MIT Steals Comic Book Character

Merle writes "According to Horizon Comics MIT has stolen images from their comic Radix in a proposal to the US Army as an attempt to gain funds to foot a project in creating a better, stronger type of soldier for tomorrow. Upon inspection of the images themselves, it can be easily seen that minor image alteration and a bit of photoshop magic for the background, MIT did a classic comic book "swipe" and took the credit for it." Well, imitation/flattery/blah blah blah, but man. Thats just strange.

Comments

Remember the rule of "fair use"

[bons]

"Any portion of any creation can be removed and redistributed in a creation of your own unless the original creation is released under an approved open source license."

This allows Slashdot readers to make themselves distributors for other people's music, software, video, etc, but makes sure Microsoft will never distribute their GPLed code for something as tacky as profit.

It's not fair use

[LordNimon]

Well, not in my opinion at least. The graphic design industry already has something that covers this type of work: royalty-free stock images. A graphic artist can by a book or a CD full of images and/or photographs. The cost of the book/CD covers unlimited royalty-free usage of the images in any way (with the exception of mass re-duplication and sale of the book/CD, of course).

What MIT has done is classic non-fair-use of design work. A professional graphic designer would never have done what MIT did, and based on the article, MIT didn't use a professional:

MIT Professor Ned Thomas, head of the ISN, claimed his daughter created "an interpretive drawing" of the futuristic solider "in a couple of days" for use in the application.

I seriously doubt Prof. Thomas' daughter is a professional graphic designer. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she's a high-school kid who just knows how to use Photoshop.

Sensationalism

[sheriff_p]

Wired have been running this story for a few days with a slightly more balanced persepctive (read it here), the key quote being:

In a letter dated May 3, MIT attorney Mark Fischer admitted that MIT had used this drawing of "Val" in its grant proposal to the Army. But Kelly says because "MIT reproduced a very small number of copies (approximately 25 copies)," of the document for "educational activities," the school did not violate the Lais' rights.

It does seem that at first, one of the MIT professors said their daughter had drawn it, but, the quote above I think says it all...

Re:Sensationalism

[dillon_rinker]

Ummm...maybe the fact that the copied images were used to get MIT over $50 million? I don't think any sane person would suggest that the images were solely responsible for that grant from the Federal government, but why would MIT have included it if they didn't think it would help them get the money? Given that MIT thought the swiped image helpful, and given that the images helped MIT get a TON of cash, I think it follows that the original artist should be compensated.

Your flawed analogy could be corrected like this...

Okay, so how is this any different from downloading an MP3 and using it as part of the soundtrack in a movie that grosses $50 million?

(The soundtrack contributes to the movie, but the movie should pretty well stand on its own...nevertheless, if the soundtrack is part of the movie, if the director thought it added somethig, then the artist should be compensated).

Re:Sensationalism

[Stonehand]

Smack 'em. Just because MIT is an educational institution does not mean that everything they do is for educational activities.

Was it for scholarly criticism? Was the drawing important /as/ a research matter (and not just in getting money /for/ research)? No, not really.

Hmmm. I wonder what the MIT penalty for plagiarism is. Expulsion? I wonder what they'll do to the responsible employees.

Why can't they just give credit to Radix

[jukal]

I don't get it, does MIT want to teach their students steal artwork and not even credit the original author? Is that like "company policy" there at MIT?

Handy Swipes(tm)

[realgone]

I can understand why Horizon Comics might be upset, but the truth is this sort of thing is extremely common in pitches and proposals -- particularly in my chosen profession of advertising. Heck, there's even a catchy name for it: "swipe". As in, "Hey, I need some swipe of people playing pool for this Budweiser ad." At which point, some junior art director will scamper off and start flipping through magazines and stock books looking for that perfect temp photo.

Everyone understands that this isn't our original artwork, that it's only there to give the client a sense of what the ad could look like and ultimately get them excited enough about the idea to execute it with real art. I have the sense that MIT looked at the illustrations for this Army proposal much the same way.

What does seem like dirty pool, however, is that someone decided to go that one extra and add their own credit line -- "H. Thomas", it looks like? -- to said swipe. And that, my friends, is where we begin to cross the line into outright theft. I'd agree that MIT, at the very least, owes an apology to all involved. (Although I guess creating invisible ninja supersoldiers means never having to say you're sorry, right?)

Re:Handy Swipes(tm)

[dillon_rinker]

There's a big difference between swiping images for a proposal and using those swiped images in the final ad, though. This wasn't a proposal in the sense of "Hey, this is how we think the layout should be, and we've got this picture of a futuristic soldier right here, and..." This was a finished project. This was "Hey, Feds, we'll give you this, you give us money." As I mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, MIT clearly thought that the image contributed to their document; if they didn't, they wouldn't have included it. Since their inclusion of the image helped them get $50 million, I think it's reasonable to suggest that the artist get a slice of that.

I suspect that the document's authors didn't know it was a swipe. The artist should be hung out to dry. Oh, wait, she's some bigwig's daughter, isn't she...

Re:Handy Swipes(tm)

[dhogaza]

Use of another's photos in comps of ads for clients can be subject to fees and transgressing as you describe can, and has, caused the transgressor to be spanked in court on more than one occasion.

Because, as you point out, it is "swiping" (more formally known as "stealing") another's work.

The pricing guide I use for sales specifically lists "presenation to client when artwork is not used in the final product" as a billable event ...

It's not as if the Radix armor is original

[DavidBrown]

Try reading Masamune Shirow's "Appleseed", published in America by Dark Horse Comics. The body armor worn by the ESWAT soldiers is clearly a precursor to the Radix armor.

Now if MIT had ripped of Shirow's artwork instead of the much lamer Radix artwork they would have wound up with a $100 million grant, instead of only $50 million.

Oops.

Re:It's not as if the Radix armor is original

[tgibbs]

This is not an issue of the originality of the concept. I think that everybody would agree that the concept of powered body armor long ago passed into the public domain. This is a swip of a specific illustration.

MIT has Issued an Apology

[Alien54]

MIT apparently has gotten enough flack over this in the past week that they have issued an apology, removed all offending artwork, etc.

This public apology is featured on their news page. See the press release here

Just another example of how timely /. can be at times

;-)

heck even RFN has followed this

;-)

Tempest in a teapot...

[dpbsmith]

What's the big deal? The Boston Globe has been reporting on this as it unfolds. The author of the report asked his teen-aged daughter if she'd do an illustration, she did, she didn't know better, they used it, Horizon complained, MIT apologized.

I just feel sorry for the guy and his daughter. She was interested in art, he was trying to give her a nice little moment.

The last time I looked, Horizon wanted a more sincere apology--I think they said that since the original had been a press release the apology should be a press release or something like that. But I'm sure MIT and Horizon will work it out, probably without even any money payment.

Nothing in the incident even involves any EXTREME misjudgement or overreaction. It's not as if the author of the report did anything TERRIBLY stupid; it fell well within the normal range of misjudgement that anyone could make from time to time. And, dammit, it was a nice thing for him to do for his daughter. He just should have been a little more careful.

It's not like Horizon was wrong to complain. It's not like Horizon is overreacting or suing MIT for $100,000,000.

It was a minor misjudgement, everyone seems to be acting in a reasonably adult manner... what's the big deal?

50 Millions dollars for a comic nanotech suit???

[imr]

50 millions to become invisible and jump 20 feet high ???
And they refused my original work of a red and blue suit with a big yellow S which would have given invincibility and the ability to fly to all u.s. soldiers for a mere one hundred million dollars!!!!

This is funny...

[sheldon]

According to /. it's ok to steal music and movies, but when you steal a comic book image it's grounds for the death penalty! :)