Capcom sued for $12m over ‘Resident Evil’ photos
A Connecticut artist has filed a lawsuit against game developer and publisher Capcom, alleging that the company used her copyrighted work in its games without permission.
The complaint was filed by Judy Juracek, who claims that Capcom repurposed photographs from her book “Surfaces” for logos and textures across its “Resident Evil” and “Devil May Cry” games.
Juracek alleges that Capcom had used 80 or more of her images from the book and its packaged-in CD more than 200 times across the “Resident Evil” series alone.
She is seeking a jury trial and up to $150,000 in damages per photograph, for a total of $12 million, plus attorney fees.
“The full extent of Capcom’s infringement is not known,” the complaint said. “Juracek believes there may be other photos not identified… that Capcom has used without licence.”
The complaint was filed to the US District Court for the District Of Connecticut on Friday, June 4.
Door texture
The complaint highlights the primary logo of Capcom’s “Resident Evil 4” game, which appears to use Juracek’s photograph of a glass shatter pattern taken in Italy. The logo has appeared on marketing materials for all versions of the game dating from 2004 to 2014.
An in-game texture of a door from the same game is also claimed to be a direct copy of a photograph she had taken at a private mansion in Newport, Rhode Island.
“The public does not have access or permission to photograph the inside of the mansion. It is not possible for Capcom to have had access to the mansion to photograph such images,” Juracek claimed.
Juracek became aware of Capcom’s alleged misuse of her work through a security breach at Capcom last year, in which a hacker leaked data from the company’s servers. This data included high-resolution images of the artwork used in the Resident Evil games, of which “at least one” of the files had the “exact same” file names as those featured on her “Surfaces” CD.
“Capcom’s activities show a pattern of misconduct”, the complaint said, citing a recent lawsuit brought against the company by a Dutch filmmaker, who alleged that Capcom plagiarised monster designs in its most recent title “Resident Evil Village”.
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