Requesting a discussion about submission policy

[Mr. L]

As I'm posting this thread, Sprites inc, one of the oldest, best-known and most complete resources for sprites of the Mega Man and Castlevania series, is down.


I can only hope this is a temporary situation, but it brings to mind an issue I've been thinking about for some time now. The policy for submitting material to this site forbids one from posting resources for someone else. Essentially, to prevent someone from taking credit for someone else's ripping, or going on their site, taking it, and uploading it as one's own. This completely makes sense in one way. Even the simplest resource rip is a time consuming job that requires a lot of effort, and some people rip the graphics and audio resource of entire games, and they would like to see their work rewarded with the most basic of things: recognition. This is something that's been common across the sprite ripping community for as long as I've been aware of it. Many sprite sheets have little logos or cute avatars with the ripper's name and "do not steal/give credit if used/ripped for such and such site" tags. From the perspective of a sprite sheet as a creative work, extracting and organizing the graphics of old games, this is totally justified.

But I'm looking at things more from an archival/preservation perspective and there's... issues. A lot of graphics and audio from popular games that aren't on this site are missing simply because they've already been ripped elsewhere. Very few people see the benefit in the duplication of effort of ripping an entire game's graphics to post here when it already exists elsewhere and can be found with a simple google search. But the problem is that a lot of the smaller sites that used to host sprites back in the day have been inactive for years, sometimes decades. And sometimes they go down, permanently. And if that happens, sprite sheets (or other game elements) that have been taken for granted for years are suddenly inaccessible to anyone who wants to use them for their projects.

Under the current rules, if I were to download every sprite sheet from Sprites Inc (assuming it comes back up) and submit them here for any sections that are missing sprites, they would get rejected because I didn't rip them. So if my goal is to see those graphics preserved, I'd have to put in the work of ripping them all myself, and then resubmitting them here, even though they are freely available elsewhere and the work has already been done. Or, even dumber, I would download them and reorganize the graphics to disguise that I've taken them from another sheet, and submit them. Either way a massive and completely unnecessary effort is involved.

I guess what I'm driving at is that I primarily view this site as a great place to archive things, and one that's stood the test of time where many, many others haven't. I don't know if vgresource will be around in 20 years, but I do know a lot of other sites and communities won't. And I'd hate for complete, long-existing rips to vanish off the net for years every time one of those other site goes down. And I think a lot of people on here would prefer to see the resources they've submitted here live on on another site if this one were to vanish someday.

Other than the custom sections, the vast majority of the resources on this site are the work of artists who were not asked how they felt about us extracting and archiving their work out of the context of the original games they appear in. I understand the reasons for the etiquette rippers show each other, but it feels like our adherence to it is seriously hampering our archival efforts in the long run.

[Petie]

Those rules are not in place purely to ensure that the original ripper gets credit for their efforts (though that is certainly part of it). In many cases, sheets were submitted to one particular site instead of another and allowing mass uploads from other sites would effectively be condoning theft of their content. Think about it - if Sprites Inc does come back up and you were to grab everything from it and submit it here, you'd be driving traffic away from another site that may well stick around. In the past, we've worked with other sites who were shutting down and specifically authorized all of their content to be transferred over to us and in special cases like that, we typically handle the uploads ourselves (though if there's a ton of content, we may indeed ask for help).

In the case of Sprites Inc specifically, I've reached out to them multiple times offering to host them (i.e. the entire site, not just their content) outright but so far, they haven't seemed interested in doing so.

I guess to sum it up, I understand and appreciate where you're coming from but these rules are in place for more reasons than you're aware of and will not be removed in any general sense. I'm all for preservation and archival but it needs to be done right since, as you point out, sites like ours already operate in a gray area given that most of the artists are not consulted directly before their work is uploaded. Perhaps with this recent outage for them, they'll revisit either my original hosting offer or would consider transferring their content if they don't want to continue operating and if that happens, we can discuss the best way to move over content.

[Mr. L]

Fair enough. I'm glad this is something you've at least thought about.

[jmanghan]

I think it's rather odd that even with the express consent of the ripper, you aren't allowed to upload models ripped from a game, with or without proof. I don't think it makes much sense, personally. I've had models ripped that people just don't feel like uploading.

What are we to do when the original ripper gives us express permission to upload and makes it crystal clear they have absolutely no intention of ever uploading on their own? That kind of just takes away from the "resource" part of this site, it's a hub to find models from all different games for tons of different reasons. But they can't, because it was a commission, or request or the ripper just plain didn't feel like uploading it.

This isn't to be rude btw, it just makes little sense. I do think you should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the model was ripped by the person you claim, and that you had their permission, maybe set up a whole request thing around that. There could be a whole 'nother form to fill out if it was by another person. I have a few models I wanna upload, but they aren't mine, but I'd also rather not have them sitting on my hard drive.

"Was this model provided by you (If found to be lying you'll receive a temporary or permanent ban) or someone else? If it was someone else, show proof you have their consent below and give credit."

[Petie]

The problem lies in the fact that it's very difficult to prove. There simply isn't a good way to do it and opening this up for the rare cases where it makes sense also opens the flood gates for exactly what we're trying to stop from this rule. I'd love to see everything uploaded here but not at the cost of that content being stolen from other sites, for instance.

[jmanghan]

The problem lies in the fact that it's very difficult to prove. There simply isn't a good way to do it and opening this up for the rare cases where it makes sense also opens the flood gates for exactly what we're trying to stop from this rule. I'd love to see everything uploaded here but not at the cost of that content being stolen from other sites, for instance.

If that's the case, how do you even prove the original ripper is the one who submitted the model? They could've taken it from some obscure unknown website, potentially every model on here could have uploaded a model under their name and it could be someone else's, and you, the original ripper, and everyone downloading it would never know.

As simple as clicking a download button. There was a model I just got recently that was ripped by someone else named Zeutyx, if I uploaded the model and no one called me out on it, I would've gotten away with it pretty much forever.

This could also happen when someone rips a model and in a rare case, a false ripper claims the model was theirs, who do you believe? Does the proof matter then?

Not trying to be rude btw, sorry if I'm coming off that way, just trying to make a point, haha. The rule won't change much, before I messaged the original ripper of that model to talk in my thread I was going to upload the model myself as at the time I didn't know about the rule, and if he didn't say anything I probably would've been fine as no one would suspect the model wasn't mine.

[Petie]

We obviously can't definitively prove everything but we have a long history of catching stolen submissions so there are definitely ways to prove that someone is not the original ripper, at least. You're not wrong though - we very well could have some stolen submissions up on the sites right now and not know about it. But there's a difference between acknowledging that we can't catch everything and outright allowing "stolen" submissions from the get-go. The former just means that maybe a few will slip between the cracks while the latter is directly disrespecting those who dedicate their time to ripping and potentially condoning theft of content from other sites when that content was specifically ripped for them. It's definitely not an optimal situation but there isn't a good way to allow submissions with permission from someone else while still standing behind our no-theft policies.

For the record, our stance on uploads with permission from someone else has always been really simple and I still stand by this today - if the original ripper wants it on the site, they can submit it themselves. There is no reason to get third parties involved.

[jmanghan]

We obviously can't definitively prove everything but we have a long history of catching stolen submissions so there are definitely ways to prove that someone is not the original ripper, at least. You're not wrong though - we very well could have some stolen submissions up on the sites right now and not know about it. But there's a difference between acknowledging that we can't catch everything and outright allowing "stolen" submissions from the get-go. The former just means that maybe a few will slip between the cracks while the latter is directly disrespecting those who dedicate their time to ripping and potentially condoning theft of content from other sites when that content was specifically ripped for them. It's definitely not an optimal situation but there isn't a good way to allow submissions with permission from someone else while still standing behind our no-theft policies.

For the record, our stance on uploads with permission from someone else has always been really simple and I still stand by this today - if the original ripper wants it on the site, they can submit it themselves. There is no reason to get third parties involved.

But what if the original party wants it up but specifically asks for someone else to do it because they just don't want to do it themselves?

[Petie]

Those cases are so few and far between that it's not worth worrying about in the grand scheme of things. The downsides to even slightly allowing this far outweigh the very rare instances where such an exception would make sense.

[jmanghan]

Those cases are so few and far between that it's not worth worrying about in the grand scheme of things. The downsides to even slightly allowing this far outweigh the very rare instances where such an exception would make sense.

I think it's a lot more common then you realize, and it'd be a lot easier to just force uploaders using others work to just jump through hoops to get the models on "provide screenshots, video if possible of you getting permission from them, if possible let us ask them if they have permission from you as well.

I have a model that I'd like uploaded, but it isn't mine, and the original uploader (who has posted here) has said they don't want to and have no intention of uploading the model. I guess it'll just rot on my hard drive then, lol.

[Petie]

I have a model that I'd like uploaded, but it isn't mine, and the original uploader (who has posted here) has said they don't want to and have no intention of uploading the model. I guess it'll just rot on my hard drive then, lol.

This is literally the reason these policies exist though. The person who did the work has explicitly said they don't want to upload it here so even if we allowed submissions on behalf of others, you wouldn't have permission to do it anyway. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here is (I'm assuming you're referring to your previous post but it doesn't seem like they have said they want you to upload it - they said they don't want it uploaded at all).

You're also ignoring the fact that the approval process is already complex and time-consuming, especially for models. Having to factor in actually verifying these claims, which would almost always certainly be false anyway, would be way too much to ask from a volunteer staff who already has too much on their plates.

[jmanghan]

I have a model that I'd like uploaded, but it isn't mine, and the original uploader (who has posted here) has said they don't want to and have no intention of uploading the model. I guess it'll just rot on my hard drive then, lol.

This is literally the reason these policies exist though. The person who did the work has explicitly said they don't want to upload it here so even if we allowed submissions on behalf of others, you wouldn't have permission to do it anyway. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here is (I'm assuming you're referring to your previous post but it doesn't seem like they have said they want you to upload it - they said they don't want it uploaded at all).

You're also ignoring the fact that the approval process is already complex and time-consuming, especially for models. Having to factor in actually verifying these claims, which would almost always certainly be false anyway, would be way too much to ask from a volunteer staff who already has too much on their plates.

They've told me they wouldn't mind me uploading it. They want someone else to do it because they just genuinely don't wanna upload it/don't feel like it, sorry if I wasn't clear enough before. I wouldn't be making such a fuss out of it if I wasn't in the literal situation described.

"which would almost always be false anyway", but this seems to be one of the only websites that has that mindset, I can't think of any other website that has a rule in place like that, and yes I do understand why it's in place, but all due respect, I think you heavily over-exaggerate how often false uploads would be done, and to be honest I think it'd be rather easy to figure out? People uploading stolen models aren't usually gonna be some criminal masterminds, covering their tracks so heavily that it'll be impossible to figure out.

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just saying I really honestly don't think there would be that many false uploads, in my experience on other websites, where we host models all the time, very rarely is stuff stolen, in fact we encourage sharing and uploading of each other's models so it gets out to more people rather then worrying about if said model was stolen or not.

Again, not trying to be rude, not trying to come off as pretentious or antagonistic, just speaking from experience.

[Petie]

With all due respect, your experience at other websites isn’t entirely relevant here. I’m not sure how large or active the other sites you’re referring to are but we already get at least a handful, usually more, stolen submissions every week and that’s with the current rules in place. In many of those cases, the submitter has claimed to have had permission which we have confirmed to be false in almost all instances where it has come up. But you’re still ignoring another important factor here - time. Submissions already take a while to go through, especially models. If we have to add manual verification of claims like “I have permission to upload this from somewhere else” to the list of steps, nothing will ever get done. Look at tMR’s queue - there are over 4,000 pending models as it is. As soon as we say “sure, you can upload stuff for other people as long as you have permission”, the flood gates open and we now also have to wade through a bunch of stolen stuff if history is any indication.

I couldn’t tell you why we see so many stolen submissions but I can tell you that we see them constantly and that isn’t good for a variety of reasons I’ve already covered. It takes 2 minutes to create an account and submit something so in your case, there really isn’t much standing in the way of this happening besides, for some reason, the original ripper/creator not wanting to do it. I could understand that if the process were overly complex or time-consuming but it’s not so there’s no reason to open this can of worms for very little positive gain and a lot of headaches.

[jmanghan]

With all due respect, your experience at other websites isn’t entirely relevant here. I’m not sure how large or active the other sites you’re referring to are but we already get at least a handful, usually more, stolen submissions every week and that’s with the current rules in place. In many of those cases, the submitter has claimed to have had permission which we have confirmed to be false in almost all instances where it has come up. But you’re still ignoring another important factor here - time. Submissions already take a while to go through, especially models. If we have to add manual verification of claims like “I have permission to upload this from somewhere else” to the list of steps, nothing will ever get done. Look at tMR’s queue - there are over 4,000 pending models as it is. As soon as we say “sure, you can upload stuff for other people as long as you have permission”, the flood gates open and we now also have to wade through a bunch of stolen stuff if history is any indication.

I couldn’t tell you why we see so many stolen submissions but I can tell you that we see them constantly and that isn’t good for a variety of reasons I’ve already covered. It takes 2 minutes to create an account and submit something so in your case, there really isn’t much standing in the way of this happening besides, for some reason, the original ripper/creator not wanting to do it. I could understand that if the process were overly complex or time-consuming but it’s not so there’s no reason to open this can of worms for very little positive gain and a lot of headaches.

I understand, thanks for being so patient with me Petie, again sorry if I came off rather pretentious or rude.

[Magma MK-II]

Tl;dr: If the ripper doesn't want to upload it himself that's the end of it. Whether he minds or not if someone else uploads it is irrelevant. Whatever his reasons are for not wanting to do it himself are also irrelevant.