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Any original content?

A topic by Polygonien created Nov 24, 2019 Views: 1,616 Replies: 13
Viewing posts 1 to 4
(+2)(-3)

So I was looking through your vast collection of PDFs and was amazed by the size of them. It took me a moment to realise that the text is actually from Wikipedia (at least the few bigger descriptions I looked at like Alone in the Dark or D). Is there any original text in there or are all of these basically just copy & paste from Wiki, old magazines and so on? I think you should make it much clearer that this is not really your own content.

Developer (1 edit) (+4)

It is a mish-mash of different text from different places which has been somewhat patch written. I have tried to make it as clear as I can that the text is not my own. It even says copy/paste by me on the front cover on each PDF, and I have given credit under the text (excluding wikipedia).

(+2)(-5)

I see but why is it not mentioned on the itch.io page itself? To be honest it feels a bit misleading to me.

Developer(+2)

I have a preview PDF that I explicitly ask people to download before they use any money. If people would look through the first few pages they would get an idea on what this is made from. 

But I will write a sentence on the main page.

(+5)(-11)

Yeah I am pretty sure that IGN and GameFAQs and other websites would love to know that someone like you is attempting to commercially-profit from their copyrighted content.  Guarantee they will be more than happy to DMCA this out of existence along with your other 'books'.

This is a terribly gross and misleading way to rip people off.  First two pages kinda said it all.



Developer(+8)(-3)

Haha. You’re an discord admin alright, I can tell XD

Well. I can’t argue against you as you are, well, sort of right. But I still think I’m somewhat in the gray zone. It’s plagiarism. No doubt about it. But I don’t think all plagiarism is bad (like, if you take a picture of a painting in an museum. Is that plagiarism?), or how much content from a text is considered plagiarism. Taking pictures from Gamefaqs doesn’t faze me though. I don’t think they have asked Sega for permission to display Sonic covers on their site. I probably shouldn’t take money for what I “make”.  But it makes me happy when someone pays me for one of my PDFs since it gives me validation that what I “make” (I know you love it when I make quotation marks) is something worthwhile. But I like comments even more :) Even irate comments :*

On the “terribly gross and misleading way to rip people off” (which sounds a little over-aggressive... like an angry white man (haha. sorry, I knew you would hate being called that. Also sry if triggered)). It already states on the page; “Text and pictures are taken from different sources found online.” And the two pictures is also the reverse of misleading, saying that I don’t own anything in the PDF, and everyone can take from it without giving credit.

Also wondering, what do you think about the modding scene and modding commercially released games?  Is it OK if you own a physical copy? Is it OK if it’s non-profit?

Kidding aside, sorry for picking on you (it was mostly in jest), and thank you for your comment (truly). It was fun making this post as I usually don’t interact with people online (even with irlfriend. Got 3 friends on steam haha). Hopefully the project I’m working on is the last and I can finally get some sleep.

Last comment: sorry for the long post which is probably riddled with grammatical errors (just like my books :D ).  And also sorry for the overuse of brackets. I really don’t know how to formulate sentences. I’m guessing people would be happy that I don’t give a lot of text input myself.

Yours faithfully
Daniel <3

(-1)

hey man! I am wondering if you can make a physical book for the Sega genesis PDF. If so, how much would it cost. Thanks!! 

Developer(+1)(-1)

Hi. I made some of the PDFs into print books through Lulu.com, but stopped since the price of the books were to high. I don't know where the RAW files of the Sega Genesis is at the moment, but my guess is that if I did publish the PDF trough Lulu, it would probably be 100$+, which is way to much to pay for a print version of this PDF.

(+3)(-11)

Aside from the sycophants in here who keep downvoting me, there is a clear and distinct difference between the examples you provide and what you are actually doing.

If you take a picture of a painting in a museum (provided you can not get caught doing so and they don't seize your phone/camera) then they will either force you to delete it and/or take you to court for copyright infringement if you attempt to repost it anywhere online.  I don't know what museums you've been to but the ones here in the DC Metro Area (https://www.si.edu/museums) are SUPER strict when it comes to that.  They will call US Federal Police on you if you were to do something like that.  Prominent signs warn against it (constantly) so anyone caught doing so is treated as a guilty party.

GameFAQs provided one of the earliest internet sources for video game box art in a small resolution that would count as 'fair use'.  Most importantly though they did so in a non-commercial way (not even adverts on the website back then, to my knowledge).

Modding games is 'copyright infringement' in a way.  Absolutely.  However, again (under fair use) they are always done non-commercially.  Zero profit.  Anyone attempting otherwise gets VERY quickly dismantled by lawyers.

Do you see the pattern here?  Just compiling these is not much of an issue but charging money for stuff you didn't create (at all) in violation of the ACTUAL copyrights of others just makes you a terrible person.

No amount of downvoting sycophants will stop me from calling it like it is.  This isn't bloody Reddit.

Developer(+6)(-1)

Great reply 👍 A lot of debunking on my examples.

I did not know the museum stuff.  You made me feel foolish :)

You're not swaying me over with the Gamefaqs stuff. They may have had an ad free website in the past, but they don't now. Point is moot.  Some also says they don't follow the GDPR (selling your private info). Though, this may not be the case. I don't know. I just copy and paste other peoples information, it's like a disease, I can't stop.

I have nothing to add on the modding scene argument. I support and respect the modders.

I don't get your aggressive attitude. And you are very quick to blame reddit whenever someone argues with you. I don't know what happened to you at reddit, but the aggression you have against that site/community is very alarming. I'm not someone who lurk on reddit btw. No reason why. And all the downvotes? You hardly received any. And the few negative replies you got were super tame, and a little funny. Try to breathe a little through your mouth and chill out, or your will just make the net exhausting for you and the people you throw reddit insults at.

And also calling me a terrible person for charging a buck or less for some of the PDFs is a little excessive. I'm not saying that I'm not a terrible person, I confess. I am pretty terrible. But I don't think I am terrible because of this. And even though everything is copied from other places, it's not like it's a pure transcript. For most of the games I have used several different sources and written them together. It takes a very long time to make a PDF. I do everything manually. Some of the PDFs have taken hundreds of hours. And I am not making big money out of this. As of January 2018 I have made around $1500 (with a total of 272,000 downloads) I don't know if my math is correct but isn't that a little over a dollar a day?. I would think that most youtube channels who make videos on video game history are worse, or as bad, as me with taking information from other places, and regurgitating what it says. And they make a lot of money. It's ads, but it stills counts. Even the Anita chick you follow got caught doing that.

I look forward to hearing from you again (and if not, then take care and don't get offended so easily. You're a grown-up. If someone is mean on reddit (or any place else), then they are most often just a kid. Just walk away).

Love from Daniel :^*

(+8)(-14)

FYI: You can't sell something that contains copyrighted work of others and then go 'use it at your own risk'.  That's not how books work.

(+7)(-7)

You must be fun at parties.

(+5)(-4)

boo

(-2)

Move along