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Trademark, License own character creation?

poser_2146154poser_2146154 Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in The Commons

Hi,

i'm not a lawyer or anything like it, so i have a few questions concerning some of the content of the license agreement. Especially concerning one topic:

If i create a character with content i bought from DAZ3D or similar sites for a customer and use it in videos and animation, i have all the rights to the rendered 2d images of this character, right? So i could make movies or pictures with it and sell those pictures, right?

Of course i don't have the right to sell any source textures or geometries to someone else. But the created character itself as images and animation, i can sell?

Can i also trademark the character i created (as long as it is not simply a character like Michael 4 in his unchanged form)?

For example: I create a character for an online plattform that guides people through the site and call him Mr. Guideman or something like that. Can i make a trademark of Mr. Guideman or does the license prohibit such use?

I am only asking those questions because i'm trying to find out, if i can use DAZ content for creating things for customers. Not selling any 3D data, but just images and videos and the look of characters for example.

Comments

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,869
    edited December 1969

    I doubt it using textures and morphs that are available to all.
    but
    maybe your own textures for sure, ie photographing human models and your own photoshop etc work as you would indeed own the copyright to those textures.
    Likewise possibly a very very unique morph using something like Zbrush etc but it would need to be noticably unique, not reallife like, ie a cartoon one as I do not think you can copyright a face!
    Even so you would be powerless to stop similar characters resembling yours being used esp for parody.
    Superman is copyrighted but men with similar faces and various skintight suits and badly worn underwear abound.

  • SockrateaseSockratease Posts: 813
    edited August 2013

    I'm no expert, but my thought is that if it's a simple "dial spin" morph, then it can not be copyrighted or trademarked. Too easily reproduced by accident!

    It would probably have to be a custom morph done in a modeling program of some sort for that.

    Possibly.

    I think...


    EDIT - Ninja'd by Wendy!

    Yer too fast for me.

    Post edited by Sockratease on
  • poser_2146154poser_2146154 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Well... sounds logical to me.

    And from the legal point of view?
    Not depending on the office that grants you a trademark (no idea how this works in real life), would this be allowed by the DAZ license agreement?

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,869
    edited December 1969

    simple but not cheap answer!
    ask a lawyer!! :lol:

  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,373
    edited December 1969

    This is definitely not something that can be answered in the forums. You'll have to ask the DAZ office directly for a legal opinion, and you should talk to a trademark and copyright lawyer in your area of the country where you plan to setup the company to make sure it meets the requirements before you invest in development.

  • poser_2146154poser_2146154 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yeah ... thanks... thought so.

    Not sure, if my development will go in such a direction. Just playing with the general ideas.
    In the end, real answers may only be given by a lawyer in that area.

    Thanks for all your quick answers.

  • linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,341
    edited November 2013

    edited and removed by user

    Post edited by linvanchene on
  • poser_2146154poser_2146154 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yep, i guess it really depends on the country and law... i'm from Germany, so it may be a lot different from the US.
    On the other hand, DAZ is located in the US... so there may be some special side laws or something like that.

    Anyway... i guess the trademarking thing also depends on how the customer or client or "owner" of the image wants to treat it.
    If they want to trademark it, so nobody else could do a remotely similar thing, DAZ might really be the wrong starting point.
    A few dials and modifications can't really create something THAT unique.

    And even if someone might be able to trademark something like a customized DAZ character and enforcing such a trademark might be a whole different beast.

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    If you are using a purchased texture out of the box, I doubt you would be able to trademark it even as a still image. You may or may not even be able to trademark a texture created from a merchant resource. There are places where trademark and copyright issues become an obstacle.

    If asked, our in-house Legal would advise us to do everything from the ground up if possible and save each and every file with time/date stamps.

    That would mean creating the texture from human resource photos from sites like 3d.sk and the texture template.

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449
    edited December 1969

    A couple of trademark cases from my memory (which ain't what it used to be).

    The producers of The X Files where able to get the X used in the shows opening trademarked because the courts felt it had a distinct and mostly unique look.

    Spike Lee on the other hand was not able to trademark the letter X for his Malcolm X film as the court pointed out it was just a simple Roman font capital X.

  • ServantServant Posts: 756
    edited December 1969

    poser said:
    Hi,

    i'm not a lawyer or anything like it, so i have a few questions concerning some of the content of the license agreement. Especially concerning one topic:

    If i create a character with content i bought from DAZ3D or similar sites for a customer and use it in videos and animation, i have all the rights to the rendered 2d images of this character, right? So i could make movies or pictures with it and sell those pictures, right?

    Of course i don't have the right to sell any source textures or geometries to someone else. But the created character itself as images and animation, i can sell?

    Can i also trademark the character i created (as long as it is not simply a character like Michael 4 in his unchanged form)?

    For example: I create a character for an online plattform that guides people through the site and call him Mr. Guideman or something like that. Can i make a trademark of Mr. Guideman or does the license prohibit such use?

    I am only asking those questions because i'm trying to find out, if i can use DAZ content for creating things for customers. Not selling any 3D data, but just images and videos and the look of characters for example.

    Of my limited understanding with regard to this, any derivative results you produce using licensed DAZ/Poser/etc. stuff that you bought, you have copyrights to. You don't have the copyrights to the materials you used, but you do have the copyrights to what you produced using them. However, copyrights are more broad in scope. You could produce a scene and someone else could produce a similar scene at the exact same time without ever seeing yours and you'd have both copyright claim on it, so it would be a matter of proving who gets the claim (which is really messy).

    As far as trademarks, you can't trademark something as simple as a "look". You need distinguishing elements that make it unique. A guy in a cape, leotards, boots, and trunks with black hair with a two-tone color scheme cannot be trademarked. But slap a distinctively designed symbol on the chest and it's now trademarkable.

    But again, this is from someone with a limited experience and understanding (i.e. not a legal expert) with these. :)

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    edited August 2013

    BorgyB said:
    As far as trademarks, you can't trademark something as simple as a "look". You need distinguishing elements that make it unique. A guy in a cape, leotards, boots, and trunks with black hair with a two-tone color scheme cannot be trademarked. But slap a distinctively designed symbol on the chest and it's now trademarkable.

    This. You couldn't trademark specific dial turns, but you could potentially use DAZ to create a specific distinctive character, The Incredible Mascot Man, associate him with a specific company or enterprise, and trademark that so nobody else could copy The Incredible Mascot Man to promote their own competing products.
    Post edited by agent unawares on
  • Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
    edited December 1969

    You're better off making something from scratch. I tried to make a character based off the Genesis model and it was way more work than it was worth

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