Rockstar Games steal other developers artwork

Hi. First of all I'd like to appologuise to the mods of this forum. I posted this before but forgot to include the undoubtable proof of this so the topic got locked up right away. Now I do have solid proof so here goes again..

Hiya. My name is Mike(MindGem) and I'm a flash game developer. My most well known title is The Graffiti Creator ( http://www.graffiticreator.net ). It's a free to use flash app where the user can create their own graffiti-styled texts using various options.

Now..Someone sent me screenshots from the Rockstar Games latest game, Bully ( http://www.rockstargames.com/bully/home/)

The screenshots looked like they had my graffiti art on the ingame walls. So I checked it up and I saw it was true from various Youtube clips of the game. So this company steal other developers art and use in their own commercial games and makes tons of money of others hard work, What bastards!

Anyways, I also Googled other stuff of this company, turns out they got sued twice of two other guys when they did the excact same thing using their graffiti art on the ingame walls of Grand Theft Auto.

Now, what do You think about this? These multimilion dollar companies cry over people downloading their games illegaly so they loose a lot of money, oh buuu huu. Do they really deserv this money when they just take others work and paste into their games?

Here are the proof of this:

Screenshots from the game Bully:

http://www.mindgem.se/trash/bully1.jpg
http://www.mindgem.se/trash/bully2.jpg
http://www.mindgem.se/trash/bully3.jpg

All these images in the background can be made right now on the website, since 2001. And the user policy clearly state that its free to use for personal use and not for commercial use.

And the original artworks:
http://www.mindgem.se/trash/goodbye.jpg

Now, I just made this text, you can go make it yourself using the program at the GraffitiCreator website so you can see for yourself that its the same font and program used. They didnt even bother to distort it a bit, just pasted it in as it was.

Oh and Here is Gamespots own report of the other lawsuit against the company when they used a graffiti artists artwork in GTA

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6074780.html

Oh and Here is Gamespots own report of the other lawsuit against the company when they used a graffiti artists artwork in GTA

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6074780.html

MindGem2

Interesting, although it was more like a footnote in that article. The link GameSpot has is dead too. In any case, the poster over there is right, get a lawyer if you think you have a case. And posting accusations with a newly made account isn't going to get you anywhere. If anything users will think you're just after publicity.

I don't know what you're talking about.

They used The Graffiti Creator, flash application which I coded in 2001 and used my font which I draw back in the late 90s and later digitalized and used in the application. How do you compair that to using Times New Roman, which by the way of course is copyrighted :)

[QUOTE="MindGem2"]

Oh and Here is Gamespots own report of the other lawsuit against the company when they used a graffiti artists artwork in GTA

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6074780.html

glacies_diaboli

Interesting, although it was more like a footnote in that article. The link GameSpot has is dead too. In any case, the poster over there is right, get a lawyer if you think you have a case. And posting accusations with a newly made account isn't going to get you anywhere. If anything users will think you're just after publicity.

It just bug me that this huge company leech of the little people and then cry when someone download their stuff. And I have tried to contact them directly but they refuse to reply to me. And getting a lawyer in Sweden is much more expensive than in the states, we have no Pay on Victory deals and since Rockstar is based in US(I think) I have to take the suit there, which would cost too much.

I'm a one-man company with no money, I make free gadgets so there is nothing to pick from :)

And finaly, Yea I can see that I don't come off like the good guy since this is my very first post on this forum and people might think I'm just talking nonsense for the publicity, but the thing is Free, I don't make money off it. Anyways, it was not my intention to make news, I just wanted to tell Somebody that this company is Bad news.

I don't know what you're talking about.

They used The Graffiti Creator, flash application which I coded in 2001 and used my font which I draw back in the late 90s and later digitalized and used in the application. How do you compair that to using Times New Roman, which by the way of course is copyrighted :)

MindGem2

Exactly why I was asking. Times is after all packaged with every word procssor and is available for use practically in every place where you can change a font. Let's say should a church decide to print out raffle tickets with the font, should they pay for using it? We have no idea, we're not lawyers, we don't even know if you have a case.

EDIT: Okay that was a stupid example, in any case we don't know really know how the law applies here. I certainly see many similar graffiti styles (yes personal use though) but whose to say they didn't pay someone with a similar style to make the designs for them? We also don't know if they actually used your program either so we can't really give an unbiased view here. I'm just naturally being a skeptic here...

I don't know what you're talking about.

They used The Graffiti Creator, flash application which I coded in 2001 and used my font which I draw back in the late 90s and later digitalized and used in the application. How do you compair that to using Times New Roman, which by the way of course is copyrighted :)

MindGem2

Oh may GOD! I used that same style in all my graphiti all around Minneapolis! Does that mean you can sue me too????

All in all, I'd say you are either full of it, or SOL. Because, for one, your "font" isn't distinct enough from regular "street" art to warrant a copyright. Second, you probably "lifted" the style from another street artist for your own program.

Of course the main argument fails mostly for the fact that you just simply CANNOT prove that RockStar used your program for their art. You have no proof or underlying evidence that Rockstar didn't create or draw this graphiti on their own. Sure it may look similar to your work, but I'm sorry sir, your work looks similar to THOUSANDS of street artists graphiti.