The Last Of Us Faces Another Rip-Off Accusation - UPDATED
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Presumably at the part where he says he deserves money for this.Aardvaarkman said:
That part.Andy Chalk said:
It's shit like this I hate. Would Naughty Dog actually be REQUIRED to pay a hefty license fee, or is it just that you see this large company as prey, and a good opportunity to make some quick easy money off of your modified transit map that you probably made without permission in the first place?Andy Chalk said:
Riiiiight, poor ND is the one being preyed upon by the evil graphic designer from whom they stole!Spartan448 said:
I will repeat all these points again, since apparently nobody seems to be grasping them despite their incredible simplicity.
1. It doesn't care how any of you feel about the law, or what you think the law should be, etc. It matters what the law is.
2. If ND wanted a map of the system and the original was already licensed, they have TWO choices. ONE: PAY someone to do the work for them, or TWO: pay to use an already created work. Oh, but wait, there's a third: steal it from someone! Then they don't have to pay any licensing fees, they don't have to pay to employ someone to do the work, and they get it for free! Yay! Oh wait, except let's take this idea to its logical conclusion. If ND can steal this one small part its game, why not steal everything else? Lets make all the character models in the game in the game by stealing character models from previous games. I mean, sure, people worked hard on those models, they deserve to be paid for their work and not have it stolen and have someone else take credit for it, but whatever. Next, lets steal some dialogue from a movie. Wow, this game is reall coming together, and we haven't even spent a single cent yet!
3. Anyone here who thinks that just because his map is based on an original map means he either doesn't have a claim or is a thief himself has no concept of the law. Do you know what the copyright status of the original map is? No? ok then. Those who are claiming he didn't make enough changes to the original also have no concept of copyright law.
People deserve to be paid for their work, not have it stolen from others. Single graphic designers are not the enemy. Companies that steal from others, but then turn around anf yell piracy at every opportunity are the enemy.
EDIT: and the cruel irony is that these companies have been engaging in these practices for ages. How is a graphic designer supposed to make any money if you can just steal his ideas? These are people's LIVELIHOODS we're talking about. Their jobs. The way they put food on the table for their families and children. These are entire industries on which ND and others are preying. People are being left out, not getting paid for their work, all so ND can save a few dollars that wouldn't matter much in the scheme of things to them, but that is huge to a single graphic designer. Many people here also seem to have little concept of money, jobs, employment, and how people get by in the world by doing work and getting paid for it. J
And those who complain simply because they don't like the overall effect IP law is having on things? Why do you think those effects are happening? I'll tell you one thing after spending the entire last YEAR studying copyright law at Fordham Law School and applying it to this industry on my own time: it's because companies like ND and EA are using those laws improperly or maliciously, not some little designer in Massacussetts.
EDIT 2: and these "stifling creativity" arguments are even worse. This guys claim is not the kind of thing that stifles creativity. You know what does? Companies like ND. If you're, say, a designer, creating workes and hoping someone will pay you to use them, but knowing that your work will likely be stolen anyway and you won't be paid for it. Why bother doing your livelihood when people are just going to steal it instead of pay to use it or pay you to make a new one?
But it can be impossible to determine if something is free source, especially something like this. For all we know someone posted this image saying "This is free to use even for commercial use" in a way that implied or even specifically stated that they had the right to say that. I think they should still reimburse the guy, but it is easily understandable if they did not realize that this map had a copy right claim to this man.ClockworkUniverse said:
The second question I have is how much claim does this guy actually have on the map? Is it a retouched version of the city map? or did he create the entire map from scratch? If it is a retouch, did he obtain the right to do so?
There are too many questions for me to take either side, but this guys reaction is kind of excessive given the known facts. If he felt he had a legitimate grievance he should have contacted Naughty Dog before swearing all over twitter about how big of bastards they are. Your first point of contact when you have a legal grievance should not be swearing over twitter.
Source? That's the first I've heard of that one. Even the article on that page says they had other, earlier patents that were more narrow and didn't quite cover rounded rectangles with no other features, but this one did.Aardvaarkman said:
Besides, they own the friggin' page turn. I've seen the design patent for that one, and there's really nothing original or unique about it. Even if they couldn't actually enforce it, the fact that they bothered to file for it implies that they think they might eventually be able to use it as a weapon. I cannot support a branch of law that pretty much exclusively exists to allow for that sort of crap.
People should have the right to their own creation, but when it's something like a map based off of a real thing, or the aforementioned shapes, people really need to just back the fuck off. I'm with you at this point, I don't care who's calling foul, it's just annoying now as people are doing it too often over things that have little evidence of actual content stealing (that whole case involving Ubisoft and that dude whom wrote a book that had only one similarity to Assassin's Creed and that was the genetic memory crap). It's a fine line, especially when it comes to ideas, but I'm so tired of this crap.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Apparently they've reached a settlement, we can all calm down now.
...Unless one of you is willing to explore the possibility of Naughty Dog intimidating the graphic artist. Just saying, it's a company vs one guy. No? Good.
I'm curious about this though, if it was a "Hefty fee", would a sorry over the telephone negate that?
...Unless one of you is willing to explore the possibility of Naughty Dog intimidating the graphic artist. Just saying, it's a company vs one guy. No? Good.
I'm curious about this though, if it was a "Hefty fee", would a sorry over the telephone negate that?
bug_of_war said:
First off, I just want to point out that this isn't a case of "Oh, that thing in this one game looks kind of like a thing of mine! I'm going to sue you." This was a case of the guy going "Holy shit. That's -my- work in there!" As in -actually- the custom-designed map he'd made. Confirmed. No question about it.
Secondly, I'm glad to see this updated to show that Naughty Dog and this fellow have agreed on some sort of terms in recognition of this error. If it was a harmless accident by some new guy working there, or an underhanded tactic to try to save a few pennies in production costs, we may never know. And it doesn't matter.
Lastly, it's honestly disturbing to see how many people see this guy with a legitimate claim and immediately rush off to the company's defense. Really? Like developers have never screwed anyone over before, ever? You have to be -REALLY- damn desperate to claim that a map CONFIRMED to have been made by someone other than the makers of the OFFICIAL map is undeserving of rights. You people are acting like all he did was put some squiggly lines on a copy of the damn thing in photoshop.
He -DESIGNED- a new version of the map, with changes which he deemed worthy of being made to the public transit system for the betterment of everybody. If that somehow doesn't fall within the lines of what qualifies as Intellectual Property to you... thank whatever God you please that you're not responsible for making that call. I shudder to think what fresh hell a world governed by you would bring.
Glad to see everyone's coming away from this happy. I just wish I hadn't had to lose all remaining faith in the goodness of humanity in the process.
Cheers! I'll be back around when Fallout 4 gets announced.
From a completely unbiased standpoint.... I can honestly say that I never even heard of "Beyond Two Souls" until I read this article.
I remember seeing pictures of Ellen Page with all the digital tech on her face, assuming she would be put in either a game or animated flick.. but I never actually read what she was doing.
When "The Last of Us" came out... my logical conclusion was "Oh... that's what Ellen Page was doing, they did a good job with that tech, looks just like her"
Not until this story popped up on The Escapist, did I realize that it wasn't supposed to be her.
...just sayin.
I remember seeing pictures of Ellen Page with all the digital tech on her face, assuming she would be put in either a game or animated flick.. but I never actually read what she was doing.
When "The Last of Us" came out... my logical conclusion was "Oh... that's what Ellen Page was doing, they did a good job with that tech, looks just like her"
Not until this story popped up on The Escapist, did I realize that it wasn't supposed to be her.
...just sayin.
So? Is the whole universe going to descend on every successful game and greedily grab for a slice of cash? Of course they are!
Hooray, an amicable resolution.
To clarify for people who don't think a reworking from the ground up of a subway map deserves creative credit, look at it this way: graphic designers make their living create slick and communicative graphics. A subway map is a fairly abstract representation of the relationship between the different lines and stations. Reassembling the elements and changing the presentation of such a map constitutes an exercise in enhancing its clarity and/or aesthetic appeal. It deserves credit.
To clarify for people who don't think a reworking from the ground up of a subway map deserves creative credit, look at it this way: graphic designers make their living create slick and communicative graphics. A subway map is a fairly abstract representation of the relationship between the different lines and stations. Reassembling the elements and changing the presentation of such a map constitutes an exercise in enhancing its clarity and/or aesthetic appeal. It deserves credit.
I appreciate your sentiment, but I don't agree with you. I'm not necessarily in favour of people holding the rights to things that, were they able to be freely distributed, would benefit society/humanity/whatever but this isn't one of those things. It's an image someone has spent time and effort on. As someone who aims to make images for a living (completing an MA in Illustration (hopefully)) I have to put my work on the internet in order to publicise myself. I want to believe that if someone wants to take one of those images and use it (I can hope, right?) I can expect reimbursement for my trouble.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Or maybe you should have said, "is every game company going to try to steal someone else's work instead of paying someone to do that work or paying someone who has already done the work in order to use it? Of course they are! Why spend money on a part of your game when you can just steal it from someone? Sure, it's their livelihood, it's how they hope to make money to feed and house and clothe themselves and their families, but screw that, right? Naughty Dog made a successful game, so all legality and ethics don't matter anymore!"Lo Flying Frying Pan said:
I gues if they also stole character models from someone who creates them, dialogue from someone's movie script, mechanics from someone who created a small game nobody has heard of, a story from someone's blog, etc., that would also be totally cool, right? Those people shouldn't ask for reimbursement just because someone stole their property so they wouldn't have to pay to develop something themselves, right? Your opinion, taken to its logical conclusion. Let's just steal every facet of our game from someone. Each facet is small on its own, but it adds up to tons of savings if you keep stealing them, and then if someone tries to make a claim against us, we can count on the Escapist community to defend us!
Captcha: face the music. Good advice for a lot of people on here.
I don't think I ever said he was wrong to claim copyright, I just said that I'm sick of hearing about all this crap and that it's getting to the point where in which I feel as though anything can be claimed copyright. It's honestly gotten to the point where I would rather not here about copyright claims or even rumours because of similar reasons you got angry at me for, people get the wrong idea.PhantomEcho said:
I know everyone is busy pointlessly arguing but I'm happy both parties worked things out and apologized for both their actions. Wish more industry problems were solved this nicely
You do realize that would only benefit humanity in the long run, right? Having the whole of human creation available as a kind of open source library would allow people to re-use the things that already work, while only adding the parts that are actually new. It would cut down on the huge bars to entry into the field, and allow a myriad of amazing new works to be created.Dr. Witticism said:
I mean, how do you think Disney got so huge? By building on works in the public domain. And now they do their damndest to make sure nothing ever falls into the public domain again, because if it did, that would mean their work would go PD too, and somebody else might make something amazing with it, and by golly, we can't have that, can we?
Gamers are a funny bunch.
"oh my God! Pirates are killing the industry!" seems to be the general idea, but when a big company "borrows" someone else's work, "hey that guy is a dick, BigCompany did nothing wrong, they make some pretty good games, what a tool."
Yea...
"oh my God! Pirates are killing the industry!" seems to be the general idea, but when a big company "borrows" someone else's work, "hey that guy is a dick, BigCompany did nothing wrong, they make some pretty good games, what a tool."
Yea...
Not quite. It's not the same people arguing both points, more an ideological divide within the community and then a question of how far you take it. For example, I find the idea that "piracy" is killing the industry -- or even appreciably damaging it -- laughable, and always have. But I also see intellectual property laws in general, in their current state, as broken and counterproductive. And I see it being used as a weapons so frequently that I no longer care who is actually pointing it, I just want to melt it down and turn that sword into a plowshare, or at the most a shield.Wintermute said:
First, allow me to clarify something: I am not defending IP law as it stands. It is patently (pardon the pun) unfair in many cases and favors corporate entities. Current IP law does NOT, in any way, favor graphic designers like the guy who went up against ND. When I finish law school, I plan to try and get a job with a non-profit organization that fights corporate-favoring IP law system at the expense of individuals.Owyn_Merrilin said:
But what you're sugesting is the opposite extreme of the spectrum from the current laws. There needs to be a middle ground. You can't just make the "whole of human creation available as a kind of open source library." then nobody gets paid for anything. Sure, Disney made money by building off of public domain stuff, but they also maid money by PAYING people to animate, write dialogue, etc. Most of what went into Disney movies at the time you're talking about was not public domain, just an overall work on which it's based was. The animation, dialogue, etc. was all done by paid workers, workers who wouldn't have made a cent off of their own sweat, labor, and time if they could simply have their work or someone else's stolen from somewhere else. And eventually Disney's copyrights will expire (some already have), thus making them public domain.
Just because something might increase creative output doesn't mean it's a good idea, and that's a philosophical argument anyway that has little evidence to support it. People aren't going to create much if they need to get another job or two to support creating those things just because they can't be paid for it. To suggest that whatever someone creates should just become public domain automatically would not only put millions out of jobs, but would destroy entire industries. Every artist, graphic designer, etc. would no longer be paid for their work. Nobody woould have to hire them because they could just find prior works and steal them.
Your idea would work if we didn't live in a society based on money, but we do. We don't live in a barter and trade society where we can simply trade something we created that someone else needs for something we need. Instead, we must be paid money for the work and creativity we put into something. Until we live in some Marxist utopia, your system is unworkable.
Furthermore, shouldn't laws be concerned with humanity in the long run, not just the short term?
I appreciate that you're one of the few people here who are expressing their opinions and trying to back them up. And I appreciate that you're engaging in this conversation instead of making sweeping statements about the law that are untrue or merely making philosophical points. Thanks for that.
Oh, one more thing. Copyrights do NOT last forever. They expire, and then automatically become public domain. Do you know why some of the things Disney used were public domain? Because the copyrights had already expired. It would have been no different for them if they made those movies today, because the things that were public domain then are still such now, and many more things are as well. Copyrights do not last forever.
EDIT: so really, what you want is already, in a sense, part of our system. The whole of human creation does, eventually, become public domain. It just takes several decades (or the renunciation of a copyright by its holder) to become so. What you want is already in place in most regards. The point is that you can't steal a work someone just recently made. Also, with regards to your point about laws only helping humanity in the long run: isn't that what we should be looking toward? Laws should not be made just for current circumstances. Laws should and MUST look toward the future. What's the point in helping humanity now when it will hurt it down the road? It's like climate change. Sure, everyone is happy with how things are going for now. But does that mean we shouldn't start passing laws in anticipation of the huge amount of chaos, turmoil, and suffering that will occur in a few decades? What about the people who will live in the future? We are not the only ones who matter.
EDIT 2: I just want to clarify a matter on which you might be unclear. Disney or anyone else can take someone's work and create something NEW from it. They cannot, however, take someone's work and jsut make it an element of their new creation without changing it in any way. Taking someone else's work and simply putting it in the larger context of a new work is not ok. Using someone else's work and BUILDING on it is. That's why the guy's map was ok to make: he didn't take MA's transit system map and simply claim it as his own or put an exact copy of it into a larger work. He made very significant changes to it. See, you can actually do creative work based on something that is copyrighted, so long as you make sufficient changes to it to create something new. That is not what Naughty Dog did. Instead, they took something and simply placed it in something larger, rather than paying to have it made by an employee or paying the original creator to use it.