An artist who goes by @tofu_rabbit on X says that the look of Nerf’s Ace of Spades handgun from Bungie’s Destiny games came from a commissioned artwork they drew almost a decade ago.
Nerf and Bungie unveiled its newest foam dart gun collaboration on Tuesday featuring a limited edition version of Cayde-6’s iconic “Ace of Spades” blaster from Destiny 2 that is available for purchase on Bungie’s online store. The following morning, @tofu_rabbit posted images comparing Nerf’s newest foam dart launcher to a piece of art they made in 2015 and posted on their DeviantArt page based on the same gun from the game.
Addition: Artists image (from link in article):
How can they claim the design is theirs when they based the drawing on design by Bungie?
It sounds like both parties made derivative works.
The initial design was from Bungie, then someone else made a derivative work from it. Bungie didn’t go after them for it.
Then some artist at Bungie made a derivative work from that work, and the fan artist complained.
Technically, neither party can legally go out and make and distribute derivative works. Probably both were in the wrong there.
The fact that Bungie left the fan art alone, didn’t send lawyers after them initially, doesn’t mean that Bungie has rights to go make and distribute a work based on the fan art.
So, from a purely-legal standpoint, they’ve probably both got grounds for a copyright complaint against the other; Bungie could theoretically have the fan art distribution blocked and the fan artist could block distribution of Bungie’s derived pistol (though not the original, pure-Bungie pistol).
Maybe I just don’t remember how exactly Ace looks in game anymore and the fanart has tome unique take the Nerf company took? I just see Ace of Spades more or less how I remember so that might be why I’m confused
Companies still shouldn’t steal fanart. If a fan makes something they like, they should work with the fan to make it official in a way that satisfies both parties. The community would love seeing that, and the company would get what they want for a reasonable price, and probably still cheaper than paying their own artists.
A comment lower in the thread says Bungie has reached out to this person, and are handling it well, which sounds great!