Newgrounds Officially Cracking Down on Sprites.

[neo-fusion]

Taken from a recent news post by Newgrounds founder and CEO Tom Fulp.

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I want everyone who creates content to read this post very carefully and take it very seriously.

The next time you are inspired to make an animation about a cool song you heard on the radio, DON'T, unless you are comfortable with the idea of only sharing it with yourself and a few close friends. Otherwise, take that inspiration and find a song you have permission to use. There are thousands of artists in the Audio Portal who are available for that sort of thing, as well as independent artists across the web who can be contacted for permission.

The next time you need art for your game or movie, DO NOT image search Google and grab something from the results. Many of those items are registered with enforcement agencies that will levy strict penalties for unlicensed use.

I know the web and Newgrounds have been like the wild west, but times are changing.

Newgrounds will be a better place if everyone here learns to work together instead of turning outward for resources. If you need a background, song, title screen, etc., someone here can help you with it. We will continue to work to make that easier, because there is no alternative.

If you are starting a project now and hope to be featured on NG when you're done, keep this post in mind. Content featuring original art and audio will be king. Parodies are still fair game and part of our culture, but you've probably already noticed only a handful of sprite movies have made front page this year.

Also dicks are still ok.

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If worse comes to worse, I would hope the Compendium would be happy to host my work.

[Clovis15]

If you read the rest of the thread, you'd see Tom Fulp admit that game companies don't really care about Sprite movies... they just won't front page any sprite movies unless they're beyond exceptional (read: Super Mario Bros Z). Tom Fulp definitely doesn't want anyone continuing to use copyrighted music or copyrighted images, in this case the images they speak of aren't sprites.

We generally get the vibe that video game companies are cool with sprite movies - there isn't going to be a sprite movie crack-down unless it does become an issue, but at the same time, the bar for making front page with sprite movies is a lot higher than it used to be. Unlicensed photography is a much more pressing issue.

The title of this thread is currently misleading.

[tushantin]

Heh there goes sprite games, but still if sprite movies are okay what's wrong? Of course legal pressure keeps everyone on their toes. Better safe than sorry.

Yo Neo-Fusion! Haven't seen ya for a long time. What's kicking?