Intellectual property refers to things that come from the mind like inventions, designs, artistic and literary works, something you make or produce, and the names of products or brands. People can steal IP, and it happens way more often than you think. Luckily, IP can be protected by patents, copyright, and trademark law. However, this does not stop people from chancing their luck, and unfortunately, for these IP thieves, the internet always finds out.
Many people would suggest that intellectual property stifles creativity, and to a certain extent, it can. I feel that youtube was way more entertaining when the copyright rules were a lot more relaxed, but as I am about to start my journey into the creative industries, I can completely understand why these rules are in place. I think copyright law is good because it forces artists to develop something original, and it also protects them from other people stealing and profiting from their work. The additional advantage of intellectual property is that an uncreative person can buy a franchise's rights and make reboot movies till the cows come home, making the original artist very rich.
You would think that the internet's incredible power would stop people from stealing other artists' work, but it still happens a lot, and sometimes it can be challenging to prove. One of the most recent animation theft cases was in 2019, where the tech giant Sony released a music video showcasing their new PS4 lineup. The music video showcased some fantastic animation, but some eagle-eyed viewers had seen the same animation somewhere else before. Taking inspiration or parodying an art style happens all the time in the creative industries, but in this case, the animator Kevin Bao had traced over other artist's work.
See below for a frame by frame comparison. Sony on the left, and Steven Universe on the right.
After many people had examined the music video, it turns out that Kevin Bao had plagiarised work from the TV show FLCL, Steven Universe: The Movie, and some animations from Gobelins students. It is unclear if this issue was settled in court, but the studio that Kevin worked at issued the following statement.
"We had no knowledge that the work produced by Kevin Bao was plagiarized. We have ceased with immediate effect any representation of Kevin Boa's work and have contacted Kevin for a response."
Boa has never issued a response, but he has currently deleted his entire social media presence.
One of the more fascinating IP disputes is the story of Universal suing Nintendo over King Kong and Donkey Kong. I won't go into a massive amount of detail on the case as it is a very long story, but you can find an interesting article on the dispute below.
To summarize the story, Donkey Kong would beat King Kong in a fight..... well, in a legal fight with Universal declaring copyright infringement against Nintendo. At first, it genuinely sounded like universal had a case; both King Kong and Donkey Kong had a giant ape holding a woman at the top of a large structure. Both IP's had Kong in the title; Nintendo confessed that they had initially named their character King Kong as Kong was a common term in Japanese for large ape. The thing that saved Nintendo was that Universal did not own the copyright to King Kong, and the director, Merion C Cooper, actually owned the copyright at the time. Nintendo won the case and also got a whopping $58 million from Tiger Electronics official King Kong game, which was deemed too similar to Nintendo's Donkey Kong.
So the moral of the story is don't steal other artist's work, don't threaten copyright infringement when you don't own the rights to the IP, and don't mess with Donkey Kong. The world of IP can be a dangerous place if you don't adequately protect yourself and your art, so make sure you use things like patents, copyright, and trademarks to protect your work from being stolen.
Cheers,
Marc
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