Message from @Rain
Discord ID: 408290970900103169
the most notable example is the M4A4 howl in CS:GO
Only if it's CS:GO related, not profile related, unfortunately.
i've reported people for impersonation and successfuly got them a steam community ban
but when it comes to putting someone else's modified art on your profile that's completely fair use
The artists in question which I'm referring to has not been banned. One got banned for a while, but cmanaged to slither out of it.
Oh lemme find one.
I don't know if this is fair use or not.
It certainly don't seem like it.
that is 100% fair use
I'm not entirely sure about that. The artists which have done a DMCA on the artists works when they've found their own there has been able to get it done successfully.
Taking someones artwork, cropping it and pasting it on a Steam background doesn't seem like fair use to me. 🤷
But I'm no lawyer.
that's not a simple crop
they replaced the background, added text, and animated it
just changing the background would pass as fair use in court
But they didn't create the main image though. The background is a background from the Steam community marketplace.
as far as valve and DMCA, they can do whatever they want
And they mainly sell the main image as their own.
it doesn't matter if they made the background themself
That's why I'd love if someone with more credientals would look into it.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a journalist. But I see an issue there and it's definitely going to blow up if no-one sheds light on to it.
(And as far as I know, it wasn't free use when I looked it up so idk. But we'll see)
TBH the issue is the license the original author put it under
i don't know if deviantart lets you put a license on images you upload
It does.
It also lets you watermark them. Which many of the artists have done.
But it's not only related to deviantart.
There are multiple stock photos being used, and this is what Shutterstock support says for instance: https://www.shutterstock.com/support/pkb_sstk_core_customerkb_home?c=CustomerKB%3AVideo&l=en_US
"How can I use editorial content?
Editorial content can not be used for any commercial purpose."
there is no license provided
It has a license.
ahh
That's why I'm here with this issue. I've been in that (artwork profiles) community for a long time and I've seen under what licenses the artworks being stolen has been posted as.
bad place to put that copyright notice
It is.
yeah that license prevents you from distributing modifications, which the gif on the right clearly is
and there is nothing to indicate it was done under fair use
so yes, it would be a valid DMCA and also hold up in court