Bummin Thieves!!

Xenobond

Yeah. Any of y'all have to deal with people stealing your work and claiming it as your own?

It really pisses me off.

But then, that's what you get for putting anything on the internet. Everyone expects that if they can download it from someplace, then it must mean that it's free to use however they like.

Also means that they don't have to bother reading any documentation that came with it.

I'll avoid putting any of my artwork up in any insecure manner ever again, I swear.

Sheesh.

Gav

To the best of my knowledge, I've never had any one thief my stuff. I have had them post it on their site as some kind of...i dunno, collection, i guess...without my permission.

Sorry to hear it though, did you have a link to this guy? Or is this more of a "fucking piracy" (I may have misunderstood)

Gav

Slum

Did he apply for a job at Mythic using your work? I know somebody who had that happen. totally L-O-L.

That sucks man.. It happens, oh well. Unfortunately for him, this is actually a very tight knit industry.

It's not hard to get blacklisted for that sort of thing.

East

A few times, but I generally don't care. I put up all my art under a Creative Commons license that does come with a few restrictions ( namely these ). But like I said, I'm not going to bother if anyone breaks it.

The sad(?) thing is, once it's on the Internet, it's out there for anyone to use as they see fit. It's not really worth the effort to try and police it.

Can you be more specific about what's happened? You're being a bit vague.

Justin Meisse

I had my q2 skins photochopped together to make a clan skin, it kind of upset me because they could of just asked to make one.

oh yeah, more details pleaze

super_villain

This is exactly why I post my stuff up on my website without watermarks. That way, should some poor sap steal it and show it to a gaming company, he will have the same crappy luck getting a video game job as I do. Muhahaha...my sweet but subtle trap.

Rens

i steal your work all the time

nothing you can do about it, just hope the kid will crash and burn. he wont get far with some chopshop skills, i hope...

Slainean

Stealing someone's work without credit is the ultimate sin for an artist.

Do people think they won't be expected to create the same level of work when they apply for jobs?

Ged

yeah this stuff sucks, Ive seen people claiming artwork as their own on deviantart numerous times and then Ive found the original artist saying "heres the original, ignore this idiot" but actually applying for work with it! thats just unbelievable!

I dont like creative commons licence, its too open, I want an "its my work not yours ever!" licence so I just try to claim copyright on all my own work, not that Ive got much compared to you people.

j_bradford

I've seen it happen before. They are only screwing themselves in the long run.

Once they begin working at said employer there is going to be a huge question raised as to why the results do not match what was displayed in their portfolio.

Mark Dygert

Agreed.
You can always make more awesome.
Thieves can not.
Make sure the proper people know so his/her ship is sunk and get back to making more awesome.

kwakkie

Yeah it sucks... Im pretty sure that texture design on your site that looks an awfull lot like the shield from zelda is 100% yours

TelekineticFrog

If this is about the sandwich i took from your desk...I'm sorry. :P

Xenobond

Kwakkie- yes it was stuff I made for something I did 3-4 years ago. In the same vein as Quake retexturing, there is a way to do it for n64 emulators. Instead of reading the textures from the game, it loads higher resolution ones instead.



That had some of the pieces in there. ~400 total.

I feel that the work I did on that fell under fair use as transformative works. If anyone from the Nintendos felt that I was violating their rights, I would have no problem with removing any or all of the textures I made.

The only place I had put up the files for people to download and use from Fileplanet. I stipulated that no other mirrors would be needed, and the readme file included made it perfectly clear that it not be used, distributed or modified without my permission.

Probably about a year or two later, I start seeing my textures being used in other peoples packs. I ask them to remove the files as they never asked, and they had no problems with it.

I quit doing this Zelda junk because it seemed everyone else was doing it, and there was no more joy in doing any of those anymore. I was busy with work, and other things so I took the link down.

Now, more recently someone posted a message in a thread that they uploaded the pack to megaupload and then gave the link.
http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=26320&page=225

I sent him a message to remove it, and after a couple of back n forth messages (of him being ignorant and coarse, and me trying to be calm and reasonable) he removed the link, but then posted a message on the thread that if anyone wanted it, they could PM him for the link.
http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=26320&page=226

And then I got this- http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=43775
After several more PM's he removed the link and added one of my PM's.

And that is just one of the guys that's been giving me grief.

Jeremy Wright

Man, that dude is a fucking tool.

ImSlightlyBored

To be fair though, you have got a door I did on that sheet, although you touched it up a little without my permission

But your case goes a lot deeper than a piddly little door I did once when I was bored (and you admittedly improved it for me), and I agree, its annoying. I've just been reading that emutalk thread, and tbh it seems like a lost cause, things rarely seem to sink in there.

Toomas

IMO you are blowing this thing way up but whatever..

Xenobond

[ QUOTE ]
To be fair though, you have got a door I did on that sheet, although you touched it up a little without my permission

But your case goes a lot deeper than a piddly little door I did once when I was bored (and you admittedly improved it for me), and I agree, its annoying. I've just been reading that emutalk thread, and tbh it seems like a lost cause, things rarely seem to sink in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Crap, man. I think you're right. I thought I tagged all the ones that I completely made for that example sheet.


Yeah, now that I look at it, yeah. I just went in, added some grime, and sharpened up all of the panel lines then added the hinges. Doh. My bad. I'll take it out right now.

That's how easy it should be. None of this, 'Too bad. Once you put it on the internet it is no longer yours.'

ImSlightlyBored

no worries.
it actually taught me a bit, funnily enough. I think you put some lighting info on it as well, which is like one of the main things I learnt from it.
Oh what a funny old world!

But yeah, I think that's all your gonna get from emutalk now; I think its been done before where people will just go blue in the face saying "too bad, its mine now, you shouldn't put things online!"

Ferg

why bother? It doesnt hurt you... I mean, if you take time out to deal with every douche bag out there that does a douche bag thing to you, you're gonna find yourself with less time and less happiness. And besides, they're douche bags, any time you give them is too much... especially on the internet.

It's lame that people are stealing your work and not giving you credit... but seriously... where is the gain in getting all worked up and doing something about it? The only difference it makes either way in your own life is the action you choose to take. Let the kids have their fun... you're the one with the skills, after all. Better to spend your time making new art and drinking beer in the sun than arguing with dumb kids on the internet about something doesn't really matter anyway.

Xenobond

But Ferg, that's exactly my point!!
I don't drink beer!

Slum

hehe, i saved that image to my inspiration folder years ago. It's old, but it's some quality 2d oldschool painting. i still love it.

TomDunne

I hate art theft, but this thread has me confused. Did they steal it/claim it as their own, or just host it for download elsewhere? If the latter, why don't you want people to be able to download your work anymore? Heck, I wish I had people repurposing my stuff - that hasn't happened in years

Eric Chadwick

I'd just ask the guy to give you credit in the readme, as you would have done for the Nintendo artists in your own readme. Which it looks like he did. It seems like all he's guilty of is not letting you know about the redist in the first place. That isn't what I'd call art theft.

Whatever the disagreement is, IMO in the end it's better to keep the textures alive, in use by fans of the game. People over there obviously dig them, and the thread makes it clear who's responsible for making them, you.

Xenobond

Yeah, I do think I took it a bit overboard. At the time that guy was posting it, there was another guy that was posting a pack he made on another thread. This had some of his work, and all my old stuff. Guy didn't even bother to credit me again.

Going back and forth with that guy trying to explain what he had done he said this, 'They're not work anymore, sorry you're the one who gave them up in the first place!'

He had been pretty ignorant in the firstplace, and I was going to be fine with him using it as long as he credited me for what stuff I had worked on. But that set me off pretty hard.

I think talking about it here has really helped me, though. I had been pretty crummy with both of those tools doing what they were doing.
It hurts my head trying to comprehend how little they even think about other people.