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Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 18 Feb 2014, 14:04
by Alige
While looking throughout Trello, where I deleted my account long ago, I saw that the Venetian Mask thread was missing my name as artist. However, while asking wushin to put my name as one of the authors of this spritesheet, he told me some artists were questionning my so called "art". That's why I'm pasting here the short IRC logs of my discussion with wushin.

My question is: What's up with that? I don't understand which pieces of art are being questionned about and why people think I did not do what I said I drew. I'm not here to create a debate nor bring chaos in the forum, I just want this situation clarified.
IRC wrote:[17:24] <Alige> wushin, you probably forgot to mention an artist for this mask... https://trello.com/c/M4eqlppr/83-venetian-mask-head
[17:27] <Alige> Meway indeed made the front frame... but I'm pretty sure I'm the one who did the 3 other ones (not counting the death frame).
[17:27] <Alige> And I do agree with whatever license you guys want to use, just mention my name as author.
[17:33] <wushin> Well Alige actually a number of the TMW artists that returned recently would like to talk about art theft and improper accreditation on your part
[17:33] <wushin> I was having a Chat with salmondine and Lizandra
[17:33] <wushin> than Rotenton showed up
[17:34] <wushin> Seems like you might want to check your own records as the history doesn't always appear to agree with you
[17:35] <wushin> Your more then welcome to start a forum thread to discuss it, but it appears a number of them do not agree with some of your attribution.
[17:38] <wushin> but if we go SFconservancy it won't matter
[17:38] <wushin> As I believe that requires the "project" to be sudo owned
[17:38] <wushin> but I've no problem with the authors
[17:39] <wushin> but the lists are getting long

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 18 Feb 2014, 14:06
by Lizandra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XB9IbMnxQ looping in background

Fixing ONE pixel does not make it YOUR art Alige... as it happened with my lizard helmet, here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14902&start=30 , so, no... I want to revoke your name from this item and others also, if i find that they were altered in such a similar way.

https://gitorious.org/tmw/art/source/9d ... helmet.txt 4th line...yeah, I thought so... WHAT a nerve...

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 18 Feb 2014, 14:25
by Alige
Lizandra wrote:Fixing ONE pixel does not make it YOUR art Alige...
And flame started, very nice Lizandra. Anyway, I'm not saying modifying 1 pixel makes it MY art, and not even a contributor imho. Maybe you should look back at the lizard helmet thread and see that I did (afaik) few changes, which makes me a contributor, not an author.

I consider that I can be considered being an artist when I create at least one frame from scratch, which is for example what happened for the Venetian Mask. Meway did the first frame (by extension the death frame too), and I did the two side frames from scratch, myself, thus I'm an artist.

Please do, please revoke my name as artist from some art, but you can't remove me from the contributors of these arts. Moreover, who are you to decide to revoke one's name from a license art file?

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 18 Feb 2014, 14:28
by Lizandra
Alige wrote:And flame started
...yes...as soon as you came back... anyway, my 2 cents were given. And I own a fire extinguisher.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 18 Feb 2014, 17:39
by meway
As the copyright holder of the data in question we may take note that Alige has contributed some portion of work upon its completion and may be noted as such. Again I am the copyright holder. This is petty Alige.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 03:37
by Chicka-Maria

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 16:00
by Alige
I went through the license.txt file and here is the list of the lines where I should not be mentionned:

Code: Select all

graphics/particles/pool-undyed.png (Alige, Skipy)
graphics/sprites/equipment/head/nutcrackerhat.png (Chayenne, ????, Alige, Lizandra, Salmondine)
graphics/sprites/monsters/nutcracker.png (Chayenne, ????, Alige, Lizandra, Salmondine)
graphics/sprites/monsters/sleeping-bandit.png (Alige, Skipy, V0id, Wombat)
graphics/sprites/npcs/christmastree.png (Chayenne, ????, Alige, Hal9000, Enchilado, Kekskiller, FotherJ)
graphics/sprites/npcs/xmastree-nosnow.png (Chayenne, ????, Alige, Hal9000, Enchilado, Kekskiller, FotherJ)
Though, I insist, I must be marked as contributor for the venetian mask, I made its side frames. Of course, this happened before Meway added some flowers/feathers/weird stuff on the mask, which doesn't change the fact that we can still see some of my work under it.

I hope this will help you guys and if you have any questions, feel free to ask here.
--Alige

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 18:11
by meway

Code: Select all

While is it very disturbing to see the alleged theft of original art, it is a matter between the artist whose work is being violated and the alleged violator. 

You and/or R.I.G.H.T.S. cannot legally confront an alleged violator due to the laws against harassment, slander and libel. In addition, the only recourse is to notify the original creator of the alleged violation by sending a polite, considerate email containing the URL of the alleged misuse of her copyrighted intellectual property. 

Only the original creator/writer (or there assigned agents) have the legal right to confront the alleged violator regarding copyright infringement. 

Code: Select all

Because one of the exclusive rights granted under copyright is the individual right of the copyright owner to create derivative works from their original copyrighted material.

Modifying or altering an image is infringing upon the copyright owner's rights unless expressed permission is granted or the modification falls under fair use (which is highly unlikely).

In a few court cases, a modified image was not considered infringement because the original image was no longer recognizable due to the extent and variety of the alterations.

Altering or modifying published works is strongly not recommended because most artists, writers, musicians, photographers, etc., can recognize their own work even through modifications.

Many people believe the "myth" that if they change an existing image a percentage (10%, 30%, etc.), then they can legally use the image. Be advised: that is not the law. 

Source: http://www.rightsforartists.com/copyright.html

With that said Please stop harassing this forum.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 18:12
by o11c
*their

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 18:15
by Alige
meway wrote:Please stop harassing this forum.
Please don't tempt me.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 18:20
by meway
Alige wrote:
meway wrote:Please stop harassing this forum.
Please don't tempt me.
If this is a threat against myself or the forum I'd legally advise against it.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 19:18
by Alige
meway wrote:If this is a threat against myself or the forum I'd legally advise against it.
This is no threat. And why so stressed Meway? Are you upset or did you finally reach puberty?
I'd like to point out that you're the one flaming here, I'm peaceful and calm, as always.

Make love, not war! <3

EDIT: This is slightly getting out of hand... I just wanted to clarify the situation about some wrong art accreditations. However, it seems you guys still did not grow up, sadly. Closing this thread might be a good idea.

Regards,
--Alige

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 23:19
by veryape
meway wrote:

Code: Select all

While is it very disturbing to see the alleged theft of original art, it is a matter between the artist whose work is being violated and the alleged violator. 

You and/or R.I.G.H.T.S. cannot legally confront an alleged violator due to the laws against harassment, slander and libel. In addition, the only recourse is to notify the original creator of the alleged violation by sending a polite, considerate email containing the URL of the alleged misuse of her copyrighted intellectual property. 

Only the original creator/writer (or there assigned agents) have the legal right to confront the alleged violator regarding copyright infringement. 

Code: Select all

Because one of the exclusive rights granted under copyright is the individual right of the copyright owner to create derivative works from their original copyrighted material.

Modifying or altering an image is infringing upon the copyright owner's rights unless expressed permission is granted or the modification falls under fair use (which is highly unlikely).

In a few court cases, a modified image was not considered infringement because the original image was no longer recognizable due to the extent and variety of the alterations.

Altering or modifying published works is strongly not recommended because most artists, writers, musicians, photographers, etc., can recognize their own work even through modifications.

Many people believe the "myth" that if they change an existing image a percentage (10%, 30%, etc.), then they can legally use the image. Be advised: that is not the law. 

Source: http://www.rightsforartists.com/copyright.html

With that said Please stop harassing this forum.
How does this apply to GPLv2?

https://github.com/themanaworld/tmwa-cl ... icense.txt
clearly states that the works are licensed under GPLv2. All of the above clearly talks about "The law" not "GPLv2" licensed stuff.

Alige should be credited where he has altered the image/code, it does not mention how big the changes has to be. Clearly the one who pushed the works to production thought that his finishing touches was made for the better or a version that he hadn't touch have been pushed instead. This is drama over nothing as far as I am concerned.

We can talk all we want about if GPLv2 is appropriate or not for art etc, but as is the case is quite clear cut. Read the license and act in acordance with it.

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 19 Feb 2014, 23:53
by Chay
as i see it noone denies you alige that credit, our licensing system is a bit insensitive regarding authorship vs citation. The fastest and easiest way to fix this however is to make this commit yourself alige, same goes for those lines you feel unrightfully given credit for. As for those hats and trees i did not undergo the tedious job of digging up which particular pixel of which part of the respective files was manipulated by whom... which by the way due to the lack of versioning knowledge of our artists has to depend on hearsay and forum history and is therefor not reliable.

for this to never happen again i would very much love to see people who use git for others(MouboMonster for example) do this:
git commit --author "MouboMonster <email@addre.ss>" -m "Minor fix in second child in childs.png"
git commit -m "added the fourth child to the childs.png"
(so you commit the fix then you commit your own stuff... separately)

--chay

Re: Alige "art theft and improper accreditation"

Posted: 20 Feb 2014, 00:51
by meway
The data was not accepted under GPL until it was completed. The date and time of completion was on 13.02.2014, GMT+1 [20:17:06]. Only copyright laws applied during the time Alige altered the data. The GPL only applies after the above date. And GPLV2 was never specified.

Also the item was purposely never posted on the forum due to this topic viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1177

During the creation of the data there was a stipulation that it would be licensed upon completion. I gave explicit permission to certain people to alter the data and I accepted efforts from others (alige) as I saw that those efforts were not damaging.