IP Rights SIG/IP in Graphic Art

International Game Developers Association

1 IP in Graphic Art

[edit] IP in Graphic Art

Perhaps the most common area of Intellectual Property Rights that a game team will encounter during development is the area of graphics and art assets. There are a few trends which impact this;

The trend towards realistic setting for some games (city streets, familiar real-world settings), and,

The scope of production involved in today's games, making creating all assets from scratch less and less practical.

[edit] Using Images or Photographs

Taking photographs of;

Buildings (in some cases), or,
Works of art, or other copyrighted items, or,
People, or,
On private property

Require permission before these images can be used. This is required explicitly in the US, however this practice should be observed elsewhere too.

A texture artist has two choices when creating a texture – hand paint an entirely new texture or start with another image or photograph as source. Although another image may used as the starting point, frequently there are many modifications made to the image so that it might be largely unrecognisable once completed and in the game.

One approach that an artist might us is to find images or photographs on the internet. The theory being that it is either a generic object (trees, rocks, clouds) or will be changed so much that it will not resemble the original. In actuality this does violate the copyright of the original image. Similar to the issue of music sampling, it doesn't matter what portion of the image is copied, it is still technically required to get permission.

It's probably obvious that if one were to make a collage using found images, this would infringe on copyrights of those images unless permission were granted. It may not be as obvious that even if several passes of digital manipulation is done on the image in Photoshop™ for instance, the copyright is still in effect.

Images found on the internet have a copyright associated with them even if they are not marked as such, since copyright protection is afforded simply by the creation of such image.

Any artist who wants to use this type of source material needs to inform their lead or project manager so that a business decision can be made as to how to approach the situation. In some cases it may be more appropriate to take new photographs specifically for the project, to avoid any infringement. This is particularly important for a commercial game.

A similar situatio 2000 n may arise when a team does multiple projects, and wants to reuse art assets between the projects. For instance both may need a rock texture. In this case the ownership of these assets needs to be determined before they are reused. The art assets from one game may be owned by the publisher, or they may be jointly owned. The ownership may include some restriction on how they are used (for instance only for sequels or derivative products).

In general, this means that art teams should both create libraries of available assets that the developer owns, and also clearly record the source of each image used or in the library. If a start-up team is doing a non-commercial project, or finds that it is too difficult to obtain either original source materials or permissions, then they need to be mindful of the risk that they have opened themselves to.

[edit] Copying Objects: Real-World Locations

One growing trend in particular genres of games is to use real-world locations or objects in game environments.

A simple example of this is using a billboard sign or everyday object in a scene. If the billboard being copied represents someone else's trademark, then you definitely need their permission, as well as likely an image from them with that meets their official specs on how the trademark should appear. In some cases this could be considered advertising for them, and a fee may be collected. However be mindful that an advertiser will also likely want to determine how their image is used in the game, how prominent it is, and how it appears compared to other advertisers.

If the object being created is an everyday object, like a table or chair, it is best to not copy directly from an existing object. For example you may choose to use a desk lamp in your game, however you could have an issue if it looked too much like the Pixar lamp or even a commercially available lamp. In the latter case, you could get permission, much like a product placement in a movie.

Even natural objects can encounter trademark issues. For instance the Lone Cypress near Monterey is a famous example of a tree that has been trademarked by a company, such that artists may not use representations of it (either photographs or art). See http://www.midreal.com/Pages/Articlecoastweekly.html for some background.

Buildings can also be the subject of copyright. The Eiffel Tower is a famous example, often encountered by developers who are using Paris as a location. According to the official site http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/pratique/faq/ it is stated that publishing a photograph of the tower at night is subject to copyright law and entails fees. Similar restrictions pertain to using the Tower as an object in games.

In 1950, Madison Square Garden won a major court case giving them and other property owners’ exclusive rights to images of their property.

If you intend on basing a game in a particular location, a good rule of thumb is to contact the local authority requesting any information on permission required for using cityscapes or particular characteristic buildings. If you wish to use a particular building, contact the owner of the building, if applicable, and obtain permission to use images of the building explicitly.

[edit] Copying Objects: Real People

Use of real-life people as images in games, also requires permission to be granted. A recent example is the case of an EA football game that had to be removed from sale because a player depicted in it had not given his permission for his image to be used. EA had gotten permission from some of the leagues in question, but it turned out this player was not a member of either league. More background can be found here;

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=footballgamebanned1051726409