Risks?

[Bob A Linx]

Are there any legal risks to ripling assets form games?

[Yawackhary]

Short answer: YES!

Long answer: Well it's kinda complicated. Asset ripping has always been in the grey area apart from music where that has a higher chance of getting copyright claims especially if it is licensed. It's why tVGR will never host music rips due to this reason.

In general unless otherwise (as mentioned later), the assets belong to the publisher and the developer in some cases. They can do anything that they want. Some companies are extremely strict on what you can and can't do with them. Some even go as far as C&D. Some companies are even okay with it but in a look in the other way kind of thing. It won't be mentioned and if they did they won't be happy but they won't stop you just because they might use it themselves. Only exception and completely legal is if you work for the company and doing the asset ripping for a game that they own as a project because they are lost and its a game that can't emulated but that's a rare case.

There is an issue regarding games that have no existing publisher or developer though (or worse tangled up in legal rights across various companies). Legally its the same as the above but unless someone comes out either way, it is probably more safe to rip from. Not many games are in the public domain and most from arcades, consoles or even computers aren't, there are some on the home computers though but you have to dig for yourselves.

Not everything the publisher or the developer owns though. There are licensed games after all and usually its the company who has rights to the IP. Again depends on the company. When it gets to stuff that uses real people such as sports games and racing games that have highly detailed cars, companies may get a lot more touchy due to copyright and licensing reasons with some companies who made the game spent a lot of money getting those rights in the first place. Sports teams/players and car licensing is one complex thing that is way beyond the scope of this, just involves a lot of paperwork, legalese, money and time. Luckily as it seems, no one here has submitted stuff from those games and if they have its mainly logos.

Even though tSR and related sites do comply as in that they do respond to DMCA takedowns and have a list that cannot be submitted to the site; most of these so far are either mobile, indie, fan games or small companies.

It also depends on which country you are in because each country have their own copyright and fair use laws with some that are reasonable, relaxed or non-existent in most cases but some are extremely strict, even then it can change over time.

Doing these rips are always at your own risk. For myself, it has gotten towards the point where it is getting too risky for me to continue but for others won't or might not have that problem depending where you are. I won't say that you have no problem doing this but tSR and other sprite ripping places such as Sprite Database have been around for years and still are here so...