Official theft?
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Official RO servers turned blatant thieves? Custom sprites from the Japanese and Chinese communities are being ripped off by a Gravity affiliate. Oh the humanity!
Just a note…this post has nothing to do with the legality of Private RO Servers, though it slightly starts that way. Please ignore that part. This post has everything to do with art theft.
Private servers have been seen by non-supporters as thieves of the game Ragnarok Online. While yes, private servers are running against the terms of the game’s creators, they are not taking credit for the game which Gravity owns. Most servers state that the game is copyrighted by the proper people. I do not feel this is stealing, just running the game illegally. All content has been gained legally. It is the way it is used that is illegal.A private server in many cases, or at least mine and some other small customized servers, is more similar to fan art than theft. The software we use is an emulation, not the real thing. The client side content is available straight from the official website of the game. I make custom content for the server for fun (and usually in the form of sprite/graphic art).I make nor receive money from the server I run with my boyfriend. Those who do make money I feel are real thieves. They are selling property which is not their own. Many of them also sell the custom sprites made by private server members (and in cases like this, they often take credit for the hard work of others because not everyone is familiar with unofficial work). It’s not fun to have your work ripped off and sold. I feel this about any private party or company alike.
Theft is a big issue in the private server world, unfortunately. I have seen many servers who have ripped my server’s exclusive content and claimed they made it, edited it to their liking, sold it, etc. Fortunately, all these people tend to be little kids who have no lives.
But what happens when the thievery is coming from a company? LevelUp! Games is the company licensed to run the official Ragnarok Online server of the Philippines. To me they always seemed like a private server turned official by paying a butt-load of cash. Their site is very unprofessional looking compared to the other countries. Anyway, that’s not important. Let’s stop the rambling.
Philippines Ragnarok Online has blatantly stolen from private artists! Please, look at this image:
The bottom row shows the original sprites made by private artists. They have been around since before I started sprite art, over 3 years ago. These “official” sprites have only been added this year.
Yes, there are differences, but not near enough. The cat is fully ripped off. They animated the headgear but the art is not theirs. The dark helmet with wings, only the wings have been changed. The bunny hat, well the ears are different, but there was a custom version that looked exactly like the official one (I was just not able to get an image). But even so if you look at the hat, ribbon, and flower, they are the same pixels. The horns, again I was unable to get a picture of the original custom sprite, but was able to get an image of the NPC wearing the horns.
Gravity has been known to use private servers for ideas. Many of their sprite ideas are quite similar to custom sprites that have been out for many years. I praise them for that. There is nothing better than going to your fan base, including those who are illegally running your game, and getting ideas (practically suggestions) from them. But this is absurd! I do not blame Gravity. They may have no idea this has happened. I would be interested to hear their story, though.
Now, if they had had permission from the artists, and given them the credit for the art, it would not be a problem. Maybe even pay the artist for their hard work, because now they are selling them in their online shop! http://levelupgames.ph/newhgear/newhgear.html
None of these works of art are mine. If they had taken my original work (not my edits of their work, but my original stuff) I would certainly be contacting them. I wouldn’t mind them using it, but I’d want some kinda of compensation you know ;p But I think it would be awesome to see my work in the official version of such a popular game!
But what do you do when a company is blatantly stealing from artists?? How can you sue someone who you have been illegally running a copy of their game? Even many members of the official server have recognized those as private sprites!
It is interesting how Gravity has taken some of the sprite work that many artist have done for the use in private servers. However, I think that even though we are doing something illegally. In a way private servers have opened the door to Gravity to new ideas to help improve Ragnarok Online. IT is such a great game and maybe Gravity needs the private servers, as private servers need gravity. With no game there wouldn’t be any private server.
Very interesting post! :O I didn’t knew that gravity took some sprites of a private server.
This is pretty funny, not the fact that Gravity is maybe tweaking up old sprites, but didn’t you ever wonder if gravity already had these done before the private servers made ‘em? Or better fact, maybe they gotten the OK from the artist, so he/she just tweaked it up so it doesn’t clash with whats out there. Or maybe the Japanese artist took those ideas from some else who DOESN’T CARE or DOESN’T KNOW the work was posted on their site to begin with and then slowly expanded or Maybe someone from gravity stole them then posted them and got fired…anyways I can come up a million possible reasons how or who ended up getting what but that isn’t the idea of this post…
Think about it and look at what your showing and saying.
The work you posted that gravity made is clearly MUCH better then this so called original private server. But where did those sprites come from? Even if a Japanese artist claimed it was theirs or even you, the end result would be pointless seeing how Gravity still tweaked it to make it look better and it would end up being theirs. It’s called creating works from derivative content, and it’s legal(sadly).
Even if they hold copyrights, gravity never used the SAME design to the fullest…plus the person who made it would be in more trouble because they made it for an illegal purpose, and messing with gravity’s files which in their user agreements state you shouldn’t ever do.
Those .SPR and .ACT files were created by gravity’s encoders at that time, so grf and those formats are their copyrights as well, so creating content under that file extension is still illegal unless it’s FOR GRAVITY TO USE or their licensed holders.
The other thing that amazes me about this post, is how they ended up animating the white cat. It’s so cute, even when you die, it dies! X___X
Clearly gravity didn’t STEAL any work, and let’s say they did OK? Obviously they still put efforts in making it look nice regardless of the difference.
Look at the Rune Knight? Now it rides a dragon mount which we all seen from other private servers…it’s an idea, it’s a concept…No one can claim it’s theirs because gravity still tweaked the idea, the sprites, giving it armor and a new class to ride it.
I mean, I’ve seen private servers with Arch Bishop as their classes for names, WAY BEFORE the new jobs. And heck now there is gonna be riding mechas which we all seen…so really…there isn’t anything to do about it, there’s nothing to complain about besides support the game if you truly love it.
So as the guy said above me, If there wasn’t any private servers there might not be any official server, it’s true but also if people didn’t breach the user agreements and made their own custom junk NO ONE WOULD care of the content Gravity is releasing. Artist, need to stop trying to make custom things for a game that is already a success expecting they can get some easy cash by hoping they’ll use their content, instead why don’t you go out there and try to make your own comic or game…unless you don’t care that MAYBE the owners are going to end up taking it.
Seriously, IF Gravity was at fault here,or any time before…don’t you think they’d be out of business by now, or along time ago? Clearly it’s the hackers fault for leaking the info to the artist, to make junk so that gravity CAN freely use it. (because you breached their agreements)
Look, I live in the Philippines, and I saw these new sprites being released…At 1st I was shocked cause I was like whoa wait I think I seen these before. But after awhile playing with them buying them etc. I’ve seen that Gravity isn’t taking the work entirely…pRO has been releasing A LOT of new headgear’s that normal servers don’t get like Anubis Headgear, I NEVER SEEN THAT ON A PRIVATE SERVER, or MASK OF IFRIT, ETC. Ever since those few similar designs we been seeing a lot of fresh new content. Anyways, best of luck to anyone who is trying to sue gravity for stolen work, really it’s not stolen, if you posted it on your site, your just asking for someone to take it and tweak it regardless of what you state on your site, your still in the wrong for ripping the RO resource files in the 1st place, and making it for private servers, Etc. A true Winning situation is make the file, save it, copyright it, and never release it to the public! Then you got a case.
Bye bye – ROK ON GUYZ!