I'm a little bit confused about this...

[Raijinn]

Let's say I made a game in rpgmaker with Harold as the main character, with his basic sprite as well. As he is a key figure in my story, if I want to make a sequel I'll still have him in my story.

So my questions are:
- If I change to another engine(other than rpgmaker) can I still use him? (keep his looks etc)
- If I decide to make a webtoon or something else about the game, is he still a usable character for me?
- If I decide to copyright my game, is my version of Harold copyrighted as well? (Like Marvel's Thor, DC's Ares, many games' Leviathan, and others similar)

*note: this is something I thought of in the shower in the morning if it sounds stupid it might just be

 

[JazzGotBlues]

You can safe your settings for the character outside of the game, I'm not 100% sure on what type of file that is, but I will leave that to some other veteran who actually knows about spriting. (But in short yes you can use mv sprites outside of Mv)

It's your character, Mv has no copyrightclaims for sprites, as a sprite is your creation. The character is yours

The game is copyrighted meaning anything used in the game (Custom sprites, story, characters) Should not be used again without your permission. So yes your character will be copyrighted. Though I'm not sure how you would oficially copyright a MV game, best way to do this is just put it out there on steam or anything.

 

[mlogan]

You can use the sprite in another RPG Maker engine that you own, but you cannot use it outside of RPGM.

Therefore you cannot use the artwork for a webtoon. You can make a webtoon about a character named Harold with all the qualities of your game character, but not use the art.

The art of the characterwould not be copyrighted as it is not your art to copyright. Not sure to what extent you can copyright characteristics of a character.

 

[Raijinn]

@mlogan what if I edited the sprite? Like make the hair blue and stuff

 

[mlogan]

No, because the base still does not belong to you. If you want to do this, create a sprite that is 100% original (does not even use the MV base sprite).

 

[Raijinn]

What if I use the character creator from the engine and make a brand new one? @mlogan

 

[TheoAllen]

What if I use the character creator from the engine and make a brand new one? @mlogan

That goes out of the scope if it's Harold. The character is yours, the art isn't. Therefore, you can't use the sprite outside of RM, however, you can still use ur character in a webtoon if you draw it urself.

 

[PHAZE7]

I'm about 99% sure on this, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Harold would be owned by you, the character and even his look, but the RPG Maker resources can only be used in RPG Maker engines. However if you were to recreate Harold while still keeping his look, but using different images (i.e. not the ones from the generator), like hiring an artist to draw him, or using images from outside or not based on RPG Maker, then there would be no problem, again, as long as you DON'T USE the graphics from RPG Maker to make the character, and this includes even the base.

This applies to question 1 an 2, if it's made using RPG Maker resources, it can't be used outside of it, but if you recreate it using different resources then you don't have that limitation.

 

[mlogan]

All of the parts of the generator fall under the same guidelines.

Any graphical resources or music or audio or any sort of resources that come with the engine when you buy it fall under these restrictions. It is part of the license that you agree to when you purchase it.

 

[Andar]

A character done with the character generator always contains two copyrights: the copyright for the parts and the copyright for the composition of those parts.
With pregenerated characters, you own neither.
With characters that you create with the generator yourself, you own the copyright on the composition but not the copyright on the parts.

The copyright on the parts will prevent you from using that artwork outside tthe RPG makers.
However, you can make a Screenshot of your own character and send it to an artist as a reference. If that artist then recreates your character based on the reference without copying anything from the reference, then the result would again a shared copyright with the composition being yours and the real artwork being the artists.
And then you could purchase a licence for whatever you want from that artist (something not possible with the RTP).

 

[Wavelength]

- If I change to another engine(other than rpgmaker) can I still use him? (keep his looks etc)

No.

- If I decide to make a webtoon or something else about the game, is he still a usable character for me?

Yes, as long as you don't use the original art that came with RPG Maker. You can't copy and paste the art, nor can you use it as a base and alter it and call it your own for a webtoon. You can create your own character from scratch that looks like the original Harold as long as it's not completely identical, like Yanfly and Flyingdream did in their comics.

Additionally, if the webtoon is clearly being used for primary purpose of marketing your game (rather than as a product that people would desire in and of itself), I believe the EULA does allow you to use the art that came with the game for that purpose.

- If I decide to copyright my game, is my version of Harold copyrighted as well? (Like Marvel's Thor, DC's Ares, many games' Leviathan, and others similar)

Anything you did to enhance it is yours; the original character still belongs to Degica(/Enterbrain/etc.). No one will be able to use your character's dialogue, exact backstory, etc., without your permission. No one will be able to use a blue-haired version of the original copyrighted Harold that you made, without your permission. However, you cannot grant anyone (including yourself) the permission to use the original character nor the blue-haired version outside of RPG Maker, since that is what the original copyright holder stipulated.

What if I use the character creator from the engine and make a brand new one?

Characters created using the Character Creator fall under the same rules as the blue-haired alteration, unless you created all of the Generator Parts from scratch.


All of this is a detailed way of saying that if you want to take a character from RPG Maker outside of RPG Maker, you have to remake them from scratch without building upon the original artwork.