Did Bioware get sued over their portrait art?

Remove all ads!

This is something that is probably common knowledge, but I've been wondering about since the release of SoU.

I couldn't help but notice that certain portraits available in the game were changed out with the releases of both major expansions. Tomi's portrait, the blonde elf portrait that looks like Angelina Jolie, and a couple of others I can't think of right this second. Oh! Fenthick's portrait was changed, too. They were all replaced with a different likeness but with similar features.

Can anyone shed any light on this? I'm looking for details here. Thanks.

 

I thought they did that just to give players more choices.

 

@nior: Not really, the old portraits are no longer available from the moment you install SoU. My own avatar is the old Tomi's portrait, and I cannot find it anymore within the game...

 

Why would they get sued over them? What's wrong with Tomi's avatar?

 

That's the thing - Tomi's I don't get, or Fenthick's. But the blonde elf chick does bare a striking resemblence to Angelina Jolie (it's the lips), so who knows. It's possible that the same artist drew all three portraits in question, and didn't grant Bioware the usage rights for the expansions to those images. Clearly they had several different artists do the portraits in that game, so that would make sense.

Still - I admit it would make for a better story if they did get sued.

 

Since they already got the rights to the portraits for the base game, they wouldn't later have lost them just because they made an expansion or two.

 

Actually, that's not necessarily true.

They would if the usage rights were granted specifically to Neverwinter Nights, but not necessarily Shadows of Undrentide. Usage rights are never assumed, they must be specifically expressed in print. You'd need either a seperate contract or a contract amendment to do that, unless the artist signed over all usage rights to the artwork to Bioware initially. In other words, the contract must specifically state "Neverwinter Nights and all subsequent expansions to be named" or somesuch. Otherwise the artist can sue for a chunk of the profits for the game, as his copyrighted artwork is being used for a purpose he didn't intend or consent to.

Artists these days take usage rights very seriously, and lucritive game franchises are no different. It's very likely that that's what happened.

 

The rights will not extend to Shadows of Undrentide by default, but the mere fact of releasing SoU doesn't invalidate your existent OC rights to portraits. So, in brief, if you don't have the rights to use the same in the expansion, just issuing the expansion doesn't make invalid your existent rights to use the same stuff in the OC.

 

Hrmm...yes, but not quite. With SoU installed, the game essentially becomes a different product. SoU is an individually copyrighted product that - though you can't play it without installing the OC - is still sold seperately and subject to copyright. Bioware makes more money from the sale of both the OC and SoU than they do either individually, and the portraits are present with both products. Thus, if the copyright holder for those images licenses their use only to "Neverwinter Nights," not "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide," the copyright holder has a case for demanding further usage license for those images. It's rare and usually unnecessary, but it does happen. If Bioware didn't secure full usage rights for said portrait artwork - or thought that they did, but just worded the contract language poorly - it's reasonable to see this as a result. Especially if the artist is kind of an ass.

 

Perhaps they just thought that the new versions looked better.