Be careful - image flipping won'r protect you!

[Nitrowing]

Jeff Dieschburg, an artist in Luxembourg who took work by others, made trivial edits, and won awards with paintings of the results. Sued there by U.S. photographer Jingna Zhang, he won an early verdict in his favour, but has now lost on appeal.

The court found that Dieschburg's painting "Turandot" infringed upon Zhang's copyright. As a result, Dieschburg is prohibited from exhibiting the painting in the future, with a penalty of €1,000 per day up to a maximum of €100,000 for non-compliance. The legal costs total €1,500.

Zhang accused Dieschburg of having copied his oil painting "Turandot" one-to-one from her photos, alleging copyright infringement. Dieschburg had displayed the painting at the Biennale in Strassen and had even received prize money for it. The case garnered significant attention in the summer of 2022, both within and beyond the borders of the Grand Duchy.

Dieschburg had the audacity to lecture Zhang on copyright after she originally complained. This ultimately helped expose what he had done to wider attention—and now to getting his own, more expensive lecture on copyright from a judge.

[R-Tape]

Crikey. Not sure how I feel about this one. So if we use a photo reference for e.g. a loading screen, flipped or otherwise, we could still technically end up in hot water?

If we use the Greencard SCRamble technique we'll probably be safe...

[Ralf]

Yes, it's an obvious plagiarism in the given photo.

I wouldn't be so afraid about Zx Spectrum works however. I believe that we are such a small niche that nobody gives a damn about us.

All right, there was that Smurfs case in the Amiga community: https://www.indieretronews.com/2015/01/ ... ed-by.html
I read somewhere it was a deliberate action of some guy who didn't like the author and reported him to the copyright holders to make him some damage. Yes, people are suckers sometimes. I don't know what was the final result of it, however.

[1024MAK]

What is a copy and what is not a copy?
What is a derived work?
What about an item inspired by another item that is copyrighted?

Ultimately all humans learn by copying. If a child decided to paint a picture of a photo, would that be a copyright infringement?

Copyright is only supposed to protect the commercial value of a piece of original creative work.

Did the copyright owner loose money because someone else painted a reversed image of the photo? I don't know.

What I do know, is that if everyone enforced their copyright on every item of their creative works, our world would be a nasty horrible place.

Mark

[ParadigmShifter]

Clearly this tune which Vanilla Ice thought up whilst on the toilet one day is a derived work and not a copy

[Lee Bee]

A lot of "sampled" content from 80s games and music was granted a free pass because computer (and sampling) technology back then was still new, and laws surrounding it weren't fully formed.

On the other hand, just plain copying someone else's paining like this without giving credit has never been acceptable. It's the truest form of plagiarism. Jeff Dieschburg's paintings weren't "homage" or "tribute". He wasn't building upon the work of others to create something original. He was simply ripping off artists to make money from their talent.

As for the modern Speccy community, anyone with common sense intuitively understands that copyright infringement should carry no serious legal repercussions, since:

1) Most games are non-commercial, made as a hobby.
2) The size of the community is so small that "publishing" is more akin to sharing a work privately with friends.
3) Spectrum graphics are so primitive and crude, they can only barely be considered a reproduction of a copyrighted work.
4) True plagiarism is released to the general public, not provided via obscure, obsolete videogame media.

[+3code]

Yes, people are suckers sometimes.

People are suckers always.

[akeley]

I think the OPs example is a little extreme, at least when read in context or whatever that is not pure plagiarism. Otherwise, how assorted mags, books, databases, which are either based on screenshots or its their main ingredient, could exist?

[Mpk]

how assorted mags, books, databases, which are either based on screenshots or its their main ingredient, could exist?

There are legal fair-use exemptions for reviews, and academic journals and the like.

[Cheez26]

I think parodies and homages should be protected under fair use, but copyright laws are getting so ridiculous on an international level that Nintendo has taken down the assets used to create parody work made using Gmod and SFM.

Fair use should also apply to fan-made demakes and ports (especially if it's noncommercial), if we wanna get back on the retrogaming topic.

[Grongy]

TBH that's the first time I've ever heard of image mirroring as a way to solve the plagiarism problem. I know that some youtube reviewers use mirrored movie footage with some filters applied as a way to trick youtube's contentID system, but that's just a way to trick the machinery and it obviously fails to fool the human eye.

That example in the opening post is kinda hilarious though, it literally looks like a flipped photo. The artist could've changed the composition a little bit, change some things (clothes' folds, the way hair looks etc.) but he chose not to and only added an earring, it seems. I also thought he added a beauty mark, but nope, just my screen being dirty haha

As for how this case would chage the future of Speccy gfx, personally I don't think it would impact much really. As @Lee Bee already stated, the Speccy scene is not THAT big, everyone knows each other, it's pretty far from the mainstream and nobody's making big money from this (right???). You gotta adapt to the Spectrum's limitations anyway, so whether you convert that photo the crudest way possible or you copy it by using pixel-art techniques, it's still gonna look derivative enough (although obviously the latter approach is preferable)

[akeley]

There are legal fair-use exemptions for reviews, and academic journals and the like.

Yes, which is why I said the example in the OP seems rather detached from our scene, since it's so blatantly a case of real plagiarism. As in taking somebody's work and pretending its yours. I usppose this kind of direct action is rare, and when it actually has happened recently with one of the ZX games it has sort of resolved itself quickly, with dev changing the assets.

Although I also seem to recall one of Bitmap Books - the Sega one - has been blocked from publication by Sega. I'm rather interested in this subject since I'm finalizing a big project which is based purely on photos taken from games.

[PeteProdge]

Although I also seem to recall one of Bitmap Books - the Sega one - has been blocked from publication by Sega. I'm rather interested in this subject since I'm finalizing a big project which is based purely on photos taken from games.

It's a funny thing with screenshots and in-game video footage. The former has been seen in magazines since the stone age and the latter is all over YouTube. These are in context of 'review' - fair use. If you're selling a commercial product with this art in it and there's no context of review, well, I'm not too surprised Sega wagged its finger.

As for taking famous pop culture iconography and making games based on it, that too is not at all surprising to see an IP owner fire off a legal demand, in spite of how commercially obsolete the platform may well be. Unauthorised products could tarnish the value of the IP.

And yet, every summer in the UK since the 1970s, we still see ice cream vans pull up with rather crudely drawn Disney characters all over them. It's not a British summer until you've had a 99 from a diesel-fume-spewing van with a wobbly Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on the side of it.

[akeley]

It's a funny thing with screenshots and in-game video footage. The former has been seen in magazines since the stone age and the latter is all over YouTube. These are in context of 'review' - fair use. If you're selling a commercial product with this art in it and there's no context of review, well, I'm not too surprised Sega wagged its finger.

Well, the book (about Megadrive games) had some sort of reviews and what's more interesting they already have produced one in the same style about Master System and that one had Sega's blessing. Story: https://www.eurogamer.net/bitmap-books- ... gal-action

Far as I know "fair use" can also in some cases be stretched past "reviewing" and into the "commentary, criticism, news reporting, or educational purposes". But one thing is sure, if a powerful entity threatens, lil' man doesn't have many options but fold.

[Vampyre]

Clearly this tune which Vanilla Ice thought up whilst on the toilet one day is a derived work and not a copy

Didn't he try to claim originally that he had never even heard Queen's/Bowie's Under Pressure? Clearly no one in the world fell for that BS.

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah he did claim that, said he thought of the tune when on the toilet.

I don't think it's a sample though, piano notes are in reverse order?

Anyway should have given Queen/Bowie credit and royalties, I think they took him to court.

Apparently it was a sample. $4M damages paid

https://loudwire.com/queen-brian-may-th ... e%20sample.

Watching the video again I think the backing dancers are even more camp than the S1W's lol



Clearly both influenced by this I think

[Lee Bee]

Just to note: While the term "sampling" did originate from literal samplers, its meaning very quickly shifted to include any kind of emulation of someone else's musical riff.