As I said before, there are many possible ways these files wound up in Capcom's development, let alone in the game, it can range from someone just dumping the cdrom to some place on capcom's network, to just being one artists personal library and only affecting models of things that one artist worked on. In which case if it's the latter, that also gives capcom a way to find out what else they could be in. 

 

Which goes to the other side of the argument, Judy's asking for 150,000 per image, and the figure comes from an assumed use of 80 images, which are not registered, only the book. Now maybe a jury won't see it that way. We won't know, and honestly it's far more likely for Capcom to settle than try to defend this.

 

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

This is a hypothetical, and unlikely to be the case...but imagine if she licensed the photos to other people based on a fixed commission of sales (like if she requested like $1 for every item sold or something like that.  It wouldn't be an unheard of practice, but boy that could add up fast for Capcom.  As I've said though, damages will be the wild card in this case (whether it's drastically smaller, or worse case massive)

I kinda doubt it would be more unless it's proven that Capcom has been using these textures in everything, because that could be an expensive discovery process alone, never mind what would happen if it's found that the textures have been in every single game since 1999. As I said, 80 textures in a game are not a huge part of the game data itself, and if that was the kind of measurement used to calculate damages, there would be hell to pay by pretty much every 3D asset catalogue on the internet, as now there is no way to prove that any asset purchased from the Unity asset store, let alone a site like sketchfab is completely clean of copyright claims.

 

 

 

[Paul Ringo]

On 6/7/2021 at 4:52 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

No it can't be anyone's picture. If you look at the article, you can clearly see the image comparisons and the fact that they are pretty much copies.  (That excludes the fact that the file names were the same in the data leak)

I think this will set a ridiculous situation I mean if I took a picture of a house and then you used that picture in a game can I sue you ? I mean I don’t own the content of the picture only the picture and you could make the argument you took your own pictures and it’s not copyright at all but two different pictures or you could argue that you got the pictures from a different source possibly someone who bought the license from the women in question I mean I doubt she knows just where or how they got these pictures she is just assuming they stole them from her scam which allows her to take pictures of designs she doesn’t even own and then copyright the pictures however if you don’t own the content of those pictures you stand to lose the case as it’s practically impossible to prove they didn’t take their own pictures or buy them from a different source , But if you rule with her your saying any photo can be copyrighted which means you will get millions of law suits of people who took pictures of events or objects and now are suing people who used similar pictures in a magazine or book or film ! Sometimes you can’t enforce copyright laws because they are totally impractical I mean the copyright laws themselves have so many loop holes that she knows she can’t win she just wants to settle out of court because she ain’t gonna spend millions on a case that will last 6 months! No people like her just want a big pay day that is why she scans people anyway by implying you can use her pictures then saying I’m gonna sue you ! That is called being a crook and is no better than Capcom 

[Paul Ringo]

18 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's not odd.  It's a filing, at which Capcom will respond, and then they might enter into talks regarding settlement.  She may also be the type of person who wants to see it through until the end.  If Capcom does not have a license, or can't prove the book allowed for a license then yea it's going to be a pretty open and shut case (the damage amount isn't clear cut, and they might be able to argue away some of the images, but the majority are incriminating...and at that stage as well she could use the discovery process to get all the textures they used)

You don’t have an open and shut case with copyright  because Copyright is a ridiculous law anyway with a billon loop holes to apply ownership of a photo is boarding on the ridiculous I mean if I took a picture of the Statue of Liberty would you sue me because you took a picture and you think mine is the same and I stole it but you don’t own the Statue of Liberty you only own the pictures and I can take my own pictures just because you did too so what how can you prove I didn’t buy these pictures from another book or artist who bought them off some other person who took them or maybe I saw the book and went and took pictures myself of these designs which I imagine they did because one picture wouldn’t be enough you need to see it from different angles if your gonna stick it in a computer game so they may of gone to the places in the book and took their own pictures and let’s be honest once you make a game you make a copy of any pictures so they aren’t using the original they simply made their own copy I mean they can’t just stick her picture in a computer game it doesn’t work like that they have to scam it and make a digital version and they own the rights to that 

[Avocado Diaboli]

9 minutes ago, Paul Ringo said:

I think this will set a ridiculous situation I mean if I took a picture of a house and then you used that picture in a game can I sue you ? I mean I don’t own the content of the picture only the picture and you could make the argument you took your own pictures and it’s not copyright at all but two different pictures or you could argue that you got the pictures from a different source possibly someone who bought the license from the women in question I mean I doubt she knows just where or how they got these pictures she is just assuming they stole them from her scam which allows her to take pictures of designs she doesn’t even own and then copyright the pictures however if you don’t own the content of those pictures you stand to lose the case as it’s practically impossible to prove they didn’t take their own pictures or buy them from a different source , But if you rule with her your saying any photo can be copyrighted which means you will get millions of law suits of people who took pictures of events or objects and now are suing people who used similar pictures in a magazine or book or film ! Sometimes you can’t enforce copyright laws because they are totally impractical I mean the copyright laws themselves have so many loop holes that she knows she can’t win she just wants to settle out of court because she ain’t gonna spend millions on a case that will last 6 months! No people like her just want a big pay day that is why she scans people anyway by implying you can use her pictures then saying I’m gonna sue you ! That is called being a crook and is no better than Capcom 

1. Jesus, format your posts and use punctuation.
2. It's been already established that you don't own the copyright to whatever is depicted in a photo, just the photo you took from it.
3. Any photo IS already copyrighted. Copyright is not something you need to apply for, you inherently automatically have all the rights to your own creations and you always get to determine how they're used and under which restrictions (fair use being an obvious exception).
4. If she licensed her pictures to someone else who then turned around to sell them to Capcom, she's still entitled to royalties from Capcom. It's just that now, there are two culpable parties, not just one.

[Paul Ringo]

1 minute ago, Paul Ringo said:

You don’t have an open and shut case with copyright  because Copyright is a ridiculous law anyway with a billon loop holes to apply ownership of a photo is boarding on the ridiculous I mean if I took a picture of the Statue of Liberty would you sue me because you took a picture and you think mine is the same and I stole it but you don’t own the Statue of Liberty you only own the pictures and I can take my own pictures just because you did too so what how can you prove I didn’t buy these pictures from another book or artist who bought them off some other person who took them or maybe I saw the book and went and took pictures myself of these designs which I imagine they did because one picture wouldn’t be enough you need to see it from different angles if your gonna stick it in a computer game so they may of gone to the places in the book and took their own pictures and let’s be honest once you make a game you make a copy of any pictures so they aren’t using the original they simply made their own copy I mean they can’t just stick her picture in a computer game it doesn’t work like that they have to scam it and make a digital version and they own the rights to that now if she had the rights to the digital version put in the game then she would have a case but she only owns the rights to the original photo and a digital copy that has been changed for the purposes of a game well that is a new version with its own copyright laws so it gets very confusing 

 

[Paul Ringo]

3 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

1. Jesus, format your posts and use punctuation.
2. It's been already established that you don't own the copyright to whatever is depicted in a photo, just the photo you took from it.
3. Any photo IS already copyrighted. Copyright is not something you need to apply for, you inherently automatically have all the rights to your own creations and you always get to determine how they're used and under which restrictions (fair use being an obvious exception).
4. If she licensed her pictures to someone else who then turned around to sell them to Capcom, she's still entitled to royalties from Capcom. It's just that now, there are two culpable parties, not just one.

Never mind all that grammar this is a text which any intelligent man can read you did after all so get with the program this ain’t 1853 times have moved on grammar was something made up by primitive people hundreds of years ago ,Now how can she own a photo of an image they have to recreate any images to put in a game they can’t just put her photo in it ! No they own the rights to the digital photos I mean she doesn’t own the patterns she just took a photo big deal she owns the rights to a photo not the content that isn’t her’s I mean you take a picture of the Statue of Liberty and I take a picture how can you prove that isn’t my picture and if I change it make a digital copy then it’s not even the same photo now it’s a copy which I own not you see how complicated this gets now how can you prove I didn’t just fly to all of these places and take my own photos after all i need more than 1 for a computer game I need hundreds 

[Paul Ringo]

On 6/7/2021 at 5:24 PM, Master Disaster said:

Nah, copyright is granted at the point of creation, she doesn't have to state any license agreements unless she wishes to expressly give up some of her rights. No license means usual rules apply.

I mean owning the right to a picture of something you don’t own is very complicated because other people can take photos too I mean if you take a picture of the Statue of Liberty can I sue  you because it looks identical to my picture which is copyrighted?Or would you say hey I went there and took hundreds of pictures after I saw your picture in a book !now they may use your book to identify the places or pictures but they have to scam any photos and create digital versions now those pictures have their own copyrights so proving they used her pictures is impossible because they will say we made our own copyright copies digital versions that we put in the game we didn’t use her pictures we copied our own version and many more versions of it .

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Please stop interpreting what I say as "is" instead of "could" regarding procedural generation.

 

The point I'm making here is that Capcom's artists had the opportunity to re-create a lot of those "pattern" textures, that doesn't mean those textures from the cdrom are in the game. The hack only proves that some of those images were used in the development of the game, not in the game itself. I'm not about to sit there and do a LP of a game just to prove or disprove this, especially since I don't have Judy's cdrom to even know what I'm looking for. 

You keep making it as though the argument around procedural generation matters in this case. It doesn't.  It doesn't matter if Capcom could have made similar textures, the fact is it's pretty clear they used the cd as the source material.  Sure, if it was just one or two images within the game you could argue maybe a coincidence...but when it's 80 images, a decent amount which are unique, and even the brick textures, including their placement, angle, and wear pattern matching up 1 to 1; it becomes more than coincidence.  This is a civil matter as well, she only has to prove that her story is more likely than Capcom's.

 

17 minutes ago, Paul Ringo said:

now they may use your book to identify the places or pictures but they have to scam any photos and create digital versions now those pictures have their own copyrights so proving they used her pictures is impossible because they will say we made our own copyright copies digital versions that we put in the game we didn’t use her pictures we copied our own version and many more versions of it .

If you take a photo, you own the rights to it.  Someone else is more than welcome to come along and take a photo as well; and if it matches yours they can only use their photo (they don't magically own your photo).  Sure, if it was just one or two images she would have a hard time proving things, but this is 80 images which have matches to them (where if you overlay them, they match up cracks and all).  The probability of that happening are pretty much zero.  Also, scanning from a book is copyright infringement.  Taking photographs of buildings or real life materials though isn't (well, some caveats).

 

In short Paul, she does own the copyrights of the photos she took and if someone used those photos they are in violation (and given how variable photos are, they are undoubtedly hers).

 

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

I kinda doubt it would be more unless it's proven that Capcom has been using these textures in everything, because that could be an expensive discovery process alone, never mind what would happen if it's found that the textures have been in every single game since 1999

It all would depend on the precedent of how she licensed her photos to other people.  Again, we won't know unless this gets to the damages portion of the lawsuit.  If though she has sold licenses for her photos based on retail copies sold, it could be bad for Capcom.  With that said, if she sold her licenses for like $1000 per image it will work out well for Capcom.  After all, if her general license was something like 1 cent per image per item sold, with 80 images that's $8 million alone from RE4

[Paul Ringo]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you did know so much about copyright, you would know that it doesn't matter if you can achieve similar results from procedural generated items.  The fact is, they used her photos as textures within the game.  That is clearly copyright infringement if they didn't have a license.

 

Like I've said in my other posts though, the damages could range drastically and will be the most up in the air thing I think about this case (assuming Capcom doesn't have a license)...actually thinking of this...if Capcom doesn't have a license, and depending how she licensed her photos they could be in a world of hurt.

 

This is a hypothetical, and unlikely to be the case...but imagine if she licensed the photos to other people based on a fixed commission of sales (like if she requested like $1 for every item sold or something like that.  It wouldn't be an unheard of practice, but boy that could add up fast for Capcom.  As I've said though, damages will be the wild card in this case (whether it's drastically smaller, or worse case massive)

This claim is nonsense she is acting like she owns the actual patterns and content of the photos but she doesn’t they don’t belong to her she only owns the pictures! Now you can’t prove in court that they used her pictures they will say the book was just used as research and a number of photos were identified and we took our own pictures and hundreds of them then digitally put them into a game making a photo that we own the rights too and at no time did we copy the photos from the book and put those photos in the game  I mean why would we they are copyrighted ! No we took our own photos of the original content and then we made a digital copy which is a different version altogether and that was one of many digital photos we created ourselves case closed unless you have any evidence to suggest we just put this photo from this book straight into our game ! But why would we when we can take our own pictures. 

[Paul Ringo]

15 hours ago, Kisai said:

You are reading something completely different in this thread than everyone else. No that is nothing like what I am arguing about. At no point do I make the claim that people can be generated, and neither does Judy make any such claims about people. 

 

Wood, Metal, Ceramics, Plastic, Glass, Clouds, Dirt, Brick, Cement, etc that is all things that can be procedurally generated. That is stuff that someone could, if they wanted to generate textures to look like, which is what that pdf I linked suggested. 

 

Or are you seriously thinking that Resident Evil is built upon just the 80 images referenced in the filing? Because that's just laughable.

 

Here, I'll even prove it. Here is an actual texture from RE4 GC

Now, what does this look like to you? Dirt? Leaves? A bunch of trash on top of a metal panel?

 

 

What about this one

 

Rocks? 

 

Notice the repeating in the image. Were these made by Capcom? Were they borrowed from some texture library? Does it matter? one 256x256 texture is 360kb out of a game that is 3GB. So let's assume for the sake of argument that all 80 of the images claimed were in RE4. That's 29MB out of 3GB, or a little less than 1% of a back-of-the-envelope estimate. It's likely the HD PC version is even less, as it's 15GB, and the vast majority of that is going to be voice acting in more than one language.

 

If the damages were based on how much these images make up the game 1% of all global sales of RE4 (10.4 million), she would be entitled to maybe 110K. That's less than what she would get for the claim on the infringement of the book, which is 150,000 for a single infringement of the book as a whole.

 

There's a lot to look at here, and quite frankly, everyone in this thread is just speculating on things that they don't know about. 

I say this !  if I was them my defensive stance is that we used this book for what it was intended for inspiration but we didn’t take the pictures from the book why would we they are copyrighted we have our own lawyers who would never allow such a thing ,No we simply used the book as inspiration we then marked a few photos that we would use but we then went and took our own pictures of all of these patterns then we made hundreds of digital copies which aren’t photos at all you see we don’t simply put photos into a game we have too recreate any images or patterns or photos on a computer so we can’t just copy them , But even if we did we wouldn’t copy a photo we would copy the original content from many different angles which means taking our own pictures which is what we did case closed no settlement for you unless you can prove we just copied these pictures from the CD or Book ! But why would we be that stupid when we can just get our own pictures. Yes it would be ridiculous for a judge to guess even if we lose the case we will appeal immediately I mean we ain’t gonna remove all our games from the internet based on these ridiculous accusations I mean anyone would think this women actually owned the content and patterns when all she did was take a picture and that is all she owns we can use the content just as easy as her unless the person who made the original patterns and art wants to sue us both I suggest she shut up and drop her case the little crook !  Or we will make a counter claim that she is slandering our reputation accusing us of stealing ! I mean she only made this book to try and make money by going to court.

[Kisai]

46 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You keep making it as though the argument around procedural generation matters in this case. It doesn't.  It doesn't matter if Capcom could have made similar textures, the fact is it's pretty clear they used the cd as the source material.  Sure, if it was just one or two images within the game you could argue maybe a coincidence...but when it's 80 images, a decent amount which are unique, and even the brick textures, including their placement, angle, and wear pattern matching up 1 to 1; it becomes more than coincidence.  This is a civil matter as well, she only has to prove that her story is more likely than Capcom's.

It matters, because the evidence here is the hack, not the game, where the same file names were present. 

 

Let me reframe this, because people in this thread are being really obtuse about this point.

 

You have a real house, you have a photo of a house, and you have a house created inside a computer. No matter which way you spin it, you have not stolen that real world house, even if you've taken photos of that house to build that house inside the computer. You obviously could not create that house from scratch without the photos, but that doesn't mean you simply put the photos in the computer to make the house, which is where the infringement would come from. 

 

No matter what the presence of the photos in the hack suggest, that DOES NOT MEAN those are still in the game. Sure, some of those might be, but others might have been modeled from different assets that just happen to look similar enough to make a claim over. That's why things like bricks and cobblestone shouldn't even be given consideration to copyright. There is nothing special about a new, clean, brick. What gives it some value to Judy here is how those bricks are put together in a pattern. You could just as easily re-create that pattern yourself. Bricks are a very basic thing you learn in painting. I'm not saying capcom did not use it at some point, but you can not prove that is in the game without reverse engineering the retail game. There are far easier targets to go "that is impossible to create without ever seeing the image on the cdrom" like many of those goat-head shapes.

 

 

46 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

It all would depend on the precedent of how she licensed her photos to other people.  Again, we won't know unless this gets to the damages portion of the lawsuit.  If though she has sold licenses for her photos based on retail copies sold, it could be bad for Capcom.  With that said, if she sold her licenses for like $1000 per image it will work out well for Capcom.  After all, if her general license was something like 1 cent per image per item sold, with 80 images that's $8 million alone from RE4

Again, we seem to agree on this point, but coming up with numbers out of thin air because we are not privy to what the images are licensed to and what capcom has licensed other images for. My guess would be that any commercial use of an image other than for producing an identical cdrom would not be less than $1000 per image.

 

[WkdPaul]

1 hour ago, Paul Ringo said:

This claim is nonsense she is acting like she owns the actual patterns and content of the photos but she doesn’t they don’t belong to her she only owns the pictures!

Please just stop, it's obvious you have no clue what copyrighted content is and how copyrights work. The pictures were in a digital form on a CD that is included with the book at the time of purchase. Those digital pictures are hers and she does owns them, the issue here is about the licence that was attributed to those pictures, and if they were used in game or only used as inspiration by the texture artists.

 

Forget about "the pattern" in the picture, or the objects in the pictures, that's not what copyright is, this is similar to classical music ; the music is in the public domain, meaning it can't be copyrighted, BUT, the performance itself can be, meaning, the musician that plays a piece of public domain music can copyright his own performance of him, playing that piece of music, it doesn't mean he owns the public domain music he just played, but rather that he owns his own performance and interpretation of it.

 

I strongly suggest you look up what and how copyright works before you continue to post nonsence.