John - RIPOFF

[Yanilyn]

EDIT:
I replied on John's post about this and you can view it here: http://www.eathena.ws/board/index.php?showtopic=199632&st=45&gopid=1178082&#entry1178082

I posted about this yesterday and apparently RMS had a rollback so it disappeared along with my account. I wasn't able to check whoever posted a comment on my previous post so I deeply apologize.

Again, I'm not really sure if this is the right place to report about selling web designs using stolen RO artworks so you may move it to the appropriate section.


Beware of John, who uses Ragnarok Online artworks without permission and gains profit from it by selling them to private RO servers for their websites. Here's the link to his forum, RO-Solutions: http://www.eathena.ws/board/RO-Solutionsnet-Ro-Related-Developement-t199632.html

I found this out from my friend in deviantART that Love RO (http://lovero-gaming.net/) was using my artwork (http://yanilyn.deviantart.com/art/RO-Commission-M-and-M-63561939) and asked me if I granted them permission to use it. Here's a printscreen of their homepage with my artwork on their banner:


I immediately contacted their admin to at least credit me for the work or else to put it down completely:

Hello Christina, Salma, GM Odin and GM Tempest.

I'm Yanilyn from Deviantart and a friend of mine informed me that this RO server is using one of my artworks as a website banner without my permission.

I feel honored that you even considered using my art for your website. It's fine that you use it without asking me permission. However, AT LEAST credit me for using my own artwork.

If it's a hassle to put a CLEAR reference as the artist of that banner, please remove the art and replace it with someone else's art WITH their permission.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Yanilyn

To my surprise, they replied me with this message:

Hello yanilyn, i really didn't know it was your artwork, i asked John from ro solutions http://www.eathena.ws/board/RO-Solutionsnet-Ro-Related-Developement-t199632.html to make me a banner that matches my site and i paid $40 dollars for it. In the end i will be the one wasting money.

Although my RO artworks can be used freely without my permission, you MUST credit me for my hard work and for letting you use it. In addition, they are under the Creative Commons License which clearly indicates that these artworks are NON-COMMERCIAL, thus you may NOT use it to gain profit from others, which John has clearly violated.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization with a mission to expand private rights to create public goods, creative works set free for certain uses.

Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions.

All of Creative Commons licenses require that you give attribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

The core licensing suite will also let you mix and match conditions from the list of options below. There are a total of six Creative Commons licenses to choose from the core licensing suite.

Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only

No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

So I'm warning all private RO servers and RO artists to beware of John, who uses RO artworks without the artist's consent to provide web designs and rips off their clients for stolen works.

[Chexie]

Wierd. Rollback. Anyhoo, like i said before I found John also using Shilin's images (http://shilin.deviantart.com) and another artists work (Sent to me by someone on DA: http://maxwindy.deviantart.com/) but both of hem were informed as well. Luckily Christina was able to reply right away and inform us. Still no reply from John though. Anyone else on this forum commissioned him before? Just wondering.

Shilins Art: http://shilin.deviantart.com/art/Ragnarok-Online-Hearth-Side-92570006
Johns Commish:



Shilin: http://shilin.deviantart.com/art/Ragnarok-Online-Gucci-Girl-38319322
John:

(Not sure on Maxwindy's policies though)
MaxWindy's Art: http://maxwindy.deviantart.com/art/Bella-Herald-of-Destruction-110523977
Johns:

[Descent]

Hope you can burn this bastard, and soon. While there's nothing wrong with using your artwork under the provisions of the CCL, it IS wrong of him to profit from it.

[A92FL0163]

[sarcasm]What? A Unauthorized Artwork with little effects, text and ImageReady Animation Setting costing 40$?

Damn. I should make my life of that.[/sarcasm]

That's getting a pretty common trick isn't it?

[Scars]

The dude complaint here too, I hope I hear from Shilin again soon.. Or John can solve this.


http://www.scythero.com/forum/index.php/topic,6816.0.html



However doesn't most websites/graphics/banners rips off one another,

Example: That green haired girl above in this forum itself. I believe wasn't drawn from scratch made by yC or Iot.

Whats the actual non morally law of this?

Edit: Or really, whats the morale law people can agree on regarding copyrights for images online?

[Zone]

Quit f*** crying over art.
You did not copyright it, and if you even tried, you are not allowed to.
1. You have to pay a fee for each and every item with what you are copyrighting.
2. You cannot copyright work that is copyrighted by Gravity.
Their characters, their s***. Get the hell over it, stop crying, or get the hell out.
It's pixels, and it's depicting a character that is copyrighted by Gravity.

My god the idiots who post here.

Once you post something on the internet, you cannot say who can who cannot use it as they please unless you properly copyright it and have a proper control method for it.

Leaving yourself open with http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs31/f/2008/205/b/b/Ragnarok_Online____Hearth_Side_by_shilin.jpg
I can see it on a image sharing site, and not know who made it, and since there is no copyright, it's free to use.
It's not like they put a label on there saying they made everything, you modify an image, you use it as it's yours.

Although my RO artworks can be used freely without my permission, you MUST credit me for my hard work and for letting you use it. In addition, they are under the Creative Commons License which clearly indicates that these artworks are NON-COMMERCIAL, thus you may NOT use it to gain profit from others, which John has clearly violated.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization with a mission to expand private rights to create public goods, creative works set free for certain uses.

Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions.

All of Creative Commons licenses require that you give attribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

The core licensing suite will also let you mix and match conditions from the list of options below. There are a total of six Creative Commons licenses to choose from the core licensing suite.

Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only

No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

And so, it's fine for you to make a derivative work from Gravity's copyrighted work?
Seriously, shut the hell up.

[Guest]

zone fan art wouldn't be copyrighted by gravity since they didn't make it

its an image of their character yes, but its not theirs

[Zone]

zone fan art wouldn't be copyrighted by gravity since they didn't make it

its an image of their character yes, but its not theirs

The characters are obviously Ragnarok Online related.
The characters and classes are copyrighted by Gravity.
Artwork of their characters and classes have to be copyrighted by the company who OWNS the copyright for what it is related to.

Bottom line, unless you legally copyright your work, stop b**** and get over it.

[wireless]

Quit f*** crying over art.
You did not copyright it, and if you even tried, you are not allowed to.
1. You have to pay a fee for each and every item with what you are copyrighting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works

"copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright"

[Shinn]

zone fan art wouldn't be copyrighted by gravity since they didn't make it

its an image of their character yes, but its not theirs

he never said Gravity has copyright claims over fan-art, read it properly before you make useless spam posts will you?

You can not have copyright in favor to you if the art you created was based on someone else's art. You can only do this IF you have gotten proper legal permission from the makers it self. In this case this was not followed which automatically made it not copyright protected. I do agree that you have gotten some credit, but like I said in the feelRO post you do not have any legal rights in favor.


Regards.

[Descent]

This is what happens when people read the propaganda on RUNE.

[Zone]

Quit f*** crying over art.
You did not copyright it, and if you even tried, you are not allowed to.
1. You have to pay a fee for each and every item with what you are copyrighting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works

"copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright"

Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration (note however that when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, they continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only available for registered works).

Go ahead and try to copyright it.

Once you release something without a copyright, you cannot copyright it.
I tried it with my two albums, I released them for free, without copyright.
Now, according to the U.S. Copyright .gov site, and their webmaster, I cannot copyright them
SO, go for it. People won't care.

[Zelos]

I'm here from Odeon(slicero.net), and thank you for telling me that this artwork was stolen. I will inform the Head Administrator imediatly.

[LemonCrosswalk]

It's one thing to make a banner using fan art for your website.

When you are making a profit from other people's work that you just put a box around and text over, people get pissed. Think if someone took your server, copy and pasted it on another server and then added two npcs. After that they charged people to make each character on the server which YOU were letting people do for free.

tl;dr
Yeah people on the internet are going to steal art work to use on their sites, most except that. The art community does NOT except people making money off of their work.

[SilverStream~]

Zone, I will say this once, I don't care if I get a warning.


Shut. The. f***. Up. About. Copyright.



You know nothing about it.

Copyright is not something you must pay to obtain.
Trademarks, slogans and patents are things you must pay to own.