What constitutes character design plagiarism

[J.D.Rajotte]

Not too long ago, Capcom was accused of plagiarizing several of its game's monster designs from a 2013 movie called "Frankenstein's army". Film maker Richard Raaphorst saw clear similarities in multiple of the game's monster designs, especially a sentient rotating fan monster. In my work there is a dinosaur-like creature inspired by a video game character from my childhood that I'm modeling after it in many ways. In your opinions, how thin are the lines of "inspired by" to "plagiarized"? Same color? Similar weapons/features? Same species? That kind of stuff.

 

[Swank]

What is your work? Will it be a billion dollar video game? Or would suing you be considered a waste of time because your work is not making anyone rich?


Which would all be unimportant if you were to just poor a little creative juice on this creature and make it different than the design you'd like to steal.

 

[ckatt]

I'm no expert on this, but I think it's easier to sue when the medium is similar. You can compare a still image from the movie or the game and make a judgment. If the comparison is game to a book it gets a little murkier, so I think it would be harder to build a case.
And building the case is the crux of it. There's no checklist of plagiarism a lawyer can use.
I think this is why we sometimes see cases where a rather generic idea wins a lawsuit because the judge is unfamiliar with the wider context of the genre. So to them, the copied idea is novel but to someone who knows the genre, it might be run of the mill.
Still, I think it would come down to whether your inclusion of their idea is what made your work a success.