by Citizen Malleus - 4/24/2003 5:17:46 PM
I've been looking over folks' event mods (some of them are very nice!) and realized we must have a talented group of artists here. Then it occurred to me that maybe people are getting permission to use other artists' work much more quickly than myself. I have sent out a dozen emails trying to secure permission to use other artists images and haven't gotten more than a couple replies.
Then it hit me...
You ARE asking artists if you can use their work if you take images from a website? It would seem to me to be a basic courtesy. I hope this is what course this community is taking.
Image theft is rampant on the internet. The majority of amateur digital artists quit when they see their work used without their permission. This is a common problem among fantasy artists and RPG players especially.
Please remember to secure permission from the original artists if the work is not obviously public domain, if not for legality reasons, than for respect of the artists who put so much time into their work.
M
 
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#1
by Citizen Nephrinn - 4/24/2003 5:51:38 PM
I really didn't think it was necessary to ask permission to do so. I'm not making a profit from it nor is anyone else and you are already free to use it as your wallpaper so using them in game seems pretty harmless. Now of course if the artist complains they should be taken down but I don't think I would worry too much about this. I recently updated the events to give proper credit to the artists and where to find the pictures in the readme file.
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images i've used so far:
GalCiv ones, i don't think stardock will mind too much lol
a screenshot from Firearms mod (firearmsmod.com), which i also don't think they will care too much about
a picture of saddam hussein, i don't think he will mind too much
so i think i'm in the clear 
      
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I use some wall papers pctures but mostly I jsut make my own pictures using my cheap paint sets and stuff
    
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#5
by Citizen Malleus - 4/25/2003 10:20:29 AM
Unfortunately the site does not seem to be up right now. 
M
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#7
by Citizen Malleus - 4/25/2003 10:23:41 AM
BTW, the intended site is greyday.org, not grayday.org, which is a hostile opposition group 
M
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#9
by Citizen Harker - 4/25/2003 4:38:40 PM
Alas, people CAN protect their images by not making them saveable or Downloadable... whether they do it or not is their choice.
But I agree that asking for permission just seems like the right thing to do.
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I think using publicity still of actors and movies etc is acceptable. As the more exposure they get the better.
 
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#11
by Citizen Malleus - 4/26/2003 3:33:24 AM
You are correct. Public domain is different than using digital images made by some amateur who would like some control over his work.
M
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#13
by Diplomat fleabitfox - 4/26/2003 10:47:35 AM
I know most people get pretty snippy about others taking their web designs, art etc.. and using them elsewhere. You should never do so, without permission first. It is common curtesy for one, and it could be the law, for the other thing. 
fleabitfox
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"Alas, people CAN protect their images by not making them saveable or Downloadable... whether they do it or not is their choice."
That's an IE only feature. For instance, Opera could care less what sort of tags you put there, it will let you download any image. Moreso, in any browser, the image is there in the cache directory. The only sort of protections that do you any good is to have a big, ugly watermark across the image and allow people to purchase/otherwise ask for permission if they want the un-uglied version.
 
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It's easy to "borrow" images from any site whether or not they use special tags, disallow right clicks, etc.
  
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#16
by Veteran obbana - 6/10/2003 2:52:24 AM
I have asked permissions with this kind of message:
"Hey! I saw you have a very wonderful image at www.******.com. Great work! It was called "********." I would like to ask you to have permission to that image. I would do an "event file" to a game called "Galactic Civilizations.." Here's a example link where it would go..  Link
There could be many downloads.. Your name (and website address) would be added to the ReadMe-file inside the .zip-file
So, what do you say? I can't do such a great images, so it would be wonderful if i could use it..
-- orangebear"
Almoust everyone have given me a permission, unless the picture is dedicated to some company..
i haven't got all replies yet, but have a permission to use some cool images
( i do myself some images too, but they are not good as those are )
[Message Edited]
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#17
by Veteran obbana - 6/10/2003 2:58:23 AM
And i think it's a little bit of different situation if u use some image without permission.. And u do a lots of changes to the image?? It's not then the original image ( but i still like to ask permission to use the correct image )
..These artists don't like if you use theier images to any commercials purposes, but i think that any noncommercial publicity is very welcome to them..
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#19
by Veteran obbana - 6/10/2003 9:08:24 AM
yeah
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You won't believe the e-mail i just got :
"Dear Galcivver,
It has come to my attention that you have downloaded the Angelina for Governor v 4. mod and are using the aforementioned files to replace the static marine with a baseball cap that comes with the game.
Since you did not ask me for permission, I ask that you immediately cease and desist the use of my image and replace it with one of say, Xenia Seeberg. Preferably one with Xenia in a red wig from Lexx.
I would also note that the stolen images were from the Tomb Raider movie which your wife did not like.
Sincerely (and yes I spend my free time searching game websites for unauthorized likenesses),
Angelina Jolie"
[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]
 
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#22
by Citizen MadMaz - 6/12/2003 4:38:03 PM
Here's a true story. When I started grad school, I wrote this tesbed game for my resarch group. Basically it's a tank battle environment where people design intelligent agents that can battle each using this AI architecture called Soar. These tanks battle in a somewhat maze-like environment, so I needed to get a few tileable images to represent the corridors and walls with. So, I pulled some old Mac RPG, and extracted a few 32x32 cartoony icons for grass, rocks and a few trees, sorta like something you'd find in the original zeldas. To make a long story short, this environment turned out to be pretty useful. We used it for conference workshops, in AI classes we taught, and as a downloadable tutorial, etc.. Several, years later I get this e-mail from the guy who wrote the RPG (back in the early 90's!) saying that he was shocked to see his graphics in TankSoar. I remind you I only grabbed a handful of small graphics that weren't even desktop icon worthy, and I was only using them in a public-domain academic research tool. Nevertheless, he came across them. Apparently, he was now doing something AI related at Microsoft. They wanting to learn how to use our AI architecture, so they downloaded the tutorial which uses the game for its exercise. They were taking a test drive and, bam, up popped Tanksoar and a bunch of his little graphics. Can you believe that? What are the odds? He was very cool about it, and just told me to put his name somewhere. My advisor was less than happy, though.
In a related bizarre story, I made a TankSoar home page that summer. Of course, I once again needed to find a picture, this time of a real tank for the front page. I did a bunch of searches and came across this text-less page with a picture of this really cool looking floating tank. I embossed the word Soar on the side of it and plopped it on the page. More than 2 years later, the Phantom Menace came out and these were the tanks that the trade federation dropped on Naboo. It was very surprising. I'm pretty sure they hadn't released any photo realistic renders at the point. Well, I still have it as the main banner on the Tanksoar page
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#24
by Veteran Deleuzian - 8/18/2003 8:50:25 AM
I'm in a bit of a quandary here then. I've just started recently modding, and have taken some pictures off the web. However, the site I took them from was all by one person, whose splash (i.e. web hook & loading bar) was 'free pictures'. There were all hers/his, and the site made it explicitly clear that s/he was not charging for them, and did not mind downloads. This is in contrast to a lot of sites I see saying 'free art' when its blatantly obvious that they are ripped (I saw some of the original D&D art recently)
In the readme I have given a link to the site, their email as well as emailing her/him for permission. In the txt file I have indicated that the pictures have been altered (in quality) and the originals are much better quality available at the site.
Honestly, in this case I don't see the problem. However I know the rules (for instance at Elfwood, personal permission is still needed, even for amateur stuff) and agree with them. However, this is non-commercial fan modding, and I think most people go out of their way to give credit: what really hurts artists is some geezer knocking off x30,000 T-shirts or posters without permission, surely?
Including a cheese cake Boris Vallejo is going to be seen straight away anyhow.
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