Who really owns CGI Characters?

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pacman000
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Who really owns CGI Characters?

Postby pacman000 » December 18th, 2017, 9:00 am

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-es ... on-1049516

Are some of Hollywood's biggest movies from the past decade — Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Deadpool and Night at the Museum, among others — all copyright infringements because they were allegedly created with stolen technology?


Found this while browsing Compuserve's archived forums. Still current, so I'm posting it here. Basically the motion capture tech used in a lot of blockbuster films was stolen, and its owner's suing everyone for using it.

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scotland
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Re: Who really owns CGI Characters?

Postby scotland » December 18th, 2017, 12:25 pm

Apparently its about facial motion capture tech in particular. It seems to go some company in China was licensing the tech out to Disney, but that company may not have acquired the tech legally in the first place.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/disney-facing-vfx-firms-injunction-bid-three-blockbuster-films-1021841

Its not quite who 'owns' these CGI characters. Disney should own their own take on Beast from Beauty and the Beast or Ultron for instance, but that the representation of those characters on screen may have used taken technology they did not properly license. Since Disney did license the product though, I guess the question is how liable are they if it can be proven the company they licensed it from did not have legal authority to license it.

I'm no lawyer, but is this like buying stolen property if you bought it in good faith?

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Stalvern
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Re: Who really owns CGI Characters?

Postby Stalvern » December 18th, 2017, 12:27 pm

Misleading headline. The plaintiff isn't laying claim to the creative expression of the characters but to the visual effects of their representations.

Nothing's going to happen from this. The studios will settle, and it'll all be forgotten after a year.

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pacman000
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Re: Who really owns CGI Characters?

Postby pacman000 » December 19th, 2017, 3:49 pm

In reference to Scotland's question:

http://vondranlegal.com/what-is-innocen ... ringement/

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scotland
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Re: Who really owns CGI Characters?

Postby scotland » December 19th, 2017, 4:05 pm

Interesting, So, basically unknowing infringement is not a defense, but it is a significant mitigating factor in seeking damages. So, yeah, sounds just like a settlement is in order, and we'll probably never know for how much.


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