Very serious question about royalties

[m506]

Hi,

   I have a question on which I guess is a doubt for many users.

   Suppose I want to model a room with some mobilia and hang the monalisa picture in my wall, and add some michelangelo sculture that i modelled in the corner of this room.

   Will i be in copyright trouble because of that? I know that these stuff are owned by museums but are they public domain for what I want to do?

Thanks for any answers

[Hypnotron]

More about copyright infringement than royalties.

I am not a lawyer but, info i dug up from a google search of "mona lisa copyright" seems to indicate that any works made prior to the existence of any copyright laws are obviously not under copyright protection. 

This wikipedia entry on "public domain"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain 
list various copyright terms for different types of works.

Seems to be safe, works 170 years old or more are almost certainly in the public domain.  That would cover the cases that say a copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author.  But I think there are some copyright extension laws out there... i recall hearing that Disney was trying to extend a lot of its copyrights for characters like Micky Mouse.  Imagine a public domain Micky Mouse?

[Hypnotron]

Your post made me google "public domain cartoon characters" to see what types of games one could make with public domain characters.

Turns out that a lot of characters you would assume were under copyright protection, aren't.  Alladin and Beauty and the Beast for instance.   Obviously you'd have to use original designs and make sure you weren't using a title to an existing copyrighted version of the story, but otherwise they are free game!

http://fpd.iwarp.com/
http://www.fidella.com/trmg/title.html 
http://www.literaturepage.com/read/grimms-fairy-tales.html

A site on the protection of fictional characters
http://www.ivanhoffman.com/characters.html

A site with a collection of public domain books from which you could derive a plot for your game
http://www.authorama.com/

[Hypnotron]

one addendum however is that I could imagine if you tried to create an Alladin or Beauty and the Beast game, a certain giant media company might figure they'll sue you and frighten you off since you wont have (likely) enough money to defend yourself.  Or maybe not.  Just something to consider i guess...

[Hypnotron]

or maybe not... i think if you do a little searching you can find low budget games that use these public domain characters / names / themes.

http://www.legendofaladdin.com/about-legend-of-aladdin.html

maybe not the best example but...

[anwserman]

From what I've read, you can also be similar to someone else's materials as long as you don't copy directly.  For instance, when I was creating some rocks in my game, I sat there and studied how they made rocks in Sonic 3 & Knuckles - basically, I found a screenshot from Lava Reef Zone and studied the hell out of it.

I made rocks.  And they look similar to the style exhibited in that game (at least to me).  Did I violate their copyright?  Nope, because I made it myself from scratch.

But yah, when it comes to artwork - basically anything from 1800's and earlier is typically fair game.  There are some exceptions (such as the damn happy birthday song), but what Hpyno said is true - if there weren't copyright laws on the books then, you're golden.

And worse comes to worse, you could make your own knockoff version of it and not worry about it.

[m506]

   Thanks guys, I knew i could count on you.

   Check the link below just for fun:
http://4mgiselle.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/401px-mona_lisa.jpeg

Regards

[sybixsus]

Be very careful. The Mona Lisa is not copyrighted, but a photograph of the Mona Lisa *is*. That is to say if you want to use the Mona Lisa, you either need a royalty free photo or you need to take your own photo. A photograph someone else takes will have their copyright.

It's exactly the same with music. The works of Mozart are not copyrighted, but when an orchestra performs them, that *performance* is copyrighted. You can record it yourself but you can't freely use other people's recordings.

[m506]

I understand what youre saying but how can you say this specific photo is copyrighted?

I doesnt have any logo or photographer name on it, so unless there is some copyright information hidden via some alpha channel algorithm there cannot be any reason why not to use this.

dont you agree?

Regards

[anwserman]

In all actuality, I'm sure you could use a picture of the Mona Lisa and get away with it - simply because there are so many copies floating around it'd be impossible to determine which one you used, especially if you modify it and resave it into a new file.

However, there are pictures of the Mona Lisa available on Istockphoto you could purchase for a $1.  If you're using it just for art in a game, you could buy the small version and use that as a texture - I'm not sure how many games are going to use a 1024x1024 image for a piece of decoration in a room