2023-06-01 07:02:01
The use of skin as a form of interaction and individualization in video games can be important for gamers, as it allows them to customize their character’s appearance and, ultimately, the way they are. seen by other players. The ability to customize the skin can add a sense of engagement to the game. Indeed, these custom skins are sometimes rare or hard to obtain making them sought-after collectibles.
This reality is well known to video game developers and is a source of income in addition to the sale of the game itself. These are mainly video game character customization accessories in exchange for real money or virtual currency.
Tattoos, as a form of personal or artistic expression, arrived in video game reality as an additional way to personalize characters.
- If the tattoo was designed specifically for the video game, the developer owns a copyright in the tattoos.
- In cases where the tattoo exists and is intended to be reproduced and used in the video game, it would be necessary to obtain a user license from the author (tattoo artist).
What happens when these permissions cannot be obtained? Can tattoos be reproduced in video games without permission from the artist?
In general, tattoos can be considered as works of art within the meaning of article L112-2 of the French Code of Intellectual Property and are, as such, protected by copyright. This means that, even if they are somehow “transferred to the skin” of the person who wears them, the ownership of the work belongs to the tattoo artist as well as their exploitation rights. It is therefore necessary to obtain the necessary authorizations from the artist through user licenses.
It is clear that the right to protect the work of the tattoo artist comes into conflict with the image rights of the tattooed person, and the protection of the rights of tattoo artists to their drawings should not restrict the image rights of the tattooed person.
Thus, if it is true that a person can exploit his image rights, including tattoos that are part of his personality, to use the reproduction of a tattoo in a video game for profitit will be necessary to obtain the permission of the tattoo artist in exchange for fair compensation.
Le cas de video game developer 2K Games
Often, video game developers use tattoo images of real characters as part of the character representation, such as the figures of football players in video games such as the famous FIFA, or basketball games such as NBA2K.
Indeed, the developer of NBA2K was cited in US courts following a lawsuit filed by the tattoo studio Solid Oak Sketches, which claimed that the video game developer did not have the corresponding licenses to use the drawings of his tattoos on the characters of LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, among others.
The main issue in determining the fair use of tattoos is the American doctrine of “Fair use”. It examines the non-commercial purpose of the use, the nature of the rights, the partiality of the use and the effects of the use on the work.
The video game developer won the lawsuit against the tattoo studio because the use of tattoos in the video game was not the heart of the video game and was minimal, even going so far as to analyze their low percentage of visibility on the Internet. ‘screen.
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Image: Image by Freepik
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