Gather, my children, as I tell you a tale. Once upon a time there was a small community of like-minded people who enjoyed playing with a little engine which allowed them to build and craft games like those of their youth. The small community was awed at the program, but saddened by the lack of graphics available. Indeed, they could only make medieval games and were sorely vexed, for some wished to make predictive games of the future.
The staff of the community gathered and discussed the lack of extra graphics, and lo it was decided that they might make more! So one young lass who was blessed with great talent took to her computer – crafting, sketching and wresting into being a gorgeous set of graphics that, while quite unique, still fit with the colours and feel of the older graphics.
So it was that after a time the staff of the community held up these graphics and asked that a small token be exchanged in order to use them – as it had taken much sweat, blood, tears and effort to create them and reimbursing the young lady was quite the right and proper thing to do, after all.
Thus the community rejoiced and did purchase the wonderful graphics, enjoying their beauty and ease of use. And the community grew. New faces came to them, lured in by the promise of sweet nostalgia’s kiss and desiring to create their own games. However, not all was well.
For unknown to much of the community there came disaster in the form of thieves. Bandits who pilfered the lovely gifts that the young lady – and others – had lovingly crafted.These thieves were wily, taking those pretty graphics and sharing them with others of their kind, giving them out as their own, claiming them and distributing them freely.The poor young lass was distraught. Someone had claimed her hard work as her own, but more than that! The money she used to pay her bills was being cut, due to the easy access of the resources to the public. Saddened but resigned, she carried on.
Instances of these thefts and shares were found and stopped, when they could be, but more often than not, not much could be done. And how do you think this young lady felt?Disheartened? Lackluster? Upset? Enthusiasm drowned? All these things, perhaps. When you take stuff that isn’t yours, especially when it’s small resource packs that don’t cost that much to get, you should feel like the lowest scum. Just because something is labelled as under a company, doesn’t mean that the creator of that work gets paid in full for it. In this case the money that comes to the artist is from the direct sales. It’s not a commissioned, one-time payment. It’s a dribble of money that comes in small amounts over time.
And by sharing around those resources, you are fucking over the person who made them, basically telling them that you don’t respect their hard work and that you don’t want them to make any more. When you steal product like this you’re not just screwing over that creator, but the whole community. You want resources that are different, but don’t want to pay the (rather small, compared to commissioning your own) price? Then re-evaluate your position. Time to get real! When you purchase a resource pack keep this in mind:
- You can reuse those resources over and over again without having to repay for them
- You have the license upon purchase that allows you to actually use them in a commercial game (as long as it’s on the engine they were created for) – this means you don’t have to pay extra for a license which you would have to do otherwise
- You’re helping to pay for future packs, not just the ones you bought!
- The money goes to the actual artists of the packs, not the corporation.
- They don’t cost that fucking much! You have trouble finding the money? Mow a few lawns, help clean the house, do a few odd jobs around the neighbourhood. There’s always ways to make money if you look and $5-20 isn’t that large an amount for something that you can use over and over again.
So, to those thieves who steal from any artist – but especially those who take and claim as their own or share them with other thieves on sites disreputable – you are the worst kind of art criminal!t l;dr? Assholes like the above steal from hard-working content creators who get paid by the money that comes from the sales of the works in question. And I (and others) are getting fucking sick of seeing it! Have any questions? Feel free to ask.
It’s the internet, what do you expect, people do it all the time through Torrents, and so on.
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession
I know this, but what I’m saying is, out of all the sharing that happens online cannot really be stopped, this was already attempted by shutting down Megaupload, there will always be free upload sites, and with those, there will always be thieves, I’ve had stuff taken from me as well, but over time you’ll just realize that it can’t be helped.
It doesn’t also mean that you shouldn’t make these people aware either. I know that there would be the inevitable but at least doing something about it and expressing the issues and concerns and HOW it affects artists is still something the least that we can do.
By not doing anything, the mindset defaults in, “Oh they’re not doing anything about it, so we can do whatever the hell we want.”
That message hits home. This is not like stealing music from millionaire artists or games from top companies. This is like stealing the food out of homeless person’s hand. Sadly if the stealing keeps up packs will no longer be produced and we all lose. Maybe a way for people to come forward and purchase what they stole or a discount for those that openly do not steal or admit that someone else’s work is there. Even though it is the internet, I still think there is a way to limit this type of abuse.
I struggle to understand how people think it’s okay that resources can be stolen, especially when the content on RMW store is really cheap! the amount of money that people COULD charge is 3 maybe even 4 times more! Go Liberty for the story! and thanks Archeia for sharing :)
It’s one thing using excuses like: “It’s the internet what can we do about it” if we had that kinda attitude with other online crimes such as cyber bullying and underage pornography then what kinda world do we live in?
I think people forget that behind the content that is created for the store is actual people who actually take time to create resources for you to use! I know other artists who actually refuse to do custom resources, BECAUSE of this very reason, and that is very, very sad.
Wonder how many people bought the pack I bought a couple months ago (On a completely different resource site.). Pretty sure that it’s been stolen by now, but It feels good to know that I spent 10$ on a small resource pack full of random but helpful music instead of finding a torrent site, so that way, I at least have legal licensing :3.
Well put @ original post.
The resources are even cheaper when Steam sales come around.
I know, I bought a lot of them then.