I tend to work mostly in TinkerCAD, and I've lately been doing some stuff with pre-existing game models, making kitbashes and such out of them. And I was wondering, idea-wise, about putting them out here for 3d modelers to use as inspiraiton for making their own models from scratch bsed on those designs?
Because, lord knows collage art of that type would be a legal nightmare to give away here as resources, but if folks made their own designs from scratch using the 3d kitbash "protytpe" as a model, I'd presume it's legally kosher.
Here is a sample model, made from a King Dodongo from Ocarina of Time, a Spike Koopa from one of the N64 Mario Party games, Master Hand from the N64, a Bulborb from one of the Gamecube Pikmin games, a Rhyhorn from Pokemon X and Y, and lots of further elaboration in Sculptris, to show how divergent they get.
So, would any 3d artists want to use this as a reference for their own original work? I mean, I do ahve at least one more to show at the moment where that came from...
As for the sample model: Any model based off of Nintendo IP (dodongo, koopa, pikmin, pokemon) would be subject to Nintendo's trademark, even if Nintendo themselves didn't make the model, so OGA probably wouldn't be able to host such sample models.
New prototype models sound pretty useful. However, designing new stuff using those prototypes as a model would make the new "from scratch" models a derivative, so the prototype's license would have sway still. What is the license of the 3d kitbash prototypes you are referring to?
--Medicine Storm
I feel I may have miscommunicated, in that I don't mean I based it on those models, I directly used those models, ripped from the games, gotten via the Models Resource, in a form of collage art like cutting out pictures from magazines, with all the legal stuff that implies.
And I was thinking that any of the ones made "from scratch" using the collage-models as a starting reference would only be really using the original elements of the design, IE the new character I personally created from them, rather than the license of the component parts. Which I think'd be legally defensible if I've done my job and made said collage-design aesthetically distinct from the parts I used.
Like, to give an example, if one were to make original illustrations for the works of Henry Darger, you'd just have to get the license for Darger's works rather than for all the magazines he used to make his original images, at least that's my logic here.
And I wasn't thinking of hosting them on the "main" archive, god no, I'm not dumb enough to think that'd be at all legally defensible, I was thinking more of putting links to them on this thread for artists to use to make their own actually-archivable creations.
Though, I suppose that leads to the question, if I didn't tell you, would you be able to tell what parts I had used in the sample design's making? Because, that'd go a long way whether the composite-design stands enough as its own thing enough for what I meant its use for.
As another test on the originality of the composite-collage designs, here's a link to images of another design I made using similar methods, can you guess what models I used in that?
Thank you for the clarification, but I don't believe I misunderstood. What you describe would still be considered a derivative and therefore bound by the license of the collage-models that were used as a starting reference.
In terms of the Henry Darger collage; yes, legally you would need the license permission from every one of the magazines he used. One exception to this is Fair Use. You can make a collage under fair-use, sure, but it's very unlikely others would be allowed to use that fair-use asset to make other things. Derivatives of fair-use derivatives are rarely fair-use themselves. That's why it's technically legal to make fan art, but never legal to use fan art in a game.
Sure you can put links to such models and collage-art in the forum. I'm sure others would very much enjoy that, but they should know any such art they create and use in a game, video, etc based on such assets would be difficult to sort out license-wise.
If you didn't tell me what you used as a base, I certainly wouldn't be able to tell what assets you used as a reference or guide, but if the license truly didn't allow it, not knowing about it wouldn't make it ok. It doesn't matter how different a derivative is from the original. If it was based on the original in any way, it is a derivative and subject to the original license terms regardless of if people can even recognize it as the same/similar work or not.
Let me know if I'm totally missing what you're suggesting.
--Medicine Storm
I get what you're saying loud and clear. And, while I had heard it was more gray, I can wholly understand why you wouldn't want to touch that sort o thing with a ten-foot pole. I'll just stick to 3d-printable toymaking with those.
But boy does this show how much our fair use laws suck in the US. Like, TBH, I wish we'd adopt these extra factors of fair use into our law, since that'd allow copyright to reflect the way people actually use IP so much more...
I agree wholeheartedly. I can't wait for IP law to be revised. >:[
--Medicine Storm