You are completely missing the point. When I scan something and put it on my site, it is because I want people to come to my site and enjoy my efforts. When someone just takes things from other sites without permission, then any person who sees that image is one less person that will come to my site. It means that they don't have to do any work to get visitors. So yeah, if someone rips off my scans without giving credit, I am not happy. Especially when it is IGN.Originally Posted by roushimsx
<Evan_G> i keep my games in an inaccessable crate where i can't play them
Me putting a picture of the game or its cover art online is not going to effect that games sales.How is me dumping a game I purchased and putting the ROM on the internet any different from you scanning artwork / magazine pages / books you didn't make/write/draw and distributing them illegally across the web?
You dumping this games ROM or ripping its ISO and therefore putting the actual game itself online will.
That is how it is different.
If it was illegal to put a picture/scan of a game online then IGN, MobyGames, GameCrazy, DP, RFGen, etc etc either wouldn't exist or would exist in a very different compacity.
I have to agree with Roshi on this one. The image belongs to the game developer and simply purchasing a copy of the game doesn't give a person the right to copy and distribute that image onto the internet. It really doesn't matter if you're just hosting the images on a website for others to enjoy or not. It also doesn't matter if it harms the sale of the game that it came from. They're copyrighted images and stealing is stealing. You can't cry foul about someone doing it to you if you yourself are doing it to others. Let me know when you've secured Nintendo's or Sega's permission to host the scans and then tell me how someone stole your work.
You know, I would have appreciated an email or a PM or something before you decide to drag me or my site's name through the mud.
As previously mentioned, a majority of our data is submitted by users. We also only use 200 pixel on the longest side for thumbnails which have legally met the definition of fair use under current copyright law (last time I checked at least).
Most of my NES images were sent to me via a site user who hosted the images on his personal webspace. I had and have no way of telling where they originally came from, but I can tell you definitively that VGR has not harvested images directly from RFGeneration. In instances where this occurance has happened in the past I have sought permission from the site where images have been taken and credit has been given on the site. (This happened with SMSPower a year or so back). I also have gained permission of sites such as the Mega CD Database and PCenginefx.com to use their images. I do not go around intentionally swiping pics willy-nilly.
Now, all this being said, I will gladly give RFgeneration props for any image that can be identified as theirs (or to the scan contributor directly) This is done via the site or contributor signing up for the site and me linking the user profile to the game profile.
While I understand the whole giving credit where credit is due thing, there's something to be said for fair use of copyrighted images.
Case in point: Throughout the life span of the now-defunct G.I. Joe website, Zartan's Domain, the webmaster (a guy named Rod Hannah) took literally hundreds of screen grabs from the series' 95 episodes and feature film (plus a smattering of stuff from other Joe series and even grabs from The Transformers, Jem, the Visionaries, and My Little Pony and Friends), including dozens of pans (which are a bitch to assemble, believe me). And never has he ever made a fuss about other sites using the images (and, in fact, he's given the entire collection away a number of times over the years).
I dont do the warez seen or ROMS either. And as for as credit goes it is for the SCAN. I dont scan the cover of a game and say I created the cover. x_x
You guys are so missing the point it is amazing.
And I think you're missing our point. The images being scanned are copyrighted images and the scanner most likely doesn't have the legal right to scan them and then publish them to a website. By doing so you are in fact stealing the original artist's hard work. Why don't you defend him as hard as you defend the scanners who steal his work? To complain that someone is stealing an image that you store yourself is hypocritical.You guys are so missing the point it is amazing.
I guess to me it all boils down to this one question; does the original scanner have the legal right to scan the box art and publish it to a website without the original owner or publisher's permission?
WTF are you talking about? If anything I am promoting the art work and game not stealing anything. Like I said I SCANNEDthe image didn't created the art work. Dumping ROMS is stealing. x_xAnd I think you're missing our point. The images being scanned are copyrighted images and the scanner most likely doesn't have the legal right to scan them and then publish them to a website. By doing so you are in fact stealing the original artist's hard work. Why don't you defend him as hard as you defend the scanners who steal his work?You guys are so missing the point it is amazing.
I'm sorry but you seem to have missed my last question since I edited my post after you responsed. Please answer me this;
Does the original scanner of the image have the legal (key word there) right to scan the box art and publish it to a website without the original owner or publisher's permission?
I say he does not and that by doing so he is in fact stealing someone else's work himself. These images are copyrighted for a reason you know.
Absolutely I agree fully with what your saying
that's why I don't see why others are complaining about this, it shouldn't be an issue
Just send a message to the webmaster of the site and it will be worked out but to complain about it for little or no reason makes no sense.
"With Great Power Comes Great Responisibility"
Wanting to Collect full set of Super Nintendo Games as well as Dreamcast Games.
http://users.ign.com/collection/Lothars
Scans are scans, they are a reproduction so when other sites snap them up and reuse them you're pretty much screwed. As has been said, it's a reproduction of original copyrighted arts. However most sites that republish them (other than the zillion free hosting "look at me" pages) don't want to have their userbase pissed off so gladly give credit where credit is due. This whole thing sounds like a big miscommunication.
I'm going to be setting up a database of pictures of all the games I own / have owned (I've been taking pictures of everything I've sold for a couple months now) this summer as it's frustrating when I'm looking for a picture of a game I had or need to take a fresh one to show someone something when I can't find one online. These are to be PICTURES, not scans, and each one will have a watermark but not over the actual image content. The watermark is there to help fend off direct linking to the images, I've done that in the past and when someone is direct linking I usually get an e-mail a week or so after from someone else ratting them out.
(low res sample)
My PICTURES are MY copyrighted content as they are not reproductions (scans) of the source material. Now if someone wants to use that and asks me (and I have a feeling some of the anime related games may be requested to be on other sites) then they can gladly have it as long as it's hosted on THEIR servers with the watermark intact and somewhere there's a text link to my site.
Well, so much for fair use and good will.....
While I do see your point, I dont think it has bearing on this discussion. Let's stick to the topic at hand........
There have been days where I have spent 5,6 or 7 hours scanning. Hell, then tynstar takes everything and crops it, and names it...blah,blah,blah.... Well it's time consuming and alot of man hours. So to have some "FUCKO" come along and swipe all of that hard work kind of pisses me off.
I have asked for or seeked permission of any scan or picture that we have used. If we dont get permission, then we dont use it.
"until all are one" - Optimus Prime
Link to collection:
http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/...der=Collection
R.I.P. Michael "Nepenthean" Collins
You will not be forgotten.
I've contributed scans to VGR, SS, DP and a eBay seller. They are my games and while it's a lot of work scanning and such I gave them gladly. I'm sure if you really wanted to protect your work you'd watermark it and disable right click, which I know can be defeated but helps.
Now as far as the legal issue... who knows. Would scans and photos be concidered differently? Look at all the collector sights out there (for whatever) that use images. Do they all have permission? I bet no.
It's all about site traffic. These sites have this content to increase user traffic and popularity.
This is a major motivator for the guys who take the time to scan their games for their sites. Why shouldn't they be upset when somebody shortcuts and takes their work?
Now, it may not be legally actionable when VGRebirth takes their scans without permission, but I think it's entirely appropriate for them to be called out when it's blatant and obvious.
BTW, I found the name "Optigrab" to be hilarious. I'm rather shocked they didn't just hotlink the images to save bandwidth.
You have to do your "due diligence" and protect your images. Yes, I understand that it's not a very nice thing that those guys did but, I'm saying that you didn't do anything to help prevent that sort of thing from happening. Without a watermark, logo or origin site on the image, it's almost as if your declaring the image public domain.
To those of you that are trying to take this thread down another "it's the company's rights, not yours" circle jerk, please stop. It's not anywhere on the map of the point at all.
Also to all these people saying that they have gladly given their images to many sites.
That is not the issue at hand.
I have donated plenty of my time, energy and various types of work to at least a dozen websites excluding ones i work at or have made.
I had no problem giving it to the people because i gave it.
It was not just taken without my knowledge.
Yeah it's all about site traffic...that's why I have all of the google searches and pop-ups and what-not to bring me revenueIt's all about site traffic. These sites have this content to increase user traffic and popularity.
This is a major motivator for the guys who take the time to scan their games for their sites. Why shouldn't they be upset when somebody shortcuts and takes their work?
Now, it may not be legally actionable when VGRebirth takes their scans without permission, but I think it's entirely appropriate for them to be called out when it's blatant and obvious.
BTW, I found the name "Optigrab" to be hilarious. I'm rather shocked they didn't just hotlink the images to save bandwidth.
Now in terms of Optigrab...he contributed hundreds of scans to the site before I made him staff. He also contributed typing out the box text for hundreds of other profiles. Now I will readily admit to not asking him where the scans came from, but the reality of the internet is that data trades hands freely. We use small thumbnails of boxes as identifiers for games....not as a selling point from the site. No one can use our 200 pixel wide/high shots for any functional purpose. They are too tiny for anything other than saying "your game should look like this".
In terms of hotlinking to save bandwidth...puh-lease. My site isn't exactly some fly by night, geocities hack job. I have been working on it diligently for almost 5 years with a team of coders and staffers that continually upgrade and enhance personalization and site navigation.
Somehow I think that this would be less of an issue if RFGen and their "supporters" weren't running a competing database. I've already offered to give RF credit for any scan they can prove is theirs. I've yet to have one person email me about this situation from their site. Instead they continue to rant and rave on a third party site, which in my estimation has more to do with people like anagrama saying that VGR is "head and shoulders" above other database sites than it has anything to do about images.
"I suppose that this would be less...." Let me fix that for you. It should read, "I suppose this would be less of an issue if the people who did the work of scanning the damned images would just roll over and keep their mouths shut."Somehow I think that this would be less of an issue if RFGen and their "supporters" weren't running a competing database. I've already offered to give RF credit for any scan they can prove is theirs. I've yet to have one person email me about this situation from their site.
I love how you get caught stealing and then you have the gall to try to throw mud at the people who comment on your stealing. Then you think that because you now agree to give credit for what you've already been caught stealing that this makes ammends?
You're a thief. Optistealer is admitting through his very screen name that he's a thief.
Why not just come out and admit it and apologize? You're certainly not going to win this pissing match because you're entirely in the wrong.
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