3 ms·
I'll oversimplify video production to make the point, but let's say I'm making a video where a Bob runs up to Alice, makes a snide comment, Alice makes a clever
by blagie 5y ago
I'll oversimplify video production to make the point, but let's say I'm making a video where a Bob runs up to Alice, makes a snide comment, Alice makes a clever comeback, and Bob slinks away in shame. There are a few creative parts to this:
1) Writing the script.
2) Designing the visual look of Bob and Alice.
3) Designing the animation (e.g. animating the body language of "slinking").
Those are all creative contributions. A tool like this one converts an image into bones, which I don't think has a creative element. It also has a bunch of pre-baked animations of those bones, which are neat, and do have a creative element.
Is that enough? I don't know.
Let's take this to an extreme. In the early '00s, there was a popular video (an early meme) of a pair of stick figures having a rather fancy fight. Most of the work was in the rather comedic body language. If I replaced those stick figures with something my child drew, it'd still be /mostly/ the original work. Simply replacing a stick figure with a child's drawing doesn't change the underlying work. Even if I took a little clip, say a neat-looking jump turning kick, I couldn't take that without permission.
There's a line somewhere in there, and I'm not quite sure where it is. I don't think anyone really knows until there's case law.
- dls2016 5y agoAnd, to me, creating bones of a character seems a lot like extracting individual hits of a beat. Both allow you to easily re-arrange the original creation. (Let's assume that you own the copyright to the underlying recording in the ReCycle situation, so as to avoid a discussion of the legal implications of sampling music.) I'm sure if I dug into a professional animation application, I could find a dozen more analogous tools. I don't see where the legal complexity is. Not that I'm a lawyer, but I can't think of a single case where a tool to automate artistic tedium resulted in some transfer of copyright.
- blagie 5y ago> And, to me, creating bones of a character seems a lot like extracting individual hits of a beat. I agree. > (Let's assume that you own the copyright to the underlying recording in the ReCycle situation, so as to avoid a discussion of the legal implications of sampling music.) And this assumption isn't valid, and it's precisely where the complexity comes in. The tool doesn't just create bones. It has a bunch of rather nice gaits which presumably a human artist designed to be nice to look at: - 8 dancing movements - 8 funny movements - 7 jumping movements - 9 walking movements I think those are analogous to the samples you're using in your example. If the sample is a generic recording of a piano, that's one thing. If it's Justin Bieber saying "Stay," that's another thing.
- dls2016 5y agoGood point, which I didn't appreciate. But I'd argue the pre-programmed gaits are more analogous to "presets" and not samples. To be honest I don't if use of presets falls under the same copyright rules as use of samples.