Main > Main Forum
Arcade artwork legality
Sjaak:
--- Quote from: SavannahLion on October 01, 2011, 12:12:35 pm ---Despite what a bunch of useless crack heads or a bunch of overpaid, overweight greedy executives will tell you, there is no official word on copyright, trademarks or patents or whatever except one (well more than one really but the point will still stand) and those are the laws a set forth in the respective countries.
--- End quote ---
True, here in the Netherlands it's perfectly legal to download music, tv shows and movies. But uploading is illegal...
vcoleiro1:
Thanks for everyones reply.
Does anyone know of an official (US) copyright page that talks about artwork in this regard?
Also, I was just thinking the companies that openly sell arcade art (marquees, side art etc) must have have some kind of licensing arrangement?.
Necro:
Eh...good point there. :) I don't think anyone's selling posters of characters, etc., that people would still be making money from...but still...cab art would be covered and is something you could be sued for I guess.
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: vcoleiro1 on October 01, 2011, 10:07:31 pm ---Does anyone know of an official (US) copyright page that talks about artwork in this regard?
--- End quote ---
Try the U.S. Copyright Office. :cheers:
You'll discover something interesting about U.S. laws and how they're written. Have fun. :)
--- Quote ---Also, I was just thinking the companies that openly sell arcade art (marquees, side art etc) must have have some kind of licensing arrangement?.
--- End quote ---
Not really. Not as far as I know anyways. The only ones I know that (re)prints "licensed" video game related artwork is whomever prints the Pac-Man stuff and it's generally accepted that they do pretty shoddy work so most people worth their salt will go find N.O.S. stuff on eBay instead or go so far as to stencil their own artwork, and NGF who is a raging Dick-a-holic who doesn't deserve to be in the business because he sells his stuff as "licensed reproductions" when he A) slaps his crappo NGF logo on every reprint B) Alters the artwork to be "correct" because the original printer had printing errors C) strong armed the daughter in court to turn over U.S. rights. D) strong arms anyone else who disagrees with him or his dicky business practices.
In a nutshell. Most of the unlicensed reproductions are generally of better quality* because those guys actually care and the licensed stuff is usually just a bunch of ---uvulas--- out to make a buck.
*As always, this statement is not a hard and fast rule and it's best to check with forums like KLOV and BYOAC to figure out who is on the up and up.
taylormadelv:
I am an artist and I have had to deal with copyright issues in the past. It is really very, very simple.
Whomever is the initial creator of any artistic product (painting, book, screenplay, arcade art, ect) is the copyright holder of that piece of artwork. It does NOT have to be registered to be "copyrighted". It is inherintly the intellectual property of the intitial creator no matter what. That means if someone took a screenplay and rewrote everything except one page, the initial creator STILL owns the copyright because it was their initial executed concept. You cannot copyright an "idea", it must be an executed piece of artwork.
So yeah, all that cool arcade art out there is copyrighted but unless you are trying to resell it, no big deal for your personal use.
The biggest deal in arcade art legality is without a doubt--Ms Pacman artwork. Namco has all the rights to Ms Pac/Pacman and Galaga artwork. Only twobits.com sells this legally, as far as I know. It is even hard to find scans and vectorized versions of Ms Pac artwork. Other printers can produce Ms Pac art but it is illegal for them to sell it, technically speaking.
In fact, a client gave me a full set of Ms Pac art to install on a Ms Pac cabinet. Everything, kick plate, both full sides on vinyl and a nice CPO. Because he buys in bulk, he printer sells him full sets for $60!!! But we are talking volume discounts here and the source cannot be revealed, of course.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version