Copyright issues with assets?

[Evanski]

So say a game (game_a) had a sprite from another game game_b), but game_a didnt use the sprite in game its just in the files. Could the company that made game_b sue game_a for having that sprite in the files even though it goes unused?

 

[BaBiA Game Studio]

I would suspect that the answer would be yes. After all, for the file to be in game_a's files then surely it would have to have been ripped from game_b (or extracted in some way). Even if they're not using the sprite in-game, they are still distributing a sprite resource with their game when they do not have permission to distribute the sprite.

 

[curato]

easy if you don't own the asset then you need to ask permission or have been licensed in some way to use it otherwise it is a copyright issue. doesn't matter where you found it.

 

[TsukaYuriko]

Naturally. Distribution of copyrighted assets by itself is copyright infringement. It doesn't matter how, or if, you use them. Otherwise I'd be able to ship entire soundtracks of other games alongside my game's files and not get in trouble if none of them ever play in the game.

 

[chance]

(snip)... Otherwise I'd be able to ship entire soundtracks of other games alongside my game's files and not get in trouble if none of them ever play in the game.

Reminds me of the early days after the original Napster lawsuits. Around 2000-2001? There were attempts by other P2P music-sharing sites to conceal the fact they were exchanging copyrighted music.

Some were clumsy attempts that just changed the .mp3 suffix to something else. Other more "artful" attempts embedded the illegal mp3 files inside image files.

 

[Nocturne]

As with all topics like this, we are not lawyers here and you should probably consult with one... and as I always say, if you have to ask, you probably already know the answer.