Capcom Sued By Photographer Claiming They Used 80 of Her Photos Without Licensing

Long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool summarizes a report from Polygon:

Photographer Judy Jurasek has sued Capcom for copyright infringement of at least 80 of her photographs in their recent game, Resident Evil: Devil May Cry and other games. Jurasek claims the textures in the video game where copied from her 1996 book Surfaces which contained 1,200 images of surfaces and textures. The book was sold with a CD-ROM with digital copies of the images. Jurasek's damages could total $12M from Devil May Cry alone.

Jurasek claims that Capcom never licensed the images for use in their video games. The initial filing is over 100 pages with many detailed photographic examples of her claims. Part of her evidence comes from Capcom's 2020 data breach. The data breach leaked among other things files and filenames of images used by Capcom. At least one filename appears to match those found in the CD-ROM from Surfaces.

Jurasek is also seeking additional damages of $2,500 to $25,000 for each used photograph for 'false copyright management and removal of copyright management,' according to Polygon's report, which says she's alleging her photos were used for 'everything from marbled textures to ornate sculptural details that are recognizable and abundant in Capcom games,' and even the shattered glass texture used in the Resident Evil 4 logo.
A Capcom representative told Polygon that the company is 'aware of the lawsuit' and has 'no further comment.'

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