Copyright Pictures Rules

[Thanyx]

Dear all,

first of all, I hope I'm putting this in the right section. If not, I apologize in advance.

We are currently working on a game, that we plan to release commercially. What are the rules for used pictures from the internet (Google, Shutterstock)?
To be more specific, we used real pictures from Google, but basically changed the whole look (made it more pixely, different colours, added furniture, changed faces, etc).
Is it still illegal to use this edited material, or does it count as an original creation?

Here are two examples. These two are the most extreme examples of similarities between edited and original pictures in our project.

ORIGINAL

EDITED


ORIGINAL


EDITED



We are thankful for any answer

[LimpingFish]

If you plan on releasing your game commercially, I would advise erring on the side of caution, and treat everything as a possible copyright violation.

The two images you have provided are, if I'm not mistaken, a 3D render and a still from a TV broadcast. Copyright on the render would lie with the original artist, so, unless explicitly stated as free to be reworked or remixed (under a Creative Commons license, or some such), your appropriation of it would go beyond mere inspiration.

The still from the TV broadcast, and your resulting image, would seem less problematic, so long as you remove all identifying trademarks or logos, but I'm no expert.

But, as I said, unless you're using public domain images (which are clearly noted as such), you're on thin ice when you begin selling derivative works for money.

[Stupot]

Legalities aside, just put yourself in the shoes of the original artist playing your game and suddenly seeing his own hard work, albeit in a beautifully pixellated form, used as part of the game. I don't imagine he or she would be very happy.

[Mandle]

Legalities aside, just put yourself in the shoes of the original artist playing your game and suddenly seeing his own hard work, albeit in a beautifully pixellated form, used as part of the game. I don't imagine he or she would be very happy.

This.

Plus also this: If you are charging money for something and if even one of your players finds out that they have paid their money for a game which uses copied and uncredited images from Google they will most likely publicly bust you for it. And then you are going to have a bunch of angry customers on your hands. That's just the way the internet is.

You've changed the picture but it is still recognizable to anyone familiar with the original image. I would advise you not to risk using such images at all in a commercial project.

As for the paint-over of the screen-grab from the news broadcast. This kind of thing will not make people as angry because you haven't ripped off anyone else's work by using it and painting over photos of real people/places/things for game backgrounds/cutscenes/etc. is a widely used technique.

[Gilbert]

IMO, especially for games that are supposed to be sold commercially you better play safe.
What I mean is, using references is not something evil. Everyone does that, and that's an effective way of creating workable art. The problem is, in what extend should a piece of art be considered too similar to the original that it's considered a rip-off and not just for reference? That could depend on individual person's conception, but sometimes it's too obvious that the developers didn't try hard enough to alter the source materials (or didn't even try) to make them still very recognisable, especially if the source materials were from pupular IPs.

For the two pictures posted here, IMO ther're really not altered enough to be "original". In the corridor picture, it seems that only the door was removed and the whole scene tinted to another colour, and for the second picture, while are there some nice pixelly painted over heads, the whole scene is still unchanged. Personally I think recolouring some parts of it could help, like not using blue as its background (and - remove all those NBC logos!) and changing the colours of the guys' suits.

The catch is, even big name developers did use referencess A LOT, sometimes to ridiculous levels. Sometimes people got away with it, sometimes not. Sometimes they're considered parodies or homages, like the Shinobi case, but still, Sega had to change them eventual.

One problem is, as people weren't concerned about copyrights that much in the past, and that the Internet wasn't that popular back then, many things just slipped through, but it'd be hard to be the same nowadays considered how widespread information can become. One guy discovers "Oh this game ripped off XXX. They both have a blue dog!" and the next day everyone on the planet knows that. Even though the copyright holders may not take any action(maybe they don't mind, or just don't care) you are still labeled "the developer who rips off stuff" which may not be a good thing.

Alternatively, outright acknowledging what you have used for reference in your game my help a bit the situation, and sometimes it actually works if you ask the owners first, as they may just grant you the right to use their stuff directly. Like the Shinobi case above, they once got a license from Marvel so they could keep Spiderman, but still had to remove the reference once the license expired.

[Slasher]

Hi

In my opinion if you plan to release a commercial game then you should be original in all your images as much as possible, particularly background images. Or at least make the copied image into an original image that looks quite different from the copied, this includes removing any trademarks.

For a none commercial game it's not as bad, though you should do as you suggested by altering it (Mirroring for example) and maybe adding a thing or two so it looks more original.

Commercial really should be totally original as far as copyright goes, unless you have permission.

[Blondbraid]

I remember the recent debacle of the YA book Handbook for Mortals, which was heavily criticized for tracing the cover image from a work by the artist Gill Del Mace without giving credit. Giving credit to where credit is due is very important and I hope you can get a permission from the artist of the 3D render. As someone making digital art and graphics myself I would be upset if someone used my artwork commercially without asking for permission or giving me credit.

I agree with Slasher in using original art.
In the future I would suggest seeking permission to use pictures and looking up copyright rules before using them as references, and try to use public domain works or photos you have taken yourselves as much as possible. With photos of people, unless you use photos of public figures or public domain photos, you should either ask the people depicted for permission to use their likeness, or as others have mentioned, change the clothes and faces enough that they aren't immediately recognizable.