Capcom lawsuit over stolen Resident Evil photos resolved
And done amicably.
The ongoing lawsuit between Capcom and artist Judy A. Juracek, which saw the latter claim the Japanese developer had used her pictures in games such as Resident Evil 4, has been resolved.
A statement released yesterday by law firm St Onge Steward Johnston and Reeds LLC reads: "Capcom and Judy Juracek have amicably resolved their dispute concerning the alleged use of Ms. Juracek's photos in Capcom's games. A dismissal was filed on 7th February, 2022 with the District of Connecticut to end the lawsuit," (via Polygon).
At the time of writing, there are no further details publicly available about the resolution between Capcom and Juracek.
This lawsuit against Capcom was originally filed in June 2021. At that time, Juracek claimed that Capcom used at least 80 photographs from her book 'Surfaces' more than 200 times and without a licence.
Included within the list of images Juracek claimed Capcom had illegally used was the iconic Resident Evil 4 shattered glass logo.
This was not the only time that Capcom came under fire for copying in 2021. Following the release of Resident Evil Village in May, Dutch director Richard Raaphorst accused the developer of ripping off his monster designs.
According to Raaphorst, the Sturm boss found in Heisenberg's factory was a "one-to-one" copy of a monster he created for his 2013 horror film Frankenstein's Army. In this case, Raaphorst only found out about the similarities between Capcom's mechanical hybrids and his own monsters because he received messages from fans on the game's release.
Speaking to Eurogamer at the time, Raaphorst said "At first I felt pissed. Then I felt proud. Now, I see all the reactions and I feel pissed again and insulted.
"It's so difficult to come up with a great design. It's really hard to actually think about something that communicates as a cool design. It's not just that ideas are floating around that you can grab. It's actually hard labour. Then they just grab it and put it somewhere in the game.
"It's creative abuse."