Getty Images Watermark Shows Up In Latest Square ‘Final Fantasy’ Game
from the under-the-bridge dept
Square Enix, the game studio behind famous video game franchises like the Final Fantasy series, is well known to be a big believer in intellectual property enforcement. Just on our pages alone, we’ve talked about the times they struck out against folks selling replica swords from its games, or fan-made productions featuring Square IP in them. As we’re always careful to mention, Square Enix can do this, but it doesn’t mean it should or has to handle its intellectual property concerns in the most draconian manner possible.
Plus, it’s always fun when the shoe is suddenly on the other foot. And that may be exactly what we’re seeing when some gaming sleuths uncovered at least one asset in Crises Core – Final Fantasy 7 – Reunion that appears to have a washed out Getty watermark over it.
During chapter eight of the game, you’ll enter a Shinra mansion. In this very nice-looking and opulent home you’ll find many fancy paintings hanging on the walls. Look closely and you’ll discover these are real paintings. Look a little closer and you’ll clearly see where Square Enix grabbed the art from.
You can see the Getty watermark nearly dead center in the image. Now, did someone at Square properly license this image? Maybe, though it would be weird for them to have used the watermarked version if it did. More likely some Square employee somewhere in the development of the game needed an image depicting art, grabbed this one, and perhaps thought it would never get found out.
It appears that whoever grabbed this image from Getty—and possibly didn’t pay to license it, as the watermark is still there—stretched it out and cropped most of its top to make it fit in the frame. And this isn’t a one-off error. The resulting painting appears at least three times in this area of the game complete with the Getty watermark. Whoops!
Whoops in multiple ways. First, this can open the company up to a lawsuit if it turns out the image was never licensed. Second, it does at least some reputational damage for any future attempts by Square to claim itself to be a true believer in copyright enforcement.
But what it means perhaps more than anything is to serve as yet another reminder for just how easy it is to infringe on intellectual property rights. It’s all too often the pot becomes the kettle.
Filed Under: copyright, crises core, final fantasy 7, licenses, watermark
Companies: getty, square enix
Comments on “Getty Images Watermark Shows Up In Latest Square ‘Final Fantasy’ Game”
Just curious, if they really did appropriate this image without paying to license it, and then they proceed to sue someone else for using their “intellectual property” without permission, would a possible defense be that they can’t prevail because they don’t have “clean hands”?
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Seems unlikely to me, that sort of stuff only applies to poor people
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Seems unlikely to me. tetris
This game is a remaster from an old PSP game from 2007. I wonder if this was always in it.
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If this was from 2007, “statute of limitations” might apply
its a funny mistake to make when theres so much free public domain art avaidable to use for free
Does Getty Images actually own the copyright?
Getty Images and other large sources of photos such as Alamy often seem to photograph artworks and then slap their watermark on them. In many cases the artwork itself is well out of copyright. Simply reproducing an existing piece of art that is currently in the public domain surely does not mean that the photographer gets a new copyright in the new image? Yes, there may be a minimal degree of creativity in ensuring that the artwork was lit correctly before being photographed, but there is no cropping, reworking or whatever going on. Getty is essentially aiming to reproduce the original artwork exactly as it already appears. What gives them the right to stick their own copyright notice on the result?
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Yeah, I tend to agree with this. I think Square-Enix may have a case that Getty engaged in Copyfraud, but then again, the watermark shoes that it went through Getty Images so there may be some legal affirmation to their side…
Then again, I’m no attorney…
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I believe courts in the US have split on the answer to that question.. It’s never made it to the Supreme Court.
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I believe the argument is the photo is covered under Getty’s copyright and if you want your own version you need to go to the original and take your own picture. Which is why galleries are so loathe to let people take photos, they want to keep selling postcards and licensing etc.
Re: Getty's copyright
Getty hold a copyright over their photograph of the original. They don’t hold copyright over the work of art.
Square Enix have used Getty’s photo, hence the copyright infringement. If they’d taken their own photo, or bought a license to use a photo by somebody else, they’d be fine.
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That has not been established, and is not obvious. As Steve hints, a photographer has to do something “creative” to get copyright in their photograph. Usually, lighting and framing meet this very low bar, but if the goal is to reproduce the photograph as accurately as possible, these don’t really apply; any photographer would do pretty much the same things in pursuit of neutrality, which makes it more like scanning a book.
I can’t access the Kotaku article. Does it go into the copyright status of the original image, which looks potentially old enough to be in the public domain?
Can’t wait for the outrage in the article that follows about why such a lawsuit didn’t prevail.
I am all for 2 copyright giants turning on each other and doing battle…
It leaves them less time to screw the rest of us
Final Fantasy 11?
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Final Fantasy 7-11
I’d guess it’s more likely they meant to use it as a placeholder, intending to put something more appropriate/licensed in later, and it was forgotten about.
Is it really copyright infringement though?
Isn’t this picture like 200 years old? Isn’t the copyright expired on this picture? I mean sure someone could argue with the placement of a watermark on an image might be considered a creative expression. But I think that there wasn’t any creative expression involved. I believe it was automated. I don’t believe there was any new work being created here. So I don’t think they did violate Getty’s copyright, because I don’t think Getty has any copyright on the watermarked image.
Ah yes, the “you can’t use our copyrighted stuff without permission, but we can use your copyrighted stuff without permission” move. (Seriously, hackers and the like dissect games front to back. You actually thought nobody was gonna notice, especially with that very obvious Getty Images watermark?)
Also…
No. It’s Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII – Reunion. Seriously, five seconds of googling.
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I don’t think a typo and the choice to format as Arabic instead of Roman numerals indicate a lack of Google skills.
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