I don’t know if this has already been mentioned somewhere in the forum and if this is the right place in the forum, but when I was browsing the FAB Holiday sale, I came across toon characters that are very close to 3D characters (Morphs) from the Reallusion Content Store (morphs of Adventure Figures etc.). Some of them were wearing clothes that were obviously taken from other artist.
I don’t want to go through the EULA (?) of Reallusion and don’t want to do anyone an injustice, so my question is: Can you buy (sell) these assets in good conscience? in General - can you combine characters/morphs purchased in the Content Store and then sell them as “your own”? It doesn’t seem right to me.
Can you post a few direct links to the products?
I can’t help but think that almost all of this looks familiar. I think I could match each of these characters to a product from the content .
I cannot post a link.
Can you name any of the items or packs?
Posting a link is easy: just copy from your browser address bar and then past it in the message. You make serious allegations, so some form of proof is needed.
Obviously I have got some limitations as a newbie on the forum (a low amount of replies; no uploads of Images or links)
So always when I try to provide a link or an Image, a message occurs which says I can´t. But here are the names of some products on the fab Store:
Sister cartoon girl Rigged 3d
Cartoon Young Teen man child Rigged Low-poly 3D model
Cartoon Roman soldier in armor with battle outfit
Not sure about other items, but I just checked “Cartoon Roman soldier in armor with battle outfit”
Given the reputation and products quality of XURGE (Sergio Martinez https://marketplace.reallusion.com/character-creator/author/Xurge), I’d say the author of cartoon character you saw on the Fab, Blender market, 3DExport, etc… has definitely borrowed outfit developed by XURGE and repurposed it.
I’d agree. In the Maya screenshot you can see that he apparently used the low-poly version for the outfit.
Aside from any legal issues, I have the feeling that Xurge is no longer really active for the Reallusion platform: his latest content seems to have been published almost three years ago.
For my money: no. At least I wouldn’t.
But for comparison check also
Kids and Teens on Campus
While it’s not possible to fully validate the author, it’s not really hard to make your own research.
CGARTIFEX is probably the original author: https://cgartifex.com/
This artist at work:
The OP sent me a link in a PM and although I don’t use cartoon stuff, and am no expert on character likeness I believe that RL should take a look and decide for themselves on the subject.
TBH: I download only stuff from the Web which is labeled CC0 to be shure. But at the end how would i know if something is stolen or not, i can not go through the web and search for similar stuff that may had been created by someone else and verify it. This would take days and weeks and at the end i still wouldnt know if its stolen or not.
I come from the music business and there its been you could call it a tradition taking sound samples from other artists for decades for creating new things. As long only short parts are taken noone would ever complain and go after it. Not shure how its treated in this type of business. Would picking the exact colour of an armor already voilate something, or must it be a texture ? Ok i dont want to raise a discussion about this. Just want to say that its almost impossible to verify things already in lack of knowledge who may have possibly been a creator of something i have downloaded somewhere. Sometimes its obvoius though.
As there seems to be a case here, I would suggest the OP contact Reallusion Support, which is where these complaints should be handled.
Another option is to PM, Pete_RL, the Forum Administrator.
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First of all, thank you for the answers and advice.
Maybe it’s just my point of view, but - since I bought some of the products in the Reallusion Content Store - I immediately noticed so many similarities with the products on FAB that I asked myself the question: is this crude and brazen or is it somehow legal to do this?
I don’t want to encourage anyone with my purchase to make money from other people’s work - especially if it is not clearly legal.
Finally, four more examples from the FAB Store (left column) that made me suspicious. I have changed almost nothing (right column)
It’s not like I spend my time specifically looking for “plagiarism”.
Best regards.
Good observations.
https://www.fab.com/listings/a15437e4-349d-49e6-ad3f-c9b9f137f8f9 - this character from fab definitely seems to be wearing the Julius Caesar outfit by Xurge.
Julius Caesar_Male - Character Creator/outfit | Marketplace
It is possible they are the same person going by different names in the two stores or its possible Xurge gave them the rights, however if a number of clothing/characters are showing up in FAB by various artists, it could be suspect.
Thank you letting us know about possible plagiarism on the Fab store. We will certainly look into this and if assets are being used without the consent of the original author then a takedown request will be made.
Maybe then it is interesting, that the specific seller is also active on other stores like blendermarket.
ChessStudio - Asset Store
So here he has those City Packs, those are 2d Images.
Where exactly do you see connections to products from the Reallusion content store or where do you see “inappropriate borrowings” from (licensed?) Reallusion assets? I am not sure if he is the same seller I Talk about.