The Last Of Us Faces Another Rip-Off Accusation - UPDATED

[LazyAza]

As an artist who posts their work online all the time I completely understand this guys fury. It is one thing for your work to just be online but for someone else to use it without your consent in a commercial product is absolutely not ok. If ND had contacted him, paid him a small amount to get permission to use his work that would be fine, any artist would say cool awesome thanks to that. But they didn't, so he has every right to demand compensation for this.

 

[K84]

The maker of an unofficial Boston transit map.

There.

unofficial

His claim is invalid.

 

[The_Echo]

Well, you know...

Maybe Cameron Booth should be paying the people who actually designed the Boston transit system.

The Boston transit layout isn't his intellectual property.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

The maker of an unofficial Boston transit map.

There.

unofficial

His claim is invalid.

No, you don't need to stick the word 'official' onto something to own its intellectual property.

Anyways, like a few have already said, I'm quite astounded by how many people are backing ND. They are a massive multi-million dollar corporation, there is no way they just accidentally stumbled across this in a google search and innocently stuck it in their game. They did this knowing full well that they were stealing from someone and it's fantastic that they are getting called on it.

 

[Amaror]

I need to see the legality of this guy's rip off of the MBTA map first and then I need to see his legal rights to this image. Until then I am neutral.

I didn't research it, how it is with the MBTA, but when it is an organization of the state, their maps are public domain.

Does it strike anybody else that he's accusing naughty dogs of doing to him what he did to the boston government? It's like a theif reporting a watch of his getting stolen, and when they ask how much the watch cost him and where he got it, tells them "ten minutes and a lock pick down at a jewelry shop."

If something is "copyrighted" by the goverment, it's public domain.

 

[SNCommand]

I would have confused Booth's map as public domain as well considering it had a link to www.MBTA.com

 

[Lonewolfm16]

As much as I would love to back somebody using the same tactics that big businesses use to screw over your average joe this guy comes off as a massive dick just trying to money grub it reminds me of that guy that tried to sue Rockstar Games cause he looked kinda like CJ from San Andreas

We're talking about the theft of someone's livelihood here, not a passing resemblance to an intangible quality.

More power to him.

Except the map wasn't his livelihood. it was made as part of a hobby. And as others have pointed out, he used the logo of the MBTA... meaning he violated copyright in his creation of the map in the first place.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

The guy created something based on a real place that was used in a commercial property without his permission. Arguing it's based on a real place, based off another design, or unofficial is irrelevant. Like saying you need to pay the city of New York for selling a painting of Central Park. The guy must have been jumping around when he realised he won the copyrighting sweepstakes. Kick up a fuss and get an out of court settlement. I doubt he could give a shit about the copyright until he sniffed a profit. Hell I bet if they only obtained his permission on day 1 he would be tweeting like hell and putting Naughty dog on his design portfolio. This way he gets a nice bit of dough and a credit for additional material. Not a bad win for this guy.

Edit: As for him using the transit logo. That's between him and the transit authority now. And I am sure they have much better things to do than fight pointless tiny copyright infringements.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

With all due respect, nice as the map may be, it is a map of train stations. While I realise they are still infringing on intellectual property, and it definitely should have been cited and the author credited, is it being that map and not any one of the billion freely available state transit maps important?

 

[K84]

The maker of an unofficial Boston transit map.

There.

unofficial

His claim is invalid.

No, you don't need to stick the word 'official' onto something to own its intellectual property.

Anyways, like a few have already said, I'm quite astounded by how many people are backing ND. They are a massive multi-million dollar corporation, there is no way they just accidentally stumbled across this in a google search and innocently stuck it in their game. They did this knowing full well that they were stealing from someone and it's fantastic that they are getting called on it.

It's a hobby made rendition of a subway map.
More like some weird kind of fanart actually.
Is that intellectual property nowadays, really?

 

[Kahani]

Actually, it does. Copyright is granted to whoever created something in the US. You might be able to claim that the creation was derivitive or something, but, barring that, he has a copyright on the image. You do not have to distribute or even regsiter a work to have it protected by copyright. Not registering it will decrease the types of damage you could sue for.

Very much this. Anything is copyright as soon as it is created. The question in this case is not whether the map was copyright or not, but simply whether this guy changed enough for it to be considered his work or if copyright would remain with whoever made the original. However, there is another important point to consider:

"Naughty Dog seems to have known that they couldn't use the official map without paying a hefty license fee"

How exactly does he know this? I rather doubt Naughty Dog have published all the information about what they've licensed and from who. It's entirely possible that they actually have paid that hefty license fee and thought they were using the official map. Given that he hasn't actually changed much and left all the logos and such in place, that would be a very easy mistake to make.

 

[Lieju]

Hey, Hollywood! Quit stealing ideas directly from my brain that go into your movies! You don't even have the imagination to use them properly! GIMME MONEY!!

Hmmm...nope, doesn't work. Sorry.

Except that's not what this is.

It's taking someone else's work, not just ideas.

It's a hobby made rendition of a subway map.
More like some weird kind of fanart actually.
Is that intellectual property nowadays, really?

Whether he made it as a hobby or not doesn't matter.

And how is using copyrighted characters comparable to using the likeness of an actual place?

Taking other people's work to make money?
Not cool.
(But I'm sure Naughty Dog, or rather the publishers of the game would be fine if I took assets from the game to make money, right?)

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Now that they know it is his, I agree they should respond, but to be honest depending on how they discovered it I can't see it being difficult to not realise that it was made by a graphic designer...

Uh, how else would maps be made? They don't just magically spring into existence, someone has to design them.

 

[Lieju]

Granted, the likelihood of making a profit off of fanfiction is something reserved for tripe-mongers like Stephanie Myer, but still, the point stands.

I'd like to point out, that no matter what you think of Meyers' writing talent, it was E. L. James who made money off stuff based on Meyer's work.

Everyone is in the mood to sue sue sue. Good god its like we cant just let people make money for being creative.

Um, you do realise that's what this is about, right?
Naughty Dog, instead of creating art-assets themselves, or paying for them, took someone else's work.
And the guy wants to be paid for his creation.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

At the end of the day you can't copyright an image of Boston's streets or whatever.

Why not?

It's certainly possible to do so. You could copyright a photograph, a satellite image, or a drawn map of Boston streets. What law are you referring to that prevents this?

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

It's a hobby made rendition of a subway map.
More like some weird kind of fanart actually.
Is that intellectual property nowadays, really?

First of all, it's not a rendition, it was made specifically to demonstrate changes and additions that he believed would improve the subway. As such, yes it is intellectual property, the map was made to demonstrate ideas that are his and his alone.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Too late, Apple already has a patent on rounded rectangles.

No, really.

No, not really.

That Verge article is highly biased and misleading. If you read the actual design patent, it is not a patent on rounded rectangles.

 

[Xanex]

If he can demand compensation for use of his work. I see no problem with the city of Boston demanding compensation for theirs.

 

[duchaked]

for a guy who owns the entire Boston transit system he's pretty upset
oh wait what nvm lol

I still think the whole Ellen Paige thing was pretty amusing tho

 

[Dahemo]

It didn't surprise me to find the original was very, very similar to his "work".

Look, if MBTA had commissioned him to create this map (well they'd want their money back) but you could pretty much grease up the lawyers right now, it would be his and their property and Naughty Dog would be implicitly not paying a fee.

However, in this case, his screeches of "my IP" are complete nonsense. In a legal sense he drew a picture of a picture, made several intentional changes and called it an original work, he doesn't hold any IP rights in this case as his picture is of something and for the purpose of something he has no claim to. I believe that he did work hard and probably improved on the design, which is why this must be frustrating for him, but he has to understand his work was a dead end. It was not used to replace the current map, he was never going to make a penny from this. He knew that, yet after putting his redundant map online at a resource that makes it clear the maps are unofficial, he now suddenly believes he deserves money for this.

Someone in the Naughty Dog art department is probably getting told off for this, the only money he could claim is what the game artist would have been paid for his time if he hadn't used Google image search...