EA carpet bombs Etsy fan art

[Edible Avatar]

What if you drew a picture of copyrighted material, posted it to the public for public use, and then accepted "donations" for continued artwork?
I smell loophole

 

[GrandmaFunk]

It's not about the amount of work;

Why quote us if your response had nothing to do with the specific point he made or my response to it?

Everyone knows the issue is bigger than that one component, that's just the one we chose to focus on in those given posts.

 

[willsham45]

What a stupid move. Pissing off degicated fans is always a bad thing. Ok yes it could take some money away from EA but it is not like they are doing huge things If i am right in thinking the website usually sells things in small batches and one off products.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I hate to side with EA, but essentially they're making Mass Effect merch and selling it, without crediting the company that owns it.

I imagine if they created artistic versions of Nike sneakers with the slash and nike on the side, Nike would like a word too.

I realise most of this stuff is never going to find itself on an EA merch store, but simply copying the N7 logo and putting it on earrings isn't very...arty imo (and I know 'what is art' is another thread, but you must get my point). a Garruss portrait, in a different style to the game art, I'd not want to see that chased down, but the clock, earrings,t-shirts, and the hair ties, they're all pretty much lifting iconic imagery from the game and slapping it on some merch.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

It's not about the amount of work;

Why quote us if your response had nothing to do with the specific point he made or my response to it?

Everyone knows the issue is bigger than that one component, that's just the one we chose to focus on in those given posts.

My apologies for not explaining myself well. I was drawn to your comment by the phrase: "And how many "hard working artists" never get any compensation for their work simply because a publisher hasn't chosen to market their work?"

My point was that, without copyright, regardless of the amount of effort that artists put in, they would "never get any compensation for their work" because a publisher would have no reason to market their work, because they could make their own copy and keep all the revenue for themselves.

 

[Gatx]

I side with EA on this one. If you can't sell your own original art work, don't try to piggy back on someone else's IP.

Most of the people selling fan work could probably also make good original work. Fan work is an easy way to get people to then see your original work, and also is very fun to many people.

Problem here is, you *are* selling someone else's ideas for your own money. I always wondered when anime cons would get hammered for how much fan work is sold at their art galleries. I also wonder when commissions for fan art on DevART are going to get smacked down.

Can they? Can you argue that it's the labor you're paying for, not the character on the piece of paper? "I paid him to draw me a picture of Garrus. I didn't pay for a picture of Garrus." Can you do that?

Yeah I dunno, Etsy's N7 t-shirt looks pretty similar to Bioware's N7 t-shirt, just with a lack of battle damage. I mean, it's not like fan art, where the artist can draw their own depiction of a character (like the Garrus items they have), a few of the items in the store are just things with an N7 logo on them.

 

[mariofan1000]

I think EA is getting unneeded hate. Not only this, but in general.

They are a company. Some questionable decisions, (Yes, Origin is a fucking piece of shit, I'm sure) but overall, they are alright.

And again, these are pretty much counterfeit goods.

 

[Quaidis]

I don't know what to say to the original post, since said stuff claimed 'removed' is still there.

Now, being an artist that plans to sell on Etsy, I can understand where copyrights stand. There are tons of idiots out there selling directly ripped artwork, like pretty distinct logos and art from the manual, stuff they rip online. Said idiots will paste the items on a hat or shirt, or on a piece of wood, and claim it as their own. In fact, there are some jerks out there who take the work from a popular artist and try the same thing. This sort of stuff does go against the Etsy rules (since it's not your art) and will be removed if caught. Disney does sweeps all the time because people will take a picture of Mickey Mouse that they found online, slap it on something, and sell it for quick cash without going through permission and legal procedures.

If EA (and anyone else) hopped onto google and looked up websites selling their logo or character art without permission, they have all the right in the world to slap a blanket statement down and contact the host to remove it.

Now some people may be caught in this. Some legit artist may have drawn two characters from Mass Effect smutting about and is selling prints. They're the ones who have a right to e-ml Etsy and send a correction with minor proof that it's theirs. Signature or whatnot. Link to their other art to show the style is the same. If Etsy says no anyway, oh well. Move on. Sell other art.

 

[theultimateend]

You can safely assume that anyone saying "Counterfeit" in this thread didn't put more thought into it than it took to type it out.

Just to help free up people who read the thread from back to front.

 

[Aidinthel]

Well thank god Hasbro seems to be ok with us. Probably cause they've no idea what to do, lol.

Yeah, I have to give Hasbro credit that their main reaction has been "sweet, free marketing". Interesting that a toy company is better adapted to the digital age than actual tech-related businesses.

Of course it helps that most of the fan stuff fills market segments that the company has no intention of getting into. For Christmas I gave one of my friends a shot glass with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark etched into it. As hilarious as official MLP shot glasses would be, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

[Kargathia]

I will not lose any sleep about EA losing money but there is an argument that if I can get a good quality fan art version of something for less I'd could buy that instead of the licenced version. EA loses a sale. Businesses hate losing sales. You would need to be very nieve to not see this.

Its similar to guys selling "unofficial" merch outside of gigs. Get me an unofficial Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt outside the gig for £7 instead of £20 in the venue.

I see no issue with EA doing this and I am surprised its not happened sooner. Plus how much free advertising does Mass Effect 3 need?

There is relatively very little overlap between official merch and all the various pieces of fan-art, especially when taking into account the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to consider an anime version the same product, whereas in your example the design and make of the shirt would likely be the same as the official version.
Of course the total demand for ME merchandising of any kind is finite, and fan-made items will slightly poach on official grounds, but somehow I severely doubt that it has any kind of meaningful impact on their profit.

I believe that in American copyright law (or possibly trademark law) if you do not defend a copyright/trademark when you are aware of an infringement then you lose the right to defend it at a later date.

Whilst EA does not need the money from fan-art sales, nor does it seem (to most) to be moral to go after such small-fry, it would be needed in case another games developer steals character designs or suchlike in the future.

It sucks, but it is an illegal activity that also has negative consequences for the companies that don't pursue this.

You're actually right there about the need to fight any copyright infringements you're aware of - I didn't think of that when I wrote my original post.

All in all: they're fully justified, and required, to do this. But does that prevent them from looking like corporate dicks? It's a bad PR move on their part, whichever way you look at it.

 

[Exile714]

You know what irks me about the current state of the "Copyright War?" It's that companies like to pretend like copyright was meant to protect their intellectual properties, but it really wasn't. Copyright was meant to allow innovators to profit from their inventions, giving them an incentive to invent. The basic concept is: someone has an idea, that person develops it into a product, they get to sell it for a few years and reap the profits, then it becomes public domain and competitive capitalism takes over.

But where copyright once was a tool for advancing humanity, now it is used to protect MEDIA. Let's not kid ourselves, music, movies and games aren't changing humanity. Starving children aren't better fed, building aren't stronger, medicine isn't more effective etc. because someone copyrights a song or a character. There is no societal value worth protecting with media copyrights.

And then we have things that should have long ago passed into the public domain, say "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Happy Birthday" that continue to be copyrighted. I just don't get it.

On the other hand, I can see EA wanting to protect it's profits from fan artists... they must be losing literally tens of dollars! I personally was going to buy Mass Effect 3, then I saw some fan art and was like, never mind.

 

[Sovvolf]

Well, I know its fun to point fingers at EA most the time, however here... I'm sorry I side with them here. This isn't fun fanart put on display for all to enjoy, their not going round and ripping down any piece of fanart based on EA products they can find... They're taking down those that are profiting on that work. Personally I think fanart moves into counterfeit merchandise the moment you start trying to sell it and profit from it.

 

[brom0220]

See I don't agree with these actions at ALL. Which makes my anti-SOPA/PIPA stance seem justified and makes me feel even more justified in my EA boycott until they change their data mining policy on Origin.

Some works of fanfiction or fanart are original enough that they should be encouraged and produce money for the artist. I'll leave an example here:

http://ppg.snafu-comics.com/ (a series that basically combines the universes of Nicktoons and Cartoon Networks old line up of original content)

Thank you so, so, so much for posting this link. I had never heard of this site before, and I would have probably gone my whole life without knowing it existed if it weren't for you. I haven't been so overjoyed about discovering something new since Roosterteeth posted a link to Lindsey Sterling's Zelda Medley on youtube.

OT: This right here is a perfect example of why fanart should be left alone or even protected. It isn't right that someone could get into trouble when they treat the material with just as much love as and possibly more than its creators.

 

[Sovvolf]

OT: This right here is a perfect example of why fanart should be left alone or even protected. It isn't right that someone could get into trouble when they treat the material with just as much love as and possibly more than its creators.

It is left alone, there's thousands of fan art and fan art websites out there that don't get bothered by the big companies. The problem here was that they were trying to sell the fan art. Which isn't far off selling counterfeit goods.