Moral question for you hackers

[interdpth]

Okay, so you make some new GFX, show it to the public, then put it in your hack. A few days later your GFX is in someone elses hack without permission. Naturally you get angry, but why?

You're already using the original games GFX, sound effects, code without the original authors permission. So why the hell are you getting mad and telling people not to use your shit? It's not like you coded the game from scratch and have your own tools and shit. Unless your Kejardon and hacking SM.

So what the hell?

[Smiley]

You're absolutely right, but...
...
but...

God damn it!

[Zhs2]

Sure, Nintendo hasn't said anything yet, but they could. Hell, they also have the pull to take us down if they so desire. The difference between them and us is that we are a mostly tightly-knit community and they are a faceless corporation. If someone here used something someone else created without permission, they are very likely to get flamed or told not to use their stuff, depending on the release status of the borrowed content of the hack in question because we should all know each other, and it hurts. If Nintendo did that, we'd probably be on our knees praising Nintendo for realizing the talent of the community and be vaguely interested in why they were using our stuff.

This raises another question, though: Nintendo would probably contact you/us if they wanted to borrow stuff. I don't imagine it's very fun to find out that someone else is just blatantly showing off your stuff as if it's their own, accidentally or intentionally. If even accidentally someone could post a topic here in Off-Topic saying "Hey, these GFX are of a professional quality and I don't know where they came from. Anyone know?"

[interdpth]

Nintendo will only care if you're profiting off their games. Which should be the only reason someone cares. Unless their hack was copied directly and a few bytes were changed. But raw resources being used for non-profit and not having their creators ego stroked? That should be dandy.

[Crashtour99]

To me it's more of a respect issue.  Anything that's seen a public release is fair game, providing you give credit where it's due (including to the original creators of the game and Nintendo).  Screen shots and videos aren't exactly a public release like gfx or asm files and ips patches (I include released hacks in the ips category).

Of course it's always more courteous to ask a hack author before ripping something from their released hack, and if they say no (for whatever weird reason) it should be respected.  Personally I wouldn't have any problem with someone ripping whatever they wanted out of my hack after it's released as long as the proper people are credited.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

to be answered simply: honor amongst thieves

thieves who steal from the rich(the corporations) a give to the poor(those who spend allot and are not satisfied with small game they paid for)


Edit:the big problem with taking graphics or code w/out asking is the boundary of respect. once that's brokin it starts a chain reaction and every is taking something from somebody and no good hacker will want to put forth an effort into making a good hack. then all theres left is shit hacks to play with no originality.

every body here is way cool and usually willing to help in one way or another if you ask. its probably best just to do that.

[Zhs2]

To that end, I have an educational video for this topic:

Copying Is Not Theft - Official Version

Asking is still polite though! Just as crashtour said, it's a matter of respect.

[Lunaria]

If you draw graphics yourself you own the rights to those graphics, regardless what medium you put them in.

It does not really matter that we don't give a shit in nintendos rights to their game, if somone else uses content without asking they are breaking the law (in most countries at least.). There are of course exceptions, such as the ability to make fan work among other things as long as you're not hurting the source material and making profits on it.

Like said before though, it's more of a morality thing.

Being inspired by any work and making something based on the same views and ideas is perfectly fine if you ask me. But simply copying it to get reception for it yourself is not only rather douchy to do, it also shows lack of creativity.

But there is also another problem behind it all too. If you make an awesome graphics set and use and afterwards release. (or even before you're done with your work.) It will help the community as whole, after all, more graphics packs means more creativly posebilities for those who can't draw or don't want too. But the backside in turn is that the it will have a wider useage and therefor it won't be as special anymore. Sure it will still be as amazing the first time you see it, but after you have seen the same graphics set for the 20th time it will get stale.

If you want a perfect real life example of what I said then just head over to SMWC picture show off topic. People use great (Y(and mine)MMW) looking tileset, only to be shot down by people saying it's over used and that they should try something else instead. Of course, in SMWC case it's mostly hypocritical since most hacks there never make it to a proper release, but that's beside the point in this case. There are quite a few examples of this in our own screenshot of the week thread in case you want any in-community examples.

Nintendo will only care if you're profiting off their games. Which should be the only reason someone cares. Unless their hack was copied directly and a few bytes were changed. But raw resources being used for non-profit and not having their creators ego stroked? That should be dandy.

Not everything is about ego though inter, I can certainly see the appeal in making your own work more unique.

[Quietus]

For me, it's simply polite.  Nintendo's graphics (or whatever) are available to all from the get-go, and whether that's right or wrong is another topic, but they're old, and have been seen many times.  Graphics created by people here are current, and having them stolen feels like a slap in the face of your efforts.  If somebody came along years after a hack had been released, I expect it'd be greeted with less anger than when it's current, or even unreleased.

[begrimed]

I never got along with the idea of keeping my stuff exclusive or keeping my identity associated with making it. Hell, I don't even ask that people give me credit for stuff that I post. If somebody who doesn't know that I made it thinks that the person who made the hack made it, I don't care. It comes down to whether the person who made the hack goes along with it and says "Oh yeah, I made those." At that point I'd be more inclined to give them a slap in the face because they knew it was mine, but still decided to take credit it for it because an opportunity arose to do just that. But generally, somebody besides me and the person who made the hack will know that I was the one who made it. To that end, somebody claiming my work as their own will come around to bite them in the ass because a third party will recognize it as being mine and call them out on it for me.

This happened to me awhile ago with some of my artwork, actually. Some devianTARD claimed a few old DBZ pictures I that drew as being their own artwork and their own original character, and I had people telling me "Dude someone's ganking yo shit" while I had no idea this art thief even existed. So, just don't worry about people stealing your crap. If they say it's theirs, someone will do the work for you eventually and shame them in front of their fans by dropping your name and a link to where it actually came from. It also makes you come out looking better to have somebody else speaking on your behalf.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

good point grime!

i do agree with Quietus, it is a slap in the face. but grime does have a point, justice will most likely be served.
personally i bust my ass putting hundreds of hours into graphic work keeping only the best for my hack. i spent my whole summer working and reworking the phazon hack. with each day 12 to 14 of work. i would be pissed if someone used my graphics(cred is meaningless to me). i would much less mind making new graphics for someone then have them diminish the originality of my work. so more work would be less painful then making loss of blood and sweat worthless.

[Zero One]

While I haven't released any graphics (or actually produced any graphics that could hold a candle to anything else I've seen here), I would be very annoyed if somebody came along and just ripped the graphics from my hack, without even asking me. Like was said, it's a matter of respect. It's also a matter of the amount of work you put into it. If I release it publicly, then by all means use it. That's what it's there for. But if somebody doesn't ask me and just takes something that isn't publicly released then I'd ask them to remove it, unless they specifically ask me for it first and credit me for it.

And if somebody comes along, steals my work and claims it as their own, I'd kill them.

But the difference between what we do (take Nintendo's stuff) and what some other people do (grab graphics/code without asking) is that we never stop crediting Nintendo. We don't remove names from the credits sequence and we don't pass off Nintendo's work as our own. The most we do is maybe change the Nintendo graphic at the beginning to read something else, but even then, Nintendo still has its fingerprints visible all over the ROM. And yes, while we may call the hack our own work, everybody knows that it's built on top of things that Nintendo already made.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

sorry bump old topic

But I just thought of the best way to answer this question.

The programmers at Nintendo get payed to put graphics in a game. Then you buy the game, so in turn your paying the programmer for the work he/she did. You own the graphics, you payed for.(you should be able to do what you please with what you pay for)

Now a hacker has to do more work then the people that get payed for it, and they do so anonymously and for free. so you could call this a charity. And everybody knows that stealing from a charity is the worst possible crime anyone could commit.(hence why the hacker feels they have been wronged)

[FullOfFail]

There's no real rules regarding the matter, but all of us hackers will know and won't respect the person who stole it. And who's the majority of people who play hacks? More than likely; other hackers.

If somebody is lame enough to just steal somebodies work like that and claim it as their own, they probably lack the creativity to make a decent hack to begin with. So nobody would even bother to play it. Even if they wasn't aware of the whole stealing circumstance.

We've had people try to pull stunts like this in the past, but they were outcasted by the community. Haven't heard of them since, even outside of our circle.

I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, though, since I rip GFX from MegaMan X, but I always make that clear so I guess it's different. Anything else I draw myself, or is already released to the public.