Current Events > Artist says Capcom stole her photos for Resident Evil, Devil May Cry games

(+) Yeah! (+)

in lawsuit

https://www.polygon.com/22519568/resident-evil-4-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-capcom

Designer Judy A. Juracek filed her initial complaint in a Connecticut court on Friday. In the lawsuit, she alleged that Capcom used photos from her copyrighted book, Surfaces, in multiple games, including Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry, and other Capcom games. Surfaces is a collection of 1,200 photographs of textures that Juracek photographed herself; the book is intended to be used for visual research for artists, architects, and designers, according to the books description. It was originally published in 1996. The collection comes with a CD-ROM of the images but Juracek said she requires people to license images from her for commercial use by contacting her directly. Juracek said Capcom never contacted her for a license.

Juracek pointed out at least 80 photographs that are used in different scenarios across Capcoms games, with more than 100 pages of documentation. One instance called out in the lawsuit is regarding a shattered glass texture used in the Resident Evil 4 logo.

Part of Juraceks evidence comes from the 2020 Capcom data breach, which happened in November. In that leak, Resident Evil Villages launch plans were prematurely revealed, and personal information for hundreds of thousands of people had been compromised, including customers, shareholders, and employees, Capcom said. Capcom reportedly received a ransom note in the attack, before information was leaked online. That information included some high resolution images of artwork used in Resident Evil and other games, Juracek said.

The file names for at least one of the images from the Capcom hacked files are the same file names as those used on the [Surfaces] CD-ROM, she alleged. The lawsuit shows a metal texture that was labeled ME009 on Juraceks CD-ROM, and labeled the same in the Capcom folders.

https://imgur.com/a/OSdsqEX

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Hope she gets the money.

Fuck Capcom they suck.

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Big if true

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they're pictures of wood and glass and shit

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Can someone explain the 4 to me?

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hockeybub89 posted...

Can someone explain the 4 to me?

they used the photo of glass as a texture to put on the 4

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viewmaster_pi posted...

they're pictures of wood and glass and shit

So Capcom shouldve taken their own pictures of that kind of stuff to use as images in the game. If you use someone elses copyrighted image, prepare to be sued.
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Crazy. Yeah, Capcom straight up stole that photographer's work.

They totally also stole the Frankenstein's Army enemy in RE8. Although RE games have always been derivative.

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Cuticrusader09 posted...

If you use someone elses copyrighted image, prepare to be sued.

i will and i'll not only win, but countersue for ownership of their intellectual property

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Wow. There really is no ethical consumption under capitalism, is there?

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[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

80+ photos

All of the known examples can be found in the scribd link posted in the polygon article. A 147 page document.

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I was prepared to think this was a dumb lawsuit but it honestly looks pretty bad for Capcom. She's asking for $12 mil. She'll probably settle out of court, but she deserves compensation.

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This is probably much more common than you think. Older games have a known history for this sort of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsCN0Yx2Vbs

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how to acquire assets for your game


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Yeah it's quite a lot of photos and she seems to have pretty good evidence

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capcom doing god's work

Fuck Capcom

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What the hell Capcom. She set it up easy for people to use the art work, and all you had to do was license of the art. Why wouldn't that do that . Oh my goodness.

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Seems like the RE Village/Frankensteins Monster(or Army?) thing opened the floodgate for this case to happen.

Wonder what else Capcom has stolen and repurposed from people's designs these past 25 years.

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:(

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Looks pretty blatant, to me. Hope she wins.

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viewmaster_pi posted...

how to acquire assets for your game

This is like one of the most stolen comics of all time lmao

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If this is true, then where the hell did they get the RE 6 logo from?
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j_coat posted...

If this is true, then where the hell did they get the RE 6 logo from?

*shudders* I dont even want to think about it.

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Is Leon supposed to look like Brendan Fraiser there?

I've been saying this for a while too. Capcom also stole Bloodshots from the movies Demoni 1 and 2.

In Demoni, the zombies gradually burst out of the human skin and emerges as a full fledge looking demon that looks exactly like a Bloodshot from RE6.

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I wonder why she is allowed to profit off the work of the arictects but not the video game... seems ironic asf

The photos were provided for non-commercial use, while video games are very much a commercial product. It's pretty standard licensing stuff

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surprised Capcom hasn't just taken care of this instead of dragging it out in public...

this shit happens. only thing I can think of is some kind of loophole where they can use these somehow...

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Kingbuffet posted...

I wonder why she is allowed to profit off the work of the arictects but not the video game... seems ironic asf

This is just me questioning it all for the sake of questioning it all and thinking of all the angles. But if she took pictures of real life architecture and cool designs on walls and such how is it HER artwork that's being taken? A cool door design? That's awesome. Though why is it YOUR picture they used and not the door design itself?

Like I said, this is just be looking at all the info. It seems pretty clear they ripped it off from her book but why does she get protections to sue instead of the architect?

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M_Live posted...

Isn't Earthbounds soundtrack pretty much entirely composed of unlicensed samples lol

There's speculation that this is one of the reasons why MOTHER 3 hasn't been localized.

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Quite likely an environment designer liked the pictures and co-opted them for use. Capcom is going to face heat for this. I hope the claims can be proven beyond a doubt and an award is granted to her.

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Was it capcom or was it just some lazy programmer and capcom was none the wiser? >_>

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WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

This is just me questioning it all for the sake of questioning it all and thinking of all the angles. But if she took pictures of real life architecture and cool designs on walls and such how is it HER artwork that's being taken? A cool door design? That's awesome. Though why is it YOUR picture they used and not the door design itself?

Like I said, this is just be looking at all the info. It seems pretty clear they ripped it off from her book but why does she get protections to sue instead of the architect?

You guys bring up a good point, any one who knows the copyright rules well wanna chip in on this?

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I don't really have any idea how copyrights work in regards to depicting architecture in photos or artwork, but the issue here is that they used her copyrighted photos in an unauthorized way and it really seems pretty clear cut in regards to that.

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WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

This is just me questioning it all for the sake of questioning it all and thinking of all the angles. But if she took pictures of real life architecture and cool designs on walls and such how is it HER artwork that's being taken? A cool door design? That's awesome. Though why is it YOUR picture they used and not the door design itself?

Like I said, this is just be looking at all the info. It seems pretty clear they ripped it off from her book but why does she get protections to sue instead of the architect?

The photo itself belongs to the photographer as their property. So it doesn't matter what it's of, it's that they stole the photo.

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viewmaster_pi posted...

they're pictures of wood and glass and shit

"That statue is just rocks and shit."

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eston posted...

I don't really have any idea how copyrights work in regards to depicting architecture in photos or artwork, but the issue here is that they used her copyrighted photos in an unauthorized way and it really seems pretty clear cut in regards to that.

Oh no doubt, considering the files used were shown from the leaks that they were taken directly from her CD. I was just wondering if an architect could also sue the photographer or capcom here as well for instance.

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