Rant Time

[eiahmon]

I am on the site staff at the Anime Fountain website, a site dedicated to Asian entertainment. My little area of specialty is the Games section. I haven't written all of games there, but I've done quite a few of them.

Anyway, to help Angel out, I also compile the gallery for each game and create the thumbnails, so all she has to do is code it and throw it online. Well just a bit ago, I was cruising the internet looking for screenshots for the Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow gallery. Much to my annoyance, all the pics I could find were watermarked. Fine, watermarks are a fact of life on the internet, I usually just edit them out and move on. But oh no, these watermarks were made and positioned in such a way that editing them out is way beyond my meger skills with a photo editor. So I have a choice of either leaving them, which I don't like doing, or scanning the net until I'm lucky enough to find unwatermarked pics.

Now I know some people are reading this and thinking "Well, I scanned/ captured/ shamelessly stole those screencaps. It's my right to mark them." Well, I got news for you. No, it isn't. Unless you are the legal copyright holder, which in this case is Konami, then you have no legal right to mark what is not yours! I don't care if you slaved away for hours getting those caps, you do not own them and have no claim on them. Be glad that the gaming companies aren't seeing such things as copyright violations - yet - otherwise quite a few websites out there would be in serious trouble.

Now if you've put up something that is an original piece that you have done, then by all means watermark it, tell the world that this is your property. But for the love of god, people, stop claiming copyrighted material as your own. It will only get you into trouble. If you're the one that went through the trouble of scanning or capturing something, then say so. You did the work; you deserve the credit, but remember that those pics do not belong to you.

There, I've said what I wanted to say.

Comments

[jik-kuri.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people watermark images as well. It is just a pain in the ass and chances are people are going to be fairly annoyed with the person who did it. It ain't funny or cute. Nor is it cool. It's just being an ass.

[eiahmon.livejournal.com]

*nod,nod*

[rahenna.livejournal.com]

I don't understand watermarking screencaps - how can you get a good look at the screen with a big ol' watermark on it? Scans, however, I say it's up to the person who scanned it. Half of my Castlevania gallery ended up on Aethereality (I can tell because my scanner has condensation inside that leaves a distinctive cloud on my images), and worse, the owner plopped a ton of non-CV art into that gallery. I own every single item that's been scanned for my site, and not all have been easy to find or cheap.

I'm still not going to watermark my images because that screws it up for people who want to look at them or use them for layouts. I just hate when my stuff shows up in a giant gallery without any mention of the source. I even say TAKE IT as long as it's not a duplicate of the entire gallery. I'm not petty, I"d just like more traffic for MY site.

[ninjakitters.livejournal.com]

I hate when people do this too. Ugh. Yes, you scanned it. Yes, you slaved away over a hot scanner for two hours. But those images are still not yours and you have no right to watermark them and claim them as such. Goddammit. >:|

[eiahmon.livejournal.com]

I just don't get it either. One of the screencaps showed Soma facing off against a chimera, but you could only see half of the chimera because of the watermark. Sadly, that is one where I can't edit it out simply because it requires more detail work than I'm capable of on a photo editor.

[eiahmon.livejournal.com]

*does a happy dance* You tell 'em Kitters! You know, I'm a little happy that I'm not the only one that hates it when people do that.

[ninjakitters.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. <3 XDD Of course!