It's the Webcomic battle of the century! Or something.

The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

Penny Arcade VS. Modest Destiny !!!

Apparently, some of the forumgoers of Penny Arcade have been using sprites from Modest Destiny as avatars.

The cartoonist of Modest Destiny DOES NOT LIKE THIS and has apparently shut off right-clicking to his site.

Oh… and he’s threatening to have PA shut down unless the offending avatars are dealt with.

But I’ll let you judge the merits for themselves.

PA’s Take:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-12-10

MD’s Take:
http://www.squidi.net/

PErsonally I think the cartoonist of MD is full of shit. I’m not going to explain now, as I’m tired, and others will probably do it better than me. is half tempted to make an avatar out of his stuff and tell him about it

2

Hmm…

I am not a lawyer, but I believe what the forumers have done goes under the terms of “Fair use”…

3

Ok, PA isn’t loading for me right now, for some reason. But my take is, even if the MD guy does have a valid point, it has nothing to do with PA itself, and he’s kind of being an ass by trying to bring PA into it.

4

Shouldnt the MD guy be sueing the forum users instead? Just sounds like another attempt at cheap, undeserved money.

5

Originally posted by IonMage
Shouldnt the MD guy be sueing the forum users instead? Just sounds like another attempt at cheap, undeserved money.

Yes. Just like Squeenix should sue you for using Vivi as your avatar. -_-

6

Then you should be sued by half the globe for using one of their crops in your av! >_<

7

Well, according to PA, the only thing that looked kinda similar in the avatars were the feet, or something :stuck_out_tongue: Everything else was supposedly different.

8

I wouldn’t think he could sue unless he copyrighted them… I agree with Wert, though.

And Pierson, that really wasn’t a valid point. 'cause oranges aren’t copyrighted/trademarked for one. And he was making a point that if MD could sue for using those avvies, SquE could sue for using Vivi as his avvie.

Oh, and Cless, fix your sig. Your last line has a > in it.

9

Originally posted by Cala
I wouldn’t think he could sue unless he copyrighted them… I agree with Wert, though.

Copyright is granted automatically as a result of creation. Registering a copyright only serves to remove legal ambiguity, and to grant the right of any metaphorical phallus waving that may come with it.

10

A Modest Destiny is my favorite web comic, so of course I have an opinion.

Squidi isn’t full of shit - other people were taking credit for his work, and that’s just plain shitty. He asked them to stop, which they did not, so what else could he do? A few days ago, he had created an image that proved that the outlines of his custom sprites (being that he has created all the characters in his comic by himself, for his own use) were nearly identical (save for the head, where the thief had added hair).

11

I think that guy just has an ego problem… he thinks he’s better than he really is. oh wow, he has a sprite comic, good for him, but look at that copyright part of his site, it talks about fan games and fan art. So he’s assuming he’s so good that people are going to be making games based off of his characters, and he doesn’t want them doing this? I think he should stop being so paranoid and should keep doing what he enjoys, if he even enjoys it.

12

I think Penny Arcade’s Dec. 10 updates has shown pretty well that MD can’t do anything legally.

13

PA doesn’t load at all for me, in fact, Opera said it couldn’t contaqct it. Anyways, this guy does have a point, he made those sprites, & he asked all these little fools to stop, but they didn’t. So he had to go up against the source, PA.

14

I don’t see what PA has to do with it. They really have little control over who people use as thier avatars outside of perhaps things taht shouldn’t be shown in a place kids visit.

Well SURE they could stop that, but WHY? IT’s a comic, it’s not bothering that many people, and frankly Gabe’s got a point: It’s advertising. If I was a webcartoonist (especially with a commercial comic) I’d love all the exposure I could get. Avatars give a little bit of exposure and make peopel wonder what is in the avatar.

Why be so pissed about it? It’s not being used commercially. IF PA members were trying to sell stuff with it, he’d have abetter case.

15

Personally I think squidi’s a nutcase. He goes all anal and stuff about protecting his work and then he has entire forums for modifications of his sprites done by other people and games based on AMD. You could argue that those people are not exploting the sprites for their own personal gain, but then again, neither are the guys who are using those sprites that kinda look like AMD’s sprites as their avatars.

I read their forum and there’s an argument between squidi and a guy called Refuge or something. They both have some fine points, but if squidi would change his attitude (not to mention his hypocrisy) none of this would have happened.

16

I’ve actually been looking over this debate for a while. From what I’ve seen the whole situation has gone to shit because both of the comics have insanely rabid fanbases. The forum-goers for each comic have taken it upon themselves to flame the crap out of each other, in some dumb attempt to show their loyalty towards their respective comics. This of course, has accomplished absolutely NOTHING except for inreasing the hostility between the two sides.

And really, the most depressing part of the debate is that both sides have valid points, but the fanboys have a absolute belief that “their” comic is infallible.

Squidi has a right to be angry, as his sprites were obviously copied. Although many people could say that this is “fair use” or “good publicity”, when you get down to it someone stole his art, altered it, and then claimed it as their own. I’m sure if any of you were in the same situation you’d get a little mad too.

However, Squidi did unfortunately get a little over-zealous when he threatened legal action (directly or indirectly) against Penny Arcade. Threatening PA with a lawsuit is like shooting a grizzly bear with a paintball gun; it’s only going to piss it off. Instead of posting in the PA forums with his complaints, it would have probably been a better idea to subtly send some emails to the forum mods, and perhaps even Gabe and Tycho themselves.

But then again, Gabe and Tycho didn’t exactly handle the situation superbly themselves. Their basic response was “We’re usually very sympathetic to web-comic artists, but we think you’re pissy and should go away.”

Although Squidi probably did not have much of a legal basis for his argument, he still did have some valid points. When PA directly belittled Squidi, it gave the green light for all of the PA fanboys to flame the crap him. I’m sure that Squidi’s email will be backed up for days with hate-mail.

In a nutshell, this situation should have never have been made public. Both sides could have settled this quickly and quietly, but instead decided to make it a huge public spectacle with hundreds of fans involved. It’s no longer a copyright dispute, but a full on competition between AMD and PA. Just goes to show what happens when you let a situation get out of hand…

17

Well, there is also no basis except on some not entirely accurate image that squidi cooked up that the sprites WERE copied. When PMed both the members responded that they had never seen his webcomic before and hopes never to.

18

I don’t want to know the outcome of this, since that would means close to all sprite comics on the web would have to shut down. Being largely based on slight alternations of original avatars.

But Sean Howard does have the right to demand that his artwork isn’t copied and altered, and defend that right with legal means. Asking his own fanbase to spam PvPs forums isn’t legal means though. He got carried away there. But so did all the users from PvP who flooded onto his page, and caused downtime.

I personally think all of this is turning into a big ball of bullshit, that isn’t rolling anywhere. And therefore it should be left to rot, and be forgotten.

19

Originally posted by Cless Alvein
Well, there is also no basis except on some not entirely accurate image that squidi cooked up that the sprites WERE copied. When PMed both the members responded that they had never seen his webcomic before and hopes never to.
The image is obviously copied, but what I gathered is that the sprites were copied off Squidi by a different site, and then the forum-goers made copies from those copies.

Originally posted by Nulani
I personally think all of this is turning into a big ball of bullshit, that isn’t rolling anywhere. And therefore it should be left to rot, and be forgotten.
And Nulani is probably right. This debate ain’t going anywhere, and probably should be left to die.

20

You’re right - those avatars and such are promotion. However, the guy that made the avatars never said that he got the base sprite from AMD, so it wasn’t promotion at all, it was theft.

And whether or not he wants any fan games or comics made of AMD is Squidi’s buisness, and not ours. To be honest, If I was a webcomic, I wouldn’t want them either, because it’s an almost guarantee that it won’t be anywhere near the quality of work that mine would be, so the fancomics would only degrade the real McCoy.