Protect Your Artwork! - Public Announcement

#1

JohnMH here. I normally don’t try to do something like this, especially when it comes to breaching what a certain topic should be about, but I want to make this very public, as it’s absolutely needed, in my opinion.

Get protection for your artwork!

Private Servers are at an all time high when it comes to stealing sprites. Not just from Prod or other Private Servers, but from the Ideas Section itself. This has been verified in the past by people like Santeripe, pepus, myself and CrystalPX. It is now affecting people like Aurusenth, Aurum and possibly others that are around here. It’s becoming more and more of an issue, and I don’t want to have you guys deal with having the sprites you worked hard on being stolen by someone too lazy or lacking responsibility to make their own artwork.

I’ll try and look for something to make it easy to have protections for your artwork, but to start off, I highly suggest trying watermarks for your work. It goes a long way, trust me. I hope you guys don’t lose your creativity or your drive to make sprites. That’s the entire reason I’m being so forward about everything.

Sincerely,
JohnMH / DreamIess






Update:

I’ve looked through a lot of stuff in the one particular Private Server that I made this post because of, and what myself and many others saw was a huge collection of stolen sprites ranging from that of Private Servers, to countless items from DECA and the UG(I.E. a LOT of the ST Sets from @Aurum as well as all alien items and even some things from Bella and other very recent things), to even things that were posted exclusively to here(I.E. @Pepus’ Pirate set, or things from @Santeripe’s Occultist). It’s despicable.

I would especially work on getting protection for your sprite work if not before. Some Private Servers hold no shame for their actions and you need to be prepared to act accordingly, unfortunately.

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Update #2:

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Their staff is just as bad. At least one of them (name censored) is trying to help solve the issue. Also, normally I would have an issue with making names like these public, but if you have the audacity to condone theft, then…

#2

Had this happen to me once. Didn’t think much of it because it wasn’t really a big masterpiece or anything, plus the guy (even though he took it without asking) was at least kind enough to tell me that he used it for his server. But I can completely see how upsetting it would be if there was something big you made (eg. multiple skin spritesheets, equipment sets, maybe even dungeon ideas) and someone snatches it without your permission.

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Keep your work safe, artists. :lock:

#3

definitely a thing, they’ll even try to claim that the original artist is the one that stole their sprites, a friend of mine that does a lot of sprite work has run into his sprites being used with really gross looking colour changes lmao

#4

“I was in your friend’s house robbing him, and I saw something that was yours there, too. Because it was also in his house, I saw nothing wrong with stealing your stuff as well. Why are you mad? It’s just like I was stealing his stuff, so it’s completely justified!”

What a scumbag.

#5

Their pserver logic revolves around taking someone’s sprites and acting like the person who made them has to prove they made them before they’re removed instead of just asking for permission, as if they’re entitled to use whatever they find.

It’s all around scummy, especially when you consider they haven’t even informed the original creator that your taking their sprites in the first place. It’s almost as if they don’t want the original creators to know their sprites are being stolen in the first place. :thinking:

#6

Yeah Tidan is generally known as a piece of scum, he’s been doing this for a while.
It’s hard to know when your sprites are used because that requires you to play that filth-dump of a server.

#7

We’ve got even more information on the situation, how fun.

#8

How hard it would be to ask for permission first smh, a lot of spriters would agree anyway.
I’m actually curious if they stolen any of mine sprites. Since we can’t talk about pservers can i just ask if it’s up?

Edit: Bruh found 2 so far XD

Edit2: Someone checked sprite sheet for me, only these 2 were stolen lightningc Soul's%20husk%20b

#9

only reason that guy’s acting all high and mighty is because more than 20 people play his shitty pserver

#10

Owo just had a look and it has all the skins free. Is that common for pservers?

[I will miss Wind Flower]

#11

No clue. Don’t really care either, probably just more stolen sprites.

#12

Seen it in 3 other pservers, seems common

#13

Unfortunately, yes. The intention of these private servers is often to augment players’ satisfaction by inflating rare achievements like event whites and (you guessed it) player skins. Compared to the slow-paced RotMG, this results in many people being happy, and this is how private servers succeed. Basically a dream version of the OG, but right beneath the fantasy is pure rubbish.

#14

Don’t forget items that make your Sword of Splendor look like a rubber ducky in comparison due to the sheer absurdly high stats they have.

#15

lmao

#16

lmao

#17

Now I really want to check if they actually used any of my sprites… is someone able to send me invite to their disc? (Valeforthe#2222)

#18

A pserver asked if they could use one of my sprites.

I’m fine with it as long as they ask. At least it’s getting some use.

#19

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Nobody will steal this artwork! -_-

#20

You thought wrong buddy