Is stealing sprites OK? (judging from the stolen trees)

[Zhall]

Marked for deletion.

[Transportman]

For personal use it is a very light shade of gray as nobody is going to find out, but when distributing it can become a very dark shade of gray as you don't have the rights to those graphics. But if the company that owns the rights is bankrupt (and has already been for some years), I doubt anyone cares about those rights.

[FLHerne]

Edit: It's more like.. borrowing... Openttd got away with it forever...

No, OpenTTD has never violated the license of anyone's sprites. It makes use of the original base graphics set, but without modifying it, and those graphics are not distributed with the game and must be copied by the user from the original game disk*.

*If users choose to download it and violate the license that's their problem and not OTTD's.


I personally believe that using others' sprites just for your own use is fine, but not sending them to other people. Not a legal thing, just what I think.

[Alberth]

It's not like I would be trying to make money off of it, I just want to be able to use them as a graphics set for my personal games.

Note that you cannot give your save games to someone else either, since a savegame needs the newgrf files, which contain the sprites that you are not going to distribute.

As for using those sprites, technically you are always stealing. Maybe nobody cares now, but that doesn't mean much for the future.

Personally, I don't like people to steal from me, so I don't steal from other people.

Edit: It's more like.. borrowing... Openttd got away with it forever...

As FLHerne already said, we didn't and don't, at least as far as we know. If you have proof otherwise, we'd like to know, so we can fix it.

[ISA]

Stolen trees were stolen from somewhere..

They were never "stolen" as far as I know. The name stolen trees came from the coder (whos name I don't remember) who coded the first set of those trees into working .grf. They were "stolen trees" because the coder didn't ask permission from author (SAC) to use the sprites to put into .grf... he/she just cut them together and post the first version (.grf) of it here somewhere!
Other words! Those trees are made by SAC, not stolen from other game/s

Edit: The whole story

[kamnet]

The company that owns the game is bankrupt, and was bought up by another bankrupt company... So I doubt anyone will care.

Somebody still owns the rights to those graphics. However, they may also decide that if they're no longer going to market it, they can give them away. What's the game and what company last owned it? It can't hurt to ask them for permission.

[Kogut]

For personal use it is a very light shade of gray as nobody is going to find out

It depends on country. In Poland it is perfectly legal to obtain for private use copyrighted images, music, movies etc (but not programs). (reference: http://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/poniedzia ... internetu/ ).

[Zhall]

The company that owns the game is bankrupt, and was bought up by another bankrupt company... So I doubt anyone will care.

Somebody still owns the rights to those graphics. However, they may also decide that if they're no longer going to market it, they can give them away. What's the game and what company last owned it? It can't hurt to ask them for permission.

It's an old game called Industry Giant.. The wiki wasn't clear as to who even owns it now, and it's been through so many acquisitions that they likely don't even know they own it.

[kamnet]

Looks to me like it all belongs to the former JoWooD, which is now in the hands of Nordic Games. JoWooD was also the publisher for Transport Giant as well. As old as the properties are, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any focus on reviving those games, I'd say shoot 'em an e-mail and see what response you get. Let 'em know there's a development community here that would be interested in re-using their work with permission.

[Zhall]

Looks to me like it all belongs to the former JoWooD, which is now in the hands of Nordic Games. JoWooD was also the publisher for Transport Giant as well. As old as the properties are, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any focus on reviving those games, I'd say shoot 'em an e-mail and see what response you get. Let 'em know there's a development community here that would be interested in re-using their work with permission.

Email nordic? Jowood's website went dark 2 years ago. I had visited it before.. but its gone now

Jowood filed bankruptcy in 2011.

[kamnet]

Right, and Nordic bought all their assets. So, yeah, contact Nordic.

[wallyweb]

When a company gos bankrupt a trustee is appointed and all the assets are sold off. Somebody somewhere bought those properties probably for pennies on the dollar. The safest thing is to lift the sprites for your own personal use and do not redistribute in any manner whatsoever. It is quite possible that only the code was involved and the sprites' copyright remained with or reverted to the original artist(s). Are you able to identify who the artists were?

[doktorhonig]

Hm, I could knock at their door and ask, they got a new address even closer to my home...

[YNM]

It's still stealing if you don't get a permission to do it from the proper owner.

Borrowing ? No, I don't think that you can borrow tens to hundreds of dozens electric sparks (that's what files are at their most basic physical appearence, right ?)

OpenTTD doesn't do it - it just show those sprites to the players as far as the game's .exe concerned. Legality depends on how did the user obtained it (it's kinda like the position of GApps wrt to custom rom - the custom rom just runs it, it has no idea on how you obtain it).

[Zhall]

It's still stealing if you don't get a permission to do it from the proper owner.

Borrowing ? No, I don't think that you can borrow tens to hundreds of dozens OF electric sparks (that's what files are at their most basic physical appearence, right ?)

OpenTTD doesn't do it - it just show those sprites to the players as far as the game's .exe concerned. Legality depends on how did the user obtained it (it's kinda like the position of GApps wrt to custom rom - the custom rom just runs it, it has no idea on how you obtain it).

You missed an OF.

Lol.

Ill send nordic an email asking it they consider it abandonware.

If so, then it's not stealing at that point?

[Zhall]

http://www.nordicgames.at/index.php/contact

Under related product Industry giant 1 and 2 are NOT listed. I wonder if they even know they have the rights to them...

Ill send them an email and see what they say.


Hey Nordic Games,

I represent the modding community over at www.tt-forums.net

We continue to play the game Transport Empire made by JoWooD to this day.

JoWooD also made Industry Giant 1 and 2, and I don't see that on your related product menu, is this a product that you no longer support? Would you consider it abandonware?

We are asking permission to use the sprites and sfx from the game [Industry Giant 1] in another game, giving new life to work that almost no one can see and appreciate.

We are fully willing to give credit to anyone you specify.

This could potentially bring more people to nordic games, seeing that their assets were used in a mod for our game, and people will see that Nordic made it possible.

Thanks,
Brian Esquivel

lawl, we'll see what they say.

Probably around the lines of you cant use our product that we don't even know exists..

[Hyronymus]

I represent the modding community over at http://www.tt-forums.net

Thanks for framing me into this.

[Zhall]

I represent the modding community over at http://www.tt-forums.net

Thanks for framing me into this.

I'm sorry

I didn't know you wanted to be a part of my shenigans/partner in crime. lol

On other note...

I took a Crash course in making newgrfs, and was able to edit the NML template to feature a truck from the game.

I also changed the speed to what it is in the game, and it seems to match well.

I had an issue with the palette, and quickly found the photoshop png .act file I needed.

Going to try to get team colors working, will have to sift thru some documentation of palettes for that. (they baked their team colors, which is sad)

Did a slop job of clearing out the image that was already on the sprite sheet, so there's spots of team color and flashing bits.

The source sprites are like 2-4 pixels wider/taller than the template, can I make the sprite sheet bigger to compensate? Resizing the sprite sorta ruins it.

Edit: Maybe I should look into doing 32 bpp so that they aren't so massive on the roads?

And so it begins.. my slow conversion of openttd into industry giant 3.. lawl

[Core Xii]

Would you consider it abandonware?

Abandonware isn't actually a legal term, by the way. Something being considered abandonware grants you no additional permissions.

[YNM]

I represent the modding community over at http://www.tt-forums.net

Now the replies is either to you or to one of the forum founder...

EDIT : Those trucks looks fine anyway, but please, no distributions other than to yourself !