Facepalm: There is no excuse for any game company to use other artists' IP without a license, especially since they would pull no punches if someone infringed their piece of work. For a visitor as big equally Capcom, though, this was just plain dumb.

According to a lawsuit filed last week with a Connecticut federal court, Capcom allegedly used numerous copyrighted images in several Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games. Plaintiff Judy Juracek claims that the game publisher took the pictures from her 1996 artistic reference book called "Surfaces: Visual Enquiry for Artists, Architects, and Designers" without requesting a license. The volume contains images of architectural surfaces with ornate or otherwise interesting designs and comes with a CD of the photos.

Juracek vs Capcom via Polygon past Polygondotcom

Juracek'southward lawsuit contains more than 100 pages highlighting at least 200 examples where Capcom used her photographic work without permission. Ane notable example is the Resident Evil 4 logo. The lines crisscrossing the cleaved four are clearly identical to Juracek'southward image titled "G079," a picture of a croaky pane of glass taken in Italia. Capcom also used this image in other parts of the game to texture some old windows.

Another obvious instance is a stained-glass window in the Resident Evil Hd remaster from 2002 (comparisons below). The colors and patterns are identical to an image from the volume labeled G033. Diverse other pictures are less obvious but are recognizable when pointed out. Amid the games listed in the lawsuit are Devil May Cry (2001), Resident Evil Remake (2002), Devil May Cry ii (2003), Resident Evil 4 (2005), Devil May Cry 4 (2008), and the Devil May Cry HD remaster (2013).

Some of the prove Juracek presents comes from last year'south Capcom information breach. The cache of files included the personal data of Capcom customers but also contained high-resolution images of artwork used in Capcom games. At least one of the picture files has the same file proper noun (ME009) as an prototype on the Surfaces CD.

Juracek's filing seeks $12 million in damages for copyright infringement. Additionally, she claims Capcom is guilty of "false copyright management and removal of copyright direction" in the use of her disc and seeks $two,500 to $25,000 for each photograph used.

A Capcom spokesperson acknowledged to Polygon that it is "aware of the lawsuit" but declined to comment on the case.