“Castle Age” – Facebook Art Theft Debacle
August 3rd, 2009 by RedMadMolly
The developers of “Castle Age”, a Facebook RPG, apparently not only chose to prettify their game with stolen art (discussion removed by Castle Age developers) they also thought it a good idea to swipe from rather well-known sources.
After some intervention by Jason Manley from Massive Black, they have now started to replace images (discussion removed by Castle Age developers) in their game. The final outcome remains yet to be seen – the law has been involved.
Stolen from Jason Chan (Massive Black)…
Also note the witch girl with the red hat, which actually is a recoloured version of Spring by Phoenix Feng, and the woman on the upper left, which comes from an artist featured on a banner on Fantasyana.
Also very suicidal: Ripping off Assassin’s Creed:
More information and examples can be found on Conceptart.org.
Small Update: The story is now featured on plagiarismtoday.com: Another Facebook RPG controversy
Medium-sized Update: The developers of Castle Age have now completely taken down Underworld, another game of theirs, after another post about copyright infringement (discussion removed by Castle Age developers) by Jason Manley a few hours earlier. It’s getting interesting!
Another Update, slightly late: The Castle Age developers have deleted their forums (and every mention of the controversy contained within) from Facebook and have opened their own forums elsewhere. Probable reason: While the Facebook forums didn’t allow this, they can now delete all unwanted posts about their copyright infringement (and do just that, according to a Castle Age player commenting on the plagiarismtoday.com blog.)
(61 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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o m g this is not even copying , its outright lifting and saying its your work!
That is pure dumb in action.
yes that is plain stupidity at its best. Outragous!
The realm pictures are totally stolen from the Magic the Gathering land cards.
The profile picture of Strider…doesn’t that look like Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter? Like from the games…
Completely blatant thievery. And to top it off, a good chunk of their community condones it.
“a good chunk of their community condones it”? I don’t know about that. I would say that a large portion of the cummunity falls into one of the following:
(1) Don’t know they were taken from elsewhere
(2) Assume they the developers got the rights to the pictures
(3) Think it is like when the pictures that they have posted end up in advertisers ads on facebook.
Believing that a small-time facebook app CAN aquire the rights to artwork from high-profile games such as Assassin’s Creed is pretty delusional in its own right.
I believe the majority of players in the Castle Age community do not condone it, but simply do not care either way (unless it causes the game to be taken down) – which is sort of understandable, even though it’s not the absolute moral high ground
who cares man… i dont give a crap what they do ppl gotta worry about their own stuff instead of ppl that are crying about losing money
I used to play Castle Age until hearing about this. When I found out about it, I quit and uninstalled the game, after telling all my friends and leaving some posts on the forums about how it was wrong to steal intellectual and visual art works from other people. There were a LOT of people who actually DID NOT care when this came out. There were several who were actually saying that Castle Age was so good a game, that all the people complaining about the art theft should just shut up among other things. Just calling the people who have a stronger sense of ethics about this specific topic whiners, and trouble makers, etc… so there were several Facebook users who were more than condoning it, they were kind of supporting it.
I’m sick of people stealing intellectual property in order to use it in their own “work” or trying to get money from the people who made the original work while claiming they stole it. It’s like that Tim Langdell guy trying to say that Mobigame’s (is that the company?) Edge iPhone game is somehow infringing on HIS work even though his company The Edge hasn’t truly released a game in like 5 or 10 years or something (I haven’t read all the facts/news for a while, so I forget) and has been trying to create problems for them for a while now.
Obtaining rights to copyright art is not hard….you ask the artist and you credit their work. If the work is credited most artists will not object to it being used. Since these are not great money generator they may and sometimes do ask for a SHARE OF THE PROFITS, but that is reasonable. I use copyrighted art for my icon on other games and on my players page I list the copy right. People just think it is cumbersome, and artist who act elitist and do not respond to e-mails bring this on with their arrogance. It is still not right but people try to excuse their criminal behavior by the artists bad manners. “We tried to ask but artist was being a jerk and answering us.”
This also comes from a culture that thinks it is OK to pirate music, and icons all the time. Sarah, do still have that new song you downloaded on You Tube? Did you upload your high school photo? Then you are guilty of pirating as well. Both are trade marked and the last is not legal for electronic distribution unless you have written permission from the photography company. the first is understandable, the music only costs $1-2 dollars to download but is a hassle to fill out the paperwork. The second is ridiculous since you are the model but it is still the law.
http://s903.photobucket.com/albums/ac233/LanDeBeorn/?action=view¤t=MovoAvatar.jpg
Bryan Spring Hammer – Image used with permission. http://www.skypiratesofvalendor.com
Sky Pirates of Valendor Published by Free Lunch Comics is © Everett Soares
2008. All Rights Reserved.
I’ve actually never uploaded my high school photos
I wasn’t in a lot of them, because I didn’t like to do a lot of extra curricular things or drama/plays. I’ve never uploaded any of my personal photos actually. I also don’t go to youtube to listen to music. I tend to watch the videos put up by the companies that have permission to upload an entire season of a show or who have always owned the show and just decided to put it up themselves. I just don’t watch youtube very much.
Lol I decided to look up Castle Age today, and I ran into an app on Facebook called Age of Castles that looks incredibly similar. The logo even looks similar to the old Castle Age logo! I don’t know if it’s similar enough for your article or not, but you might want to check it out.
A vast majority of the player base don’t know – they’re just normal people who want to spend some time playing a game, and most of the people I know don’t even ever visit the forums.
Personally I don’t condone it, but I don’t see a problem with continuing to play the game since they’re settling their issues, learned their lesson, and they’re getting permission now. They probably DID move their forums to avoid a bunch of copyright-issue topics but I assume it’s more because people will not just stick to one topic.
Also, Sarah, you do sound like a whiner. Sorry.
Quit bitching… Who cares if its small picture etc stolen… They took images and used these images to create a game many people enjoy. God you people are annoying..
… and they are profiting from it. Many people, myself included, were drawn to that game based on the artwork in the first place. Clearly many people care. Note all that “bitching” above you? God people like you are annoying.
I agree. I’d be livid if I was the artist. Corporate, profiteering bastards throwing a base application together and plundering other peoples time-invested art without permission or credit. Anything for a quick buck, DIAF Castle Age. I am deleting this application now.
You are all EXTREMELY late and uninformed, Castle Age took care of all the infringing materials months ago. Try the game and try and find one before you bitch about something you know nothing about.
The reason you may think people are uninformed is because Castle Age has not informed.
Dumbasses…
Castle Age is not corporate. If it were corporate there would be product placement… You think that piddly little advertising snippets in the favorpoints section nets enough income for a corporation to invest in keeping a silly facebook app running? Those are affiliate advertisements. This app is created by a person or group of persons who like the challenge of coding a popular game application. In the early editions artwork was lifted and edited to fit certain scenarios. Nowhere in the early stages did I witness anyone claiming credit for the art… this is not theft or plagiarism (that would imply intent to pass the copied art as ones one and this clearly did not take place). This is misuse of the artwork. Permissions should have been obtained. Having said this the creators of Castle Age have obviously taken steps to remedy this issue.
Take your corporate conspiracy crap and shove it. No one is deliberately setting out to rip off artists. This whiney railing against “the MAN…” is not only misguided and annoying, it does the facebook community, on the whole, a complete disservice. This misinformed discourse has discouraged people from participating and enjoying a great game application, in turn these people have not shared with their friends their gaming experiences, they haven’t invited other gaming friends who may not be on facebook from entering the community, and in some cases they have complete abandoned facebook in some misguided moral attempt at social martyrdom.
Get a life.
to all that complain about the copyright laws on such pics, it truly doesnt matter unless its actually something a bit bigger than a damn facebook app, i myself have had quite a few of my own drawings used over facebook but as far as im concerned unless there trying to actually sell my pics they can go ahead and if they make a few coins from some crappy little game that might last a couple of yrs good for them, my point is if u enjoy the game play it if u dont enjoy dont play it, but stop complaining about ripped off pics nobody cares not even the artists
Just wow…
So desperate to play a game that you hate on artists who DO care and are trying to protect their work? CA obviously ripped off the art. Which you are not denying.
LOL
Your comments are SO convincing. Really.
…back to our regularly scheduled program.
It can only be considered theft and abuse of art if they are using it for profit….
Even asking people for donations become very … GREY
Because people are attracted to this game mainly for the art itself which they have abused the right of the artist in obtaining permissions for it’s use.
I seriously am sick of either…
1.) IDIOTS who tell people to STFU
Learn to say something that isn’t mangled by words that cast inferiority on others
2.) People who think stealing the work of others without permission is OK.
Let me just go fuck and rape your mom then.. without her permission and see how you feel later about it. … much less how horrible your mom would feel.
For artists… it is just that. Violating our rights and useing of our art for broad and large scale advertising not only belittles us.. it is degrading as people don’t give a rat’s ass about how “we” feel. IT would be one thing if the people who are using the art “actually” gave us artists the credit in like some type of “Thank you Page” They don’t even do that…
How are we supposed to recieve acknoledgement for our work…and maybe even future and better job opportunties in the direction which most of us truly wish to obtain. We place our our art up for all to see in the first place… but if the people who “LOVE” the art so much, is stolen by a group of people who blatently plastered it all over their products,don’t even KNOW we were the ones who drew it!
3.) I do believe… that if a group of people in some one’s basement did something like this… it’s pretty GREY… on how to legally take action aginst them if they are a non-for-profit group.. i’m no expert on this.. I don’t claim to be.
But if a company assigns a group… and there’s proof that credits this… to make a game where they blatently steal the art without copy right persmission….
THEN it doesn’t matter if they are not asking money for it.
Because it is a company owned product (the game) who has a buisness license that should still follow and obey the rules of buisness.
They need to purchase the use of these images just like how they purchase all the rest of their stock images.
If a vendor is selling stolen stock images… then a law suit would then go to the vendor ..as that is to my understanding since the “purchaser” wasn’t aware the images were stolen.
(I’m not copy right expert or lawyer… but I do believe there is something illegal about the use of another’s art without permission even if the project is not-for-profit) I believe credit at the very least should be given.
At least … there is a silver lining to it all..
If… for some reason, the culprit is found out.. it might bring unreasonable fame to the artist (if they become recognized through it) that it was stolen from. Thus giving them more popularity and chances for their work to be seen.
That still does not CONDONE this type of behavior though.
“Let me just go fuck and rape your mom then.. without her permission and see how you feel later about it. … much less how horrible your mom would feel.
For artists… it is just that.”
Someone using your artwork without your permission on the Internet is absolutely no worse than someone raping your mother?
That’s twisted, kiddo.
At any rate, as others have mentioned, Castle Age switched over to a new set of images which are very loosely based on the old ones. The style’s pretty consistent, which means they’ve got an artist — which means they’re specifically paying an artist (rather than switching to a bunch of stock images). So at least a little good came from it all in the end.
Hey STFU- Bite me!
As an artist who has worked for years to try and hone my craft and make money freelancing it is disgusting to see art being ripped off! I guess you wouldn’t mind if they broke into your house to take some of your stuff then sell it to make money to fund the game. Hell it’s a game people love playing, why not?
Castle Age should pay the artists they have stolen from. It helped launch their game and get them recognition. Without the art there would have been no game! Even if they have an artist now they need to own up to what they have done.
I will have to research this copyright infringement myself but I don’t know why people think it was ok for art to be used without the consent of the artist. It’s their work, it’s their right, period! What is so hard to understand? It’s like the film industry didn’t have to buy rights to marvel to make spider-man, or J.K. Rowling for harry potter. It is their image that’s getting most of the recognition. of course I’m arguing at a larger scale but it applies to all infringements. I’m guessing the people arguing that its not a problem are people who don’t create anything and therefore have nothing to steal from.
The “Strider” character appears to resemble the overly fan-girled Robert Patterson from the Twilight saga as well…lol.
As an artist let me speculate on what’s going on here.
We are entering a new paradigm where information is becoming easier to acquire and is consequently becoming devalued.
On one side we have the hoarders who will stop at nothing to gain access to all information at any cost. They will even claim that information should be free.
On the other side we have the producers who want to maintain control of product. This is not mere information, they claim, this is a unique creation to which the creators have rights.
The conflict arises when the producers suffer a loss of control of the product, sating the demand, thus quickly devaluing the product.
The consequences are that product quality quickly diminishes, and opportunity to diversify product also vanishes.
The end user (a freudian id) is now flooded with virtually free product, then is forced to acknowledges the decreased value and ironically loses interest, putting the product away in storage, or the trash. We are left with an undesirable inferior market.
Now let us wrestle with the concept of rights. If you have an original invention, you need to protect it from theft by dominant corporations by patenting it. If you write a song or recipe, you copyright it, and can sell it or use of it continuously. In all professions, you get paid for your work effort and ideas.
We wrote laws to protect the abstract concepts of ideas from theft. Our forefathers have acknowledged that theft of ideas is much the same as theft of product.
An artist has 2 things going for him… his product, and the reputation of his image.
When any person or corporation uses an artist’s images without permission, they are damaging his reputation, and profiting at his expense. Would your favorite NFL football star ever promote snake oil? I doubt if he did, he would still be your favorite.
So when any facebook app uses an artist’s images without permission… contending that thumbnails are in the eminent domain of the public internet… they are still: 1. damaging his reputation 2. profiting from his image at his expense 3. stealing an idea 4. devaluing art used in this field 5. overly sating the id in complete tools who think they have a right to participate in stealing the blood sweat and tears of a working man just so they can hoard more virtual stuff to have a higher status along with 500 fake friends facing time on wastebook.
[...] push it up above the average social RPG title. The game was only marred due to its creators’ infringement, at one point, of some images from Massive [...]
OK – I came across this site by accident – yes I was looking for an image for my character – a bit of fun. As far as I know, Castle Age’s pics are credited and have been for the 3 months I’ve been playing. To Long Haired Artist I can only say get rid of the dictionary – you come across as a silver spooned fed snob. I can agree with the principle and will not use any copyrighted material – your fight is with the big corps not us users who just want to enjoy a game in our mundane WORKING lives!
Just wanted to add – I did not mean WORKING disrespectfully but not all of us love the job we do, or have the resources to do what we want. My brother did work as an artist so I do know what I’m talking about – I paid a lot of his bills!
Hey guys,
This has been reiterated more than once in this thread, but being as people are continuing to still cry for a lynch mob and are incapable of reading previous posts… here goes again.
Yes, from what I can see there was apparantly some infringement of works by other artists. Yes, those images were replaced.
Anyone who has actually been ‘watching’ the development of the game over the past few months can verify that well over 95% of the images that had been on this application back in August have now been replaced.
Now if you have a legitimate complaint about the images NOW in use, by all means enlighten me.
Otherwise it is pretty poor ethics to continue to persecute developers who can’t change a mistake of the PAST. Last I checked, time travel machines haven’t been invented.
Kudos.
–Jared
i invented a time travel machine but it only goes forward………
[...] fact, the artwork plays a lot in the connection to the game as a whole. Despite copyright issues half a year ago, Castle Age has come back with new and absolutely gorgeous fantasy art. Each screen [...]
Technically since the application does not cost anything, they cannot be sued for copyright infringement. Though they do accept donations, this is not enough of a basis for anyone to claim copyright infringement. Nowhere amongst the application do they put you in a situation where you MUST pay money in order to access these “stolen pictures.” All this drama that is being stirred up reminds me of high school girls gossiping about happened in the cafeteria last week.
Basically, who gives a shit. It really isn’t that big of a deal…lol. The original creators of the images should be happy they are being used, not trying to squeeze pennies out of small time application creators.
or… They could of just gone to one of the 000’s of avatar makers hanging out in chat rooms.
and never had to bother with any of this.
They (CA dev) were lazy.
The end.
Hey, “Anonymous”: Learn some basic law or STFU. While I am not a lawyer, I have read enough copyright cases to be able to tell you with total certainty that you can indeed be sued for copyright infringement whether or not your “application costs anything”. And no, the artists shouldn’t be happy that someone ripped them off without paying them. They eat because people pay them; if people don’t pay them, they don’t eat.
I’m all for giving stuff away free, but if someone hasn’t chosen to give something away, the solution is not to just take it anyway and hope they don’t notice.
Part of me just really wants to leave this topic alone, but if I did I think the artist in me would have me committed. I work full time while completing a tattoo apprenticeship, and raising a family to boot. So I understand the players views and the artists. (and personally I thought they had the copyrights for the images – aside from AC. Didn’t notice that.)
People are picking sides, but really there IS a middle ground that everyone is failing to see.
An artist’s blood is in his work, we pour our hearts into pieces that we do. Some of my drawings take months, and don’t reign any sort of profit. Now if it were a corporation or another artist that stole my work, ya I would be livid. But it’s not. The people that started this project are just as passionate about the coding and games as I am my artwork. No one EVER learns coding unless they love it – trust me it is boring as all hell. How much they make in donations? Hard to say. I haven’t known anyone to spend money on this game, it’s not competitive enough for players to feel they need to and nothing is on a ‘buy it now’ time limit.
Yes, I’m not saying it doesn’t tick me off a little that the internet makes using these images so easy, but it brings us a great deal of publicity too. If it were not for people using my artwork in their profiles and icons, I wouldn’t be known much outside my home town. Anyone who was drawn to that artwork and into the game will still be drawn to the artwork long after. The only thing I personally would have asked and strongly believe should be done, is that Castle Age make a formal and PUBLIC apology, and forever retain a link to my homepage. Because really I would rather earn money from people who like my artwork enough to purchase it. With a link available, those who were originally drawn to the art can do so – if they so choose.
[And yes, I do expect to get flamed for this post - mostly because it's long, so go for it]
Wow. As an artist, this is disappointing. The application isn’t there for fun. It was created to generate an income for somebody, otherwise it wouldn’t have lasted very long. They don’t accept “donations” they accept payment for goods. Those goods may only be a “character” or an “item” but it’s still accepting payment. I can only wonder if the certain generals that they “sell” were drawn by an artist that has been ripped off? Knowing that in the beginning they used stolen art is enough for me to delete the app even if they are paying an artist now. That’s not good enough. They got started with stolen goods. They made the game what it is today by stealing someone else’s art. Ugh, I’m just disgusted. I have been playing the game like crazy, and now I won’t be able to because of how disappointed I am.
There are NO excuses. If one person can do it, where does it end? People try to steal my photos off of flickr and use my kids’ pictures on orkut. That’s not ok. They’re not making a profit from it. And it’s no different from what CA has done. That’s it for me!
[...] also had some copywrite issues last year, and there’s an interetsing article about that at You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice. Reminds me alot of the Chun Li Kingory ads a while [...]
Seriously? It’s a game people. We are all humans, mistakes are made. Using a small image on a FREE social networking site for a FREE game that NO ONE is required to pay for, is in NO WAY even REMOTELY similar to raping my mother.
Those who think it is should perhaps evaluate the importance of art vs mother.
Any company or group that builds a game with stolen material out of whole cloth with the attitude of “steal now, ask forgiveness later” is first, pointedly stupid and second, an insult to anyone who has labored to be recognized for their own works. Their own commitment to creativity and originality. Why, when there are so many talented artists around the world who have the skills and desire to work with a group legitimately, would anyone steal? And don’t give me this BS about “it was a mistake”. One maybe two pictures is a mistake. This was planned, intentional theft. And if the so-called “creators” and defenders of CA don’t like that, too bad. Maybe if some of CA gamer defenders spent a little more time creating something original instead of deadening the goo between their ears always connected to a game controller, they would better understand the injury here. Judging from what I am reading though, I’m not holding my breath.
I for one am thankful for this beautiful artwork. The artist should realize that this is free advertising for them. I am now aware of artists that I never knew about before. I loved reading about Sylvana’s artist Genzio who is from Chile. What fabulous work he does, but he doesn’t even realize it.
In some ways this is the American Idol of artwork, bringing unknowns to the main stage.
Let’s try to understand how we lean on each other.
As an artist you should know what is going on in this world. If you don’t want your artwork being stolen, don’t put it on internet. Simply be aware of the fact that published artwork can be stolen. If you publish artwork on internet in fact then you must be glad to be the victim of stolen artwork, it means it is worthwhile to be stolen and it is free publicity which is very hard to get in artworld.
Simple as this.. EVERYONE has commited Copyright Infringement. Been on vacation and taken a picture infront of the Eiffle Tower, Washington monument, Mona Lisa etc? Have you ever used google images to look for something.. Guarenteed 99% of you have and most of those images have been put up there without the permission of the rightful owner. If Castle Age was a paying game then yes bitch all you want, however noone HAS to pay a pretty red cent to play it. If you want to be angry with someone be angry with the players that pay for favor points. They are the ones giving Castle Age money for the game. Many of us are quite content to play the game without paying anything and still enjoy it. All in all its free advertisement for the artist that they “ripped off” as so many of you have put it. I do believe that castle age WAS in the wrong, however they have rectified the situation, its over now get over with it. If you dont like the game fine dont play it, but dont come into a public forum and bitch and whine about it unless YOU are the artist being infringed upon.
“If you dont like the game fine dont play it, but dont come into a public forum and bitch and whine about it unless YOU are the artist being infringed upon.” That would make obama happy, take away freedom of speech. You really shouldnt bitch about people bitching. If my friend is wronged, I will stand up for him (her). If you try and take my freedom, youll die trying.
‘
Ohh so that’s what happened? I was saying to myself this game has some REA:LLY great artwork for just another text based mmo facebook clone…
Not big deal since now all disputed picture already removed and it replaced by more better image.
I was wondering who were the artists. I only know Andreas Rocha but I want to know who are the the ones making the heros and character art.
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