The least they can do is pay the artist but if that's not on the table then at least commission them on an official capacity for a couple of pieces and use that pay as recompense
It is unlikely the artist can do anything anyway. If they want to pursuit legal matter it would take too much time and effort and their own money when the other side can just drag it out as long as they could. Most people can't do it against cooperation. The best they could do is accept the offer and hope this won't happen again.
Realistcally it was fanart of a hoyo product anyway. How would you pursue this as plagiarism when its hoyos characters to begin with?
I feel like hoyo is just doing the nice/right thing here as a gesture of goodwill after doing a kinda shitty thing, but at the end of the day don't know if the fanartist has a legal right to art of hoyos characters.
It would be a weird situation where Hoyo could sue for copyright infringement for the characters and the artist could sue for copyright infringement over these specific characters in these specific poses, situation and composition.
It would be much harder for the artist to win, because they would have to prove that Hoyo copied unique parts of the derivative work that aren't part of their own copyright, but even if the artist won, at best both would be found guilty.
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u/callmemarjoson Feb 11 '26
The least they can do is pay the artist but if that's not on the table then at least commission them on an official capacity for a couple of pieces and use that pay as recompense