Lawsuit alleges Capcom ripped off more than 200 copyrighted textures used in DMC and RE4

Cal Jeffrey

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Facepalm: There is no excuse for any game company to use other artists' IP without a license, especially since they would pull no punches if someone infringed their work. For a company as big as Capcom, though, this was just plain dumb.

According to a lawsuit filed last week with a Connecticut federal court, Capcom allegedly used numerous copyrighted images in several Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games. Plaintiff Judy Juracek claims that the game publisher took the pictures from her 1996 artistic reference book called "Surfaces: Visual Research for Artists, Architects, and Designers" without requesting a license. The book contains images of architectural surfaces with ornate or otherwise interesting designs and comes with a CD of the photos.

Juracek vs Capcom via Polygon by Polygondotcom

Juracek's lawsuit contains more than 100 pages highlighting at least 200 examples where Capcom used her photographic work without permission. One notable example is the Resident Evil 4 logo. The lines crisscrossing the broken four are clearly identical to Juracek's image titled "G079," a picture of a cracked pane of glass taken in Italy. Capcom also used this image in other parts of the game to texture some old windows.

Another obvious example is a stained-glass window in the Resident Evil HD remaster from 2002 (comparisons below). The colors and patterns are identical to an image from the book labeled G033. Various other pictures are less obvious but are recognizable when pointed out. Among the games listed in the lawsuit are Devil May Cry (2001), Resident Evil Remake (2002), Devil May Cry 2 (2003), Resident Evil 4 (2005), Devil May Cry 4 (2008), and the Devil May Cry HD remaster (2013).

Some of the evidence Juracek presents comes from last year's Capcom data breach. The cache of files included the personal information of Capcom customers but also contained high-resolution images of artwork used in Capcom games. At least one of the picture files has the same file name (ME009) as an image on the Surfaces CD.

Juracek's filing seeks $12 million in damages for copyright infringement. Additionally, she claims Capcom is guilty of "false copyright management and removal of copyright management" in the use of her disc and seeks $2,500 to $25,000 for each photo used.

A Capcom spokesperson acknowledged to Polygon that it is "aware of the lawsuit" but declined to comment on the case.

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For all the money they charge for new games they could at least create new textures.
The problem isn't money, it's that an employee (or maybe a few) decided to be lazy and use copyrighted images hoping to get away with it. Or maybe they were ignorant enough to think that it didn't matter.
 
Capcom will have no problem paying the fines given the amount of editions they re-release and the exorbitant charges for extra characters.
 
Wow, they practically ripped off the entire book! This woman could end up suing Capcom into bankruptcy.
 
The best solution to this paranoia is if something goes public or exist in public then automatic is on public domain. Do you want monetize your texture? Very well, keep it secret show it only on a private place and sell tickets to those who want see it and make them sign ndas for the “privilege”. If you show it on a catalog, on a video, on a movie, on a game or anything which is broadcasted in public then it’s on public domain for ever.

Even if you fail to keep it secret and someone else broadcast it it will be in public domain. So anyone can use it without bureaucracy.

In practice there is an infinite amount of information on public and every piece has a copyright which belong to someone. Because it’s infinite informations in practice you can’t anymore create something original because it will interfere in some degree with something already exist.

For example try to take a photo of a rose, you think you own the copyright but there are millions of nearly identical photos already taken. And after all its a photo of a rose how much value can have? 1 cent?

Try to take a photo of your self, you think you are unique but no, there are millions other persons with the same characteristics as you becuaes the dna which is responsible for the shape of the body is common to all. So the dna is common the informations must be the same.

If someone wants to monetize something it must have the responsibility to make a compatible chanell , if he can't or has difficulties it's not our problem to make laws to restrict ourself to help him.
 
The suit has ample details to show this is not a case where two photographers each took a picture of a rose and now one is trying to sue the other.

The book was published with a copyright. Books have to be published to be useful. It appears you are arguing that no publisher should be able to sell more than one copy of a book, because as soon as they sell the first copy it is in the public domain? No thank you. In that case this book + many others would not exist in the first place, and it's clear many other people have found value in the book and been happy to arrange for licenses. (probably a great deal vs traveling to Italy themselves.)
 
The suit has ample details to show this is not a case where two photographers each took a picture of a rose and now one is trying to sue the other.

The book was published with a copyright. Books have to be published to be useful. It appears you are arguing that no publisher should be able to sell more than one copy of a book, because as soon as they sell the first copy it is in the public domain? No thank you. In that case this book + many others would not exist in the first place, and it's clear many other people have found value in the book and been happy to arrange for licenses. (probably a great deal vs traveling to Italy themselves.)
In theory, in practice ALL who want they can find and download ANY popular book in pdf with a single search but that doesn't have stop new books still keep written and selling. The law is outdated from the common practice. And most of books are a waste of time to read.

In that particular case a person took a photo (1 second click effort) of a window which was exist in a public place and someone else had made, sold it inside a catalog and now ask millions of $ (more than the total profit of the whole game) from a successful company.

It's like to make a valuable video game isn't related about gameplay, the graphics engine, the hardware where it runs, animation, story plot, music, sound design, character design, marketing etc it's value comes only from that ridiculous texture of a window.

If someone want to sell a book he must find a way to secure the channel ( I don't know design a closed platform which will open the format only with fingerprints and sell only there). It's not our problem he's profit, why to legal restrict our selves?

If you want to write something you can't check every paragraph millions of books for copyright infringement. It's impossible, how you will be secure? If you write something which you know about any scientific field it's 100% sure it will exist and somewhere else because nobody has invent a whole scientific field. If you write it in one country someone can register it on a different country and when you visit that country he will tell you to pay him or go to jail.
 
The law does allow remedies against the guy who downloads one pdf, but that's not really what the law is about or why it's important.

Most, or enough, people want to buy the legitimate copy from a legitimate source. The key thing about the law is it is what allows legitimate publishers and booksellers to exist. Sure maybe they lose a few percentage points to pirates but even if so that's not the same as saying let's have no protections such that Amazon could immediately offer any book ever printed to any buyer and keep all the proceeds for itself. That would kill the book industry for anyone who was doing it for a living. Same deal with trying to compare one random pirate downloading a movie vs. say NBC deciding it could go to the theater, cam the new movie, and broadcast it nationwide that night.

What we're talking about here is a commercial operation with a good revenue base. There was a book of textures and illustrations that were helpful. It was available for license, and if they didn't like the offered terms, they had other sources to choose from and of course they could have taken their own photos or drawn their own art.

All your other blah blah blah about contested cases of was it a copy or not aren't applicable to this case - Capcom made it easy by duplicating the random numeric identifier in the filename the same as in the book's CD. Case closed it was copied.
 
The law does allow remedies against the guy who downloads one pdf, but that's not really what the law is about or why it's important.

Most, or enough, people want to buy the legitimate copy from a legitimate source. The key thing about the law is it is what allows legitimate publishers and booksellers to exist. Sure maybe they lose a few percentage points to pirates but even if so that's not the same as saying let's have no protections such that Amazon could immediately offer any book ever printed to any buyer and keep all the proceeds for itself. That would kill the book industry for anyone who was doing it for a living. Same deal with trying to compare one random pirate downloading a movie vs. say NBC deciding it could go to the theater, cam the new movie, and broadcast it nationwide that night.

What we're talking about here is a commercial operation with a good revenue base. There was a book of textures and illustrations that were helpful. It was available for license, and if they didn't like the offered terms, they had other sources to choose from and of course they could have taken their own photos or drawn their own art.

All your other blah blah blah about contested cases of was it a copy or not aren't applicable to this case - Capcom made it easy by duplicating the random numeric identifier in the filename the same as in the book's CD. Case closed it was copied.
In any reform there are casualties in exchange for a better and more efficient state.

The best method is if someone want to sell on a medium they have first to build a secure (technological) transmitting channel for that medium. It is very problematic to sell books over amazon completely unprotected and anyone can produce a pdf with zero cost to reproduce from just a copy.

If I was writer I would prefer to have no legal complexities from interference from others work and sell my work over a secure channel designed from ground up to protect the medium in which I am selling my work.

It’s very inefficient way to use the law as a “denuvo” substitute.
 
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