Borderlands 2 Lifts Artist's Work Without Permission

[Comocat]

Maybe they will give him a diamond pony.

What I find strange is why the artist at gearbox copied such a minor part. Why not just draw a less ziggy-zaggy river and call it a day?

 

[Lancer873]

I have a feeling he'll be compensated rather... handsomely

. . . Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done.
OT: Yea, I'm with everyone else in that I'm happy to see them being cool and all about it. It certainly helps that it was a rather small deal too, nothing too blatant and detestable.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

I'm not really seeing the rip-off, honestly.

The only bit that looks even remotely similar is the black bit with the wavy white lines and even then it's a bit off.

Whatever, at least it's being dealt with in a fairly mature manner. I just don't see it, myself.

 

[CoL0sS]

I read some snarky comments that hinted at Gearbox lifting someone else's work, but they've made it sound more serious than it is. Big surprise
Anyway props to Gearbox for owning up to their mistakes and to the guy for not jumping at the chance to lawsuit his way into large paycheck. Incidentally, I'm still not interested in Borderlands 2.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Here's a slightly higher-res version of the comparison pic, which is a little easier to make out:



The style is similar, but the ridges are identical. Definite lift.

So? A video game sequel makes their poster a sendup to The Empire Strikes Back. It's a visual gag.

American copyright law even makes allowances for lifting pieces from someone else's work, with factors like whether the use was transformative, whether the portion copied was large or substantial, the effect of the use on the potential market. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think copying the original poster could possibly hurt the original poster's value in any way, shape, or form. I'm fairly certain that Gearbox could go to court and win, and it would be a bitter waste of everyone's time.

You're absolutely right. The Gearbox employee who made this little homage poster (and it is OBVIOUSLY a homage) did nothing illegal, or in my mind even ethically wrong. I'm also very surprised that Pitchford is threatening his own employee over this... actually, I'm aghast at it as it's very ill informed and down right bullying just to score points with some reactonary idiots on the internet.

This is certainly not copyright infringement. In fact, without knowing intent I would just naturally assume that it is satire or parody (oh look, it's the borderlands cast as the starwars cast - definately parody).

Really, how come when something like this happens, the first place that everyone seems to go to is that this was some sort of malicious act, when it's pretty obvious that it's not and the purported "agrieved party" doesn't even agree that it is.

The freaking hate machine in the gaming blogsphere is amazingly insane.