The New Fangled Avatar Factory & Bar

[David E. Gervais]

Ed you should apologize to Annette for any reference to her as a nazi. copyright or other. It's just plain rude and if I could I'd spank you. there was no call for rudeness on your part, she was just stating the company policy.

There is an 'extreme' solution.. if I provide a 'link' to every source image I made an avatar out of 'AND' the Avatars themselves could be connected to the 'link' then it falls under the heading of advertizing.. you are using 'their' graphics to point people to 'their' site. it's 100% acceptable practice on the net. No court would or could condem a fan for promoting their fav image.. if things were 'extreme' on the other end.. I managed to violate 42 copyrights by making new icons for the 'bookmarks' using their 'favicons' or graphics from their sites. (without express written consent from each of these sites)

Personally I'm not worried, I'm not the paranoid type,.. but it just takes one 'lawsuit' to make anyone a little more paranoid. Nobody is using these avatars to make money, nobody is profiting from these, if anything it generates interest when someone sees an avatar and they delve deeper to reveal it's source. 'Nobody' goes to 'Any' forum.. sees a nice avatar image and says/thinks "Gee this is a nice avatar, I think I'll show my aprieciation by spending money here." lol.

I say "Chill people, it's a non-issue!". I'll make a few of the AoW avatars, and leave the decision weather or not to move any of them to the 'default selections' up to shrapnel. That is the best solution.. you all get access, and shrapnel cannot be responsible for links to my photobucket account.

Nuf said, now back to the fun..

Cheers!

[David E. Gervais]

here are some AoW avatars..










Cheers!

[Ed Kolis]

Well I hate to offend people, and if you want to ban me I certainly can't stop you (though I could start badmouthing Shrapnel, something I am loath to do after all these years of getting along with you guys), but I don't want to apologize right now... call me a free-software terrorist if you want, I don't care - that's not an insult to me, it's a compliment (he who gives up liberty for security being a coward who will get neither and all that)!
I might apologize later, but people really need to get over this "Nazis are off limits" thing - it really pisses me off! Humanity is capable of much worse than what the Nazis did, and I don't want to be the one to prove it!

[Ed Kolis]

Hmm, I tried to edit my previous post but I guess it's too late or something... that's fine, I didn't want to take anything back, I just wanted to admit that yes, I am a troll and I know it and there's nothing I can do about it - political correctness just makes me want to go postal, and if I don't vent somewhere then I will probably wind up on the news...

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Ed Kolis

Hmm, I tried to edit my previous post but I guess it's too late or something... that's fine, I didn't want to take anything back, I just wanted to admit that yes, I am a troll and I know it and there's nothing I can do about it - political correctness just makes me want to go postal, and if I don't vent somewhere then I will probably wind up on the news...

Political Correctness is the wool pulled over your mouth.

[Annette]

Originally Posted by Ed Kolis

Well I hate to offend people, and if you want to ban me I certainly can't stop you (though I could start badmouthing Shrapnel, something I am loath to do after all these years of getting along with you guys), but I don't want to apologize right now... call me a free-software terrorist if you want, I don't care - that's not an insult to me, it's a compliment (he who gives up liberty for security being a coward who will get neither and all that)!
I might apologize later, but people really need to get over this "Nazis are off limits" thing - it really pisses me off! Humanity is capable of much worse than what the Nazis did, and I don't want to be the one to prove it!

Ban you, Ed? I hardly think so! I'm not sure anyone has ever called me a forum nazi before... in reality, the first thing that would happen if we violated copyright is that the copyright holder would ask us to remove the offending whatever. We're talking about avatars, and it's pretty unlikely Disney or the USFO or whoever would come here and be alarmed by what they see. But in principle, as software publishers, we are extremely sensitive to violating other company's copyright because we are sensitive to our own copyright protection. That would be setting a double standard, wouldn't it?

No need to blow this out of proportion, and it's not just a matter of permissions. I just think if someone wants to create a bunch of cool AoW avatars and has permission to do so, that would be a great independent project. But we will shy away from officially hosting it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again...our developers have hired us to promote their games. That's why we're here.

[Edi]

I've talked about this with Annette and I'm going to host any AoW avatars David may make on my personal webspace so if someone wants to use any of them, they can do so.

It's not a big deal and there is nothing strange about Shrapnel's position as such. If this were an independent gaming site instead of an actual game publishing company, it'd be somewhat different. As things are now, with the permission from Triumph, there is no possible way Shrapnel or anyone here can get in trouble over this, even when the origin of the images has been stated and they have been posted as such a massive block.

[Ed Kolis]

OK, well, sorry for blowing things out of proportion!

[Annette]

And I'm sorry for being a forum nazi; no avatar for you!

Does this avatar make me look fat?

[Ed Kolis]

Oh, it was my impression that that game was out of print, and that's WHY they let you guys use the images...