Question about animation copyrights

Hi,

I have endless runner IOS/Android game using my own characters, so I wanted to add more characters for the next update to I searched for ready made characters and found some, later I discovered they are related to japanese animation movie or pokemon characters or whatever, can I still use those 3 characters in the photo? or it will cause problems if I published, specially in IOS?



Please advise.

 

Top 2 seem to be from Digimon, center 1 from Pokemon probably, but generally you just want to stay away from anything that's owned by another company as it's their IP (Intellectual Property). Best case, they file some kind of formal complaint and your game gets taken down, worst case - they sue you, I guess.

The only way you would be ok with using those would be if you contact the respective IP holders regarding this and write up some formal contract that allows you to use their characters in your game.

So the simplest / easiest answer - don't bother and just create your own unless you're willing to face legal consequences.

 

If the characters are the IP of another company, you can't use them without permission. Just because someone has made them freely available, doesn't mean they were legally allowed to do so. If you face legal action over them, it won't be a defense that you weren't the one who originally stole the IP.

That said, I am not familiar with the specific characters here, but if they were Mario or Mickey Mouse you'd face the same issue.

 

models like this can be made in a few hours. Simply no good reason to steal. Just make new ones using the design as a starting point, then change it up enough to make it unique. It's really an almost trivial amount of work. A few days max. Even if you got to hire the work any bonehead could do it.

 

You can't use those characters, because they are from famous Japanese franchises, that are owned by famous Japanese companies. The best thing to do is to learn some 3d modelling, and make your own characters. Or find someone who is willing to make some original 3d characters for you.