Artist says Capcom stole her photos for Resident Evil, Devil May Cry games in lawsuit

Capcom games like Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry allegedly used unlicensed copyrighted photos extensively in its games to build out environments, details, and even the Resident Evil 4 logo, according to a new lawsuit filed Friday.

[mkis007]

Wow, pretty damning evidence.

[Jin_Sakai]

If they like an artist work why not just offer to hire them instead of stealing from them?

[Sonic-and-Crash]

i defend Capcom on this ...it is their own property game ....whatever artistic vlaue have your photos are because they ve taken from the game ....she didnt create RE4 or any of its art content....

[MetroidFREAK21]

@Sonic-and-Crash... do you not understand anything? That's not how ANY of that works.

[n1kki6]

@Sonic-and-crash Did you even read the article? Her art had nothing to do with Resident Evil. They were textures and designs that they used within their own art.

[MadLad]

@sonic

I don't know what to say, man.
Not to dog pile on you, but you obviously don't get how things work.
It's very obvious that they lifted the hard work of someone else, and gave them no credit, and no money for the work, yet they used it for their own profit.
There's little difference than me walking into a museum and stealing a painting.
That's their product.
That is now a product.

[camel_toad]

I will never understand how an artist can be so naive to work on something high profile (such as the RE series) copy someone else's work and think it will go unnoticed.

Another example being one of the artists of RE8 who blatantly copied a creature design from that Frankenstein's Army film.

[isarai]

To be fair this was back when game development, especially Japanese development, was very fast and loose. And it went unnoticed for almost 15yrs. These big studios are way more cautious about where they get their assets these days. They'll just pay her and settle it out of court, easy situation for Capcom honestly.

[CobraKai]

They’ll pay her. Prolly cheaper than going through a whole lawsuit battle. Kinda like what happened with Naughty Dog and that song. Seriously tho, they said some other guy had his monster designs stolen too. If your gonna be working as an artist for a video game, use your own assets.

[roadkillers]

This is a weird one because if the leaks never would have happened, no one would'v known.. The items copyrighted are extremely tiny details too, why not just make the detail similar? Either way, Capcom should just settle out of court and put out a statement explaining how a small amount of artists copyrighted parts of their work. I can't believe the overall company new about these small instances while their company was working on dozens of games.

[MocBistro]

It's hard to judge, she doesn't create the pictures, she took them. If i took a picture of your house does that mean I own the picture of YOUR house?

[roadkillers]

It's kind of a grey area, but from my understanding all of these photos were published in a book which has copyright protection. Most of these details I wouldn't have known a difference without an article (apparently the author didn't either since this has been happening pre- REmake). The only detail I remember is RE4's cool intro where the 4 appears.

[purple101]

I agree
On her logic il take a photo of a beach .. then charge people if they decide to take a family pic!

In all seriousness there's a difference with what she's saying. Capcom are profiting .

It's like with music. I can play music from a cd at a party.
But if I start charging people £10 for entry. Id have to give a percentage to the artist .

It's a tricky one. But I'd say she doesn't really have a case here. If it was a painting. Then it's another story. But a photo ! Get out of town

[roadkillers]

That's confusing as well too. If someone is throwing a $10 entry fee, does someones $10 Spotify cover the costs?

[purple101]

That would only cover it for you. Not for public.

Good point though.

Anyway I read the article more and they have even used it in their logo. Which is a big no no.

Obviously you copyright a logo and you can't copyright something that's already copyrighted by somebody else that would be the whole point of copyright! Haha

[gold_drake]

ah music is really complicated. in theory you are absolutely right, but charging people to have entry to a party with music does not mean you have to give the artists a cut. because you charge for entry, not for music, that would be illegal to resell said music.

clubs dont pay percentages to artists if they play music. theyd go bankrupt if they had to pay every artist lol. music copyright and royalties are very complicated.

[glennhkboy]

Actually, I think you need to pay for the licence of any music you played openly, like a party.

[BrainSyphoned]

Since 1990 if the house is in a viewable to public location you would indeed own the photo of the house. Now if you take a photo of a mural without showing the whole house things change. But for a blanket statement on your basic house on the street, yes you would own the picture of someone else's house. But that is just one page of google's understanding of copywrites.

[porkChop]

If I allowed you into my home, yes you would own the picture of my house. In journalism school they taught us about (Canadian) copyright laws. If you take a photo that photo is yours. If you're on private property and have permission to be there, any photos you take are your copyright. If you're trespassing that isn't necessarily true. She's a professional photographer though, she had permission to be there.

[Sitdown]

She did create the picture, part of taking a picture is the composition, and we don't know how much editing was done in creating the final project. If you took the picture of their home, you would own the picture..the grey area is around privacy laws and what requires permission.

[Bobertt]

If you take a picture or video you own it. Why do you think paparazzi exist they go around taking pictures and sell them to the news.

[BrainSyphoned]

Would have laughed my ass off if Rathalos was ripped off from her as well.

[OhReginald]

Rathalos is just a wyvern bro

[BigMalk]

Can't really claim from photos that it's your work. That's like me trying to sue someone for recreating my tourist snaps of London in a game to be honest.

Imagine if someone tried to claim against a movie set in a city, because they had released a book of said city's architecture, as if the buildings and scenery belong to them. You might have copyright to your photos being reused, but not the contents in them.

[Amplitude]

You clearly didn't read the article

[RosweeSon]

Or understand how the world works 🤦🏻‍♂️😑 🤣🤣

[BigMalk]

Its Polygon. Of course I didn't.

[BigMalk]

@Roswee

No, but I know how it should work. Art is created, not captured. Photography can be art, but really, you never composed the canvas, you just snapped the shot.

[Eidolon]

Ok, try snapping those exact shots, at least 80+ of them. And it's pretty damning evidence that they used her photographs, which she had stated she wanted to be contacted for a license for use in commercial products. Are you kidding, me? So photographs can't be copyrighted, dance moves can't be copyrighted, let's get to literary works already.. Can't copyright specific strings of words because you can't own the language, right?

[BigMalk]

@Eidolon

Not exactly. I don't believe in stupid stuff, like Paris Hilton trying to own "That's hot", or company names trying to put a TM on a commonly used word so no one else is allowed to use anything remotely similar. Plagiarism is a different story, that would be stealing an entire work.

I don't believe recreating photographs of existing structures (pre-photograph) , should be any different to a them actually going to a location and taking pics themselves.

All this is typical behaviour for the current world and suing culture. Did the artist pay to take photographs of someone else's creation... Probably not.

[LoveSpuds]

Honestly, I don't understand how people are finding this confusing.

This is a book contains photographs of textures specifically shot for the purposes of reference material for graphic design/art. If that reference material is used for commercial purposes then she is entitled to renumeration for her work.

Not that its relevant here, but to clarify a point, any photos taken in a public place, even if the subject matter is private property, is the property of the photographer. I can stand in a public place and photograph private property, let's say a famous tourist attraction, and that is my photograph which I am entitled to exploit as my own work. Who owns the subject matter of the photo is irrelevant.

[BigMalk]

So does that make the photographer irrelevant too then, because the person that is using it is doing exactly the same thing that they did... Claiming something that was already there before.

[Amplitude]

@BigMalk:
Eh yeah that's fair lol

[calactyte]

Damning evidence indeed. That said, I think this will test the concept of photomanipulation and to what degree a photograph of something existing (that potentially anyone can photograph) is protected under copyright law. For instance if I photograph a painting of another artist's painted canvas, and display that in a museum, would that be copyright infringement? Also if these photos were offered in digital format on the internet, are they now considered publicly released? I am absolutely clueless on this subject, but as a game developer, I can say it's pretty easy to download stuff you find off the internet and use that in your artwork. Lazy? Sure maybe. But it's something everyone does.

[gold_drake]

they "kind of" did that with harry potter 1 and 2, were all the paintings or ALOT of them are real life paintings, but with added things, like lets say mona lisa, but with a wand and a witches hat and maybe a cat on her lap. it doesnt violate copyright since they have been changed or added things to them, but its clearly mona lisa right.

copyright is very complicated if its not outright theft and there are alot of grey areas.

but theft is theft. from what i gather, they havent changed the portraits or pics at all lol.

copy right is really complicated

[Knushwood Butt]

RE4, that came out in 2005.

[Pyrofire95]

Yeah I was kinda thinking that too. I can give a little slack because it took a little while before being able to see the game in a clearer HD. That plus who knows if she's actually actively scanning game assets for her photos to be ripped off from hundreds of photos she's taken.

[Ryuk_2007]

Capcom literally saved the pics with the same file names as the artist they stole it from lmao. So you have the same pics with the same file names... how can you say they didn't steal it lol

[Pyrofire95]

Sometimes it can just happen by accident. Photos were taken from a 1998 surface CD and probably got shared around the different teams for 20 years.

[Shinox]

Oh boy .. here we go the cracks are showing now but it sucks that this fall into good games like RE4 and RE1R and DMC
god knows how much Capcom copied and stole in their recent RE games

[stupidusername]

It’s rather likely that Capcom as a whole was unaware of this happening and that this is a single or maybe a few artists fault. They may have thought that this would be fine as they’re manipulating the pictures and blending it togheter with tons of other assets, or at least that they wouldn’t be caught.

[TrueStoryGuy]

If you take a photo of a house, and then someone else takes a very similar photo and uses it to create IP, it can become a legal battle for the parties involved. For one picture, that is in a public place, it'll be an interesting legal battle. However, this provides multiple instances of this happening, including a direct image rip (file name included) off the CD, which is still her IP.

It's pretty damning for Capcom who was hoping the IP holder wouldn't notice, and unfortunately she did after the Capcom leak exposed the file names were stolen. Further research turned up more damning evidence, such as the Resident Evil 4 picture which previously went undetected for 17 years.

Capcom will settle out of court and pay this woman her dues.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Poopy!! 💩💩

[RoseSapphire]

Capcom definitely used these images directly and will likely settle out of court.

BUT

I personally don't believe they owe the photographer anything. Specifically, they didn't take the entire framed composition. Since their photos are not of original work, a copy of the photo would have been done via placement, lighting, added features - anything that makes it unique from the actual object in the photo. For example, the relief. Nothing about the photo makes it anything more than the relief that already exists. When Capcom copies that, are they copying the photo or the relief? The same for the textures and scratches. Those exist and no sort of photographic framing or uniqueness was taken along with it. It's absolutely feasible for someone on the art team to have found these photos, pictures of things that exist in real life, and found inspiration in those items themselves - not the photos. In fact, artists do this frequently, whether it's architecture, objects, people, landscapes, etc. They research via photos.

The damning use would be if these images are direct copies of the existing files. Then they would be using this photographers work directly.

[Pyrofire95]

It's so clearly taken from her CD but something like this seems really easy to just be wildly spread around the office, everyone unaware that they were using assets that weren't purchased.
Way I see it someone at Capcom, either knowingly or not, got the assets without paying for rights and the files proliferated through the studios unknowing that the assets weren't paid for. After all this was a 1998 CD used as early as 2001 to 2005 or later, stuff happens and files get mixed around.
I'd say it's like 90% an innocent mistake and one that could cost more than $12 million. Tho, lawyers always start with a high dollar value, Capcom will likely get that down but ultimately be fined some large amount.

[lellkay]

The evidence is pretty clear. Crazy!

[stefd75]

Not sure what the law is but can you own a photo of something in a public place. What stopping the owner of a house suing her for using elements of that house in her book on the other hand who said Capcom saw her book and went out and took the same photos themselves so not to pay her.