Yes Album Cover Artist Roger Dean Sues James Cameron Over ‘Avatar’

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by DrAftershave, Jul 9, 2013.

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  1. Many here don't understand copyright law. It's not always a money grab and it takes time to build a case and submit. You dont do it the day after a Film is released. There could be some merit here from Dean. If you created a style and a look I'm sure who want want your ideas protected or at least license them or get a comp fee.
     
  2. Col Kepper

    Col Kepper Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Texas, Where else?
    Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
     
  3. Yeas but your are paid for your creations and ideas
     
  4. I gotten artists and companies to pay my photographers when they have copied their imagery without prior permission. It's simple. Ask first and pay a comp or licensing fee. It'll cost you so much more after the fact
     
    Rufus McDufus and Vidiot like this.
  5. zen

    zen Senior Member

    The overhyped Avatar movie should have used Yes' music while they were at it.

    Good luck Mr. Dean.
     
    vince and Mychkine like this.
  6. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I don't think Mr. Dean will have a chance once the defendants present their side, they would have tons of photographs/images/design notes to back up the scenes that made it into the movie. Also I'm pretty sure that production designer Dylan Cole is a little young to even be aware of Roger Dean's work unless he's a Yes fan. Also it begs the question what was the primary influence for Dean's work? it's quite possible that their sources are exactly the same.

    "I can't speak for Jim, but all of the floating mountains and the banshees were all in the script when I read it. I wasn't aware of Dean's work until I started the project, when another artist pointed it out. We looked at his work more as a novelty because it was similar subject matter, but it was not really as an influence. Dean's work has a whimsical quality that we absolutely wanted to avoid."

    http://io9.com/5444960/avatars-designers-speak-floating-mountains-amp-suits-and-the-dragon

    The Floating Mountains:

    'According to the tie-in book, The Art Of Avatar, designer Steve Messing actually visited China and traveled around photographing mountains there to get photoreferences for Pandora's floating mountains.

    'Designer Dylan Cole says the team looked at "many different types of mountains, but mainly the karst limestone formations in China. There were three main regions, Guilin, Huangshan and Zhang Jia Jie. Other locations were the Tepuis in Venezuela as well as the karst formations in Thailand. It was about finding that nice balance between rock and vegetation. For a lot of the jungle over views, I used photos that I had taken from the Kuranda Skyrail near Cairns, Australia."'

    China renames mountain after the movie

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Avatar-movie-Avatar-Hallelujah-Mountain.html

    [​IMG]
     
    kevintomb likes this.
  7. RightOff

    RightOff Well-Known Member

  8. ivan_wemple

    ivan_wemple Senior Member

    God should sue Roger Dean for ripping off His Chinese mountains in his fantasy artwork.
     
  9. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I'm not surprised by this result at all. One of the exhibits shown in the judgement that Dean used to prove his case has the wrong Avatar creature in it, if you're going to file a suit get your ducks in a row, hopefully he didn't spend too much $ on lawyer fees.
     
  10. vegafleet

    vegafleet Forum Resident

    Wow, as I was watching the movie, that is all I kept thinking about. Roger Dean!?!

    Plot wise, the movie is thin and predictable. It is the visual elements that made it stand out. I read the judge's opinion, yet it seems to run against common sense. Too many elements were readily identifiable as being Dean's.
     
    junk, Bender Rodriguez and ben_wood like this.
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
  12. RightOff

    RightOff Well-Known Member

    They might have been identifiable as being inspired by Dean, but they weren't copies of anything that Dean did. Owing a creative debt to someone does not automatically equal a monetary debt.
     
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Not automatically, but a lot of this stuff boils down to a) who has the best lawyers, and b) whether there was any prior art. Most of the reason why Cameron got off on the Dean lawsuit was because Cameron's lawyers were able to find numerous examples of sci-fi art of the 1950s and early 1960s that had similar images. Once that happens, you basically make the argument "we all stole from previous artists," and they have to drop the case.
     
  14. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Dunno about plagiarism, but I prefer Roger Dean's artwork to Avatar.
     
  15. F_C_FRANKLIN

    F_C_FRANKLIN Forum Resident

    Roger has been trying since the early 2000's to get financing f0r a CGI movie called 'Floating Rocks", and when Avatar came out, it killed Roger Dean's chances of getting his movie made.
     
  16. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    So what makes these rocks float??
     
  17. inperson

    inperson Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    enough
     
  18. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    First I heard of this and I agree with the result. If there was copying it was more of unprotectable ideas than of concrete protectable expressions thereof.
     
  19. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    Funny that the article would use Close to the Edge as an example, when the cover of CTTE barely qualifies as "artwork".... :p
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    There are filmmakers who are very weird about getting permission from something or somebody that clearly influenced them. As far as I know, Cameron has only lost one lawsuit, and that was SF author Harlan Ellison's case against Terminator, which was definitely influenced by Harlan's two Outer Limits episodes. Cameron was very, very angry about it, but he did settle.
     
  21. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    In the movie? it's called a maglev effect or magnetic suspension.

    [​IMG]
     
  22. SonOfAlerik

    SonOfAlerik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westland, MI USA
    If anyone should sue Cameron over Avatar it should be an audience class action to get their money back.
     
    sound chaser likes this.
  23. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Hmmm, it couldn't really happen as a natural phenomenon, but...okay. :)

    I thought the movie was wonderful and can't wait for the next three!
     
  24. SBurke

    SBurke Nostalgia Junkie

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    Very interesting! I had not even heard of this case until seeing this thread just now.

    You can find a link to the decision in this article: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/james-cameron-wins-avatar-idea-733904

    The judge tossed the plaintiff's claim on a motion to dismiss. It looks as if the parties already had gotten into a bit of back and forth with the court -- there were something like 30 docket items -- but irrespective of whatever had been filed, a motion to dismiss is based on a review of the pleadings (and their attachments) alone. As a matter of civil procedure, such motions are decided before fact discovery. In other words, the judge is saying, based only on his reading of the complaint and the parties' briefing, that there's no way the claim can succeed, no possible issue of fact for a jury to decide. That's normally a high burden to meet, because it amounts to denying a plaintiff not only "his day in court," but also the opportunity to discover facts to prove his claim. Over time though it seems the courts have developed a body of case law that is more deferential to defendants in infringement cases, like this one; as a practical matter it's probably necessary to deter frivolous claims (though I doubt any court would admit that that's what has happened to the law).

    In any event, the judge's decision here is confident and categorical. But also, to my mind, maybe a bit too smooth. There is some sleight-of-hand in what is perhaps the most critical portion of the decision, and it’s interesting to consider. The court starts out with the well-established principle that copyright does not protect an idea or style, but only specific expressive works (pp. 5-7). But then, when the court turns to the analysis of what is probably the toughest question in the case -- the alleged similarity of floating islands -- it dodges the real question and instead just concludes by saying that "Plaintiff does not have a monopoly on the idea of floating or airborne land" (p. 10). Sure, but so what? The question, as the court well knows, or should know, in light of the preceding discussion, isn’t who first thought of airborne land; it’s whether the defendant’s airborne land looks like a copy of the plaintiff’s airborne land.

    If there’s an appeal I kind of doubt we’ll see a different result. But I see the case as an interesting example of how in copyright law we sometimes get very confident and firm judgments in cases that actually are pretty tough.
     
    Deuce66, drasil and F_C_FRANKLIN like this.
  25. F_C_FRANKLIN

    F_C_FRANKLIN Forum Resident

    ^Seems kinda unfair Roger doesn't doesn't get his day in court to show the visual similarities, however I see how this law protects the defendant against every 'Tom, Dick, and Harry" laying claim to every copyright "idea".
     
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