Thanks Matt,
I have an email and phone number for a guy that UDON recommend I contact so I thought I would go that route first. I’m not going to put a lot of time and effort into it though. If they don’t respond, then it’s what I expected.
I’m been very impressed with the new artwork I have seen so far, so no UDON and No Capcom isn’t a deal breaker for me. I let the quality of my sticks speak for themselves, whether they have a picture of Ryu on them or not. They are still built arcade tough :).
Good luck with your site. Although we had are little spat, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions. I’ve been doing this stuff for about 10 years now, as a business :).
Ask anyone around here (or BYOAC, or Mameworld) I’m a nice guy and always willing to help out, even a competitor ;).
David,
How do places like deviant art allow their users to sell the artwork they draw when some of it is Character drawing of SF characters. Isn’t that the same thing we are dealing with here?
Ed, would it be legal for you to put provided artwork on the stick if you didn’t charge for it? Maybe you can get around it by only charging to have provided artwork printed on whatever material you have use to put it on the stick? For example: Lets say I want the Superman Logo on my current stick (a Hori Real Arcade Pro). I print it out and tape the logo to my stick. Isn’t that just personal use? Also, one could just provide an image that may or may not be a copyrighted work that may use a copyrighted character and sign the statement that says it is not. Then people could potentially put anything on their stick.
The copyright law is so freaking gray it drives me insane.
I already charge what it costs me to get it printed and shipped. I don’t make a profit on the artwork at all.
However, another stick making company could sue me stating I have an unfair advantage due to advertising using copyrighted artwork. At this point, I really am considering contacting a real IP lawyer and getting it all done with and out in the open. What I can and can’t do.
I’m going to call one tomorrow and just pay the fee. It’s worth the money to me to just get it figured out rather than try to find work arounds to the system.
Tell me about it. But that’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in it, that there’s so much to argue about, so much to be decided, and so much to be changed. And I agree you should seek help from experienced counsel, but just to let you know, I’m in my last year of concentrating in copyright and internet law at a highly ranked law school and I’ll be taking the bar this summer, so don’t expect the answers to be too different.
I’ve heard of DeviantArt, but I’m not too familiar with what they do or how they do it. If they just act as a meeting place where people sell things, don’t actively filter what’s being sold, remove infringing art when notified, and meet a couple other criteria, then they’re probably not liable if users are selling copyrighted works, although those users certainly are. If they themselves sell copyrighted works or works that infringe on copyrights, then yeah, that ain’t legal.
In any case, this kind of stuff is relatively obscure and not much of a monetary threat to Capcom, so while there might be actionable things going on, it’s unlikely that Capcom would actually file suit. If DeviantArt is actually infringing Capcom’s copyrights, this is probably how they’re getting away with it, and it’d be reasonable for you to expect that you’d get away with it too. My mentioning that Capcom has entered the stick market in the past was only to help rule out a fair use defense for you, they’re probably not monitoring the stick market very closely or anything.
Thanks David,
I really do appreciate your help, and knowing your background now, I don’t think I need to spend the money to contact a lawyer. I know what’s right and wrong, so I have some killer ideas for artwork that artists are working on now, without specifically using characters.
One thing I found interestesting when searching the copyright database is Capcom has copyrights on artwork for all of te SFII characters from Championship edition, but nothing on any characters that came into the series past that. Did they just stop copyrighting them>
You don’t need to register to get a copyright on something. When you express an idea in a tangible medium, you automatically get a copyright on that thing. So in this case, even if Capcom hasn’t taken the time to register their copyrights, they still enjoy copyrights on all their characters. Not having registered limits their options regarding filing lawsuits, but that’s not very important here.
Plus, just to clarify. It wasn’t capcom that I am worried about. I figure, if they had a problem then would send a cease and decist and I would remove the artwork. I’ve gotten them before from other companies on my other products, non of which were needed if they took the time to review what I did. Anyway, my concern was with other business owners threatening legal action for unfair practices.
Just a quick update. I have one new piece of artwork done. It’s mostly for the MK fans, since I tend to be the only making a stick with that layout, thought they should get their own overlay ;).
Few other artists are working on more “Fighting Game” specific stuff. I’ll show more as I get it. I should have a good 4-6 options by Tuesday morning. Then I will slowly expand from there.
I know it’s not as cool as having you favorite character on the stick, but I promise, some of these artists are brilliant. Plus having multiple artists is really making the collection very diverse, which is awesome.
BTW, that’s the image the artists sent. If you mean the joystick hole and top three holes are not lined up, yeah. When I put it in my template in illustrator it’s fine.
The center of the Home button hole should line up with the center of the joystick hole. Also, the center of the stick hole should line up with the center of the block button on the MK layout or between the two rows of buttons on the American Capcom layout (this is the X-men vs SF drill template. Of course on a classic sf one the buttons are jab, strong, fierce, short, forward, and roundhouse). The standard Japanese Astro City (used on the Virtua Stick High Grade and Hori Real Arcade 2) layout is here just for reference (measurements in millimeters)
Ahh, ok. Yeah, my template in illustrator is correct, that image is a little wonky. I took the measurements from the MK3 manual when I designed the control panel.
