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Graffiti Artist Sues Grand Theft Auto Creators

Posted by simoniker on from the dazed-over-copyright-infringement? dept.

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.

1 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So.... by nick_davison · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?