Is this legal? (3d model ripping - distributing)
polycounter lvl 15
I was looking in the 3d game art section of deviantart and I noticed some nice models, I went for a quick look and I noticed that this user was ripping (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) models from video-games and distributing them for everyone to use (source files)
http://rexil.deviantart.com/
Is this even legal? The user doesn't sell them or anything but still?
I have no idea myself, that's why I'm asking. What are your thoughts about this?
http://rexil.deviantart.com/
Is this even legal? The user doesn't sell them or anything but still?
I have no idea myself, that's why I'm asking. What are your thoughts about this?
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
http://rexil.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48#/d3k885r - This though, could be a problem as he's selling prints of it.
The deadful search for the term "XNALara" reveals many more where that came from, teenage RE and TR fans with extreme hormone issues posing nude edits of RE and Lara characters etc etc.
One of the tools they use is Noesis, which completely discourages this crap on its site and its readme file but they ignore and go forward with the infringing
The actual converted models have been put up on deviantART, and months old reports of "Permission issues" haven't done shit about it.
And you know what's ironic? Their group states this:
It is however very illegal to be distributing the end product. There are a lot of arguments as to how this can harm the original owner of the assets as well as the original authors. It should be repotted to DA and discouraged where possible.
But I don't think hes doing anything wrong unless he sells them, I'd enjoy going to his DA to download and analyze other game characters. Anyone who has to steal models obviously doesn't know how to get a team going to even develop a game so you don't need to worry there. This is probably used for source mods etc.
I think he knows what he is doing is frowned upon, but hes honest, look at the DA descriptions for all of the models
Game: Sengoku BASARA 3 by Capcom.
Character: Wolf.
Fully posable.
Extraction conversion by me.
XNALara 9.6+ required.
Taking these all into consideration, if the intent of sharing the assets is non-commercial, educational, and only select assets, but not the entirety of the game is shared, it's likely fair use as it does serve a beneficial purpose to the public without significantly impacting the value of the source material. Selling prints on the other hand, that's just wrong.
Ripping the assets from a game is much like opening a toy to get a look at how it works.
christ
whether or not this is commercial doesn't enter into the equation, they're taking commercial assets and distributing them for free. I love ripping models and looking at them but I wouldn't just give them away, buy the game if you want to look at the contents.
They're good teaching tools.
The what? On deviantart?
You do NOT need to generate income in order to break copyright law.
Downloading/Exporting a file in order to fiddle around with in Max or Maya is completely legal, as it could easily be explained as "for use in educational purposes" which is one of the completely legal grey areas of copyright law. One could even demonstrate to a class how the model was made/meshed etc.
However, to distribute a no doubt registered piece of artwork is definitely illegal.
To be a little more definitive:
Copyright - A monopoly on he rights to publish, copy, perform, and display creative work.
Things that can be copyrighted - Any original works of authorship. (actual wording)
Examples: Maps, Charts, Books, Literary Works, Novels, Biographies, Textbooks, Journal Articles, Magazines, Songs, Movies, Music, Poetry, Drama, Pantomimes, Choreography, Photographs, Drawings, Cartoons, Radio and TV Broadcasts, Paintings, Sculpture, Sound Recordings, Architectural Works, Computer Software, Embroidery Patterns.
Non-Examples: Works not yet fixed in any tangible form of expression, Titles, Names, (non-trademarked) Slogans, Short Phrases, Familiar Symbols, Facts, "Useful" Articles or Objects(this is vague, but to a point), Fashion Designs, Procedures, Ideas, Methods, Systems, Processes, Principles, Laws of Nature.
Copyrights have a lifeline of 70 years past the author's death. However, for commercial works they last 95 years from date of publication or 120 years from date of creation, whichever is shorter.
The direct wording for Criminal Copyright Infringement reads:
(a) Criminal Infringement. —
(1) In general. — Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed —
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
That should make it very clear.
Or is this more like taking a clip from a film or quoted section from a book?
Examples - Education, Criticism, Commentary, Scholarship, Research, Reportage, and Parody.
However - Redistributing original works is still illegal. Taking art from an art book and distributing it is illegal as no doubt all individual works in the book are copyrighted.
Fair use allows for you to use the works from the art book in the ways mentioned above, and if you can make a serious case in any one of those areas then you are set, but if not then you should just attempt to gain permission.
Ripping game assets for your own personal use would be considered fair use, redistributing them would definitely NOT.
Yeah this is what I was wondering. It's the redestributing thing that is the issue.
Assets from Valve are freely available because of the modding community surely... where in the Valve TOS does it say not to redistribute their work for learning purposes? Whereas the art that this thread is centred around, has not been released by the developers.
Actually... this depends on the EULA. If there was a definitive clause in the EULA that allows modders to pull resources from the original files then yes, it's fine. If not then that member was wrong for distributing them.
The reason for this is that while one person may use the model for educational purposes they cannot distribute the model to the open public for the same reason, due to the fact that they cannot possibly guarentee that it will be used for educational purposes only.
But I would read the EULA before coming to any conclusions.
Ofc Valve encourages it as they probably have the biggest and most dynamic modding community and CS and TF and DOTA were mods.
So i don't think distributing models for free is a problem. It's just gain of time not doing it by yourself
Valve is asking for models that fit the characters, and openly embraces modding on all of their games, its a different story.
Saying that redistribution in any form is illegal makes it impossible to use works for education, review, and parody. For example, if redistribution for any reason is prohibited, I can't make a parody of a work and distribute that, because redistribution disallows it. The same would go for education and review/commentary. This is antithetical to "promoting the progress."
Crommathor:
You're misquoting the copyright act and it's not clear. Everything you quoted is factual, but you've taken it out of context and left out vital information which makes it drastically one-sided. You may not like it, but redistributing works for valid fair use purposes is not illegal and it's vital in order to carry out those functions. That said, it is still determined on a case by case basis. When taken to court (if it's even noticed at all by the copyright holder), the judge must examine the merits of the usage and weigh them against the facets of fair use. If the use meets any or all of the criteria, the judge can deem it fair use at his discretion. In this particular instance, a judge would likely rule against fair use on the entire series of assets, because the accused is using them for commercial gain. Had this person posted them purely for fair use allowed purposes, without using them for commercial gain, it would be more likely than not to be allowed.
Esprite:
What constitutes an "entire" work? That's rather arbitrary. That's why it's weighed against its impact on the "value" of the work in question to determine if the use would actually damage the market value of the work. Since we're talking about single assets that collectively are used to create a game, I'd say not. Distributing the art assets of a game without the other vital components would not adversely impact the market value of the game. Arguably, distributing the entire functional game could be adverse to the market value, but distributing the pieces would not. The engine is useless to human beings since it's in machine code so, the game cannot be made whole by the distribution of its art assets.
Anyway, this thread will likely be closed since it's quickly getting to the point of violating the rules. I just wanted to clear up some assumptions and factual errors. In short, if it's for fair use purposes and it doesn't damage the market value of the work, it's likely to be legal. No matter how some of you might want there to be, there is no hard and fast rule in copyright that says redistribution of works is always illegal, because it's not always illegal.
This why I put things in forms of a question, because "What decides whether something is an entire work?" That would be lawyers. I was going from our perspective as artists how we treat our own work.
I would also say you make alot of assumptions yourself. Which may be a slippery slope. Many things are dependent on the situation and who has better legal.
Also, opinions are not facts. Not to be a douche, but yeah.
Strangely enough I can only recall game companies suing people who redistribute modified assets (Tecmo's war on nude patches comes to mind).
I make some speculations on how a judge might rule on the issue, but I fail to see any opinion on my part.
To amend my previous comment, commercial gain doesn't even invalidate fair use. Weird Al couldn't make a living with his music if that was so. Commercial use that lacks any direct connection to fair use would likely fall under infringement. Even still, it has to be put to the test in court to be certain.
I'm sure it makes you uncomfortable, but your control over it is not absolute and it doesn't extend to every use that you dislike. All I can say is take solace in the fact that the asset would never have been at all without your effort and those that share your assets can't take away your skill. As long as there is a need for people to make these assets, there will be a market for your talents. Copyright exists for the purpose of giving you a reason to make such things so that others can learn from them and incorporate it into our culture. Art begets more art and copyright tries to stoke that fire.
its deviant art, nothing is against the rules :P
erections are always a priority though. I do a *LOT* of reporting on the site, the ones that seem to get resolved are the ones that determine erections. mostly furries that can't read the damn fine print though I reported some xnalara nude jillXclaire w/ strapons too, that counts as well
also guys this isn't fair use. There's a "download button" to the right of each picture where you'll get the model itself.
and it's not good studying either as the topology may be warped, broke or modified for this "xnalara" crap. If you want to learn how they model i'd suggest getting Noesis and/or Umodel and use them to view the mesh files from the games you own yourselves.
A buddy of mine got banned a while back for making j-pop wallpapers, they had a no copyright material rule.
They are all in .mesh format though?
Weird Al is untouchable because he creates unique content, inspired by other artists, this is quite clearly parody. If his work was comprised of 99% samples from other artists, of which he had no permission, he would be forcibly and immediately shut down. I mean seriously, just look at the sampling industry as a whole, you may not think this is "fair", but this is how it works in the real world. What Weird Al does is akin to an artist making fan art(you know, original content). Parody does not permit people to straight up directly rip off the work of others, but instead to reference or take inspiration from it.
The biggest point you've managed to make, is that there would be a viable avenue to argue innocence in a court of law, but you could say that for virtually everything, so it's not really discounting the notion that this is illegal, or more accurately; something you could get sued for that wouldn't be throw out of court. You could kill someone and still likely have a viable avenue to argue you innocence, so saying that isn't really new information. So, technically, this is "potentially illegal", but everything that is "illegal" in the US is only potentially illegal until you are proven guilty in a court of law.
I know I certainly wouldn't want to be up against a publisher with millions/billions to throw around on lawyers trying to argue my case in a court of law. Thats all it really comes down to, I mean, I personally am going to try and avoid doing anything that I would get sued for... So for all intents and purposes, I would certainly consider this "illegal" and advise everyone here NOT to do it.
But you know, I'm sure you've passed the bar and are currently working at a law practice that specializes in IP/Copyright law, so your opinion holds more weight than others in this thread, and you can make statements as if they were factual on your opinion of how something would be handled in the judicial system(but others cant, then its just an opinion).
Luckily it is fairly unlikely that any publisher or developer would care enough to pursue these matters in court, but please, lets not confuse that with it "being alright".
PS: Everything in this post is an opinion.
I instantly deactivate my account , sooooooo glad finally I dont have to think about DA anymore
all they think it just a formal stuff, absolute lack of art appreciation, shame to use art in their name
You could argue DA has become so huge, that it hard to keep track of stuff and keep it clean with the hundreds of reports that get filtered in, and they would much rather appreciate the original content creators contacting them rather then good Samaritans.
To which I would say, if maybe DA stopped hiring Mods who have a background of making macabre art with bitter poetry, and maybe they had kept things in check beforehand, they wouldn't have become the joke they are now.
So it's DA's job to be copyright cops? They are acting within the requirements of the law. It's not realistic to expect them to take action against everyone accused of infringement by random people who don't have any ownership of the copyrights, they'd have to investigate every incident regardless of whether it's true or the claimant is just trolling the admins. They need the copyright holders to make a claim because they have the right to object and the evidence to back it up with lawyers and so on. Random people have no business making copyright infringement claims on works they don't hold copyright to. It's not your place to order them to do something about it and it's not their place to take action without a legitimate copyright holder making the complaint. They don't have the right nor authority to make the determination of whether it's infringing. Only the copyright holder has that authority. That's why they need the copyright holder.
Realitysquared is doing exactly what he should do.
dont even think he would do it here
Wow. It's copyright infringement and they know it, they just want an excuse to keep it up as long as possible.