Jump to content

Copyright issues with images on the wiki


The Wondering Wolf

Recommended Posts

As proposed by @Ran, I searched through the wiki and categorised all images of uncertain permission. I guess I missed quite a few, but at least it is a beginning.

Most of them were made by Mike S. Miller, Douglas Wheatley, Magali Villeneuve, Ted Nasmith, Marc Simonetti and some more Worldbook contributors. 

Mike S. Miller contributed heavily to the graphic novels of the main books and the Hedge Knight novels. Neither he nor the graphic novel publisher seems to have been asked for permission.

Douglas Wheatley contributed heavily to Fire and Blood and to a lesser extent to the Worldbook as well. Neither he nor the publisher seems to have been asked for permission. 

Magali Villeneuve, Ted Nasmith and Marc Simonetti contributed to the Worldbook, one of the ASOIAF calendars respectively, and to the 20th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of A Game of Thrones. Marc also created some cover art for foreign ASOIAF editions. While Magali seems not to have been asked, Ted and Marc were asked. Marc was fine with it, Ted as well, but pointed out that he did not own the copyright for some of his artwork. So we can use the images he did for FFG, but we would need to get permission for his other works first. Apparently that did not happen either.

Ted has an important point there. Usually (I can not speak for every artist) an artist who draws for living does not maintain the copyright for his work but sells it to the company that ordered the work (otherwise he could sell it over and over again and many different companies could make money with it). So it is nice that Marc gave his permission, but I am not sure it matters at all. We would need to get the permission from Marvel, Random House, Bentam or whoever published the graphis novels, books, and calendars. It might even be possible that GRRM himself owns some of the copyrights, that depends on the contracts.

So I think the next step would be to get in contact with some of the publishers and ask for permission.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a Marc Simonetti interview, he hinted copyright of TWOIAF arts belongs to GRRM.

https://www.lagardedenuit.com/interview-de-marc-simonetti-2018/

On the copyright page of TWOIAF, it says 

Quote

Copyright © 2014 by George R. R. Martin
Images on 2.31, 3.67, 3.82, 5.92, 5.118, 5.122, 5.146, 5.157, and 6.182 are © Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc.

So all the rest images are George's, I'd assume.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Simonetti's permission relates to the non-commercial use, and he doesn't have a right to sell the rights of the images. Similarly, Nasmith and Villeneuve both indicate their copyright to their images on their websites. I don't know which images specifically Nasmith was uncertain about his rights to -- where's the text for this, and does it relate to work he did for Subterranean Press vs. Random House? -- but it seems to me that if any artist retains a non-commercial right to display their work, they can also permit the same for others. Plenty of artists throw up art they've created on Art Station and make prints from them for sale, as well. 

My inclination is that artist's permission be sought first, and if they have no objection, then that should be fine. GRRM and RH use our wiki, as I know at first hand, and they've never raised an issue, in any case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...