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They are still legally bound to either be listed as a co-author, a lower-rank author, or a full author with full acknowledgement of the previous author(s). Here it's been common practice for the author to just put your name there, at least unless they didn't copy whole chunks of gameplay from the previous movie.
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I think there's something to be said about keeping TASVideos as collaborative as possible.
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Collaboration without consent will only motivate people who don't want their work to be reused to become secretive and reclusive about it.
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The current way the site is presented is not compatible with just taking whatever you can find and post it as yours (because that's how it would look like). But if you added another "section" where you list a "mirror" of input files (links would be better instead of making local copies) that have no match on published movies, then give incentive to the authors to submit or to others to improve such files and make submissions based on those works maybe that could be seen differently.
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mklip2001 wrote:
(Oh, by the way, there is another instance I can think of with a submission of someone else's work. With Ferret Warlord's GI Joe movie, before Xipo obsoleted it, I believe Ferret Warlord's brother, Shadow Bryn, submitted that movie. However, he also had explicit permission to do so, if I recall correctly.)
Actually, this was not the case. I knew the movie could be improved but didn't want it submitted, but my brother went ahead and did so anyway; I just wasn't around to object. As it turned out, though, people liked it and it got accepted. Why wasn't this a big deal back then?
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Ferret Warlord wrote:
Actually, this was not the case. I knew the movie could be improved but didn't want it submitted, but my brother went ahead and did so anyway; I just wasn't around to object. As it turned out, though, people liked it and it got accepted. Why wasn't this a big deal back then?
Woah, that's news to us. I think everyone assumed it was with your consent back then.
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I don't know how this ended up as a copyright discussion. What FF did is not the same as copying a book and posing as your own. What FF did is more like an author still writing a book, and then having someone else take that book and publishing it but still gave credit to the author. It is not a copy and claiming to be your own work (hence not a copyright infringement). Now if veup didn't want the world to see, why would he post it on the forum. Usually someone post for a reason, for people to see. Usually if it gets recognized, the author is even more happy. Now there are cases where it doesn't want to be published, but then note so, or don't post it. This, again, is not just plain copying without giving credit. Credit was clearly given and, no surprise, veup was very happy about it.
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The reason why copyright law came up is that we were discussing the legality of distributing someone else's work (regardless of who you claim owns it). Copyright includes the right to control distribution. We just noted a situation in which having made a movie is not the same thing as wanting to see that movie get published, so "If he didn't want it published, why did he put it on the Net" is an invalid argument. People shouldn't have to plaster their work with "This is incomplete, please don't grab it and submit it" just to make certain that nobody does something they don't have permission to do anyway.
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So why post it if you can't even grab it? It's like here is my work, but don't look at it, nor touch it, not until I say so. The act of just posting it on the net is already "publishing it" really. Another example I can think of is releasing unpublished works after the author is dead. Of course there is two differences though. One, since the author is dead, you can't ever get consent, and 2, if it was unfinished, it wasn't ever posted on some public forum for people to see =p.
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Quick question for those who disagree with asking an author permission before using their work: If someone were to take your TAS and use it as an example on their website entitled "People cheating at video games", would you not mind as long as they credited you properly for the creation of the movie?
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mmbossman wrote:
Quick question for those who disagree with asking an author permission before using their work: If someone were to take your TAS and use it as an example on their website entitled "People cheating at video games", would you not mind if they credited you properly for the creation of the movie?
How about a little change to the question and instead of using 1 TAS for the example, just point to TASVideos? Basically, why not just take any already published TAS and say the same?
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Maybe no one got my point: If you do not know what the purpose for which something was created, assuming that you best know how to present that creation is both discourteous to the author and could possibly misrepresent the original meaning of the work. And with that, I guess I've said what I wanted to say, and won't argue anymore.
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There is still something to discuss because there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. Firstly, the process and result of submission and publication. Why is it that we treat it differently from putting a link up on the forum? The site effectively starts distributing content as soon as the content is available within a single link. Additionally, publishing it serves the purpose of education (to ensure that viewers see that the movie is tool-assisted, and are able to learn what it means). Secondly, the way TASVideos presents its content is unambiguous, respectful, and otherwise proper. That is, no matter what purpose the movie was created for, it is judged as a tool-assisted speedrun (superplay, whatever), the author is properly credited, and a disclaimer is put to convey the nature of the content. Could you come up with an example of a movie that was created for a purpose that makes it functionally invalid/unreachable if submitted/published here?
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Fundamentally, the way that TASVideos treats the material it publishes is beside the point. We don't have permission from the authors. That should be the end of it.
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mmbossman wrote:
Quick question for those who disagree with asking an author permission before using their work: If someone were to take your TAS and use it as an example on their website entitled "People cheating at video games", would you not mind as long as they credited you properly for the creation of the movie?
If a website in a language I didn't speak well took a TAS I made with the intent of entertaining people, I'd be flattered, especially if I were properly credited. In fact, now that I think about it, if my TAS was singled out among all others as an example of cheating I'd be kind of flattered too... Now, if either of these sites started making a lot of money as a result of using my work, then I'd be pretty pissed.
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Derakon wrote:
Fundamentally, the way that TASVideos treats the material it publishes is beside the point. We don't have permission from the authors. That should be the end of it.
You know, "this is wrong, period" is the same way of making conversation as voting No on a submission without explaining the reason.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Derakon wrote:
Fundamentally, the way that TASVideos treats the material it publishes is beside the point. We don't have permission from the authors. That should be the end of it.
Then of course you forgot what defines as permission. Just because it is submitted through a submission forum, it means you have permission from the author? I myself have not submitted a TAS, so I may be wrong on this, but I doubt this is some kind of agreement an author makes when submitting a TAS.
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In this specific case (the Tetris DS movie) one could argue that it was our right to do handle it the moment it was linked on our site. If not, I would think it would be in our right to have some kind of disclaimer along those lines.
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mmbossman wrote:
Maybe no one got my point: If you do not know what the purpose for which something was created, assuming that you best know how to present that creation is both discourteous to the author and could possibly misrepresent the original meaning of the work. And with that, I guess I've said what I wanted to say, and won't argue anymore.
Good points, but of course, as usual, there are exceptions. One example I already gave. If the author is dead. You can't get consent anymore, right? That's an extreme example. In this case, what FF did, it doesn't seem so "criminal". He tried to contact veup first, so he was being courteous. Also, the input file link was posted on a rejected TAS of the same type. So the likelihood of misrepresenting is minimal.
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So who's going to submit Glitchman's megaman run for him? It beats the published run by 30 seconds, IIRC.
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mmbossman wrote:
So who's going to submit Glitchman's megaman run for him? It beats the published run by 30 seconds, IIRC.
Sure, I'll do it. Let me ask first.
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Ugh, I side with mmbossman on this one. Submitting glitchman's movie is a slap in the face to a hard-working TASer. While nothing prevents us (legal or otherwise) from publishing movies submitted by people other than the original authors, I think this site should be above what are capable of doing. We instead, should focus on what it is right for us to do as a community. We, as a community, obviously value the effort and work put in by authors of every TAS. This value shows, because authorship of a TAS is included in every publication, and is debated when contribution is questioned. The idea is that the author is appreciated for their efforts, and given the right how to handle the movie file that they put their hard work into. Bisqwit set this forward when he asked administrators to NOT edit submission text, as that is a fundamental part of the authorship of TASes. All I hear from this thread is what we are capable of, legally. We are a community, and we should have at least some basic set of values that we adhere to. The author and his/her contribution should be valued by allowing only him/her to submit the movie.
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DarkKobold wrote:
Ugh, I side with mmbossman on this one. Submitting glitchman's movie is a slap in the face to a hard-working TASer.
I don't think mmbossman is saying submitting glitchman's movie is a slap in the face. He was suggesting someone should submit it!
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Aktan wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
So who's going to submit Glitchman's megaman run for him? It beats the published run by 30 seconds, IIRC.
Sure, I'll do it. Let me ask first.
So we have a policy to accept whatever version beats the current TAS? This sure won't drive people to go that extra mile and get it as perfect as possible. I especially think it a horrible idea considering that Glitchman plans on making a lot better version, both more optimized and with more new strategies. Publishing it would only take away some of the awesomeness the final movie has to offer. I state again, posting a wip/testrun on the forum is not the same as submitting a run... sure, it can both be seen by everyone, but posting it at a regular topic in the forum and not as a submission is done for a reason. Although I think even asking is a bad idea, at least you are asking first. If you ask, hopefully you will wait for an answer first. If we allow people submitting TASes without the author's consent, we shouldn't be against people making a site of their own and posting all of the content here also. I personally wouldn't like it at all if someone took my TASes and posted them on their site without asking me.
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Baxter wrote:
Aktan wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
So who's going to submit Glitchman's megaman run for him? It beats the published run by 30 seconds, IIRC.
Sure, I'll do it. Let me ask first.
So we have a policy to accept whatever version beats the current TAS? This sure won't drive people to go that extra mile and get it as perfect as possible. I especially think it a horrible idea considering that Glitchman plans on making a lot better version, both more optimized and with more new strategies. Publishing it would only take away some of the awesomeness the final movie has to offer. I state again, posting a wip/testrun on the forum is not the same as submitting a run... sure, it can both be seen by everyone, but posting it at a regular topic in the forum and not as a submission is done for a reason. Although I think even asking is a bad idea, at least you are asking first. If you ask, hopefully you will wait for an answer first. If we allow people submitting TASes without the author's consent, we shouldn't be against people making a site of their own and posting all of the content here also. I personally wouldn't like it at all if someone took my TASes and posted them on their site without asking me.
Oh? It is a WIP? I didn't know that, why didn't you mention it mmbossman? I'll PM Glitchman it was a mistake.