You guys take this whole RPG Maker thing wayyyy too seriously. I didn't read all of the posts in this topic, but I read enough. Take up real programming, make a real game, pick up a paycheck for it, and then maybe I'll start taking you seriously.

Fact is: Everything we do here is in the public domain. No money is changing hands here (I haven't seen a penny for my work). I made my game with RPG Maker 3, which doesn't have silly password protection. But beyond that, it's public freaking domain! Let's get real, people.

I never cease to be amazed at how seriously the RPG Maker community takes itself. The saddest thing about this is that you're using a "game maker" to make a game. I said this elsewhere, and I'll repeat it here. It's like asking Vivaldi to compose a symphony for you. You hum the melody and harmony and stuff for him, he composes it, an orchestra plays it, and you take the credit for it. Intrinsically, it's a joke. It's not like you're designing something incredibly unique from scratch. You're using graphics that someone else designed, music and effects that someone else designed, and so on.

Americans are way too concerned with intellectual property rights. Bleh! My sister knows a lot about Japanese culture, and according to what she's told me, they don't have the intense copyright laws that we have in the USA. If someone likes someone else's anime, he can actually do a sequel to it or a new story arc without violating any silly intellectual property rights. My sister knows more about it than I do, so she could probably elaborate better on it.

But the bottom line for the RPG Maker community: Pick up a paycheck for your work, then you can start taking it seriously. Until then, "public domain" is the buzz word for what we do here. Er, buzz words.

@The Xix

Here is where I agree with you: People (not just Americans) take intellectual property rights way to seriously as the creator (i.e. not wanting to give things away free to the public domain). However people don't take them seriously enough with respect to other peoples work (Piracy is illegal but does that stop anyone? It can also be argued that it is unethical depending on what you value more).

Here is where I strongly disagree with you: Money has little to do with it. It is an independent variable. The protection of authorship is considered to be a very serious issue. Showing financial losses due to piracy is only one way of showing infringement. I might say that some of you take money too seriously. Although I myself am of the Anonymous school of share (my or others with a similar mindset) original ideas freely without regard for authorship, I highly respect those who are not of the same school because like it or not the protection of intellectual property rights does have the positive benefits to some of personal self worth and of stimulating further discovery and creation. This too me is significant enough to protect even if they do not apply to me specifically.

Second: THESE WORKS ARE NOT NECESSARILY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. I'm not yelling at you, I am making sure everyone knows that. Did you know it is likely a copyright violation when you forward an email message without the original author's permission. It is also a copyright violation when you use someone's copyrighted image for a post in any topic when it is not of fair use or transformational, but that is a whole other story.

The point is, if a game is submitted to RPGMMAG and posted there but copyrighted within the game, the game is copyrighted regardless of whether it can be downloaded for free and regardless of whether or not it is registered with the Library of Congress. The only way it is in the public domain is if one relinquishes their rights which I don't think was ever in the Terms of using this site, so they would have to not indicate copyright and they may even have to declare against implied copyright, or if it qualifies under other statutory circumstances like the author being dead for some amount of years, etc.

Furthermore, you can look up in the instruction booklet that RPGM1 allows certain rights and claims certain other ones. The reason that is because, and here is where I also disagree with you, one does not have to reinvent the wheel to create something original. The use of RPG Maker software is akin to the use of programs, engines, or any other initial software that developers use as a basis to originally modify or manipulate or vary functionally. These are not the days of the C64 where you programmed the entire game yourself. Even professional developers start with software as a basis. Ours happens to be RPGMs. There is nothing wrong with that. You can still create original works.

In other words, yeah professional games may be superior in quality, an superior in revenue generated, but they need not be superior in originality and are on equal footing with respect to intellectual property rights, especially copyright.

@Anonymous (Bo)

Your entire post just proved my point. Every paragraph that disagrees with me takes intellectual property rights too seriously.

I'm not disputing the protection of authorship. I'm the author of my game. You're the author of yours. We're both very reasonable individuals who take that for granted. No one's gonna get away with passing off my game as his own work here. The RPGM Mag is like a small town. If you do anything seriously wrong here (or even mildly wrong), everyone's gonna know about it. Same goes for the Pav.

But I seriously doubt that anyone would actually be interested in passing off someone else's work as his own because most of the people here who make games are either:

A) self involved (not a bad thing), or
B) egomaniacal about their work

In other words, the focus is on "I made this!" The author wants it to be his own work.

But if someone wants to take an idea from what I've done, or heck, if someone thinks he can do my game better than I did, I think he should be allowed to give it a shot. If someone wants to make a sequel to an existing game, he should be able to. My game in particilar doesn't have any copyright information in it (at least, I don't remember adding in any such nonsense), so my game is public domain.

Money has a lot to do with it. Money distinguishes between it being a job or a hobby. Maybe I should be saying that you guys take your RPGM hobby too seriously. But to each his own.

I bought a copy of RPG Maker 3 and used it to make a game because it was fun and the end result was fun to play (as a hobby). I submitted my game to the site, it got published, and I've been just assuming that it's in the public domain. Others can download it and play it, change it for their personal use at home, and do with it as they please. It's always been that way. Take from this what you will, but I don't extend the same standards of intellectual property control that I would if I'd picked up a paycheck for it (in which case creating the game would be a job, not a hobby, and I'd take it more seriously).

@The Xix,

I agree with you, largely. The big disagreement is not with respect to the way we want to be treated or have our games treated, but rather to the level of respect we decided to give to those who disagree with us about the way they want to be treated or want their games to be treated.

I haven't yet put "Who did this!?" in the public domain but I probably will at some point. If and when I do, the reason that I will do so is not because I don't take intellectual property seriously but rather BECAUSE I take intellectual property seriously. Yes I think there is a place for both maintaining control and relinquishing control. I value that. I think it is unfortunate that you and many others don't take this seriously enough. We can always put things in the public domain but we never have to require others (who don't want to) to do so. That is a great thing about this system. Even if I give up control of my work, I don't give up the system for others to control their works. The fact that you invoke money seems to suggest that you are unsympathetic to the idea that to others it isn't always about money (sometimes not at all) and you don't seem to respect the idea of allowing others to decide for themselves how they want their works designated.

While I welcome everyone to consider putting all their works in the public domain, I don't ever want anyone thinking that money (either as 'real' stock or psychologically as a false indication of merit (i.e. where a bestseller is thought to be better than a book that doesn't sell at all)) is the basis for intellectual property rights. Everyone gets to decide for themselves the appropriate control regarding their original works initially.

Bo,

I said "To each his own". Live and let live.

I don't have any power to make anyone do anything here. The most I can do is make an observation that I think some of you guys take the whole thing more seriously than I do (which is what I did).