Design copyrights issues

News & General Discussion
1

Hello, I’ve been developing a game for a while and occasionally buy furniture models from turbosquid.com to round out my environments or if I don’t want to spend the time modeling something. I have noticed many of the models you can buy on turbosquid are of famous designs of furniture.

In general does anyone out there (maybe a lawyer) able to shine any light on what can and can’t be used in a commercial game, (designs, models, textures) . For example there are many 3d models on the web of the famous Eames chair, but I imagine the design is protected even though models of it are sold on turbosquid under there standard royalty free license.

If a model is inside a proprietary format like unity, is that legally equivalent to selling rendered images of the model.

I have had trouble finding out what is acceptable to use and I imagine other game developers are thinking about this and maybe unclear. Any thoughts or reference would be appreciated.

Thanks

Andrew

2

Hi Andrew,

First of, I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my understanding.

Copyright would exist on any item that is available (or has been) as a commercial venture. Certainly things like a 3D model of a iPhone is protected and Apple would be likely to come after you. However where it gets grey is if the company has gone out of business. Copyright would still exist, but it is less likely you that someone would come after you (although as long as reasonable steps have been taken and documented you would stand a good chance if someone did come out of the wood work).

So for the first question, find out everything you can. Arm yourself with information about the copyright holders and if in doubt don’t do it. Most are willing to work with someone writher then having to go to court. (So non profit projects can usually get an all clear for little or no money)

As for Model inside Unity, my understanding is that the object is copyrighted whether it is rendered or a model so the same laws would apply.

However all is not lost. If you do a reinterpretation of a chair that should be ok.

I find most of the models from Turbosquid have a very high polygon count.

Have a word with Neil (LivingArtz). He’s reasonable and can build the same quality with a fraction of the polygons. (Just my 2 cents)

Best of Luck with your project.

3

Thanks. I guess design is the main point I am worried about so like you said I wouldn’t put an iPhone model in my game. I am only really worried about the design infringement since I repurpose or rebuild any models I get due to the poly issue you mentioned.

One example recently puzzled me. Maybe you are familiar with the Eames chair which is a famous design.It has appeared on the shows Frasier and House. You can download a 3D model of this chair from hermanmiller.com but also buy different peoples models of the chair at turbosquid. If the models they are selling fall under the royalty free license, would that be an indicator that at least the design of that chair could be used within a game?

4

Your going to get a lot of replies along the lines of:

"FEAR THE LAW!!! THEY WILL COME FOR YOU!!! THEY HAVE LAWYERS!!! "

But in reality, unless you have a game with a lazyboy as the main character no one is going to care, or even know. If anyone was offended by their furniture designs being in your game, they would tell you, and you would remove them.

They will not care. Just like they don’t care about how its being sold unlicensed on turbosquid in the first place.

The only possible exception to this would be if you had a game where people use micro-transaction to buy furniture ( Like Play-station Home ). If that were the case, then they have a legitimate right to demand that you get a formal license with them, and there are a few cases that come to mind that went to court for similar circumstances.

But aside from that, no, you won’t have any problems. Worst case scenario is a cease and desist. But even that is extremely unlikely, especially for an indie PC game.

EDIT:

Quick note about the Iphone thing. If you had an Iphone in your game just sitting on a table as a prop, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that apple would come after you ( assuming you don’t have the apple logo on it ). But if the main character of your game had a PDA that was an Iphone ( Like the phone in GTA4 ). Thats a different story.

Rule of thumb is whether or not the object is “Front-and-Center”. If it is a core part of the game, and is present often, then you could possibly run into some issues. Its the difference between drivable cars in a racing game, and cars in the parking lot of a shooter. In a racing game cars are the star of the show, and if you want to use an official car you need permission. But in a shooter, with a car as an inanimate and unimportant prop, having a real car in it will not matter.

This of course all assumes you are not using any company logos or names. Even if the object is not “Front-and-Center” if you use a company logo your asking for it.

5

It looks like half a dozen other chairs I can think of. So I think anyone would have a hard time claiming it was their chair.