AuthorTopic: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)  (Read 26224 times)

Offline Ryumaru

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1683
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • to be animated soonly
    • ChrisPariano
    • View Profile

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #30 on: February 15, 2015, 10:24:47 pm
Quote from: cyangmou
Mitch,

I downloaded your book, not for learning, but for checking out where you got your knowledge from.

You took the tutorials provided by autors like: Cure, Helm, Kiwinuptuo, Pix3m and myself as well as others who posted small tuts in the noobtorials section of Pixeljoint and posted at Pixelation.

We provided that knowledge to enhance the medium, some of us even together, but you presented all of that as your completely own work without giving credit to the sources.

You also haven't asked any of us if you may use that content, but you take money for it.

The art in the book (except the screenshots - where you added sources) is yours, but nonetheless it's plagiarism of already free content, just sorted and presented in a book.

You definitely ripped off the design of certain charts and layouts and as well as the content of various tutorialy and I can easily proove that just with side by side comparison for a big part of your book.

I will inform all others who provided tutorials which look strangely similar as in your book and will inform them that you try to make profit from our achievements.

That's illegal.

And what's even worse is that you advertise your product on the site and for the community you took from and aren't a part of  -at least you neither have a gallery here nor have you contributed anything to the comm so far.

For all others I personally would recommend to use the free tutorials already available, because what you get for your money in the book is very little new content compared with what is already there.

original post from pixeljoint, would be cool if someone could place that in one of the earlier posts, just to have it at the top of the discussion (ryu, yao, dennis or helm)

Done. Thought it was worth putting in the OP.

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #31 on: February 15, 2015, 10:25:13 pm
But this particular book isn't free and doesn't want to be free and we can't set it free, Tocky.

Offline tocky

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 503
  • Karma: +0/-1
  • doublepostokrates
    • View Profile
    • my blog

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #32 on: February 15, 2015, 10:32:45 pm
i can set anything freee so long as i get away with it

Offline 32

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 535
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • @AngusDoolan
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/19827.htm
    • View Profile

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #33 on: February 15, 2015, 10:33:45 pm
This is a shame.

We can contact a lawyer - together or every autor on it's own - it doesn't matter how much is plagiarized, there just needs to be plagiarism that's it. And that's given in that case.
We could contact the selling portal to take down the work, because it contains plagiarized material.

If it comes to a lawsuit the outcome is already pretty clear, I don't think we have to go to extremes and I am sure we can find an appropriate solution.

This is a common misunderstanding of copyright law and strictly speaking I don't believe legally there is any fault here. Plagiarism is unfortunately not really protected by copyright. I would have to read the book to be sure but unless you can clearly show that he's directly taken the work of someone else and modified it this would be considered non-infringing by my understanding.

Offline Cyangmou

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 929
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • cyangmou
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/32234.htm
    • cyangmou
    • View Profile
    • Pixwerk Homepage

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #34 on: February 15, 2015, 10:59:48 pm
unless you can clearly show that he's directly taken the work of someone else and modified it

Well luckily we can show this directly for a good third of the book, so there is no problem there.

In fact some text statments are 1:1 the same as in tutorials provided.
Even some artistical mistakes are the same as in the online sources just to take the AA example, but there are a few more)
some charts are clearly taken from sources which weren't mentioned.

That already proves that it's more than merely a coincidence.

Copyright law and law in general also depends on the country - at least for details.
In this case however one doesn't even need to look closely, because it's obvious. A quick glance over the source tutorials and the book does the job.

chapter 2, 3 and 4 off the book are clearly plagiarised from online sources - if you take all sources in account 95% of what's written in those chapters was already there. (28 sites filled with content)
practically chapter 1 (introduction) and 5 (closing tutorials) (those are 25 sites filled with content

the rest of the 67 sites are book cover/table of content etc.

Some stuff in chapter 1 and 5 would definitely count as "derivated work" or it would need a proove, if you are looking at it just from the law side, that it's plagiarized.
There are some notes in the overview below.

Just from the rough numbers more than half of the actual content of the book is plagiarized.
All the basic art knowledge which isn't related to software and is contained in the book is plagiarized.

since the books is about fundamentals and clearly advertises the fundamentals of the art the problem from the law-side is quite obvious.


For example for chapter 2/3/4:
I made a tut on game perspectives and brought examples from games plus some further links to a chart from facet with more examples and a tut by pix3m showing perspectives simplified.
In the book there are my words, words from pix3m and the same games/examples as I took for my tut and facet took for his chart.
THe actual work done was just cutting together the sources and maybe adding a line here and there - and this covers already 9 sites of the book.

Kiwis tuts are also rearranged, also mixed up with some stuff I talked about with him back then and this covers 13 more sites.

Then there is a part with Helms dithercharts which cover 2 sites more.

---

original content in the book

12 sites for the book cover, the table of content, chapter header sites etc. (can't be counted as content sites)

3 sites introduction / what is pixel art
7 sites - chapter 1 - choosing software /setting up ps for pixel-art (imo there is even a tutorial for that around) your first pixel artwork (albeit obviously inspired by my 5 tips for the beginner artist - at least structural and pix3ms what the heck is pixel art) -
11 sites - chapter 5 (which includes 2 original tutorials by the autor - one of those reminds me strongly of a car topic we had in pixelation)
1 site index (which can't really be counted as "original" content)
3 sites photoshop shortcuts (which can't really be counted as "original" content)


End of the Review.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 11:35:38 pm by Cyangmou »
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

Dev-Art
Twitter

Offline tocky

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 503
  • Karma: +0/-1
  • doublepostokrates
    • View Profile
    • my blog

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #35 on: February 15, 2015, 11:01:24 pm
we should not be ashamed to be pirates, or privateers or whateve. we must meet the pirates if we are to defeat them. they are accelerationists. everyone in hollywood pirates movies. everyone in music pirates music. we should pirate games and old art books. i will even tell you which ones to get. if we do not we will be defeated by those that will. pay for things if you must, but you have to meet these pirates

its hypocritical to be a pirate and then to turn and say, my stuff is not pirateable though

its bad for games also. but we are good at references on here. if you dont like it write your own book about how this guys book sucks, but do not tell him not to write it
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 11:06:39 pm by tocky »

Offline 32

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 535
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • @AngusDoolan
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/19827.htm
    • View Profile

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #36 on: February 15, 2015, 11:14:08 pm
-snip-

That sounds far worse than I had imagined. The first step if mitch does not take it down himself would be to contact the publisher and inform them that there has been a violation, no threats of legal action, just a notice and some evidence. If they're smart they'll pull it down without having to go through a lawyer. Of course all of you original content creators should agree whether this is the course of action to take.

To mitch30:
Quote from: https://payhip.com/terms
You warrant to us that you have the full power and authority to enter into and perform your obligations under these terms and conditions, and further that Your Digital Content does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party. If you discover that Your Digital Content is infringing on the intellectual property rights of any third party, you should immediately delete the file from your dashboard so that no further infringement takes place.

Offline yaomon17

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 660
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • YaomonKS
    • taiya.sun
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28472.htm
    • yaomon17
    • valedev
    • playvale
    • View Profile
    • portfolio

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #37 on: February 15, 2015, 11:28:43 pm
-snap-
This is beyond piracy though. This is me pirating a game and modifying it slighty and reselling it (or several games and bundling them up).

Offline DawnBringer

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 51
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #38 on: February 15, 2015, 11:40:20 pm
Ok, let every person who claims to own the copyright and/or intellectual property to a specific piece of information/knowledge step forward; with real name and contact information, and specify the contested information and provide indisputable proof that he or she is the ORIGINAL author and sole lawful proprietor of said information.

If you can't do that... you might wanna keep the legal threats at a minimum!

(I'm dying to see who among you will claim ownership of different pixelart techniques...)

Offline Cure

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 565
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/2621.htm
    • facebook.com/logantannerart
    • View Profile

Re: GAME GRAPHICS VOLUME -1: PIXEL ART TECHNIQUES (pixel art book)

Reply #39 on: February 15, 2015, 11:51:04 pm
Ok, let every person who claims to own the copyright and/or intellectual property to a specific piece of information/knowledge step forward
Very few people literally no one is making legal threats, I don't think that's the most important issue here. Let's return to your first comment- why should those of us who see the book as problematic feel "foolish?"
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 11:58:31 pm by Cure »