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Controversal Question About 3rd Party Sprite Animations

Discussion in 'Modding Help' started by daimyo21, Jan 27, 2014.

  1. daimyo21

    daimyo21 Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    9
    So I have a question and I want to know the legality of it. If I were to mod an existing mod (obviously I wouldnt re-release it without permissions/credits and this isnt my first mod) and add sprites to it I found on the internet, some that actually were used in older games, could this cause legal problems for KAG?

    A site in mind is: spritedatabase.net

    I have no intentions on doing this and was going to actually only add these sprite animation sets onto my own personal server instead of releasing them with my modifications to the mod that I am modding.

    None of this would ever be commercialized and I would not take credit for any sprites that I used. Opinions please?


    Edit: Looking in their FAQ or OAQ as they call it I stumbled on these QAs:

    Q: Is ripping / archiving / using game sprites illegal?

    A: I'm not a copyright lawyer or anything but the general consensus is "No". The game companies know we're doing this stuff and they don't care. Just don't try to make a profit from their copyrighted material, ok?

    Q: What can I use the sprites on this site for?

    A: Anything you want. Some of the more popular uses are animations, sprite comics, graphics, and fan games. You can use them as a reference for giant LEGO models if you want. Use your imagination.


    Found here: http://spritedatabase.net/contact
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2014
    daimyo21, Jan 27, 2014
    #1
  2. Klokinator

    Klokinator Such Beta
    1. Aphelion's Roleplay

    Messages:
    1,443
    I'm fairly certain every instance of people modding a game or making a custom game that uses copyrighted content from mostly any video games made in the last 40 years has been a breach in one form or another.

    The real question is, do any of the companies "violated" care in the slightest? And I think the answer is "No, unless you made money off it.".

    Edit: Simple example is this engine: http://zeldaengine.net/forum/thread-323.html
    It uses so much copyrighted content that you could maybe make the claim that it solely does (Actually SR uses a lot of her own images so probably not) but they don't ask for money, so the creators of Zelda probably will never care.
     
    Klokinator, Jan 27, 2014
    #2
  3. ZeroZ30o

    ZeroZ30o Haxor

    Messages:
    119
    I agree with that, but what I'm still unsure about is if donations count as actually making money off it...
    The way I see it, donations are for your work, additional coding, and that the sprites were actually just a means to an end. If the work with donation is majorly based on those sprites, then I feel it's not that fair, if you've made most of the work, I'd say it's ok to add them.
    But it doesn't matter what I think, I'm mainly wondering if donations fall into Creative Commons.
    Edit: checked their site, doesn't seem to clarify anything in the FAQ.
     
    ZeroZ30o, Jan 29, 2014
    #3
  4. daimyo21

    daimyo21 Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    9

    I dont ever take donations so that wouldnt be a problem, Unless it was a massive project and people wanted to see it get done faster and or server costs for community website/game server. Most of my work for this project is done coding and making the sprites work properly.
     
    daimyo21, Jan 29, 2014
    #4
  5. Monsteri

    Monsteri Slower Than Light Tester

    Messages:
    1,916
    I doubt the devs care if you're not making money out of it and give credit where it's due.
     
    Monsteri, Jan 29, 2014
    #5
  6. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    Donations are a very touchy subject, many private servers for games that add in their own stuff attempt to make money on donations, and some of them add very little and are essentially just making money off of other people's work so it's caused a very shady grey area.

    For example there was controversy over a Ragnarok Online server back in 2005 that had made enough money monthly to keep 4 of the people who were hosting it fed , and put one of them through university. IT also funded 2 of their drug habits (marijuana mostly). It's a very lucrative way to get money off of other people's work, so it's really good to actually ask about donations, but it's hard to get information that is actually reliable on the subject at the moment.

    Semi-correct, but not for strictly legal reasons.

    If they're using sprites directly as opposed to influence general things, there is definitely a legal concern, but it's usually not a large one and rarely fully goes to court, is usually settled out or handled with a C&D.

    It's unlikely that a mod, as long as it's not making direct money will ever have an issue with this, you might be able to have donations if you are specific as to the pretense of them as well as having your project be rather open. (People are free to simply host it themselves instead of donating to you if they want, so you are not in effect hijacking someone else's work that you put together in a different way for money, just very CLEARLY the servers).
     
    BlueLuigi, Jan 29, 2014
    #6