Warehousing sites

[BlackKnight]

Don't ownership rights automatically extend 40 years after the death of / last expression of ownership by the creator, legally speaking?

[Robert]

Only if they registered it with the copyright office in your country.

Or in a country with which your country recognises the copyrights registered in that other country.

 

There's no LEGAL obligation otherwise.

All the so-called copyright we talk about is usually only in a moral sense - it isn't legally binding.

[BlackKnight]

Copyright is legally bound at the time of the first expression of an idea. It doesn't have to be registered to be effectual.

[Inky]

well lets put it in music terms.. lets say when the beatles broke up they treated those albums like mugen characters. they'd be gone forever. and there is no way in hell the artists that created that music would want that.

 

as an artist my self I understand wanting control and credit. but to horde a creation goes against the artistic spirit. something an art teacher told me along time ago is "it only belongs to you until you've created it" meaning once the piece of art is done it really belongs to the world. kind of a hippy statement I know, but I believe it's true.

 

now I could care less if these characters get released or not. I don't mess with mugen. I'm just commenting on the underlying tone of the thread. if your art (and I am unconvinced ripping sprites and coding them for mugen is art.) is paying the bills you have more room to biatch.

 

 

as a side comment about capcom and snk saying mugen is fan art. hahah. I have a hard time believing that. every ripped sprite came from an illegal rom. somehow these illegal roms images are transformed into fan art with a sprite ripper and a txt file. O...K....

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

I agree with inky's idea though. Most creators aren't artists necessarily though.

 

But people usually just jump on the bandwagon like every person who's posted faq-text on gamefaqs.

 

Morally speaking, since you created it, it's yours. But if you haven't registered it with a copyright office, then I believe you don't care enough about your work. From a legal standpoint, if it's not an original character, it's not yours anyway. All that belongs to you is the bit of coding that went into it.

 

I myself plan to start creating MUGEN characters sometime this year. "Creating" is an overstatement since they'll be SNK sprite rips mostly, due ot SNK's sheer awesomeness. At that time, should I create a site and host them there, I will have no problem whatsoever to them being on warehouses. Because, as a creator, I create for the people. I use it as a medium to share my experience. And you know why I will do that? Because I actually thought this through and analyzed it, and I see it as nothing more than a selfish, childish, arrogant tantrum. I would know, I'm one of the most arrogant persons I know. And if they care enough about my work, they'll update their characters when they feel like it.

 

@Syn

 

"Not a valid excuse." Actually if you read what I said thoroughly, without flipping out and instantly replying with that inane line, you'd see it's validity

 

"Umm correction, I create stuff, you leech stuff. HUGE difference." Get over yourself. Reading comprehension must be rare these days... To make it clearer for you, "I have stuff to do" refers to OTHER, non-MUGEN related stuff.

 

"Um, I clearly read this post and from your view behind it, you can care less and disrespect an authors wishes." Care less? Hah... we should really grab a beer sometime, you'll be in shock after I'm done with you. Yes, so I go against their view and find their characters on warehousing sites. That's because I consider it inane. And you want to know what I do afterwards? I find that creator's web site, bookmark it and check it one or twice a week for updates. I never once will refuse to give him credit for his work, or to provide FEEDBACK. Maybe you've had some bad experiences about kiddies crying when your AI beat their Super Mega Shin Saiya-jin Akuma or something and you decided to generalize that we all whine and biatch about how crappy your work is. To quote you "logic error!" or as I like to put it "epic fail". that or your work really does suck and the kiddies found it better to moan than to provide input on why it sucks. I wouldn't know, I've never seen your work.

 

Now, on to explaining why I think this entire thing is just an arrogant tantrum. Because of pride. They put together something, regardless of how stolen it is, and all of a sudden "you're the man". Only "the man" decides when he may step down from his golden throne and present us with his gifts of great coding and sprite stitching (Orochi Kyo or some other crap like that...). Well guess, what, it all boils down to, if they're going to be asses about it, then I have nothing more I want to say to them.

[BlackKnight]

Let's work backwards...

 

I myself plan to start creating MUGEN characters sometime this year. "Creating" is an overstatement since they'll be SNK sprite rips mostly, due ot SNK's sheer awesomeness. At that time, should I create a site and host them there, I will have no problem whatsoever to them being on warehouses. Because, as a creator, I create for the people. I use it as a medium to share my experience. And you know why I will do that? Because I actually thought this through and analyzed it, and I see it as nothing more than a selfish, childish, arrogant tantrum. I would know, I'm one of the most arrogant persons I know. And if they care enough about my work, they'll update their characters when they feel like it.

I think you lost the point of what you were trying to say halfway through that.

 

Morally speaking, since you created it, it's yours. But if you haven't registered it with a copyright office, then I believe you don't care enough about your work. From a legal standpoint, if it's not an original character, it's not yours anyway. All that belongs to you is the bit of coding that went into it.

Is your argument that by devaluing the effort put into making these things that somehow less rights are entitled to their authors? Or that its cool to not care what that author thinks because 'they don't care enough about it'? As I said earlier- you don't need to register anything with a copyright office unless you specifically intend to draw financial revenue from the product, or expect contestation of copyright to be an issue. Copyright is established the moment of expression, ie. when the thing is made and released in the first place. Why should authors of MUGEN assets bother investing the time and expense registering when the copyright is theirs from the beginning?

 

From a legal standpoint, it is a derivative work and is yours. The fact that unlicensed properties were involved in its creation only affect financial gain from the product- not its ownership.

 

Most creators aren't artists necessarily though.

 

But people usually just jump on the bandwagon like every person who's posted faq-text on gamefaqs.

Nobody except self-righteous pigheads claim to make 'art'. Your inference is that if its not art, its not valuable enough to be bound by its authors wishes, correct? That's the selfish, illogical point you're making.

 

well lets put it in music terms.. lets say when the beatles broke up they treated those albums like mugen characters. they'd be gone forever. and there is no way in hell the artists that created that music would want that.

 

as an artist my self I understand wanting control and credit. but to horde a creation goes against the artistic spirit. something an art teacher told me along time ago is "it only belongs to you until you've created it" meaning once the piece of art is done it really belongs to the world. kind of a hippy statement I know, but I believe it's true.

You're missing the point of warehousing as well. Fair enough that the Beatles may not have wanted that for their music. It is still up to them though- they have the right to sell it, give it away for free, license it out or do whatever the hell they want with it. Warehousing categorically denies the creators of MUGEN assets those rights. They do not oblige themselves to necessarily even acknowledge the author, let alone any usage agreements or terms that author may have wished for.

 

 

Given Capcom's stance on this, it is all the same as Band X doing a licensed cover of a Beatles song, it finding its way onto an unauthorised Napster-like site with no fees, no DRM... nothing. You'd be saying its art, it belongs to the public and so the site should be able to host it. You'd also be saying its a derivative work and so is not really art or whatever... and that the site is still ok for hosting it. It is just as ridiculous as saying warehousing is ok, the only difference being the obvious financial reparations involved. And that is only a difference in scale- not in affect or morality.

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

How the hell did you reply so fast?

 

edit: let me answer. you extrapolate too much.

 

let me also correct the first quoted statement. thanks for pointing it out.

correction: "and you know why I will do that? Because I actually thought this whole "I don't want my characters on any other website other than my own" through and analyzed it, and I see it as nothing more than a selfish, childish, arrogant tantrum." that should clear things up.

 

"Nobody except self-righteous pigheads claim to make 'art'. Your inference is that if its not art, its not valuable enough to be bound by its authors wishes, correct? That's the selfish, illogical point you're making." don't twist my words around. that's not very nice. Where did I say that they claim to make art? Those 2 comments were stand-alone and you linked them to create a counter-argument. No true artist claims they just made a work of art. You're right, MUGEN developers shouldn't care about any of that, but if they don't, then they shouldn't also care when someone steals their work, reverse-engineers it, and creates derivate works from it, much less when it gets more widespread. Because they didn't bother to copyright it, hence they didn't bother to empower themselves with rights over their own creation.

[BlackKnight]

You posted half and hour ago.. ? Btw I'm not trying to make any of this sound personal (although I realise it does). I just think the practice really cheats the authors out of their dues. In defending that you're trying to downplay the value of the author's work, which I don't think is cool.

 

EDIT: Added to the other post- you don't need to register in order to establish copyright.

 

However, you said '"Creating" is an overstatement' with regard to MUGEN works, which is an equally pejorative way of looking at it as saying it is not art and not worth protecting. And what's wrong with GameFAQs?

[Robert]

If that were true, then everything I've ever said on this forum is automatically copyrighted to me by law - which is total crap.

 

It's only protected in a court of law if I registered it with the copyright office.

[Inky]

wall of text

You're missing the point of warehousing as well. .....

I dunno, I view a warehouse like a roms site or a skins and maps site for a FPS. should I have to go to every individual dumpers site to get a rom. perhaps the warehouses aren't doing all they can. to insure proper credit. that sounds like a mugen community problem. I dunno like I said I don't follow mugen. I can tell you there is a UT skin I created over 7 years ago under an old screen name posted on skincity. Do I care... no. did I give permission.. no. am I kinda flattered that anyone had it in the first place to submit to skincity.. yeah sure.

 

.....I just think the practice really cheats the authors out of their dues. ....

What dues? there is no money or fame in mugen. the creators dues are right there in the readme contained in the zip. hell they could code it into the character file if they are really that hard up for credit. my point is the creator is putting something on the internet and then they get mad its on the internet. how ridiculous is that? first rule of the internet is when you put something on the internet, expect it to spread out of your control. if you don't want it out there then don't release it. simple as that.

[BlackKnight]

If that were true, then everything I've ever said on this forum is automatically copyrighted to me by law - which is total crap.

 

It's only protected in a court of law if I registered it with the copyright office.

Wrong. Your full name, a C in brackets and the year is all that is needed to establish formal copyright over anything. Thus, if my name were really Black Knight, writing this...

 

© Black Knight 2008

 

...would copyright my expression of ideas in this post.

 

What dues? there is no money or fame in mugen.

Just to be accorded the respect enough to be requested permission to host their work. Nothing more than that. They deserve that much and its not a big ask. Yet somehow warehousing sites decide they 'cannot be flocked'. Apparently when authors' sites go down they mustn't answer their emails either.

 

first rule of the internet is when you put something on the internet, expect it to spread out of your control. if you don't want it out there then don't release it. simple as that.

Well, the MUGEN community's whole problem is people deciding to not release stuff and disappearing...