MAYORANIME'S PROFILE

author=harmonic link=topic=2864.msg66469#msg66469 date=1236952297

author=MayorAnime link=topic=2864.msg66468#msg66468 date=1236951193
8. My first time was with a girl I went to middle school with.
9. My second time was with her mother.

That reminds me of my first high school girlfriend. Her mom why way hotter than she was. :P

Pretty much the same thing here. :P

Over here in the Great Country of Texas, that there little Recession Polecat don't bug us too much. We just get Muriel and Eustace to set out a couple of them Recession Traps, which is one of them there Obama Stimulus Packages in a noose, and when the little rascal gets caught....well...we eat real good that night.

Um, yeah. Anyway, the Recession is effecting Texas as well, even though the cities with Refineries, like Beaumont and Houston, are feeling it less than cities like Dallas or Austin. The major way we feel it is that a lot of business are suddenly selling everything at 50% off or more, which is making everyone buy more than they usually do. For us in Houston, I'm not sure that people are aware that we're in a Recession yet. Movie Ticket sales, Restaurant Businesses, and Bar tabs are as high as ever, if not higher. One friend of mine takes his family out to eat FIVE times a week.

Personally, I'm going out less, but I'm still buying stuff, taking advantage of the Recession to buy new things for my house, or wife, and take trips that we normally wouldn't take. I'm still somewhat frugal though, just in case this great job I have goes away. In a way, I'm glad my wife and I decided not to have any children at this time...that is one expense I don't wish to deal with!

author=Shadowtext link=topic=3324.msg66424#msg66424 date=1236916006

author=MayorAnime link=topic=3324.msg66422#msg66422 date=1236914516
Yeah, that's like saying that once you show your work off, it's everyone's property. assuming you didn't submit it as a resource for general use.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Death of the Author and all that. Once something enters the public sphere, the creator orphans it. It belongs to the world. You can pass laws or come up with social agreements to fight it, but it's all just people agreeing to pretend that it still belongs to you. And any of them who don't agree....don't.

Well, that's not quite what I mean, Shadowtext. I was being tongue-in-cheek there. While it's true that a material, once released on the internet, is about as secure as an unchained bicycle in a shopping mall, the original creator should have the expectation of, at the very least, credit for the work being his, unless he released it as a community resource. If he did that, then he needs to stop complaining and be glad people are using his materiel.

I'm just chiming in for clarification; I do think that ripping original graphics from fellow game makers is wrong and I do not and would not do it. However as far as commercial stuff goes, well, I guess I can't be a hypocrite, that's wrong too, but being in the game making community for years and enjoying things from places like Newgrounds since I was twelve (which is full of very talented artists and creators who use commercial things; check out Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat for instances, that shit is scary good), I just really don't care about it when it comes to commercial stuff.

I mean ethics aside, it's really hard for me to knock commercial rips when it produces awesome stuff like this. Seriously, check that shit out.

Thanks for clearing that up, Feld. :)

Just a side note, most commercial game companies don't care if people in communities like this, using engines like this, rip their sprites or music, or what-not, so long as we don't try to make any money off of it, or pass it off as our own.

Even though it's not the case, they essentially see it all as some form a fan-game. ::)

I've been silently watching this thread, and reading the other threads connected to it, and think it's finally time for me to say something from the non-hobbyist end of the spectrum. Like Nightblade, I am an actual game developer, although I am not currently working for a professional developer at this time (hence why I can be a part of this community). Let me shoot straight with you guys, purposefully using someone else stuff, for any reason, is the lowest you can go in the industry. You can throw Oxford Dictionaries at me until your pitching arm falls off, they call it Plagiarism, and no amount of self-justification or debate on anyone's part is going to change the mind of professionals who are paid, daily, to create the games you play and bitch about.

It's ethically wrong to steal someone else's work. If you don't realize you are doing, like the guy in the recently locked topic, the one that canceled his game (assuming he was unaware), you should be advised and given a chance to remove it or seek the original artist's permission. A lot of times, a resource can appear to be royalty free, but it is not. I've made that mistake myself. That is the danger of the internet, sadly.

Now, if you don't care that you are using someone else's work, as Feld admits, that's fine. There is no law stopping you from doing what you want in the privacy of your home with someone else's stuff, so long as it is legally obtained. And sadly, when a resource is posted on the internet for free, it becomes public domain, and unless copyrighted by the artist beforehand...well there isn't much to say there. Rip if you must, just don't expect to be given any consideration or respect in any respectable community, professional or indie.

Now legally speaking, you can change another person's work by about fifty percent and you are no longer plagiarizing, just as you can take someone else's idea and move it to a different context, and you're not infringing on their copyright. But again, just because something is legal, that doesn't mean the industry condones it. Yes, it is true that professional developers do take other people's work, and change it up so that it is no longer fully recognizable as the original piece. However, the trained ear, eye, mind can still tell. If you have ever listened to music in one game that sounded a lot like music from another, chances are this very thing occurred. Legal? Yes. Ethical? Well, that's a gray area I'd rather not get into.

So basically, from the stand point of someone in the industry, anyone who 'rips' anyone else's work and using it in their own without permission is pretty must begging to get black-listed. If this community wants to be more like the actual industry, the members and moderators should enforce that, and every instance of purposeful plagiarism should be dealt with harshly. If this community wants to be more amateur and hobbyist, the members and moderators need to back off and just have a huge disclaimer saying that anything posted on RMN is understood to be communal in use; however please credit or ask permission before using someone else's material.

One last thing, and this should be obvious to everyone here, plagiarism is not only unethical, it's just plain rude and disrespectful, not to mention cowardly. It is basically saying this:

"I don't respect the creator of this work enough to ask their permission."

or this:

"I am too lazy or afraid of rejection to ask the creator of this work for their permission."

Do you want to sound like that??? :-\