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The likeness of Indiana Jones is not protected in any way - as far as I know - that would stop a human artist creating, rendering and selling a work of art representing their creative vision of Indiana Jones. And even more so in a private context. Even if the likeness is protected (“archaeologist, adventurer, whip, hat”) then this protection would only be in certain jurisdictions and that protection is more akin to a design right where the likeness would need to be articulated AND registered. Many jurisdictions don’t require copyright registration and do not offer that sort of technical likeness registration.

If they traced a photo they might be violating the copyright of the photographer.

But if they are drawing an archaeologist adventurer with a whip and a hat based on their consumption and memory of Indiana Jones imagery there is very little anyone could do.

If that image was then printed on an industrial scale or printed onto t-shirt there is a (albeit somewhat theoretical) chance that in some jurisdictions sale of those products may be able to be restricted based on rights to the likeness. But that would be a stretch.

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rdtsc 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The likeness of Indiana Jones, as a character, is owned by Disney

If they show that image to a jury they’ll have no issues convincing them the LLM is infringing.

Moreover if the LLM creators are charging for it, per token or whatever, they are profiting from it.

Yes are there jurisdictions were this won’t work and but I think in US Disney lawyers could make viable argument.

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saaaaaam 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I wasn’t talking about LLMs, I was talking about human artists.

With the LLM it would be nothing to do with likeness, it would be to do with the copyright in the image, the film, video or photograph. The image captures the likeness but the infringement would not be around the likeness.

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rdtsc 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> I wasn’t talking about LLMs

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was thinking of LLMs mostly.

> With the LLM it would be nothing to do with likeness, it would be to do with the copyright in the image

I guess I don't see why it wouldn't be about a character's likeness. It's not just a generic stock character, as an idea but it has enough distinctive characteristics, has a particular style hat, uses a whip. Showing that image to any jury and they'll say this is Indy. Yeah there are trademarks as well and both can apply to characters.

	▲	saaaaaam 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Trademarks can’t apply to characters, in themselves, no. A trademark can apply to a particular fixed representation but not the likeness, or ‘essence’ if you like. The essence of Indy is the whip, the hat, the grizzled demeanour, the dry humour, the archaeologist adventurer. You can think of likeness as something that could be captured by hieroglyphics, or emoji - or a game of charades. Think of Betty Boo or Wiley Coyote. You might not be able to close your eyes and picture them exactly but you can close your eyes and imagine the essence. So in some jurisdictions if you register a broad representation - a likeness - you can protect that in law. In almost all jurisdictions if you photograph or draw something that literal snapshot is protected. But in many jurisdictions if I took a still from a scene of Indiana Jones (which WOULD be protected by copyright) and I described it to you and you were a great artist and drew the whip, the hat, the grizzled face, the safari vest, etc - there would be nothing to protect that likeness. Trademarks are another thing entirely, and are things like logos, and the protection is more about commercial exploitation and preventing misleading us. I could draw a cartoon logo of a man with a hat and a whip for my archaeological supplies shop. You could not take it and use it on your Chinese manufactured whips drop shipped via Amazon. But the owner of the Indiana Jones trademark- likeness rights, film copyright etc would be unlikely to be able to stop me using my logo until I start saying it is Indiana Jones, at which point they maybe invoke likeness rights. There are at least three different rights classes here! It can be very confusing.