THE DREADED P WORD
Posts
What if someone took your game and presented it as their own?
Someone stole original art from my game on a few occasions. (As in Hand Drawn)
Do you know what I did? I Pmed them and asked them to stop. They complied. The End.
post=142450
If you have ever used any graphics from a commercial game, you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
If you have ever used any music or sound effects from a commercial game, you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
If you have ever made a fan game, you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
If you never paid for RPG Maker and are using it, you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
If you pirate or emulate games, you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
If you play RPG Maker games that satisfy any of the above conditions, then it is the same as you pirating the commercial games that they are plagiarizing, and so you are not allowed to be upset about people taking things you made.
In fact, all of the above are infinitely more serious than another RPG Maker designer taking your custom work. Because in the above examples, money is involved. You are depriving the commercial game developer of money that they would be getting otherwise. Whereas in the private indie case, neither of you is making any money off of the intellectual property, so the only harm is to your reputation and your pride.
Okay, what?
Please post mathematical evidence how this game has decreased sales for either Chrono Trigger, Bubble Bobble, Final Fantasy, or the number of other commercial works it utilizes.
If you can't, then essentially your argument is bullshit.
Because seriously, using FF6 rips in your game does not harm the original developers or take their money. Playing this joke game is not the same as pirating any commercial game.
So, uh, no. I don't support ripping graphics but you are not making any sense. No one is losing money off of your FF fangames, this topic is not about that.
post=142462What if someone took your game and presented it as their own?Someone stole original art from my game on a few occasions. (As in Hand Drawn)
Do you know what I did? I Pmed them and asked them to stop. They complied. The End.
Yes, the end. What is your point?
post=142454
Trying to dissect the "ethics" of this issue is an exercise in futility. Everyone has their own thoughts on the issue and the internet is roughly 0 for 4895893458 for minds successfully changed. Unless you want to run this thread into the ground I would not suggest turning this into a morality debate.
What are we going to do Solitayre...what are we going to do...
But you know how things work here.
Yes, the end. What is your point?
The point is you don't have to make a spectacle out of something that can be solved with two PMs.
post=142458
Let's take this discussion in a different direction.
I really like Dungeons & Dragons 4e. I already use a lot of its design as inspiration (or flat-out copying) for my own work. I also like the Ebberon setting for D&D 3.5 and 4e (4e especially).
Would an RM* game based on - as in, a D&D 4e game with skills and mechanics and classes and everything taken from the books - be terrible?
On a similar note, chaos is currently working on a card game that is basically Magic + Astral Masters, with chaos's own twists. Is that stealing, or what?
Summary: BRAIN THEFT
It's not stealing, it's inspiration! Really, you can't call 'borrowing' ideas theft because we do it all the damn time without even realising it. Ever woken up with a great new idea for a story/game/mechanic/invention then a couple of days later find the exact same idea already created? Yeah, most likely our brain saw the idea, gave itself amnesia then spat the idea back out as something new and improved.
The only difference between that and what you propose is that you know where the idea has come from - in this case! Which is actually more honest/ethical as you'll probably add a credit to the owners of the company/game somewhere, unlike someone who thinks it was their own idea. ^.^
post=142468Yes, the end. What is your point?The point is you don't have to make a spectacle out of something that can be solved with two PMs.
I want to point out this is not what happened with konix and how hypocritical it is of you to say that in the first place.
unless sending a PM into the void of the internets to everyone is possible
post=142470post=142468I want to point out this is not what happened with konix and how hypocritical it is of you to say that in the first place.Yes, the end. What is your point?The point is you don't have to make a spectacle out of something that can be solved with two PMs.
unless sending a PM into the void of the internets to everyone is possible
Hack google.com?
post=142458
Let's take this discussion in a different direction.
I really like Dungeons & Dragons 4e. I already use a lot of its design as inspiration (or flat-out copying) for my own work. I also like the Ebberon setting for D&D 3.5 and 4e (4e especially).
Would an RM* game based on - as in, a D&D 4e game with skills and mechanics and classes and everything taken from the books - be terrible?
On a similar note, chaos is currently working on a card game that is basically Magic + Astral Masters, with chaos's own twists. Is that stealing, or what?
Summary: BRAIN THEFT
Rules (and therefore also mechanics) cannot be copyrighted so anyone is basically free to take stuff like that from anywhere. Of course exact D&D terminology is a slightly different matter so making an unlicensed D&D Eberron game using official setting information (which are not rules)... Well it's a fangame. And fangames are technically illegal.
I probably haven't chimed in at all at this topic. I would say most things go. The way things work is that if you steal stuff someone will notice and point at you and laugh. If you can live with that you can steal as much as you want. As long as you're not making money on stolen stuff the chances that someone will actually do something apart from point, laugh and complain are pretty slim.
Using stolen resources is also a great way to practice, you probably shouldn't release that stuff but occasionally you just want to. (especially when you're excited about how cool your practice run is even though it uses resources stolen from anywhere you could find it)
Of course I haven't had any of my resources stolen (that I know of) so I don't know how I would react. But I'd probably try with an e-mail or something and always assume it's an honest mistake. I don't think very many people steal stuff to try to be malicious.
I want to point out this is not what happened with konix
Oh, okay. Then how did it happen? I seem to remember konix acting like such a giant douche that everyone watching thought he was joking at first. After a page or so the offender apologized.
and how hypocritical it is of you to say that in the first place.
Yes, yes; aside from the... you know; actual example I provided. Can you refresh my memory as to how I've reacted to plagiarism in the past? I apparently can't remember anything passed two weeks.
unless sending a PM into the void of the internets to everyone is possible
What if someone took your game and presented it as their own?
Previous post I'm too lazy to quote
... What?
No, seriously. What?
You seem to like drawing parallels on extremely flimsy circumstances today.
konix posted a topic on GW with a screenshot from a game and asked who it was who stole is tree.
BlindMind, who was pretty much notorious for being a graphical vulture was the culprit and was pretty infamous at GW so when konix found out he was like "motherfucking blindmind stop using my tree." The end. I also seem to recall that BlindMind didn't even post in the topic and simply removed it or something.
So no, konix couldn't have sent anyone a PM to say "stop using my tree" because the topic was "can anyone identify who is using this." I don't really recall him being a giant douche except when he found out it was BlindMind he was like "ahhhh fucking blindmind and his rpgmakers" or something.
And... that wasn't what I was referring to, I was referring to settling disputes over PM rather than in threads. =P
BlindMind, who was pretty much notorious for being a graphical vulture was the culprit and was pretty infamous at GW so when konix found out he was like "motherfucking blindmind stop using my tree." The end. I also seem to recall that BlindMind didn't even post in the topic and simply removed it or something.
So no, konix couldn't have sent anyone a PM to say "stop using my tree" because the topic was "can anyone identify who is using this." I don't really recall him being a giant douche except when he found out it was BlindMind he was like "ahhhh fucking blindmind and his rpgmakers" or something.
And... that wasn't what I was referring to, I was referring to settling disputes over PM rather than in threads. =P
post=142506
konix posted a topic on GW with a screenshot from a game and asked who it was who stole is tree.
BlindMind, who was pretty much notorious for being a graphical vulture was the culprit and was pretty infamous at GW
Really? I thought the Nemesis (Philospher's Stone)was the "vulture". That guy took EVERYTHING.
I don't remember Blindmind being infamous for anything like what you're describing; but I'll concede that I didn't exactly have my hand on the pulse of GW"s community. Can anyone else give some insight here? Hell, didn't blindmind's game have original artwork? How was he a vulture?
so when konix found out he was like "motherfucking blindmind stop using my tree." The end.
I also seem to recall that BlindMind didn't even post in the topic and simply removed it or something.
So no, konix couldn't have sent anyone a PM to say "stop using my tree" because the topic was "can anyone identify who is using this." I don't really recall him being a giant douche except when he found out it was BlindMind he was like "ahhhh fucking blindmind and his rpgmakers" or something.
You have things a bit mixed up.
The whole thing started when some random member posted a tree; I think he was asking where it was from. Konix jumped in and asked something along the lines of "where the fuck did you find that?" Everyone else thought he was joking, but soon Konix made it clear that he was the one who made the tree; and that he was really agitated about it. He wanted to know who was the one who recolored and "mangled" his tree.
Later in the thread, 5 obligatory RPGmaker rantings later - blindmind came and apologized.
And... that wasn't what I was referring to, I was referring to settling disputes over PM rather than in threads. =P
There are some things that can't be fixed in PMs, like many of my atrocities... arguments.
Either way, konix couldn't have sent a PM to someone if he didn't know who did it, could he have?
Nemesis was a vulture--but 90% of the community are vultures. There are just some that were more prominent because of their hyped projects. Like BlindMind, who was definitely a vulture:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/8/images/ Look at his game. It's full of rips--Suikoden, Rudra, Terranigma. You can click on any of those screenshots and they each represent the RM community's "vulture" style of grabbing resources from anywhere to use in their project. BM was pretty well-known for having one of those super-hyped games without a release, at least that's how I felt!
I might have forgotten some details but I might be mistaken, I just remember konix made a long post near the beginning of the topic detailing the steps he took to make the tree in order to prove it was his. I remember that as the opening post, but maybe not. I'm pretty sure that topic is gone now either way, in the great GW purge or whatever.
Nemesis was a vulture--but 90% of the community are vultures. There are just some that were more prominent because of their hyped projects. Like BlindMind, who was definitely a vulture:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/8/images/ Look at his game. It's full of rips--Suikoden, Rudra, Terranigma. You can click on any of those screenshots and they each represent the RM community's "vulture" style of grabbing resources from anywhere to use in their project. BM was pretty well-known for having one of those super-hyped games without a release, at least that's how I felt!
I might have forgotten some details but I might be mistaken, I just remember konix made a long post near the beginning of the topic detailing the steps he took to make the tree in order to prove it was his. I remember that as the opening post, but maybe not. I'm pretty sure that topic is gone now either way, in the great GW purge or whatever.
Either way, konix couldn't have sent a PM to someone if he didn't know who did it, could he have?
He could have pmed the actual poster asking "Where did you find that tree?"
Like BlindMind, who was definitely a vulture:
And how exactly was/is he more of a vulture than anyone else? Everyone uses commercial resources, and everyone grabs resources from other people's projects. (As long as they're free to use, for the most part).
I remember nemesis grabbing entire libraries of battle animations and the like; I don't remember Blindmind doing anything like that.
BM was pretty well-known for having one of those super-hyped games without a release, at least that's how I felt!
... But he released the game he was hyping.
post=142559
He could have pmed the actual poster asking "Where did you find that tree?"
Which would have been not nearly as efficient in finding who took the tree in comparison to posting in an active topic where chances are, someone might recognize. Pls the fact that, if it wasn't konix's own topic (which I still might think it was) then it was probably one of those "dump pretty screenshots you have saved to your computer" topics where people just posted screenshots and most didn't even know where their screenshots came from.
Unless of course... you can tell us what the original topic was about.
post=142559
And how exactly was/is he more of a vulture than anyone else? Everyone uses commercial resources, and everyone grabs resources from other people's projects. (As long as they're free to use, for the most part).
I remember nemesis grabbing entire libraries of battle animations and the like; I don't remember Blindmind doing anything like that.
He just was--and still it--more notorious for being a vulture. If you step onto IRC there is a 75% you will hear Ciel or something joking about BM and his chipsets.
post=142559
... But he released the game he was hyping.
Not until quite some time later after the original hype-build up though. Originally it was one of those massive G&D topics with tons of hype. *points fingers at Chaos Generations, etc*
Which would have been not nearly as efficient in finding who took the tree in comparison to posting in an active topic where chances are, someone might recognize.
Even if he wanted to reach more people by posting in public; that still doesn't excuse his conduct.
Pls the fact that, if it wasn't konix's own topic (which I still might think it was) then it was probably one of those "dump pretty screenshots you have saved to your computer" topics where people just posted screenshots and most didn't even know where their screenshots came from.
Unless of course... you can tell us what the original topic was about.
I remember exactly what the original topic was. As I stated earlier; it was a random member with very few posts hotlinking a tree sprite asking where it was from.
Not until quite some time later after the original hype-build up though.
... No. That isn't how it happened at all. The first version was released in a fairly timely manner. Nobody really LIKED it; but he still released it.
You guys got a link to this tree you're talking about? I'd like to see what kind of tree it takes for someone to feel it's worth being butthurt over. =P
I don't pixel-art much so my stuff is unlikely to be of much use around here. However, anything of mine I post is free to use without permission however you want. It's more in my interests that it gets spread as it increases awareness of me (so I get more art gigs). If I don't want people to use something I just don't post it anywhere (client work mostly).
I don't pixel-art much so my stuff is unlikely to be of much use around here. However, anything of mine I post is free to use without permission however you want. It's more in my interests that it gets spread as it increases awareness of me (so I get more art gigs). If I don't want people to use something I just don't post it anywhere (client work mostly).
post=142441
i think there is a substantial ethical difference between ripping something someone has been commissioned a busload of money to create for a commercial game and ripping something a hobbyist has created for nowt for a freeware project but that is a separate issue
Yeah, that basically sums it up for me. It's just a matter of me feeling guilty or not about something. Taking something from square who makes thousands/millions of dollars off of their work and Taking something from someone who probably won't make anything
post=142615post=142441Yeah, that basically sums it up for me. It's just a matter of me feeling guilty or not about something. Taking something from square who makes thousands/millions of dollars off of their work and Taking something from someone who probably won't make anything
i think there is a substantial ethical difference between ripping something someone has been commissioned a busload of money to create for a commercial game and ripping something a hobbyist has created for nowt for a freeware project but that is a separate issue
This is the sort of argument you invent to absolve yourself. I doubt the artist who drew the pixels for FF6 made millions of dollars from them.
Making more money does not entitle you to steal their work, especially if they make their money through honest means. It just means they'll probably care less about you, but it doesn't make you any less of a thief. You're not freaking Robin Hood or something, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor.



















