Morphs of famous characters
Drogo Nazhur
Posts: 1,080
I would like to see morphs that re-create characters like Popeye, Dick Tracy, etc. I realize that there might be copyright issues but DAZ is selling slight varations of Captain America's uniform. If that can be done, I'm sure Popeye and Olive Oye can be modified to also avoid the copyright / trademark issues.
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It seems that DAZ has become more and more careful about something even remotely resembling anything that someone else might have copyright to, be it character likeness, vehicles etc. which is kind of opposite of what a lot of users would like to do.
Legal actions tend to be extremely expensive (in money, time, and effort), even when you win. I can't imagine Daz being interested in that sort of trouble. And the companies which own the original IPs are completely uninterested in licensing the images for any sort of general consumer do-it-yourself/make-your-own purposes, for reasons which should be obvious and manifold.
Captain America imagery is difficult for Marvel/Disney to protect because the colors (red, white, blue) and the basic geometry (stars, stripes) are part of America's general patriotic imagery.
If you're in America, contact your congresspeople about dialing back the length of copyright. Popeye was created in 1929, and should absolutely be in the public domain. They're not even doing anything with the character these days, as far as I know.
^Copyright and Trademark are different though.
Copyright only protects the original cartoon/drawing/writing/etc - you could reproduce the original 1929 cartoon and distribute it. But using the character likeness and/or name would most likely be trademarked, which is protected indefinitelty as long as the company is using it as a trademark (ie to say 'this comes from our company'). (I personally think some TM are overprotected too as they're not really being used in the orignal TM sense but hey, I'm not a lawyer).
Not necessarily. If the copyright was renewed (and I strongly suspect it was), then the original cartoon would still be under copyright until 2024.
Popeye, it turns out, is a somewhat special case. His creator was pseudonymous at the time and he was created as work-for-hire, which means that he falls into a different part of copyright law in the US (but not in Europe) and Popeye wouldn't be public domain here until 1924 (both because of the pseudonymous/work-for-hire issue and because the copyrights on his first publications were renewed -- although, weirdly, because Olive Oyl came first, the earliest comc strips featuring her and her family would be public domain now).
HOWEVER. As Silent Winter mentions, his image is also now trademarked, and licensed as such, and I should imagine that King Features Syndicate would vigorously (and expensively) defend their trademark, since it still brings in a startling amount of money. (The US Patent and Trademark Office database has a HUGE number of licensed uses listed.)
I haven't seen anything new being done with Popeye or Dick Tracy in a while.
Ah, yes. If that's the case then it would be different. Either way, I suspect it's the TM they'd sue on if someone made a Popeye lookalike. (Though a near-miss that could be turned into Popeye with some morphing would probably be okay).
That's the point that I was trying to make -- something that looks close to Popeye, something that looks close to Dick Tracy, etc.
If it's close enough to Dick Tracy that it's recognizable as Dick Tracy, it's still infringement. It sounds like you're unwilling to modify other assets and/or kitbash. If you're just hoping to load a character and outfit that looks pretty much like Dick Tracy, Popeye, etc., I doubt that sort of thing will ever be available from Daz.
On sites that I will not mention, Disney's Incredibles, Princess Yasmin, etc., are being sold. I just thought that if those can slip by, things like Popeye and Dick Tracy, who are owned by less aggressive holders than Disney, would not be a problem.
Those sites have probably just chosen not to care about IP restrictions, and sell those products at their own risk. Some sites (possibly the same ones you're thinking of) also sell models ripped out of video games, which they do not have the right to do.