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Butter, direct from the cow's nipples
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JSzczep



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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Location: On a trampoline

PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:34 pm    Post subject: Butter, direct from the cow's nipples Reply with quote

Close, perhaps? This topic has run its course of being usefull.

Last edited by JSzczep on Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:40 am; edited 1 time in total
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the entire practice is retarded, but if you can explain to me how another website displaying images which are owned by neither you nor your contributor somehow adversely affects either of you, I may reconsider. And then maybe I'll put DUMPED BY LOST LEVELS on the title screen of all of our hosted games because it's the same fucking thing.
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JSzczep



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think it really adversely affects either of us, or websites who don't do it. But it's the ego thing again.

You spend time and effort acquiring screens, and lovingly put them online for people to see. Then other sites, or even print publications, simply take them and then use these themselves. Sometimes claiming it was they who took them, but seldomly if ever giving credit. Sometimes other sites will actually watermark them as their own.

It... leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. I didn't lose anything by it the last time, LOST LEVELS GO TO WEBSITEbut it didn't feel right. I'm not selfless enough to altruistically just give things a way. Which is why I like crediting people for things. I expect it, so I assume others do as well.


Funny you should mention LL, since I was wondering that very thing today. How none of your screens/photos are watermarked (though a few are actually magazine scans, which isn't something worth watermarking), and your games don't have splash screens added.

You won't like what I'm about to say here... But adding splash screens is what I'd do if I was Frank Cifaldi!

Isn't that why you added a txt file with the SMWW dump, so people knew it was adaml, linlhutz and TheRedEye who were involved?


But the same question aUNRELEASEDGAMESANDMORE GO TO LOSTLEVELS DON'T STEAL THISpplies to massive websites too. Why do IGN, and all the others, watermark absolutely every piece of media they have online?

I guess it's a way of maintaining control over something, others won't want to use watermarked images, and even if they did, it would still show that others deserve the credit.
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Smeg
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JSzczep wrote:
You won't like what I'm about to say here... But adding splash screens is what I'd do if I was Frank Cifaldi!


Man why are you even here? You obviously don't get it.
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KlarthAilerion
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JSzczep wrote:
it would still show that others deserve the credit.


Credit for what?
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nixon
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Who gives a fuck about credit for things like screenshots? So some kid "steals" them and puts them up on his site. Oh no!!!

As far as I'm concerned, the people here at lost levels have given thousands of dollars of their own money to aquire and preserve games that would have never seen the light of day if they had been aquired by "collectors" and their egos. Are you wanting to become a screenshot butter fattie?

I think back to the NES manual scanning project. The people who put it together did an incredible amount of work getting the manuals scanned and put into a HQ PDF format. Was there any watermarking on them? No. Why? They wanted people to use them and come up with creative uses. Did they care if they got credit? They thought it might be nice, but it wasn't what they were trying to do.
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JSzczep



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Relax gentlemen. I was simply asking for people's general opinions. It's nothing to get excited about. Well, not too excited anyway.
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James



Joined: 09 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

THE BUTTER

THE BUTTER


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James



Joined: 09 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

More seriously: how many times have you relied on the free release of information, screenshots or protos to get an article? How much do you rely on guys like Frank to disseminate information freely so you can sell articles to the retro press? You'd maaaaybe have a case if it was something you createc, like Chris Senn's textures, but even he watermarks so as to avoid blocking out the information (which is more or less impossible on a screengrab)

I mean come on, earlier today you were talking about looking to hoard the US localisation of Rent-a-Hero. For what purpose? Who benefits at the end? Physical media degrades and takes the information down with it, so at the end of the day all that disk will ever truly be worth is as a tropy (just like fine wine will turn to vinegar piss if you leave it too long - drink the fucker and keep the bottle as a memory). One day every single NES board will be unreadable, making every single NES prototype's worth based on it's status as a physical artifact, not it's dumping status (and if that image hasn't been released to public domain it simply isn't safe). The arguement has been played out time and time again and it all comes down to greed - not something you want to get too involved in if you're on the hunt for leads.

Stare too long into the milk churn and the milk churn states back
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You've been hanging around the assembler forums too much. If you think having information on videogames you had no creative part of gives you some sort of fucking "street cred" on the INTERNET you should probably reevaluate your life.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to reencode these MP3s because I forgot to yell "MY NAME IS FRANK AND I ENCODED THESE COPYRIGHT THE RED EYE" in the middle of every song.
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PopaSmear
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JSzczep wrote:

You won't like what I'm about to say here... But adding splash screens is what I'd do if I was Frank Cifaldi!


If you were Frank Cifaldi there would be no Lost Levels. The whole concept grew out of Fefea, which grew out of hating shit like watermarks and hoarding.

Also, if you were Frank, I would not have let you sleep on my fouton when you came up to Seattle.
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PopaSmear wrote:

Also, if you were Frank, I would not have let you sleep on my fouton when you came up to Seattle.


Speaking of, May is a remote possibility.
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Going back to the original question:

JSzczep wrote:
What is the unwritten rules of etiquette that all unreleased-game-screen-providers live by?

Using Lost Levels, Snes Central, Grand Nestral Station, and my own personal site as examples, I can say etiquette amounts to no watermarks at all.
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adaml
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If I had my own site I would watermark everything. I would even have watermarks on the watermarks. This would blast my street cred into the stratosphere.
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Ichiban Crush
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheRedEye wrote:
Now if you'll excuse me I have to reencode these MP3s because I forgot to yell "MY NAME IS FRANK AND I ENCODED THESE COPYRIGHT THE RED EYE" in the middle of every song.


Don't give me more wrong ideas, because I'm tempted to do that.

But yeah, on topic. Really. Don't be that guy, and don't worry about that guy. Things are either simple, or just BUTTER. And you don't want butter. Clogs up the arteries.
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kap
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I ran a pretty fucking massive and somewhat popular image (and other shit) dump site for several years, and during that time I never watermarked a goddamn thing. In fact, people would, unsolicited, email me shit to put online that had watermarks from other sites, and I put them up if they were interesting enough.

Watermarking is fucking retarded and takes away from the image itself. I can understand a service like the AP watermarking their images since they actually take them with their own cameras and actually own the copyrights to the image, but I feel strongly that it takes away from the image itself. People watermarking scans or screenshots is ridiculous, no matter if you did the scanning or watermarking yourself, because it just isn't your content (unless of course youre homebrewing your own wacky shit, like that GTA NES game). You may have done the work, but it still makes you a douchebag to watermark it.

Worse than all this are the people who take images they just happen upon or have sent to them, either already with a previous watermark or completely without, and then add them. I don't know any image dumping site today that doesn't do this, including the one I used to run, nor any gaming sites, nor anything else. It's all absurd and you're all a bunch of greedy selfish fucks, if you ask me.

Side note, there are obviously ways to make downloading images difficult, but never impossible.

Kinda related is image linking. I think something like over two thirds of our traffic is due to people linking our images. I'd actually check but I'm kind of sick (CHRIST WHEN HAVEN'T I BEEN SICK LATELY) and don't feel like doing research. At some point I'll throw up some anti-leeching code, but I'm not in any rush to do so, and when I do it won't have anything like THE IMAGE YOU'RE TRYING TO LINK IS OWNED BY LOSTLEVELS ZOMG REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR SITE OR WE WILL SUE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!, because, you know, that's just lame.

So, in conclusion, watermarking is retarded. Sigh.

Just having this as a topic depresses me.
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JSzczep



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crikey. I didn't come on here to debate or argue, I asked for opinions.

Jeez, you swim through hundreds of watermarked images daily, and people expect you to think it's "not the done thing"? Well excuse my corrupted world view.

Surely the fact that I asked, implies I had a slight inclination to, you know, not watermark stuff?

Quote:
I'm tempted to put them online, but to avoid theft, I'm thinking of watermarking them with his site, and my name, and putting "courtesy of".


Truth be told, I started down this road of broken glass (and buttery accusations), because I felt... what's the word, guilty? Not quite guilty, but I had a yearning to put stuff out there, since they were never used, and I thought they were neato.

So I thought I'd ask people's... opinions, advice, general thoughts, and suddenly people erupt in a wave of anger. You could have just said, "I don't like it, and there's no real point to it." And I'd have been like, "Oh, ok. Great!"

Anyway, I only asked the guy yesterday if I can put them online, and he hasn't gotten back (could be a few days). If he says it's fine, I'll put them up unwatermarked.

Relax gentlemen, I'm not some kind of monster.
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The Green Meanie



Joined: 01 Mar 2004
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Location: The New Wave

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheRedEye wrote:
Now if you'll excuse me I have to reencode these MP3s because I forgot to yell "MY NAME IS FRANK AND I ENCODED THESE COPYRIGHT THE RED EYE" in the middle of every song.


Hellooooo new signature.


Everywhere else at least.
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BMF54123
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

(C) JSzczep wrote:
You won't like what I'm about to say here... But adding splash screens is what I'd do if I was Frank Cifaldi!

I do believe it's this little quote right here that started the fire.
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JSzczep



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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I suppose hugs and a round of beers won't solve anything now, will it?
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