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Graffiti Artist Sues Grand Theft Auto Creators
Thanks to EvilAvatar for pointing to an Entertainment Law Digest synopsis about a graffiti artist suing over unauthorized use of his work in Grand Theft Auto III. The article says that "Christopher Ellis asserts that Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive Software copied, used, and distributed his artwork, [made under the name] Daze" in GTA3, and Daze's official website has examples of his work, which was allegedly scanned into Grand Theft Auto's gritty urban environments without his knowledge.
"I think the point is the scanned HIS images off of HIS site, or at least thats what i got out of this. "
Actually it was too vague to really get that out. They were saying that they should have known he was an artist because he was publiscized.
It's not clear where the photos came from. If they scanned from a mag or grabbed from his site, they're busted. If they took a photo in the city, then it's not so black and white. They could still potentially be in trouble, but they could still worm out of it. It's just not clear.
"Derp de derp."
"Why shouldn't Take-Two be allowed to make scans of public property? Defacing it with your 'art' doesn't make it yours. "
That's a touchy aspect of public work. If I'm making a movie and there's a copyrighted poster on the wall of the set that was there when I arrived, am I breaching copyright?
When I read your post here, the first thing I thought of was the makers of the Spiderman movie getting into legal trouble because they digitally removed adverts in NYC. So if you use the work, you're in trouble, if you don't, then you're in trouble. WTF?
I'm an artist. Copyright's supposed to help me. But to this point it's simply scared me.
"Derp de derp."
Hmm. There's not nearly enough information in that article for us to judge. However, I'm leaning towards the opinion that if it's work on public buildings, and the game has those buildings in it, then his art's allowed to be shown. I don't think you can copyright the likeness of a building... and even if you could, as it's in public, showing the building as it is in real life would be Fair Use.
Further, if it's under a pseudonym in the first place, then 1) if they've got the signature in the game also then they're even giving him credit (attributing the work to him) and 2) he's got an uphill battle proving something is his and not the work of a copycat.
Further still, if he sprayed that stuff on the buildings without permission, he's shit out of luck. You can't copyright a crime, even if it counts as art and you're famous.
"Graffiti artist? Oh you mean person who vandalizes property that doesn't belong to them"
Not necessarily. I don't know about America, but here in Australia, quite a few schools and towns have "graffiti walls" which are open slather. Generally the stuff that people like doesn't get painted over, but it's all based on community co-operation, there's no wall moderators or anything like that. It really is worth it; some people can do amazing things with a spray can.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I live in NYC and commute on the subway every day. Having looked at the examples on this guy's website, I'd rather see this guys paintings in the subway system than the ads for bad beer, bad movies, bad music, and personal injury attorneys.
I think the MTA should be spending their budget on improving service (*cough*second avenue line*cough*) instead of on taking cars out of service for scrubbing. Of course, being an NYC taxpayer and MTA straphanger, my opinion means squat.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Even assuming that work is legitimate, at what point can the games company be assumed to have made every reasonable effort to contact the creator?
If there is no statement of ownership, no reasonable means of finding out who did create it, the building owners/occupiers no longer have a record, it was created under an untracable alias, etc. At what point can they be considered to have done everything reasonably possible to contact him and get to use it by default? Does there ever come a point where being uncontactable releases copyright?
Also, who owns the copyright? The artist who created the artwork or the owners of the building that he created it "for"? If you had someone paint a mural in your lobby, unless there was a contract - which I'm assuming most graffiti artists don't use - wouldn't the building owners, not the artist, own all further rights?
I've heard another explanation, that MTV doesn't want to give free advertising to Nike, so they won't run a video unless the logos are blurred out (though they let it slide sometimes).
Not sure about cop shows though, maybe they don't want to offend any potential sponsors in that case.
So if we are to assume that this is true, and that this case is actually won. What is the differnce from someone who takes a picture of a building and in the picture there is someones graffiti? Does this person now have to go out and some how find the artist to ask if its ok that they took a picture of the building and it has their artwork in it? I really would doubt that the games artists would just go out and scan pictures into the game, perhaps I could see them taking pictures of random graffiti and scanning that in. But I would think that the artists would like to display their own tallent and draw it them selves.
You know Intellectual property laws are messed up, when you cant show real people using real products without bluring of the names/logos. You cant even mention the name of the product without approval. Amazing freespeech has taken this kid of hit.
Something tells me the answer is no.
Hypocrisy at its best.
Thursdae
Most people don't have a problem with the types of art you mention. But they would if you, say, took bricks from my house to build your sculptures, grabbed my keyboard to make your music, nabbed my white bedsheets to paint your pictures on. Or took my walls to draw you pictures.
If you ASKED me first then that's another story.