A question about royalties

[DaJe]

I'll probably ask some more questons later on, but for now I'll just start off with this one. So let's say I wanted to make a profit on something, and that something had the companion cube from Portal on it. The image of the cube was drawn by me though. Am I able to generate profit using that image, or do I owe royalties to Valve or require their permission or something?

[Elenril]

As far as I'm aware:

No. You may not use someone else's (especially a company's) creative property for your own profit, unless they have specifically given you permission, or state somewhere on their website or anywhere else that you may.

[DaJe]

I see places selling things like shirts though, with the compansion cube on it. I'm sure that not all of them asked for permission from Valve. And then other times you may see someone's digital art of a video game character, which they then might sell.

[Elenril]

Maybe it is allowed then, in some cases. I'm not sure of the exact rules of this, but from a moral or ethical viewpoint, it just seems wrong to use someone else's intellectual or creative property to make a profit for yourself.

I saw a tshirt the other day with the famous characters Pon & Zi. The author's name wasn't visible on the image printed on the tshirt. I'm pretty sure that was illegal.

My point remains, even if everyone else is doing it, you shouldn't.

Ok, now this has turned into a moral and ethical preaching lecture. Sorry.

[jdbnsn]

Does that mean if Paul sells Doom3 he owes ID software part of the check? ;)

[.Maleficus.]

There should be something in the Portal EULA (which I'm sure you read ;)). If not, email Valve. Better safe than sorry if you ask me.

[Mach]

Check out Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

If you use someone else's design or art, it must be significantly different in intent and composition to be considered fair use. Fair use is the term for allowable re-use of copyrighted work.

What you're describing sounds like copyright infringement because you plan to profit from someone else work; work that they hold a copyright for. It doesn't sound like you're trying to change the intent of image.

BTW, those t-shirts? Most likely, they're not licensed to use the images either but it's expensive to enforce.

[Mach]

Does that mean if Paul sells Doom3 he owes ID software part of the check? ;)

I wouldn't think so. He's dramatically changed the intent of the original imagery and he didn't build it for profit, even if he does eventually sell it. (Can you imagine how high the price would be to turn a profit on Doom3 just in Paul's time alone? :o) If he decided to start manufacturing them for sale on larger scale then he may run into copyright problems.

Could iD (or whoever owns the copyright) give him problems if they wanted to? Sure but that'd be shooting themselves in the foot with their fan base. Google Star Wars copyright for lucas arts crack down.

[DaJe]

Even a place like VG Cats is selling a portal shirt. But anyways, I decided to send an e-mail to Gabe Newell, asking him about all of this. I also know that I really have a thing about people profiting from something I've done.

[billygoat333]

wonder if they have a copyright on the cube itself or just the game? I dunno if the copyright is extended on everything inside the game, or just the game (coding, and all trademarks and such).

[Commando]

Here's my quick opinion on this. I used to sell shirts and stuff kinda like your talking about.

The answer if you ask anyone from the company is no. But in reality your not making enough for them to be concerned. Therefore you can do it and if the company ever inquires just stop selling them or change the design.

Here's the moral issue. Your profiting by "emulating" someone else's work, but your also distributing and advertising for them without them paying you for it. So morally I think they cancel each other out.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it...