a sad hour

[garazdawi]

Has anyone here been following AMD and TSD? It's a real shame that smoething like this would happen to the site. I'm just hoping that sean will keep going with his comic no matter what. I don't know what made sean so stingy about copyright but I really hate to see that there are people who cannot respect him for his views.

[Aegis]

I've been following it since it first occured, and while I don't condone copyright, I think Squidi is being nothing more than a cry baby. I'd love to put it more delicatly, but I can't think of a way to do so. So, some people have decided to honour him, by using his stuff as Avatars. Hell, free publicity. From what I've seen and heard, no one has yet tried to pass the stuff off as there own. The only catch, he hasn't always been credited. Well, when working with a range of pixels equal to 75x75, it's hard to credit someone, and still have a decent image.

As for his rant a while back on pixel art design, it's BS, IMHO. He basically was saying that almost all pixel art would be infringing on his copy right, because there are only so many different variations of a pixel character. Not his intention, but that's how I saw it. I've lost a lot of respect for Squidi, especially after the whole deal with Scott Kurtz (who does PvP). While I still enjoy the comic, I do not think of him as being very professional.

[fable]

Could someone provide the rest of us with a little background in this?

[Aegis]

I'll see what I can dig up.

-EDIT-

Might be harder then I thought. I can't seem to find the news archives of what happened.

Essentially, Squidi (who does the pixel art comic A Modest Destiny, and a new one) has been going after anyone who uses his art, for whatever reason, quoting copy right law, and fair use law whenever he can, simply because he feels he isn't getting the credit for it.

The whole thing began when someone at the Penny Arcade forums used one of Squidi's characters as an Avatar. Squidi promptly contacted Gabe and Tycho, and asked them to do something about it. Remove the avatar, and penalize the forum member. Of course, Gabe and Tycho laughed it off. That's where things got nasty.

Squidi retaliated with the whole copy right law thing, sending a big letter to Penny Arcade, basically condemning them for not acting on Squidi's request. This in turn lead to the forum members of Penny Arcade send bucket loads of spam mail to Squidi.

For a while, things seemed quiet, but then Scott Kurtz (PvP online) made a comic depicting the character Francis making a web comic made of simply two pixels: A red one, and a blue one. Francis then went on to say it would make him money, because he would copy right the two pixels, thus making any webcomic that uses pixels infringing on copy right, thus allowing him to sue. Squidi took this as a personal attack, when his comic or art wasn't even mentioned.

Squidi then retaliated with a rather graphic comic (which was taken done, though not before I managed to see it) of his comic avatar urinating on Scott Kurtz's comic. Lot's a response for that one, I'll tell you that much.

Now, someone has again used Squidi's art as an Avatar, and again, Squidi has begun his rhetoric on copy right law. Basically, he is striking me as the type of person who tattled on everyone he could in class, simply because he may not have liked them. That's personal opinion though.

If anyone can fill in details I missed, it'd be apprciated, but I think I got the main gist of it all down.

[garazdawi]

I wasn't there the first two times, so I can't fill in any more details. Only that the comic is once again up, but the program that cause the downtime is still being distributed. I don't know what happened, but as long as the comic is up again it doesn't really matter...

[fable]

It would have a lot more weight if there was distinction to the artwork, but the stuff I've seen up there looks like any number of anime and anime-inspired products out there. Not that I approve of plagiarism, but that doesn't seem to be operating, here, if you know what I mean.

[garazdawi]

The thing is that AMD was mentioned in the program and squidi hadn't aproved of it's use. So the creater of the program admitted to using AMD sprites but never got the permssion of squidi to use them. Oh well, seems like the whole thing has blown over, back to reading the comic ^^

[fable]

If they did in fact mention copying the sprites, then yes, I can see the original artist's anger, despite the lack of distinction in the artwork itself. Unfortunately, the Web is a perfect medium for plagiarism, with a lot of people who don't know copyright law thinking they can get away with doing whatever they want. It doesn't quite work that way, of course. If the money and desire is available, plagiarised individuals and outfits will and have gone after those who steal their goods. Even in the case of simply reproducing someone else's work en hommage, it pays to ask first.

[Coot]

I'm so happy I made my avatar myself. It doesn't make me feel very safe though. Anyone could copy it and do Weasel knows what with it...