Copyright infringement?

[Wonderland]

Hi, I just saw this on Deviant Art and this looks like copyright infringement of Lisa's Botanicals... Just thought you may want to check it out. Beanstalk Stock There seemed to be other derivative renders too from here and RDNA uploaded as stock with a request for them to be credited by DA uploader for use... It does say for non-commercial work only, but still...

 

[SndCastie]

Yes there is that but these are images so not sure if it a copyright issue

 

[Mythocentric]

I just had a look around his dA page and it does present a quandry in some ways. It does appear that he is using Lisa's and other peoples products to produce stock images for reuse, but is covering himself by restricting their use for personal use and within dA. Yes, he does have copyright to his own images, however I would expect that he would acknowledge their source. As an artist working traditionally I have a fairly reasonable knowledge of copyright law but not extensively. It would take a whole team of lawyers to sort out any wrongdoing even in a firmly-grounded case as I have experienced myself in the past. As I said above acknowledging the original authors of the models would be the polite thing to do, but on the face of it he is walking the right side of the line. The problem would come if he claimed to be the creator of the source but he isn't. Overall I personally feel it to be a moral issue. If you do not feel comfortable about making use of his stock, don't use it!

 

[Miss B]

I have to agree with SndCastle, as I just downloaded and checked the zip, and it's just images.

I also agree with Mytho that a public acknowledgement of Lisa's Beanstalk as the source of the images, would be a very good move on this artist's part.

Then again, I also checked some of the "other" image links at the bottom right of that page, and other artists are using her Beanstalk for renders as well. I think as long as it's for personal, or dA, use only, there isn't much of a problem. The acknowledgement, however, would be a plus.

 

[Pendraia]

IIRC You can use renders for stock images or backgrounds normally if there is more than just plonking one item in and rendering it. I remember seeing threads about this over on Daz. It has to have a number of items in the render. Just looking at that I'm not sure if it qualifies. It might be worth contacting Lisa directly so she can check it out.

If you look at some of the backgrounds over at rendo, you can recognise products from a variety of vendors but they are really careful to add more to what they are doing.

An example of what I'm saying is I could probably use this render as stock as it has a number of products used and they have been arranged together.

This one I'm not sure about as it has an Iray background which is another product but the focus item is just plonked down.

This one definitely not as it's just the one product with nothing added.

 

[Pendraia]

I just had a look around his dA page and it does present a quandry in some ways. It does appear that he is using Lisa's and other peoples products to produce stock images for reuse, but is covering himself by restricting their use for personal use and within dA. Yes, he does have copyright to his own images, however I would expect that he would acknowledge their source.

Actually Mytho...I don't think this is correct. If I remember correctly there is normally a clause that states, the finished image is copyright to the purchaser as long as their product can't be derived from the image or competes with their product.

It's been a while since I looked at the Eula's from Daz and here but I think the generally accepted line is that if it's just the product in the render then it competes with their product.

I contacted Lisa and pointed her to the thread.

 

[Wonderland]

I own Lisa's Beanstalk and the only reason I would download the stock is because it's faster than to render, but I probably won't on principal... But, come to think of it, I wouldn't, because I would use it commercially (as art) so I will only do my own renders.

My understanding was that if the beanstalk was part of a background with other elements and new artistic elements, it would be OK to use as stock, but not the beanstalk alone...

 

[Pendraia]

Same...I own the product already, so I won't be downloading but how many people who did, might have bought the product instead?

Personally, buying the product gives more flexibility to what you're doing also.

 

[Mythocentric]

It's a very fine line Pen and I certainly wouldn't argue with you. My own brush with copyright law came about as a result of a character who published an image one of one of my paintings in a book without permission or acknowledgement because the purchaser of the original work decided that because they owned the painting they therefore owned the copyright despite the fact that the purchase agreement clearly pointed out that the copyright remained with the artist as the creator of the concept (as it does in law). On the whole that holds true everywhere but different countries have different views on copyright and it cost me a small fortune to find that out. Bear in mind that the law of the country takes precedence over the EULA if there is disagreement although the terms of the EULA are normally (and correctly) upheld. Personally I believe this guy is treading a very sticky moral line and wouldn't consider using his stock or that of any other person carrying out the same activity and would urge others to do the same. However that is my opinion and is simply a moral judgement. I use dA and most of my work is available for purchase except for those which include models intended for non-commercial use, mostly freebies or where that image represents a real person, i.e. KIM; because I believe it's far better to err to the better and avoid avoid conflict in the first place.

 

[Wonderland]

What bothers me most is that he/she is taking credit for a straight render of Lisa's work and even has a © sign on it and is getting all sorts of compliments. I'm the one who added at the bottom that it is Lisa's Botanicals and put a link to the product here...

 

[Pendraia]

Well said Mytho...he is treading a very fine line, one I'm not sure he realizes he's treading. Many newbies and his renders are very basic, don't know better.

 

[Pendraia]

Although, I just checked his gallery and about and he's been around 8 years. He/she should know by now. Many of his other stock images look okay and have more than one item. I'm wondering if the beanstalk one was one they did earlier...

 

[Wonderland]

Seems he also goes as "Wolverine041269" Here he does say it's a Poser render but does not give the source or credit and doesn't mention any restrictions. What is the point of him giving out free stock? What does he get from it??? Beanstalk 01

 

[Wonderland]

Wow, another one! And this artist's name sounds familiar... Poserfan Beanstalk

 

[Pendraia]

Hmmmn...that looks like it could be.

 

[Miss B]

Wow, another one! And this artist's name sounds familiar... Poserfan Beanstalk

Yes, that's one of the ones I saw earlier, and yes I've seen Poserfan on a couple of the forums over the years.

 

[Wonderland]

She has a strict EULA for the use of "HER" stock which is all just straight renders of various objects and plants created by vendors/PAs... Exclusive Stock TOU I find this very irritating...

 

[Lyrra Madril]

There are boatloads of this sort of thing. What kills me is 90% of the time they plonk the thing down, don't adjust surfaces or even use decent lights and offer these horrible flat murky things as 'quality' stock. Ick. I wouldn't mind as much if the things didn't look absolutely horrible most of the time. It doesn't actually break copyright as final image is the users, buuuuut ... its sure dicey especially on things like the Cyclorama texture sets. In fact that is the main reason DAZ stopped making them from what I understand.

 

[Pendraia]

Hey Lyrra, I thought there needed to be more than one item in there but from what you're saying they don't...sheesh that's not very fair.

 

[LisaB]

My internet connection is SO SLOW today that I it takes more than 5 minutes to load one page. I can see by his thumbnails that there are a lot of my products being offered as "stock" resources. I also see some of Ken's birds offered in the same way.

It doesn't matter that his TOU are "non-commerical only" because HIS use is circumventing the need to purchase the product which are in the terms of our EULA and also the EULA from other 3D stores.

When there are a bunch of products used to create a background image like in the cyclorama sets it's within the TOU because you can't extract just one thing and "rearrange it" for your own purposes. You're stuck with what you get.

Rendering just the cyclorama sets with no additions, or making renders of every angle of a single product without a background and offering it for free as a resource is another story.

Hopefully my internet connection will get over its "slower than molasses in January" thing soon and I can look around more.