Usage rights of Undertale artwork for profile picture?

[Crashed]

I came across a user using some of your artwork, and they are being quite abusive online. Are they violating your copyright?
I sent a friend request to the developer; they may delete this thread and accept it to talk privately.

[user]

Lol this is not the olace for this thread. Also anyone can use UT's artwork as a profile pic.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by Vladimir4oto:

Lol this is not the olace for this thread. Also anyone can use UT's artwork as a profile pic.

If they do so, is posting harassing and indecent content with that icon a copyright violation that Toby should investigate, considering it could potentially damage the reputation of his brand?

[Surreal]

Originally posted by BFeely:

Originally posted by Vladimir4oto:

Lol this is not the olace for this thread. Also anyone can use UT's artwork as a profile pic.

If they do so, is posting harassing and indecent content with that icon a copyright violation that Toby should investigate, considering it could potentially damage the reputation of his brand?

dude toby can do whatever he pleases

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Originally posted by BFeely:

Originally posted by Vladimir4oto:

Lol this is not the olace for this thread. Also anyone can use UT's artwork as a profile pic.

If they do so, is posting harassing and indecent content with that icon a copyright violation that Toby should investigate, considering it could potentially damage the reputation of his brand?

Profile pics don't fall under copyright laws . . . or more accurately they fall under fair use.

[supine&golden]

oooo, they gonna get arrested.....

[Crashed]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

Originally posted by BFeely:

If they do so, is posting harassing and indecent content with that icon a copyright violation that Toby should investigate, considering it could potentially damage the reputation of his brand?

Profile pics don't fall under copyright laws . . . or more accurately they fall under fair use.

Fair use is not a license to use artwork for any purposes whatsoever; it is a limited defense for limited uses such as critism, reporting, etc. not a way to get stock imagery for free.
Per the sticked note, I am trying to be as civil as possible.

[dat_potatoe]

These weird legal threads keep popping up lately, and they baffle me every time.

So because someone is being a jerk (presumably to you), you want to get them thrown into jail for completely contrived reasons:

1. ♥♥♥♥ you and take your petty nonsense back to Berkely.
2. Using game artwork for a non-profit profile picture that does not claim to represent Toby is not illegal in any conceivable way.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by dat_potatoe:

These weird legal threads keep popping up lately, and they baffle me every time.

So because someone is being a jerk (presumably to you), you want to get them thrown into jail for completely contrived reasons:

1. ♥♥♥♥ you and take your petty nonsense back to Berkely.
2. Using game artwork for a non-profit profile picture that does not claim to represent Toby is not illegal in any conceivable way.

Is there case law that says it is fair use?
How about when the imagery is used in the context of harassment or abuse? Doesn't this go against fair use too?

[dat_potatoe]

You really don't even care about the legality of this but I'll humor you anyways.

No one has ever sued over steam profile pictures...so this is pretty much the closest parallel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_v._Arriba_Soft_Corp.

As for how I would defend this instance under the four points of fair use:

1. The usage of a sprite as a profile picture is non-profit. He is not displaying an image that Toby charges money for, so he is not depriving Toby of sales. He is not profiting off the display of the picture either. It would be a different matter if, say, he was using it as the logo for his company or claiming to be a representative of Toby.

2. Undertale is a published work, and using a profile picture taken from its original game context is significantly transformative. Moreover you didn't entirely clarify if the profile picture is ripped straight from Undertale or just fan art based on Undertale. If the latter then he's pretty much completely in the clear because ideas are not inherently protected by copyright.

3. Using a fraction of a game screenshot is not copying the entirety of Undertale. Maybe you could argue the entirety of the sprite is being used, that's a stretch.

4. You would have a hard time demonstrating that some random guy being a jerk to a few people on a forum has had any significant impact on Undertale's overall market value, especially in comparison to how thousands of other people use the profile picture innoccuously and actually benefit Undertale by bringing more positive attention to it. That burden would actually fall to Toby himself, who has neither the desire nor the means to quantify and demonstrate it. Bigger companies have tried to demonstrate this over infinitely bigger things than some random forum user and still failed to do so.

You would have to rebuke 2 of these 4 points to even have somewhat of a case.

[Crashed]

The case you have given regards search engines cataloging content for the purpose of representing the content the search engine searches for, so it is irrelevant to this.

I am not inquiring about a user who uses Toby's content in an innocuous manner, something that Toby himself even endorses, because as you say positive uses help promote his brand. I am talking about a user who is posting abusive content on YouTube, with this content being at the "heading" of the posts.

It is possible he might be violating YouTube TOS as in his uploads he sounds like a young child. YouTube cannot legally have members under 13 due to COPPA.

I would once again like to request that Toby (who I have already sent a Friend request to prior to posting) remove this thread, and allow me to privately share the URLs in question.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

So you're naming and shaming?

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Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

So you're shaming and naming?

If I was, I would be posting comment links right here in the open.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Toby doesn't respond to Steam. He pretty much hasn't been on here since Undertale first launched, except to post update logs.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Also potatoe is right about the use of the image under fair use there's nothing even Toby would really be able to do about it besides talking to the person directly and just hope they stop.

Really if you're wanting the person off of Youtube, you're better off trying to talk to Google, or whoever is in charge of Youtube, for the underage claim. Though, I expect nothing to come of it.

[Crashed]

Toby can contact https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en or post a plain-text Takedown Notice to [e-mail] for the copyright claims, as said a profile picture does not fit the limited defense of fair use in the USA.
Toby's account fwugradiation is in fact still active on the Steam service; it was logged in in the past week according to his account page.
As for the legal question, I just chummed for sharks at Avvo (completely generic question).