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Who owns the digital rights to a game's screenshot?

T

tzetsin

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xentr_thread_starter
I was showing some folks a few screenshots i took from my flight sim the other day and they exclaimed "wow those are so nice, what would you charge me for a print of one of those?"

so i got to thinkin with all this digital rights bs out there today, who owns the digital rights to a screenshot? Before anyone says or even thinks that the developer owns them think on this...

Flight simulator is set up for 3rd party add ons (for a cost) so the "developer" is more like "developerS" so in that case who's got the rights? And for another matter, Its my own personal artistry thats set the screen in such a position with such lighting and all the other elements to a nice picture, as well as my computer that rendered the shot. So i'd say that i've at least got right to it as well.

What are your thoughts?
 
xentr_thread_starter
who is "they" then? With the mona lisa its a specific unit. with flight simulator its not.

microsoft owns the core program
fs genisis owns the terrain mesh
lionheart owns the plane
realenvironmentextreem owns the clouds
Tzetsin owns the computer that rendered it all.

So who owns the picture?
 
Obviously the game publisher and developer(s). And anything they don't own is owned by someone else as you kind of detailed in youor post. But it is definitely not you, lol.
 
That is a very interesting topic you brought up.

Thinking of it in the "real world" scenario -
If you took a photo of someone else's property and subsequently marketed the photo and sold it - would you owe the property owner royalties?
If you photograph or paint a scene at a place like butchart gardens, where they have built, own and maintain the entire surroundings - you would be infringing on their IP? Do you need their permission to take a photo of the area? Like game developers, they have created a "reality" that is meant to be a visual treat. It is unreasonable to expect that photo's are not going to be taken.

As an "artist" who takes the photo, what form of ownership do you have over the "creativity" that went into the screenshot?


Personally, I fail to see why games, movie, TV and media etc should have a whole different set of rules from, lets call it "life". If we are required to license photo's of games, then shouldn't we also be required to license any form of photo of the real world as well?


Now I realize you can't "copyright" your garden or your property - but you can copyright the design of a house or landscape idea. By photographing designed landscape, technically you would be taking advantage of someone else's "intellectual property"?


EDIT: Here is an interesting thought - Would photographing a mural or graffiti be considered copyright infringement? And if so, who's? The graffiti artist or the property owner?
 
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I think the difference between a photograph of a property and a screenshot is that the image in a screenshot is in fact the actual content where a building's content would be the architectual blueprints. You could sell images of the actual house, but you couldn't make copies of the blueprints and sell those.

In the case of a mural / graffiti I'd guess the artist would hold the copyright. If you were to buy an original painting by a known artist, I don't believe that would give you the right to make quality prints of it for resale.
 
sswilson said:
I think the difference between a photograph of a property and a screenshot is that the image in a screenshot is in fact the actual content where a building's content would be the architectual blueprints. You could sell images of the actual house, but you couldn't make copies of the blueprints and sell those.

In the case of a mural / graffiti I'd guess the artist would hold the copyright. If you were to buy an original painting by a known artist, I don't believe that would give you the right to make quality prints of it for resale.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is you're not actually allowed to photograph buildings and structures in a lot of cases; although no one really does anything about it. But even a cities skyline is copyrighted; for example you can't print the skyline of Toronto on a tshirt without a license. Nor can you actually sell photographs you take of the CN tower because it's a copyrighted image as well. You can take the photos for personal use but not for sale.

I know this for fact as I know a photographer who was charged after taking photos of a landmark.
 
encorp said:
The funny thing is you're not actually allowed to photograph buildings and structures in a lot of cases; although no one really does anything about it. But even a cities skyline is copyrighted; for example you can't print the skyline of Toronto on a tshirt without a license. Nor can you actually sell photographs you take of the CN tower because it's a copyrighted image as well. You can take the photos for personal use but not for sale.

I know this for fact as I know a photographer who was charged after taking photos of a landmark.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I wasn't so sure about Canadian law, however I did a small research project a while back on the UK laws and they are very different from that, along with a few of the US states. In almost all cases, the photographer is the sole copyright holder.

I remember reading on a case in the USA about taking photographs in a museum of art. Taking photo's of copyrighted works was actually deemed as under fair use because it was public domain and didn't exactly mimic the original. As many Canadian court's do accept precedence from USA verdicts - I don't know how that would translate into protecting other such photo's as the one about murals or graffiti in Canada.


The law flipflops all over the place then - If photo's of buildings belong to the owner of the building, however photo's of people, or things like weddings - the photo's are copyrighted by the photographer.

Clearly this shows a complete lack if discord in the current IP/Copyright laws, especially in Canada. With money grabbing corporations like the RIAA, CRIA all fighting for to keep control of piracy, I think a lot of real issues like this photography discord will be overlooked and wind up being unfairly lumped in with the piracy debate and will wind up with super protective laws that only line the pockets of the big wigs and government :blarg:
 
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