sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 23, 2011 16:34:45 GMT -5
Personally, I think the risk is too great. Also, my philosophy is that TrollsZine is a vehicle to show off the creativity of our community. This isn't accomplished by me surfing the public domain.
Believe it or not, I've actually started learning how to do my own artwork. I'm far from being as good as most of the artist contributors, but TZ4 will have some of my works in it. Not a lot - just a few!
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cram
4th Level Troll
DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!
Posts: 271
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Post by cram on Mar 23, 2011 17:18:17 GMT -5
Sligo, Is there any particular subject matter, as far as art work, that TZ4 needs?
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Post by fellgore on Mar 24, 2011 4:43:30 GMT -5
The hold up is me. Rather than working on the last article (which is an excellently conceived and written GM-adventure), I've been spending my time working on the adventures for my weekly Monday-night group and on convention adventures (the next of which is 3-River Con in Ft Wayne, IN, April 1-3). I hate stepping on toes, but perhaps as a relative outsider here I can say something others are only thinking. If other commitments make it impossible to come close to the publishing schedule (and you have to admit two missed deadlines for a quarterly magazine is pretty bad) you might want to consider relinquishing the reins back to the original team after this issue, or someone else with more free time. Is a third publisher lined up yet? That is unless of course you are anticipating a less hectic schedule in the near future. This is not in any way a personal attack. I'm just trying to help, and my previous offer of assistance still stands.
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Post by zanshin on Mar 24, 2011 4:53:07 GMT -5
In support of sligo, the original team is not available to take up the reigns (speaking for myself here, but Quogmyre also signalled that he was very busy and likely to be busier in 2011).
As a free fanzine, it comes out as and when the editorial team can put it out. Sourcing art for a free fanzine is always a struggle IME.
I am confident it will be brilliant when it arrives. Sligo's work is of proven excellence, and I saw a number of the articles that will be in it and they are great.
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ydars
1st Level Troll
Ur-Lord and Elf Friend
Posts: 31
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Post by ydars on Mar 24, 2011 5:28:10 GMT -5
Sligo,
As I understand it, as long as we attribute all material from the places where we got it, then I don't see any risk; especially since infringments will not involve any money changing hands (as TZ is free) and so this tends to take the momentum out of anyone's ire.
I would rather see TZ out regularly using free art than out only occasionally using community generated stuff. If it is out regularly, it is more likely to attract decent artists in the long term.
What do others think?
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Post by fellgore on Mar 24, 2011 8:33:14 GMT -5
I would rather see TZ out regularly using free art than out only occasionally using community generated stuff. If it is out regularly, it is more likely to attract decent artists in the long term. I agree. While good artwork does add some value to a magazine or an adventure, it's the words that are of most interest and use to the readers of Trollszine.
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 24, 2011 10:29:35 GMT -5
To answer Cram's question - Anything specific to articles is best. General purpose artwork that looks like T&T related stuff can be used. Everything from edge/border/column filler to half or full-page stuff. I have a bunch of zombie pics to use, but there's not a single article in this issue pertaining to zombies, so they don't work. However, pics of adventurers, monsters (trolls, urooks, goblins, etc), and weaponry can always be useful. Setting pieces - landscapes, castles, dungeons, etc, will work as well.
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cram
4th Level Troll
DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!
Posts: 271
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Post by cram on Mar 24, 2011 10:50:41 GMT -5
To answer Cram's question... Cool, I'll see if I can come up with some stuff.
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Post by trollfactor on Mar 24, 2011 11:45:15 GMT -5
As I understand it, as long as we attribute all material from the places where we got it, then I don't see any risk; especially since infringments will not involve any money changing hands (as TZ is free) and so this tends to take the momentum out of anyone's ire. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think this is correct. Just because you do not charge for something, you can still get into trouble, because you are still distributing stuff that doesn't belong to you. How this can actually harm someone is if you take their property, their art, a pdf of their book, etc., and give it away for free, it can harm their ability to sell that product in the future. It can also hurt your product's image to be associated with something else you did not give approval to. While there is the concept of fair use, what you are proposing I think is clearly not fair use. So I believe it is both legally and morally wrong. It is better just to lack art and keep one's integrity, than to have great art and lack integrity (and possibly get sued to boot).
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Post by gaptooth on Mar 24, 2011 12:09:56 GMT -5
I don't have strong feelings about whether or not TZ uses art from public domain or creative commons sources, and I certainly prefer original stuff if its available, but I wanted to comment on this: Just because you do not charge for something, you can still get into trouble, because you are still distributing stuff that doesn't belong to you. Works that are in public domain or released with a creative commons license are explicitly legal to use. There are no restrictions on the use of public domain stuff. The restrictions on creative commons stuff vary from license to license, but they are usually clearly laid out in human-readable terms. As an artist, I value creator rights and copyright law as much as anyone, but angst about using works that are in the public domain or creative commons is entirely misplaced.
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 24, 2011 13:31:05 GMT -5
One concern I have about using "public domain" artwork pulled from the web is simply that I don't know for sure that the artwork is truly public domain. For all I know, some jack wagon has stolen someone else's art, posted on the web under their own name and declared it public. I have no way of knowing for sure.
I suppose that also means someone could submit stolen artwork to me for publication, but in this situation, I have records of who submitted the artwork and if it were discovered, the liability wouldn't be on me, but the submitter.
Also, I hate watermarks.
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ydars
1st Level Troll
Ur-Lord and Elf Friend
Posts: 31
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Post by ydars on Mar 24, 2011 14:53:17 GMT -5
Hang on; I am now confused. I thought we were talking about finding free art from artist galleries and using it with attribution; not stealing art from random publications.
Sligo; have you ever tried posting art requests in the art forums on RPGnet and EN World? I have done that with much success in the past.
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Post by gaptooth on Mar 24, 2011 15:10:02 GMT -5
I thought we were talking about finding free art from artist galleries and using it with attribution; not stealing art from random publications. +1.
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Post by trollfactor on Mar 24, 2011 17:00:17 GMT -5
As I understand it, as long as we attribute all material from the places where we got it, then I don't see any risk; especially since infringments will not involve any money changing hands (as TZ is free) and so this tends to take the momentum out of anyone's ire. This is the quote I was referring to, and I've underlined the key word here. The word "infringement" means a violation of one's rights.
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sligo
4th Level Troll
Read my blog: http://indysligo.weebly.com/
Posts: 495
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Post by sligo on Mar 24, 2011 18:07:20 GMT -5
Hang on; I am now confused. I thought we were talking about finding free art from artist galleries and using it with attribution; not stealing art from random publications. Sligo; have you ever tried posting art requests in the art forums on RPGnet and EN World? I have done that with much success in the past. Since I'm not a member of either of those forums, nor do I particularly plan to become members of those forums, it's not something within my scope of resources. I will state this again, as editor of TrollsZine magazine, it is my belief that it should be by, for, and of, Tunnels & Trolls players. Going to a non-T&T site to solicit artwork does not highlight artwork created by T&T players. If TrollsZine was intended to be a magazine featuring material created by people who are not T&T players and not focused on T&T, I would not have offered my services as editor. I will admit that for my own personal projects I have used artwork found on the web. My "Sligo House Rules" document has artwork from Hogscape (with his permission) and artwork taken from a public domain website, which is given reference and credit in the document. However, since none of this artwork was created specifically for this document, I will not offer it publicly. It is available for those that ask for it (in pdf format) or in hardcopy to those who actually play in the games I run. For Final Exam, all the artwork was created specifically for it. Though one artist (who only contributed 3 or 4 of the pics) isn't a T&T player, he still got a copy. (He's actually a Runescape player I know from a clan group I used to be part of.) For my other prototype games, including one that uses some T&T mechanics, the artwork is scraped shamelessly from the web, but as prototypes, these will never be sold in their current form. Should I get lucky enough for a game publisher to pick up one of these games, new artwork will have to be created from scratch. Bottom line, I will not go out to web to collect artwork, articles, or other material for TrollsZine, regardless the legality of its usage. Nor will I ask non T&T players to contribute freely to TrollsZine when it's the intent of the magazine to feature works by T&T players. If this means I shouldn't be the editor of this magazine, say so, and I'll gladly give what I've done over to someone else. I apologize that I have not met Quogmyer's publication schedule. I had my own goals and they were sorely missed. Remember I'm not getting paid for this, and I'm doing it because I want to. Unfortunately, this means that it gets a much lower priorty than those things I have to do.
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