D&D General Plagiarised D&D art

[Vaalingrade]

How convenient for this discussion.

I'm unsure of what you're accusing me of here, but okay, discussion ended.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not sure I did with that post...

Are you sure that this is a valuable and constructive way to approach a discussion?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are you sure that this is a valuable and constructive way to approach a discussion?

Being entirely serious here, I'm not sure about anything anymore with this discussion. That post was divorced from the one questioning people using the horse and buggy argument and wasn't questioning anyone's behaviors. and I don't know why I'm being interrogated like this.

 

[J.Quondam]

How Internet Platforms Are Combating Disinformation and Misinformation in the Age of COVID-19

www.newamerica.org

I am sure that is all just propaganda though.

Oh, the usual "white-hats playing cat-and-mouse with black-hats" process like everything else in tech.... but nothing new or interesting that actually can "easily quash" misinformation. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Lanefan]

I consider thought to be a prerequisite to learning.

Depends what you define as learning.

If I've got a small robot that goes around vacuuming the floor, and it stores data each time it hits an obstacle such that over time it can build itself a data-based map of the room and thus eventually avoid hitting those obstacles, I'd call that learning.

 

[Azzy]

A photograph is art, and for some reason copyrightable even though anyone else could in theory take the same photo.

No expression involved - I just point my camera and click.

Expression can be an element of art, certainly, and very often is; but it's an optional element.

No. Not all photography is art. There's a big gulf between your point and clicking and what you see in National Geographic collection, just like there's a big gulf between shooting a nude photo and shooting pornography.

 

[billd91]

A photograph is art, and for some reason copyrightable even though anyone else could in theory take the same photo.

No expression involved - I just point my camera and click.

No. Not all photography is art. There's a big gulf between your point and clicking and what you see in National Geographic collection, just like there's a big gulf between shooting a nude photo and shooting pornography.

Both of these are pretty much BS arguments.

Taking a photo may, mechanically, be pointing and clicking, but by the same tone, writing War and Peace is just taking a pen and paper and writing. And the reason it’s copyrightable by the photographer is because THEY are the ones who took THAT photo, not someone else taking a, by definition, different photo. And they can exert the right to control who reproduces THAT photo.

And, yes, photography is art and it’s not for you to determine which photos are art and which are not. Different photos may be more thoughtful than others, involve better composition, and may be more compelling than others making them, in most people’s eyes, better art. But that doesn’t mean photos that don’t rise to that level aren’t art.

 

[Lanefan]

Taking a photo may, mechanically, be pointing and clicking, but by the same tone, writing War and Peace is just taking a pen and paper and writing. And the reason it’s copyrightable by the photographer is because THEY are the ones who took THAT photo, not someone else taking a, by definition, different photo.

If someone takes a photo of the Matterhorn from a particular angle under specific weather conditions etc., and then someone else later takes the same photo from the same angle and happens to hit the same weather conditions (or several people in a tour group all take the same photo at once), how can copyright handle that?

I don't think it can.

And they can exert the right to control who reproduces THAT photo.

Except "that" photo could be identical to a bunch of other photos that others took. There's no real way of knowing.

And, yes, photography is art and it’s not for you to determine which photos are art and which are not. Different photos may be more thoughtful than others, involve better composition, and may be more compelling than others making them, in most people’s eyes, better art. But that doesn’t mean photos that don’t rise to that level aren’t art.

On this we agree.

 

[Jahydin]

Who or what makes the art I enjoy has never been an issue for me.

I do think any program that scrapes the internet can only produce non-copyrightable art though. For companies that do want to own their art, they should use an isolated system that is fed by artists they employ. That seems fair to me.

Reminds me of a friend who drew for EA. They needed a table for the third level of one of their games and his job was just to crank out hundreds of sketches of tables so someone else could chose the one to be used. With AI, I imagine still employing him to crank out a hundred tables, but this time all of them could be fed into a program for future use.

 

[Clint_L]

If someone takes a photo of the Matterhorn from a particular angle under specific weather conditions etc., and then someone else later takes the same photo from the same angle and happens to hit the same weather conditions (or several people in a tour group all take the same photo at once), how can copyright handle that?

I don't think it can.

Except "that" photo could be identical to a bunch of other photos that others took. There's no real way of knowing.

On this we agree.

Copyright doesn't necessarily depend on how distinct two things are. It also depends on the material reality of their creation. In your example, those are both potentially*** copyrightable photos, and that copyright could be enforced, presumably by looking at records to see which one was used in a particular case. It could certainly lead to confusion if you, say, licensed that photo and didn't keep accurate records, and you could wind up getting sued by the owner of the other photo. So the moral of the story is: keep good business records.

It's not actually that distinct from the Taylor Swift example from earlier. "Taylor's Versions" are often (not always) very, very similar to the original masters. Intentionally so. But they are still separately copyrighted. She can freely use them, unlike her original recordings.

***I write "potentially" because intent might matter here, so it would be cool if an actual lawyer weighed in. I assume that if the second photo was done with the intention of copying the first and then profiting off the confusion, there would be legal issues.

Going back to the OP, that just seems like a straight up case of copyright infringement. Those images are way too close to be accidental, given that it's a drawing, not a photo. Unless the second use was licensed - do we know that it wasn't? I presume that WotC licenses a lot of art.