are sims 4 characters copy righted
if i create a character on sims 4 and get it to blender using simripper am i allowed to use this character in a monetized way or is it copyrighted and there is a risk for me getting sued ?
Forum Discussion
Hi @vypiy0n . Copyright nerd here! Any nonmechanical work that has been fixed (which is pretty much everything except an unrecorded improvisation) is covered under copyright law. The U.S. does have some exemptions for artistic use of copyrighted material under "transformative" use, but the tests for that are complex, with the case law being all over the place, and other countries don't have that exemption.
That's not to start on what's covered under trademark registration.
- @luthienrising I have been wondering this as well, but I'm not sure I am following your answer. Would you be willing to explain again in a slightly different way? Thanks and no worries if you don't want to, just thought I would ask. Happy simming, Peace! = )
@2001100 Almost anything anyone creates that gets recorded somehow -- on video, in a computer file, on paper (even a napkin) -- is covered under copyright law. (That includes the your post here, and mine.) Copyright law then calls those things "works". To use all or part of someone else's work, you need permission, except if your use is covered as an exemption in the law or if the work is so old or its author so long dead that the law says it's in the "public domain" and not covered by the law anymore.
Most of those exemptions are about research and analysis. One exemption that's unique to the U.S. is about artistic ("transformative") use, and there are a lot of court cases around the limits of that exemption. Things like songs using a bit of another song are in this, or artists making a collage that includes advertisements or other creative artists' work. Using a Sims character in your art would fall under this area. The legal cases are about how much of the original you can use before you have to ask permission, and how much you have to change it before you don't need permisison.
And just because I'm here, U.S. copyright law also grants an exemption for all U.S. Government works by placing them all in the public domain, so if Nasa made it, for example, it's fair game!
Trademark law is a separate area of law. Companies can trademark their name, their product names, other phrases, and all sorts of visual things (the plumbob, for example, or the way "The Sims" is designed visually). You can look up in a country's trademark database what's covered in it. One of the really interesting things in an entry is that a trademark covers specific uses listed. For example, "The Sims" is probably copyrighted for some purposes but not others, so you might be able to sell a brand of pizza called "Sims," with a completely unrelated design.
