Artistic sense of entitlement

[aGorm]

I can't quite work out why anyone would have a problem with someone NOT allowing people to use there art/assets. The assumption that because someone does something for free would mean that you should be able to also take the art and reuse it else were is illogical, as by just releasing something for free does not make that something worthless.

For example... when I get my mod more finished, i'll release it for free. However, this doesn't mean i'll be releasing the models and textures for others to use in there projects. This is because its my IP. They're my Models, Art and Ideas.

The problem with you then taking them anyway is that it then damages my IP.

The one most people here have commented on is that if you make something crap with it, it will look bad on you... and that could be a serious problem. If there were suddenly two mods featuring bears vs robots, one of which was crap and had "UBERGINT BEAR WITH BAD NORMALS!11!" as a super unit it would tarnish my mod... (because a lot of people wont take the time to find the difference between them and will assume its one big crap project.) If then at a later date I stumble on a way to make money from my project while still releasing the game for free, those chances would be crippled by the other mod.

What people have said less on but would be just as important is if someone took the models and made a good mod with them. If this was to then become a more popular mod (due to different game play/ luck of the dice/ large friend group to lend support) it would also damage my IP, as having done all that work someone else would be seeing the benefits. If I then wanted to monetise it in some fashion it would again be much harder.

Now I'm not saying I have some super idea to make money from the mod I'm making. But for instance, if I made a spin of game (say a FPS or somthing) that wasn't for free, it would then be bad if others were using my art. I may have wrote a novel based on the game, and again other people using my art would be bad.

Maybe I would never do anything comercial with it but would just like to be able to know that my vision for my ideas was still my vision for them.

Just my thoughts, and I'm probably rambling...

aGorm

[smoth]

I think it is pretty lame to call it selfish. Honestly, it is a matter of producing work where it is really needed. While time consuming many people are capable modelers if they would just put in the time. Time is key, my time is valuable, everyone's is. With coding you have redundant tasks that largely will be the same when completed so sharing reduces redundancy. However with art work, it very much is about the personal twist put on something. Hell we have seen a large variety of ak models while they are samey each one had a unique twist.

It isn't always about glory hounding, that was really only one user. people find themselves asking, why did I have to do the work, and wonder why this lay about isn't contributing as well. Because it becomes a bigger problem, one where others are simply collecting with no contribution. IMO this goes the opposite direction of selfish because it is a concern for the over all health of the community. If some never models then he never learns and then eventually the talent pool dries up. Also seeing varied works can inspire and drive others to new levels but if they is only one guy, he is the showboat. Seems to me that wanting all the work to be yours is selfish

[PicassoCT]

When i was alot younger i had the same attitude - just because i poured hours into my work it was worth everything of value in the world. Now i i lol over my old self - which believed a place in the gaming industry was something to wish for. I was idiot back then, but some dreams have to die first, before you can start realize them- as a hobby.

[KaiserJ]

Why do you want to be asked for permission when the art is already used for free in other non-commercial project(s) and you won't benefit from denying/allowing the use?

i bought a couch for when my friends come over to hang out; its a three-seater, i don't need it all for myself. people are welcome to sit on the couch, sleep on the couch, eat on the couch. BUT. if i came home, and one of my friends was in my home unannounced using my couch, i would be pretty angry, because i hadn't been asked and hadn't given permission.

What do you think would happen if people didn't respect your desire?
(as in, what would you lose/gain/suffer etc., not the ones disrespecting it)

i almost feel like in a cooperative setting, coders have a slight advantage over artists; coders likely understand the process of creating the art (while might be unskilled at it) wheras artists probably have a less solid idea of what's going on with a game "under the hood".

by using someones models / artwork etc outside of collaboration, you're cutting a creative person out of the creative loop. this is what would piss me off the most; to know that i'd worked hard on something but been excluded from it at the same time (because quite frankly; i dont mind working and coming up with ideas; and if someone had a great game idea, i'd rather work directly to those ideas than have them take my art piecemeal and apply it in their own way; its almost impossible for someone else to execute your own artistic vision; and completely impossible for them to do it if they don't communicate with you in the first place

i've released some stuff to everyone; and other things i've kept close to the chest for mods and games. i've never denied anyone the use of my models who asks; and at the same time, when coders / modders have something i would like to use, i ask, and then, i thank.

i know you said you weren't going to respond regret but why not? lets hear what you have to say, and what motivated you to make this post. it is a discussion forum after all. some unfairness of model sharing that i was unaware of ?

[Regret]

i know you said you weren't going to respond regret but why not?

People get offended too easily, case in point look at the arguments about this threads title.

some unfairness of model sharing that i was unaware of ?

I asked because I find it curious how people keep telling others to ask for permission to do this and that, since I see no point in it myself when it comes to my work. Wanted to know their reasoning behind it.

i bought a couch for when my friends come over to hang out; its a three-seater, i don't need it all for myself. people are welcome to sit on the couch, sleep on the couch, eat on the couch. BUT. if i came home, and one of my friends was in my home unannounced using my couch, i would be pretty angry, because i hadn't been asked and hadn't given permission.

Since you asked me to respond: your hypothetical couch is not a digital resource. The example situation you provided has no relation to digital art. You can't both give it to someone and still have it yourself, i.e. you can't copy it as you can copy data.

I understand what you were trying to communicate by it though.




My take on the matter:

If you (reader) get easily offended by opinions you disagree with, read no further. This is not meant to be hostile and I find it ridiculous I even have to write this disclaimer just so I'm not perceived as the reincarnation of all evil.

I find copyright, patents and various other limitations imposed by 'intellectual property' authors to be a negative result of our current state of society, i.e. capitalism. It's sole purpose is to secure profits.

Any other motivation for protecting ones ideas/intellectual work I attribute to pride/fear/selfishness, all of which I consider limiting and negative factors of human psyche.

I think that anything that can be duplicated (and altered) in digital form at no cost should not have limits imposed upon doing so. Ideas, models, textures, code, algorithms etc.

[Hoi]

I find copyright, patents and various other limitations imposed by 'intellectual property' authors to be a negative result of our current state of society, i.e. capitalism. It's sole purpose is to secure profits.

Yes, correct. Most people are greedy dicks, all companies are greedy and dicks. The world would be a better place without that greed.

People die because they don't get vaccines or medicine that can help them because some company has a patent and refuses to produce, or doesn't produce enough. Just an example.

[KaiserJ]

i know i'm not sharing copies of my couch; its hard to make an analogy to digital works because of their nature. really thats how i feel about it though; i've never denied anyone asking for art help with a project, and were i to find that my art had been used without my knowledge, the most annoying part would be that i hadn't been included in the brainstorm, not that my work had been "thieved"

only speaking from my own perspective ofc, and i like having a bit of a hand in game design; because although im not the greatest coder i can still offer worthwhile suggestions

and i'm probably not even the best person to offer an opinion on this; i tend to thank people in my work who inspired rather than even any actual hands-on help

i guess my biggest problem with the issue is the non-collaborative nature of "thievin".

edit: w/o these licences, what would stop those capitalist, commandeering companies from just grabbing up free artwork wherever they like? as much as it hinders sharing and free use, you must admit it does allow a certain degree of "protection"

[Hoi]

While some artwork can be 'copyrighted', patents to ideas, world changing technology, etc is the problem. Humanity slows it's own progress on EVERY area down to snail speed, because we don't want to progress as humanity, the planet and species, but many, the 'big players' at least, want to progress as individual or as company.

This is the problem with capitalism. We slow down ourselves, capitalism allows us to show and use our greed to the limit.

Am I saying we should become communists? No, I'm saying we need to stop being so greedy and work together. Just like how cities became countries, countries need to become one big country, the world, with no corruption, greed and other crap.

About the grabbing free artwork thing, that is the whole problem. That shouldn't happen. Not because it is legally impossible but because people lose their greed and get some ethics.

[smoth]

Such idealism. Hey if you way to pay for my standard of living so I can just dole out "free" art, be my guest. However such art requires inspiration. It was only after skiing in banf that I felt like really having a go at northern mountains and rocky glacier (which is available to anyone) of course the tool I used to make it required a) the hardware, b) a pro copy of wm2. Of course you guys didn't have to pay any of that cost. You enjoy the benefits of the work at no cost. Because I payed it for you. The server costs money to run all of this stuff costs money. (not saying I payed for the server just saying monetary compensationis a part of the world)

[Satirik]

i guess they ask permission as a reward, so they know who uses it, the more people use it the happier they are, and it gives them some kind of power because someone ask them something, i agree it just sux, something good would be to just let anyone use it but ask them to send a notification before using it just to know

[aGorm]

Since you asked me to respond: your hypothetical couch is not a digital resource. The example situation you provided has no relation to digital art. You can't both give it to someone and still have it yourself, i.e. you can't copy it as you can copy data.

I know you said you see the point, but this in itself is slightly worrying... Say I had invented the first couch. befor that we just had floors and benches... now say I invited people over to sit on it. Now say the next day I found someone else had made 50 copies, (maybe there better, maybe there the same, maybe there crap copies.. it doesn't matter) and was selling them on. (or they were even giving them away) Now no one wants my sofas... worse still becasue I spent all my money on materials (in the modders case, normaly time) I now have no time to make enough money to make anything else that people might want.

Now... if we lived in a world were it didn't matter what I did I would still always have food and shelter, then fine. Taking the couch wouldn't matter.

But unfortunetly we live in a world were if you dont work you quickly find yourself without food and shelter (or atleast without your normal standared of living).

Therefor... Dont steal the digital couch!

aGorm

:: Final note ::
"Yes, but if you gave the mod away for free you cant sell it!"
To use the couch again... I gave away free couchs. Everyone loved them. Then they brought a matching coffee table from me. Except because everyone already had a couch, no one botherd with mine and hence no one brought a coffee table...

::EDIT:: So basicly I think I agree with Smoth? who knows, this isn't relly aimed at anyone, again just my thoughts and perspective.

[nightcold]

edit: w/o these licences, what would stop those capitalist, commandeering companies from just grabbing up free artwork wherever they like? as much as it hinders sharing and free use, you must admit it does allow aq certain degree of "protection"

ok without getting to much into my own political perspective i would like to try to debunk this

what would stop capitalist from takeing from each other???and if they can take(digital things) from each other then it becomes impossible to secure profits, it no longer becomes cost effective to make/distribute anything...since it is no longer guaranteed that you can make any money off of it....(this is why they are getting hasher and harsher when it comes to digital IP inforcement, the game industry is slowly going into a dilemma...the cost of makeing games is going up as games demand better graphics/more artist while it is harder to inforce IP and secure profits)

if only the capitalist/corperations could secure IP and the rest of us could not, then ur argument would be valid.....personaly i dont see a problem with trying to protect ur art from capitalist in today's world

i personaly admire people like smoth and agrom

[SwiftSpear]

I think it is pretty lame to call it selfish. Honestly, it is a matter of producing work where it is really needed. While time consuming many people are capable modelers if they would just put in the time. Time is key, my time is valuable, everyone's is. With coding you have redundant tasks that largely will be the same when completed so sharing reduces redundancy. However with art work, it very much is about the personal twist put on something. Hell we have seen a large variety of ak models while they are samey each one had a unique twist.

It isn't always about glory hounding, that was really only one user. people find themselves asking, why did I have to do the work, and wonder why this lay about isn't contributing as well. Because it becomes a bigger problem, one where others are simply collecting with no contribution. IMO this goes the opposite direction of selfish because it is a concern for the over all health of the community. If some never models then he never learns and then eventually the talent pool dries up. Also seeing varied works can inspire and drive others to new levels but if they is only one guy, he is the showboat. Seems to me that wanting all the work to be yours is selfish

Creating more work for the community isn't making it more healthy, generally speaking.

Especially with spring, not using standard modeling and animation protocols, any work saved is valuable, and open sourced work that can be used as a reference for someone else's own project, is worth it's weight in gold.

Ya, I'll recind my usage of the word "selfish"... it's not really selfish, it's more, you have the opportunity to be selfless, but you choose not to. I'd agree that everything that is not selfless is not necessarily selfish, there is a middle ground. It'd be too much of me to demand anyone to be selfless in that way, all the same, I respect people who are selfless in that way a little quicker and higher. Unprovoked charity is something admirable.

Seems to me that wanting all the work to be yours is selfish

This is a really bad strawman. "I want the work to belong to everyone" is not the same as "I want the work to be MINE! MWHAHAHAHAHA!"

Me personally, I would get nothing out of it if everyone here who hasn't been suddenly open sourced all the content they've been holding back. I'm not going to suddenly start furiously making a mod or something. The only thing I'd get is potential happiness at seeing new projects use that content to good use, but even that is only potential. It could all just not get used at all. Opened work doesn't become mine.

[smoth]

I released 50+ modern structures and bits, forum search for harbor set with my name. 1 map has utilized them and I made that map. Swift, what I have given to the community has seen mixed use. I can understand wanting there to be resources but the sad fact is few of them are used and many are forgotten/unusable in their current style(even thought the harbor set could easily be futured up) kaiser's legos have seen minimal use. My single most used contribution to this community has been my palm trees.

Models serve no reference to a beginner they have no idea what to look for. That is like saying a well structured n-tier app with proper use if business objects could be fully grasped by a beginning programmer working on hello world in c#.

People have to start somewhere, having pre existing stuff to learn from only helps intermediate and better modelers who have some grasp of the basics. What you will get instead is the "modeler" trying to kitbash his way through a project like fang was. In the end me sitting down and talking him through it helped him more than his kitbashing.

As far as looking at the models to see how we did things they can do that already. What they cannot see is how we use the tools. Which is where talking peeps through shit helps INFINITELY more. Which I have done for any who asked.

As far as my other statement being a strawman, no "hey, hand over your junk now" has largely been the attitude here.

[SwiftSpear]

Hench why I like you smoth :)

[smoth]

well, the problem is still that much content largely goes unused. Either way, I think that I am derailing talking about usage.

I like the idea of people sharing but feel that we should stay to the subject.

"Artistic sense of entitlement"

To me, I still do not understand why if someone works on something that person cannot call it theirs. Why should they NOT be entitled to what the worked for? OR at the very least feel that they have some command over the fruits of their labor?

We have already had 2 people(artists) come out and say largely it is about having a sense of uniqueness or identity. I think that is an important part. Like say you go to a wargaming shop. How many space marines are ultrasmurfs? most because it is easy. However there is always some guy who takes great pride in his mareens because he painted them different all green. Even though they are just the same as the other marines, it is special to his army. It is only image and all but to that player he is really proud. Next weekend a new player sees his work, loves it and copies it, showing up 2 weeks later with a very poor imitation of the original green mareens. To some degree this kills the player and makes him a bit disappointed if not angry that someone took the idea he created, an idea which had the sole purpose of making his stuff look special in a place where everything looks the same.

For us it is like that, we create a game or art to be special and have something unique.

Musicians have issues with this all the time, people steal their words. "they are just words" and all but that artist wrote genuine feelings into that. Now someone comes along and sings the same song. Maybe making it sound worse, lampooning it or even selling more copies. This is disheartening to the musician who expressed these difficult emotions in song. Why pour his heart out? so he stops writing from the heart, makes a booty butt song, makes money and leaves the industry.

[Forboding Angel]

From experience I can tell you that nothing is sacred in the music industry. Rock and the various genres therein generally are fairly respectful of one another, whereas hiphop respects no genre (not even it's own).

But in Rock music you always have some no talent assclown ripping people's shit (I.E. Kid Rock and 99% of his songs and the most blatant, "Devil without a Cause". I'm Sure Metallica was thrilled when that doucebag started off with that shit).

Hiphop is just plain bad about it though. NOTHING in hiphop is sacred except shit form the 80's and 90's, but occasionally some bitch still rips it off (Generally the males in hiphop are less douchey about ripping off shit).

Anyway, whatever.

[SwiftSpear]

From experience I can tell you that nothing is sacred in the music industry. Rock and the various genres therein generally are fairly respectful of one another, whereas hiphop respects no genre (not even it's own).

But in Rock music you always have some no talent assclown ripping people's shit (I.E. Kid Rock and 99% of his songs and the most blatant, "Devil without a Cause". I'm Sure Metallica was thrilled when that doucebag started off with that shit).

Hiphop is just plain bad about it though. NOTHING in hiphop is sacred except shit form the 80's and 90's, but occasionally some bitch still rips it off (Generally the males in hiphop are less douchey about ripping off shit).

Anyway, whatever.

Hiphop was born out of sampling culture though. All the stuff in the 80s and 90s was sampled form various jazz and contemporary artists of that time, and of the past. The good mixers make the sampling less obvious, but often, it's such an integral part of the sound they are going for that not alot can be done.

I think sampling breeds better music. You can only have so many combinations of notation, if you can swap in other instrument combinations then the world opens up to a whole range of different sounds. Remixes dominate electronic music as well, and honestly, some of the most compelling sounds out there come from that genre.

[KaiserJ]

if musicians didnt borrow and improve on others work, you'd still be listening to drums and tribal chanting. saying rock musicians don't steal stuff from other rock musicians is ridiculous; i could sit here all night writing a list of bands that i think are massive ripoffs of other bands and songs that are massive ripoffs of other songs.

if anything music related has a bearing here it's copying and sharing mp3s

[pintle]

Rock is derived from the blues, which is ALL ABOUT "ripping off other people's shit" or as I like to think of it, improvment upon standards.

You can take like 75% of rock songs and be all "yeah thats Am F C and G, Zeppelin did that better 30 years ago" it doesn't actually mean shit though.

Within the context of Spring, which survives on good will and community donations, I think respecting the motivation of the content producers, (and trying not to undermine that) should take precedence over any hypothetical morality governing licensing/reuse of work.