Copyright and making money?

[Kia]

Hey everybody
I was wondering about using pictures freely downloaded from internet in my games and if I'm going to face any copyright issues because of that?
As title declares my ultimate goal is making money one way or another (accepting donations/advertising on my website) and I'm concern about triggering the greed of copyright owners with my first $ even though I can't find any copyright note on them or even can't recognize their origin.
And what do you suggest for someone who can't draw a straight line without holding shift but always dreamed about making games and making money out of it?

[Taleweaver]

Hey everybody
I was wondering about using pictures freely downloaded from internet in my games and if I'm going to face any copyright issues because of that?

The answer is "probably yes". Most pictures on the internet are copyrighted.

So how can you safely include stuff you found on the web in your projects?

1) Look for public domain pictures. They do exist.
2) Look for pictures flagged Creative Commons and use them as their respective Creative Commons license allows you to.
3) Stop downloading pictures from the internet and pay artists to create original art for you.

[Kia]

thanks Taleweaver can you gimme some more info and enlighten me please?

1) Look for public domain pictures. They do exist.

can you suggest anywhere that I can find anime related public domain pictures?

2) Look for pictures flagged Creative Commons and use them as their respective Creative Commons license allows you to.

this one is hard since most of website don't even mention the artist when they put their works U_U

3) Stop downloading pictures from the internet and pay artists to create original art for you.

paying is no option for me because I don't have any income to spend. unless I can do something like logo/UI design to pay them. what do you think? is it possible?

[Taleweaver]

thanks Taleweaver can you gimme some more info and enlighten me please?

1) Look for public domain pictures. They do exist.

can you suggest anywhere that I can find anime related public domain pictures?

Yup.

2) Look for pictures flagged Creative Commons and use them as their respective Creative Commons license allows you to.

this one is hard since most of website don't even mention the artist when they put their works U_U

Checked our Creative Commons forums recently?

3) Stop downloading pictures from the internet and pay artists to create original art for you.

paying is no option for me because I don't have any income to spend. unless I can do something like logo/UI design to pay them. what do you think? is it possible?

You can't afford eight bucks for a waist-up sprite? The price of two Starbucks coffees?

[Kia]

You can't afford eight bucks for a waist-up sprite? The price of two Starbucks coffees?

it's complicated ^_^ in my country eight bucks is 3 days of work worth. and I don't have a job. and if I had the money... I can't own any online payment account due to the ridiculous laws.
and I'm developing 4-5 games each with more than 20 characters and each character in almost 10 different poses so it looks like I have to work the rest of my life to pay for them.
about http://www.publicdomainpictures.net I tried this before and none of the pictures I liked where free or available. links that are not broken go to shutterstock or similar websites. I did the google search and explored few websites but I wanted to see if you have any experience to share ^_^

[Anne]

I was thinking that it is totally possible to find a free artist to work on your project until I read your numbers.
While there're stories that indeed need a lot of characters I have a hard time believing that the story won't work without that many poses. You mean poses (like head / arm movements) not expressions (smile or angry), right? So you could probably think about minimizing the amount of assets you need.

[trooper6]

I think one of the problems you might have is you want to make money off of the games you make, but you don't want to pay your artist for their work. That is a bit unfair.
Another problem, you want free public domain art, but then you also want to be picky about it. There is a saying that goes, "Beggars can't be choosers."

My recommendation?
1. Design a free game that is smaller in scale. One with only a few characters.
2. Grab some free sprites from our forums or go get those tokudaya.net/ sprites that so many people use.
3. Make that small, free game with the creative commons or free assets and post it here.
4. Use that game as an advertising tool to recruit an artist for one of your larger for-pay projects.
5. When looking for an artist, since you want them to do a lot of work, rather than asking for them to work for free while you make all the money, ofter to become a partner with them where they make 50% of the money of the game. Artists are often reluctant to do this if you have no track record of finishing games, but having a finished game would help convince someone to come on board.

Side recommendation: For your second game? The one you want to have an artist who will be your partner for? You might want to write and code the whole thing using placeholder sprites before you look for your artists so that 1) you can assess what assets you really need, because maybe you don't actually need 20 sprites with 10 poses each and 2) the artist will get assurances that the work will actually be done.

[papillon]

Yeah, that really sounds like shooting too high, too fast.

It's possible to make a game for very little money, via combinations of resources that actually are legal for use, drawing things yourself, getting people who know you personally to help you, and designing games that don't need huge amounts of resources. You don't _have_ to give them away free either. You can sell those early games, although you'll probably need to price them low depending on how they turn out, but you can do it.

My earliest games, which I kind of try to hide nowadays, were made on budgets of $0 to $100 total. And they look like it, too, but they *did* sell copies, and more importantly gave me experience in game-making.

Also, it's sort of unfair to start your topic off by complaining about "the greed of copyright owners" when you want to steal other people's work and use it for your profit. Just sayin'.

Think about how you can design a fun game to not need a lot of art, rather than trying to make a million-dollar masterpiece without the million.

[SundownKid]

If you really can't pay for assets, use the Creative Commons forum and take the free art that has been posted there for your game. The best art has been designed around restrictions after all... just look at the original Star Wars versus the prequels with a lot higher budget.

If you absolutely positively can't do that, then make your story and then post the story and see if any artists are interested in illustrating it for free. Of course, if they aren't that's the risk you have to take, but at least you can write prose.

And what do you suggest for someone who can't draw a straight line without holding shift but always dreamed about making games and making money out of it?

Hard work, pretty much. You will have to learn stuff in order to make stuff, either that or have a job and hire people to do the stuff.

I would start by narrowing the focus to one game though. Working on 5 games at once means it will take the time of one game x5 to finish one.

[-Ren-]

If you're dead serious about it, then why not just design your own characters?
I know what you're thinking when you read that but, hear me out.

All art, no matter how complex, no matter how detailed, can ALWAYS be broken down into basic shapes. If you can draw a straight line holding shift, you're already using a piece of software capable of making those basic shapes.
For example - an anime style head consists of two basic shapes in it's simplest form, an oval and a triangle, it's not rocket science if you break it down this way
Most people tend to look at artwork in its entirety, standing back and taking in the fact that "Holy crap, I'm looking at a face, how do I even do that myself?" when they should be thinking, "Holy crap, this is just an oval and a triangle."

Obviously this is kinda over-simplifying it ^^ But the principle is the same. This extends to any facet of artwork, from manga to fine art.

Also, I think it's worth noting that even many great artists can't draw a straight line without using a ruler...

Honestly though, there's plenty of resources available on the net that can help you make your own art, tutorials on basic form and anatomy, perspective, colour theory. Hell, you could even find someone on a website like deviantart who posts up body templates and stuff and use that as reference, the possibilities are literally endless.

I can't draw by hand to save my life, but I can easily create characters in Photoshop. Sadly, I'm always swamped with life so it's hard enough coding and writing and bg art, so I prefer to use outsourced materials to cover this area. But, if you're not wokring, then you should have the time to invest, especially if you plan to make money out of your game.

[ketskari]

And what do you suggest for someone who can't draw a straight line without holding shift but always dreamed about making games and making money out of it?

Collage. Some techniques are easier than others, but it's a good medium if one doesn't have strong drawings skills. Look up digital collage techniques and composition and design principles. The raw material is out there (museums and libraries are now providing public domain material in addition to morguefile, cgtextures and wikimedia commons), and instead of looking for the right picture, with photoshop techniques you can make a picture that works for your project.

Also, a decent vector program can help with wobbly lines.

[Kia]

So you could probably think about minimizing the amount of assets you need.

well I came from the flash games background and my expectations are a bit high I guess I can somehow adopt to less assets and replace some poses with expressions but still I'm aiming for the best I can so I'll need lots of them.

but you don't want to pay your artist for their work. That is a bit unfair.

no I'm more than willing to share the money with artists but the problem is I can't promise when I'm not even sure if I'll be able to make any and I can't ask artist to do days of work for the payment I can't guarantee. therefore I'm looking for the art that already been done or even used. the next problem is I already started 4 games and developing all of them together >_<. I am focusing on one but at the end they need their own characters to start the story.

My earliest games, which I kind of try to hide nowadays, were made on budgets of $0 to $100 total.

I know that is possible but I'm trying to create a game that not only is worthy of the time players put in, enjoyable to play and I'm putting them up for free. that's a hard combination.

Hard work, pretty much. You will have to learn stuff in order to make stuff, either that or have a job and hire people to do the stuff.

If you're dead serious about it, then why not just design your own characters?

I am trying to learn to sketch (the tracing and coloring part I already know) but I'm afraid it takes a long time >_<

Collage. Some techniques are easier than others, but it's a good medium if one doesn't have strong drawings skills.

this is a sweet Idea. I'll start another game to mess around this technique since I already have the skill set needed for it. thanks.
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I know I don't sound fair toward artists and even copyright owners but my intentions are good.
to sum it up I'm trying to make money before spending it and I'm seeking any experience you can share.
papillon you mentioned selling copies of your game. can you share your experience and some details. all of my games are for free but this made me think about making game for sale.
Ren. I've been searching ling time for the perfect body template option and I guess I have to download lots of them in different poses or find a software for it do you know any? (other than daz3d and poser) something anime/manga oriented?

[Kia]

lets say I make a game based on an animation character from a tough copyright holder like Disney. even if I make the all materials myself will I get in trouble for using their characters?

[Taleweaver]

Yes, you will.

Disney has sued kindergardens for painting their walls with Disney characters without paying a licensing fee.

[Kia]

and soon Disney will sue little kids for dreaming about mickey and goofy well there goes another one of my projects. I got two left to work on. thanks Taleweaver.