Capcom games like Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry reportedly has used extensively unlicensed copyrighted photos in its games to depict environments, details, and even the resident Evil 4th Logo, according to a new lawsuit filed on Friday.
Designer Judy A. Juracek filed her first complaint in a Connecticut court on Friday. In the lawsuit, she alleged that Capcom used photos from her copyrighted book. surfaces, in several games including resident Evil 4th, Devil May Cry, and other Capcom games. surfaces is a collection of 1200 photographs of textures that Juracek himself photographed; the book is used for “visual research” for artists, architects and designers, according to the book. It was originally released in 1996. The collection comes with a CD-ROM with the pictures on it – but Juracek said she requires people to license pictures of her for commercial use by contacting them directly. Juracek said Capcom never contacted her about a license.
Juracek pointed out at least 80 photos used in various scenarios in Capcom’s games, with more than 100 pages of documentation. One of the cases cited in the lawsuit concerns a broken glass structure in the Resident Evil 4 Logo.
Juracek said she took the photo of glass in Italy. “It’s hard to imagine that Juracek would take a photo of broken glass in Italy and interior door designers for villas, and that Capcom artists would reproduce the exact same pattern of broken glass in a logo and interior without using Juracek’s photographs “, Her lawyer said in the lawsuit.
In more than 100 pages of supporting case documents, Juracek pointed to more than 200 cases where her photos were allegedly used in Capcom’s games. This includes everything from marbled textures to ornate sculptural details that are recognizable and abundant in Capcom games.
Some of Juracek’s evidence comes from the Capcom 2020 data breach that occurred in November. In this leak Resident Evil VillageThe launch plans were announced ahead of time and the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people, including customers, shareholders and employees, has been compromised, Capcom said. Capcom reportedly received a ransom note in the attack before any information was leaked online. That information included some “high-resolution images of artwork used in Resident Evil and other games,” Juracek said.
“The filenames for at least one of the images from the files hacked by Capcom are the same filenames as those on the [Surfaces] CD-ROM, ”she claimed. The lawsuit shows a metal structure that is labeled “ME009” on Juracek’s CD-ROM and in the same way in the Capcom folders.
In the lawsuit, Juracek found that Capcom, too recently indicted to copy Dutch filmmaker Richard Raaphorst’s monster designs for the new one Resident Evil Village Game. Raaphorst found out about the allegedly stolen design after fans contacted him about one of the characters in his film Frankenstein’s army as the basis for Villages propeller villain Sturm, he said Eurogamer.
Juracek’s attorneys are demanding up to $ 12 million in compensation from the court for copyright infringement. She is also demanding compensation for “improper copyright management and removal of copyright management,” $ 2,500 to $ 25,000 for each photo used. Neither Capcom nor Juracek’s attorney responded to Polygon’s request for more information.
The full complaint can be found below.