Credit

Been procrastinating about posting up the photos I took last week.

For some reason, when I post up something such as photos or artwork, some (but not all) people either use it without giving me credit, or worse, think they can adopt it as their own just by tweaking it a little or merging it with other (stolen) content to make it seem like theirs. Signing your name at the bottom doesn’t work cause the idiots just conveniently chop it off or edit over it with photoshop. I’ve tried signing my name in places where it’s impossible to chop off but personally, I hate it, it detracts from the original image and frankly, it just looks bad.

I mean, I don’t understand, my work isn’t (and never was) that great anyway, but some people just choose to steal the strangest things.

I didn’t have that problem with the last RMBR photo-essay cause hey, it’s just showcasing part of the RMBR collection and the credit for the content and layout should go to them, not me (and hey, we did ask for permission before taking the photos). I’m just documenting it in a series of photos. (Of course, one could give the same argument abut God creating everything and we’re just documenting it in photos, but hey, I’m an atheist so that doesn’t work on me)

I mean, content should be free and all that and not with that kind of crap like we must pay to use everything, but the creators deserve a little credit too.

But content theft is just going to happen and even I am guilty of it sometimes. Sometimes, the content has been passed around so much that it’s impossible to trace the original creator to credit in the first place (like the picture on my blog header, obviously I can’t recreate it myself and I don’t know who to credit). Or sometimes we just overlook crediting the original creator in the heat of a rather cruel deadline. Sometimes, a file just surfaces on your hard drive and you can’t trace the creator any more. Or sometimes, we just use something just because we can’t create it ourselves or don’t have enough time to (in my case, music for games, sound effects, etc.)

I’ve been trying to use more and more of my own content in my personal and school projects (using my own photos, drawing my own pixel art, making my own models and textures etc.). Granted, it looks dumb and amateurish compared to the professionals, but at least, we’re not using other people’s work where the crediting issues could get quite messy. (We still need some help on the music part though).

I’m not saying we can’t use each other’s stuff, but if you do, please try (if it’s possible, that is) to give credit where it’s due.