Guest jasondonervan Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 edit: And the other thing that sucks? A mere thumbnail in the corner of his images (I've seen many on tumblr do this, especially with .gif art) could of at least prevented such easy re-appropriation for this video. There are grey areas all over this. FMTM is using copyrighted material, albeit not for profit (as far as I'm aware). However, by taking imagery from the original source (mostly eroge games and visual novels) he has recontextualised it... only for another artist to move in and then appropriate that into their own work, without permission. How much is Warp implicated in this? They obviously classify it as an 'official' music video for an artist signed to their roster - it is posted on Warp.net prominently enough - but were or should there have been any copyright checks made on their part? If there were and Rafman just shrugged it off as 'yes, everything is mine', that would absolve them somewhat, because how would they know otherwise... but if he was paid for it by Warp? Then FMTM has a right to be pissed. However - legally, how far can he really push the issue? He doesn't own the copyright to the games he sourced the images from, after all... (but also consider that most of the companies that produced these games are probably long gone by now). I wonder if this was why the video was pulled from youtube and vimeo, not for questionable content but due to targeted copyright claims by folks linked to FMTM in order to bring it down (going by the quote I took earlier, he hasn't been too involved). It's all a bit of a mess really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pixelives Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 He can't push the issue really. Only the original creators/owners can. Rafman was probably paid, as there probably was a budget for promo, albeit not very much. Videos do not see the kind of money they used to and this was probably made under the auspices that there was to be very little "production" involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 legally speaking he can't, but I think he easily has a case (as hes already shown) to make about the laziness of the video creator. And clearly the video maker knows where he got the images from but chose not to credit this website. A little disingenuous since about 80% of the videos charm is 'where the fuck did he find those weird game images'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pixelives Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Right. I was talking in more general legal terms or to push for compensation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zaphod Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 what relevant and interesting drama Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doublename Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 what relevant and interesting drama The controversy is better than the video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manmower Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 The album is better than both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted September 30, 2013 Author Share Posted September 30, 2013 what relevant and interesting drama The controversy is better than the video. The album is better than both. ^this "The Controversy is Better Than The Video" sounds like a good album title. I wonder if this was why the video was pulled from youtube and vimeo, not for questionable content but due to targeted copyright claims by folks linked to FMTM in order to bring it down (going by the quote I took earlier, he hasn't been too involved). It's all a bit of a mess really. I really is, I guess the lesson of the story is that the better known and better financed artists usually win, and regardless of the backlash the damage of the initial stolen credit and undeserved acclaim is already been done. If there's a lesson to be learned, it's to try to cover your bases and not be naive about how you share your work. People are shameless and too many of the masses don't mind that at all. In one of the most egregious examples, a multi-millionaire producer took a lengthy section of a track, and without any permission or legal authorization used it in a hit dance song and got away with it, even after reasonable and well-organized legal action. There's the legal absurdity that surrounded the Prodigy sampling of a Jedi Knights track (which centered on their flip/arrangement of a well-know breakbeat). In this case, a very low-key and niche tumblr page was sourced with minimal recognition. That's why I brought up the thumbnail aspect - would those images been used if watermark of "FM TOWNS" was in each corner?. That's why something as arbitrary as say, the website these images were hosted on (tumblr versus flickr or deviantart or blogspot, etc) makes a difference in whether or not a person like Jon Rafman felt like it could be so blatantly used. And well, make sure you know merely being the first person who found and shared something obscure, especially with little or minimal artistic changes, won't mean you'll be recognized as such. I've seen completely unrelated uses of the exact same image without anyone noticing - things like old found magazine photos used as album covers for example, or when two artists have very similar lyrics and/or song titles that both reference the same movie or tv show or the same 90s toy (no really). It happens all the time, it just gets ugly when it blows up like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 woah, i knew about the Timbland scandal but had no idea he took this stance It makes me laugh. The part I don't understand, the dude is trying to act like I went to his house and took it from his computer. I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, 'You can't be serious.'" so because he gets called out on plagiarism he decided to mock the guy who's song he stole because he didn't even know who he was? That's so many levels of fucked up, it's incredible. what a massive cunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted September 30, 2013 Author Share Posted September 30, 2013 woah, i knew about the Timbland scandal but had no idea he took this stance It makes me laugh. The part I don't understand, the dude is trying to act like I went to his house and took it from his computer. I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, 'You can't be serious.'" so because he gets called out on plagiarism he decided to mock the guy who's song he stole because he didn't even know who he was? That's so many levels of fucked up, it's incredible. what a massive cunt I was obsessed with the case specifically after reading that. Even for someone not involved in the demoscene it just really pissed me off. Sums up his entire ethos and much of idiotic bullshit that feeds mainstream hip-hop. It's like all the fucking morons that defended and berated Portishead on twitter when they told the Weeknd he couldn't use a sample. Geoff Barrow's page was flooded with comments calling him a "HATER" and shit like that. I can't imagine being propelled to fandom with such childish fans, but it suits these delusional, egomaniac entertainers well. (btw Weeknd then denied it was a sample, as if no one has ears and and an internet connection) He's been successfully sued for other songs. His house was robbed a couple years after that interview and his family called 911 because they thought he'd committed suicide but he turned up. He was upset a very expensive wristwatch of his was stolen. Around the same time he claimed that invented dubstep: The UK scene... they’re always telling me that I started it. You have Dub-bass...”. When questioned further about it he went on to say: "It’s funny cos they went back to some of my old music that really created that sound and just, instead of going fast, they went slow with more bass." The guys is just a fucking idiot. His reputation is mostly based off some fluke hit songs. He's the perfect example of how record labels can literally run a business model around one cooperative posterboy. He's literally thrown a drum kick and his own voice saying "yeah" to a song called "Apologize" by a band called One Republic and instead of calling it a remix, his record label sold it on Timbalands album as "Apologize (feat. One Direction)" Even most of the stuff he "collaborated" on recently with people like Bjork and MIA always ended up being his far more skillful (imo) "protege" Danja. I suppose I gave up being so angry about it out of futility. But yeah, absolutely infuriating shit, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rulohead32 Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Oneohsteal Point Plagiar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jasondonervan Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 And well, make sure you know merely being the first person who found and shared something obscure, especially with little or minimal artistic changes, won't mean you'll be recognized as such. I've seen completely unrelated uses of the exact same image without anyone noticing - things like old found magazine photos used as album covers for example, or when two artists have very similar lyrics and/or song titles that both reference the same movie or tv show or the same 90s toy (no really). It happens all the time, it just gets ugly when it blows up like this. That's where Rafman has been rumbled. Although the games those images were derived from are pretty much widely available to anyone with a PC and an emulator, it was FMTM who was curating imagegrabs from them in such a prolific manner... to the extent that specific images can be located in the video timeline and linked back to the date they were uploaded by him on his tumblr. It's unlikely that Rafman was unwittingly part of a multiple discovery, sourcing the material himself without any knowledge that FMTM was also doing so (and vice versa). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 it raises a lot of interesting 'ownership' issues. I'm trying to think of anything similar that's happened before. It would almost be like a band doing a 'ghana movie poster' themed album release based off that one dude's coffee table book without acknowledging his work of tracking down those obscure images. That didn't actually happen fyi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thief Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 what exactly is tumblr anyway? is it just a personal page u sign up for and you can post diary entries/images on? is that it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 pretty much, but it's primarily images. the diary entries are called 'notes' underneath pictures you post. seems like a lot of adult content/explicit stuff is commonly found on tumblr vs other mainstream blog hosting websites Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmanyo Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 To be fair, this is what is says on the Vimeo video, which now works: [ MOST OF THESE LINKS ARE NSFW!!!!!! ] Video by Jon Rafman Music by Oneohtrix Point Never Special thanks to FM TOWN SMARTY!!! SOURCES: images fmtownsmarty.imgur.com fmtownsmarty.tumblr.com reddit.com/r/shittybattlestationsgurochan.net/ vidsvimeo.com/user4921740youtube.com/user/kigurumiwa?feature=watchyoutube.com/user/kiwikig2/videosyoutube.com/user/rajutenrakuza/videos Not sure if that was before or after the whole debacle though. It definitely could have been better sourced, but I think that OPN and Rafman will likely respond to what happened; my guess is that Rafman is a fan of FM Town Smarty. I also think that all this doesn't take away from the artistic impact of the video, and the video did something for me that single images on tumblr could not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bitroast Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 To be fair, this is what is says on the Vimeo video, which now works: [ MOST OF THESE LINKS ARE NSFW!!!!!! ] Video by Jon Rafman Music by Oneohtrix Point Never Special thanks to FM TOWN SMARTY!!! SOURCES: images fmtownsmarty.imgur.com fmtownsmarty.tumblr.com reddit.com/r/shittybattlestations gurochan.net/ vids vimeo.com/user4921740 youtube.com/user/kigurumiwa?feature=watch youtube.com/user/kiwikig2/videos youtube.com/user/rajutenrakuza/videos Not sure if that was before or after the whole debacle though. It definitely could have been better sourced, but I think that OPN and Rafman will likely respond to what happened; my guess is that Rafman is a fan of FM Town Smarty. I also think that all this doesn't take away from the artistic impact of the video, and the video did something for me that single images on tumblr could not. Pretty sure the credits were not available on the original YouTube video .. (?) Given the free nature of posting images on tumblr, I feel giving credit and linking to the sources is more or less the best outcome. I don't imagine compensating with money or even apologising being necessary. I mean, as sucky as it is that it was the tumblr guys work in finding this material, crediting it is more/less the extent of what you can do in this instance.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 video is suck, controversy is bore. stop being contrarian bra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zaphod Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 aren't those images just taken from games? i get that there's a context to it, but why are we pretending the tumblr was producing original content? aren't all the photos in the video also from different threads on 4chan, blogs, etc? not really trying to defend the video guy, because i thought the video was pretty stupid, but is taking a gif from a site that makes gifs out of copyrighted content really stealing? isn't the entire video basically "sourced" from "public" internet memes, photos, videos etc? or am i missing the point and maybe not understanding what's actually on the tumblr page? if so, fair enough. i should add that i've done the bare minimum reading on this controversy so i might be missing some huge piece of the puzzle here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pixelives Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 The funny thing is that a lot of people on Tumblr think that their appropriations are their own original content. I do not agree, obviously. But you see this kind of beef happening over there. It's an interesting shift from the "information wants to be free" mantra of the early/mid 2000's. Sure, work was put into your "curating," or whatever you want to call it. But it's not really yours. So don't be surprised when it is used in some other way, by somebody else, no matter how simply. Still, I think that Rafman could have done more to the source material to render this debate non existent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 aren't those images just taken from games? i get that there's a context to it, but why are we pretending the tumblr was producing original content? aren't all the photos in the video also from different threads on 4chan, blogs, etc? not really trying to defend the video guy, because i thought the video was pretty stupid, but is taking a gif from a site that makes gifs out of copyrighted content really stealing? isn't the entire video basically "sourced" from "public" internet memes, photos, videos etc? or am i missing the point and maybe not understanding what's actually on the tumblr page? if so, fair enough. i should add that i've done the bare minimum reading on this controversy so i might be missing some huge piece of the puzzle here. i think specifically the gripe was that this guy used a bunch of really obscure emulators to play these even more obscure Tandy-era 16 color japanese anime adventure games and took screen shots of some of the most ludicrous bizarre parts of each game. Granted these same screenshots might exist somewhere else on the internet but he went through an awful lot of work to collect them from what it looks like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rulohead32 Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuatxuk Posted October 1, 2013 Author Share Posted October 1, 2013 If I take 80% of that reviews content, add some furry in quicksand, then write "needle drop" in the video credits, I'm good right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rulohead32 Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 Check minute 2:26 :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YangYing Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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