Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Max White]

Woah. Didn't expect the thread to take off so quickly like this.

The b12 community is known for being a little... patriotic. I mean there are few among us who would think twice about taking a bullet for Toady, so that he may continue to grace the world with he's works, so defending Dwarf fortress in the face of plagiarism is not beyond us. Sometimes a little too much, like the outrage we once saw at the emergence of minecraft, sometimes not even nearly enough, like when some jerk turns up, copies DF to an unreasonable degree, then on the b12 forums tells people to stop giving donations to Toady and donate to him instead. The point is that we will defend this game to out last drop of blood.

But, it is hard to predict the coarse of action a game will take. The music sample given was about half a minute long, with 13 seconds of DF music, not nearly a full song, so plenty of room for them to dick themselves in the eye and steal DF music outright, but also lots of room for them to do something great for themselves.

[thvaz]

But, it is hard to predict the coarse of action a game will take. The music sample given was about half a minute long, with 13 seconds of DF music, not nearly a full song, so plenty of room for them to dick themselves in the eye and steal DF music outright, but also lots of room for them to do something great for themselves.

It was 13 seconds of ripped music. Your point is moot. If they are trying do do "something great by themselves" they shouldn't associate their game with Dwarf Fortress this way.

[Max White]

And were they to add a novelty item called 'Urist's sock' then despite being 5 stolen characters, it would clearly be a tribute. So tell me, what exactly is the line between good and bad, if 13 seconds is too much?

[thvaz]

And were they to add a novelty item called 'Urist's sock' then despite being 5 stolen characters, it would clearly be a tribute. So tell me, what exactly is the line between good and bad, if 13 seconds is too much?

I will quote Capn about this:

Again, regardless if their game is good or not, regardless of if they have legal right or not, it's still a completely dickish thing to do.

This would be true only if they didn't ask permission, however.

[Angel Of Death]

Woah. Didn't expect the thread to take off so quickly like this.

The b12 community is known for being a little... patriotic

Yeah... I think we're kinda getting a reputation of being elitist arseholes.

[thvaz]

Woah. Didn't expect the thread to take off so quickly like this.

The b12 community is known for being a little... patriotic

Yeah... I think we're kinda getting a reputation of being elitist arseholes.

If being an elitist arsehole is getting angry for the use of another's work without credit and permission, you sure can bet I am an elitist arsehole.

[Angel Of Death]

Woah. Didn't expect the thread to take off so quickly like this.

The b12 community is known for being a little... patriotic

Yeah... I think we're kinda getting a reputation of being elitist arseholes.

If being an elitist arsehole is getting angry for the use of another's work without credit and permission, you sure can bet I am an elitist arsehole.

That's not being an elitist arsehole at all.

[Desdichado]

Just call it a mash-up and it's all cool.

Sometimes DF community makes me laugh, and sometimes it makes me cry. 13 seconds of theme music is not even a gameplay element and the DF theme is rather slow and mopey on its own merits, not really catchy, anyway. I turn my intro off with each new download. It's hardly what makes the game distinctive. Of course its just an homage.

[vikingefar]

Wow do you guys overreact much? I understand kazad, and to a lesser degree the fuzz about goblin camp. But this? Some of you guys are just being plain silly!



stop being silly!

[thvaz]

Wow do you guys overreact much? I understand kazad, and to a lesser degree the fuzz about goblin camp. But this? Some of you guys are just being plain silly!
stop being silly!

You are the one being silly here. There was no reason at all to make a fuss about Goblin Camp. As there wasn't with Dwarfs!. I was perfectly fine with Survivors of Ragnarok up to the point they copied DF's intro music. You can pay homages without commiting plagiarism.

Just call it a mash-up and it's all cool.

Sometimes DF community makes me laugh, and sometimes it makes me cry. 13 seconds of theme music is not even a gameplay element and the DF theme is rather slow and mopey on its own merits, not really catchy, anyway. I turn my intro off with each new download. It's hardly what makes the game distinctive. Of course its just an homage.

13 seconds of music certainly is plagiarism within the music business. The issue here, however, it is not what was happening on the thread where you took your signature.

[Aribar Hunter]

.

[Moogie]

Just so you guys are aware, I emailed Toady a couple of hours ago to ask for his opinions. Hopefully he might stop by and make some comments that would settle the matter one way or another.

I do think there are a couple of people being a little bit overzealous, but to be fair, they do have some reason to feel that way. I do think homage can be made in many more subtle/acceptable ways than re-using familiar music, for example. But if that's how they choose to distinguish (or not) themselves or their project, so be it. The only person allowed to object to it at all would be Toady, or whoever composed the music originally.

There is one thing I want to point out to the person who compared it to creating an item named "Urist's Sock", though: the difference is that 'Urist' is merely a name - and not even a main character's name, but merely a generic designation of a random dwarf - and not a piece of art such as a piece of music, or a character design, or an ingame sprite, or a texture file is. There is a difference between making a passing reference, and copying something considered iconic to the original.

[Il Palazzo]

Why this is silly:
1.You are under no obligation to defend Toady's commercial nor moral rights to his work. Making a fuss about it when he doesn't is a bad case of overzealous patriotism. Nothing good ever came out of it.
2.You do not know if any copyright breach has occurred. Maybe they contacted Toady, maybe it's not copyrighted, maybe it wouldn't pass for a copyright infringement in a court.
3.You are accusing the authors of trying to acquire financial gain by using the 13 second bit of (let's be honest, unexeptional)music, as if it were some magical compulsion tune, or extraordinary piece of art that will instantly turn every potential player into a buyer after hearing it. The only thing it can do, is remind any DF player that encounters it that indeed the authors do know DF, and are acknowledging where they got the idea for their game. The rest won't even notice.
4.Calling people dicks is always silly.

bah, ninjas.

[Moogie]

Why this is silly:
1.You are under no obligation to defend Toady's commercial nor moral rights to his work. Making a fuss about it when he doesn't is a bad case of overzealous patriotism. Nothing good ever came out of it.
2.You do not know if any copyright breach has occurred. Maybe they contacted Toady, maybe it's not copyrighted, maybe it wouldn't pass for a copyright infringement in a court.
4.Calling people dicks is always silly.

bah, ninjas.

Agreed with all, except #3, as the quality of a piece of art is fundamentally subjective and can neither qualify nor disqualify it from being acceptably used or re-used without the author's permission. But as to the rest, hear-hear!

[Max White]

Dwarf Fortress community, please grow a thicker skin. You guys and gals represent both this community and this game, especially when you post on other forums. I understand that you are very passionate about the game, but your attempts to defend it are often... Overzealous.

That was an antagonistic first post in that thread, Capntastic. You're leaping to the defense of something you know little about. How does Toady feel about this? Their developers? Why not let them hash it out?

You took some random fan's responses as the developers' answer. You continued to insult them. And in the end, because of the hostile attitude they're looking into changing it. Great job. You sure showed what the Dwarf Fortress community is like.

Edit: Punctuation.

Are... Are you Tastyrice?
I mean that was one hell of a passive aggressive bitch slap there to us all. There are some mixed opinions here, some for, some against, and some saying wait and see, but then you go and make a broad stroke statement saying "Great job. You sure showed what the Dwarf Fortress community is like." as if we are all in agreement, and we are wrong, and we are jerks for it. And not one of those things are true. Taking into account that this is the fan forums for DF, it makes you looks like a zealous dev looking to fight back.

Just so you guys are aware, I emailed Toady a couple of hours ago to ask for his opinions. Hopefully he might stop by and make some comments that would settle the matter one way or another.

I do think there are a couple of people being a little bit overzealous, but to be fair, they do have some reason to feel that way. I do think homage can be made in many more subtle/acceptable ways than re-using familiar music, for example. But if that's how they choose to distinguish (or not) themselves or their project, so be it. The only person allowed to object to it at all would be Toady, or whoever composed the music originally.

Well I don't see 13 seconds of music, out of an entire song, to be 'ripping it off', but I know my opinion isn't the only one. Capntastic and thvaz have perfectly valid points of view, and from a legal stand point might be standing on firmer ground then me, but I think Toadys opinion is the most valuable here. Maybe is is happy that somebody enjoyed he's music so much that they wanted a little piece of it? Perhaps he's music is like he's code, sacred, and not to be slung around in any game? So while we can all take our moral and legal stand points, it isn't exactly up to us.

Why this is silly:
1.You are under no obligation to defend Toady's commercial nor moral rights to his work. Making a fuss about it when he doesn't is a bad case of overzealous patriotism. Nothing good ever came out of it.
2.You do not know if any copyright breach has occurred. Maybe they contacted Toady, maybe it's not copyrighted, maybe it wouldn't pass for a copyright infringement in a court.
3.You are accusing the authors of trying to acquire financial gain by using the 13 second bit of (let's be honest, unexeptional)music, as if it were some magical compulsion tune, or extraordinary piece of art that will instantly turn every potential player into a buyer after hearing it. The only thing it can do, is remind any DF player that encounters it that indeed the authors do know DF, and are acknowledging where they got the idea for their game. The rest won't even notice.
4.Calling people dicks is always silly.

bah, ninjas.

1. If I made a game, it would make me happy for my fans to defend it, so I do on to others.
2. Thus we seek he's input.
3. Well legally they are, but in all reality, I don't think anybody will invest in this game for 13 seconds of music, so it is a fuzzy line.
4. You offend my friend Richard.