Is it legal to use Rick and Morty for a research project?

Submitted by felix_awesome t3_y3h2qw in deeplearning

Hi, I was wondering if I can use the Rick and Morty series for a research project I was working on. I am working on a video interpolation task where I need a consistent style of videos that is 20-25 hours in all. I was wondering if I later wanted to publish this paper at some conference, would it create an issue as the series comes under copyright law? Any suggestions regarding other "open-source"/copyright-free video datasets are welcomed!

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soicyboii t1_is9nf43 wrote

Maybe email them, you never know I've gotten some unexpected responses from people who I thought would never reply.

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spaceecon t1_isafid2 wrote

Yup, AS seems to be quite a cool studio, might just happen

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garlicoillemonsalt t1_is9gwdi wrote

Probably not the answer you want to hear but, it is most likely not ok. Good conferences/journals would likely not want to publish your work for the risk of exposing themselves to copyright infringement.

Try looking at the dataset used by any prior art papers you will be citing and if you can reuse these or other sets from the same sources. Generating good quality CV datasets is a challenge in itself, using an existing set not only saves you headaches in its creation but also makes it easier for people to evaluate your work against others.

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suflaj t1_is9njd4 wrote

It's not legal, you can look for videos that are in the public domain or under permissive licenses, but I really doubt you're going to find 20-25 hours of the same "style" unless it's just real life videos.

You can always take a camera, go outside, and record those videos yourself.

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Gengar218 t1_is9icwr wrote

I can suggest these videos:
https://media.xiph.org/

Big Buck Bunny is especially popular for video demonstration in my experience.

Not sure if this can fill 20-25 hours though.

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felix_awesome OP t1_isbwebi wrote

Thanks, are these part of some dataset paper? These videos are okay to use for research purposes right?

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Gengar218 t1_isby14s wrote

Xiph is a non-profit organisation that’s focussing on media compression. It’s a dataset of lossless videos for testing purposes. I‘m pretty sure they are safe to use. I‘m not a lawyer though.

Edit: Looks like Big Buck Bunny uses Creative Commons 3.0, not sure about the others.
https://peach.blender.org/about/

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DJStillAlive t1_isaocrs wrote

You could probably get away with it under fair use laws, as I don't see that taking away from the value of the copyright and you appear to be using it for research purposes, but the problem with fair use is that it's decided AFTER the fact. The fact that it's a creative work and the volume of material you're using also works against you in this case. As u/soicyboii stated, asking them is your best bet if you insist on sticking with Rick and Morty.

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ledepression t1_is9fbu5 wrote

You might need to put a disclaimer

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Hiant t1_isa6yvq wrote

I'd try reaching out to cartoons made by public television or through national endowment of the arts grants, they may be more charitable when it comes to licensing for research that will be for the public good.

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