Cantr II Discussion Forum

Hello people,

A few questions from the data miner gyrus,

I looked at the beyond threads, there were some arguments about this but a fresh one will make more sense i guess.

Here is the question...

I have a charecter who is a painter, you know we can use notes not only as text but also with images... So i want to create portraits, still life, landscapes, but i do not know how does it look like... I can create a landscape from yhe eyes of my charecter but will it be a realistic one or a surreal image... as others do not see it as he sees.

And another important thing is .. if someone wants to have a portrait from that artist... how he will draw him... Does Cantrian people .. look like us? or a little different..

Let us discuss

If your character is an artist, he creativity should in no way be regulated or limited.

That is totally true, but what about the result... Will it be a real picture or a surreal picture.

Will he be Salvador Dali or Cezanne, i mean ...

Artists in cantr seem like a good idea...untill you realize that the only things in cantr that actually have imagery are maps and the occasional illustrative location image.

So if you want to play nicely with the fabric of reality, you have to work on the understanding that an image you attempt to make of a person, place, or building can't be considered a definitive depiction, and likely there's no real way to recognize the supposed subject.

Oh, it should be noted that stealing images wholesome from other sites or other real life artists is frowned upon.

nitefyre wrote:Oh, it should be noted that stealing images wholesome from other sites or other real life artists is frowned upon.

If I'm not mistaking, you can use images of paintings of artists who are dead longer than a 100 years, without being troubled with copyrights and stuff, but I'm no expert.

Ofcourse, you can't make forgeries, but that has nothing to do with copyright. And digital versions of paintings can't possibly be forgeries; they lack the paint and stuff.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure about the 100-years-copyright-limit. Could anybody be bothered to look that up?

Doodle_Jack wrote:

nitefyre wrote:Oh, it should be noted that stealing images wholesome from other sites or other real life artists is frowned upon.

If I'm not mistaking, you can use images of paintings of artists who are dead longer than a 100 years, without being troubled with copyrights and stuff, but I'm no expert.

Ofcourse, you can't make forgeries, but that has nothing to do with copyright. And digital versions of paintings can't possibly be forgeries; they lack the paint and stuff.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure about the 100-years-copyright-limit. Could anybody be bothered to look that up?

This is not so much a copyright issue. I mean yes, copyright enforcers could bring to court for using a copyrighted image, but in Cantr, you just aren't supposed to use obvious OOC references such as well-known paintings, poetry, brand names, whatever. No matter whether there's a copyright on them or not.

Another thing you need to consider is that you’re not claiming the art as your own, nor are you actually selling it for real profit. It’s being viewed as a fictional character’s depiction in a world that is not real. It’s all in-game.

If you’re in doubt about using a picture you can always just contact the person with the copyright and get their permission. Which, I suggest is the best thing to do anyways, no matter what.

Doodle_Jack wrote:

nitefyre wrote:Oh, it should be noted that stealing images wholesome from other sites or other real life artists is frowned upon.

If I'm not mistaking, you can use images of paintings of artists who are dead longer than a 100 years, without being troubled with copyrights and stuff, but I'm no expert.

Ofcourse, you can't make forgeries, but that has nothing to do with copyright. And digital versions of paintings can't possibly be forgeries; they lack the paint and stuff.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure about the 100-years-copyright-limit. Could anybody be bothered to look that up?

I do not believe that is true. Believe it or not, Microsoft owns most if not all of those images in their digital transfer. The only way you can claim ownership is by going to the art gallery or museum where said picture is and take a picture of the art yourself. Even that is sketchy. Sort of like the poor man's copyright where you mail yourself your writing and then believe it is copyrighted which it is not.

And the above information is what I was told in by Electronic Art class. Unless by professor was wrong then I believe that is true.

Serenity wrote:Sort of like the poor man's copyright where you mail yourself your writing and then believe it is copyrighted which it is not.

Actually, the item is copyrighted when you create it and you don't need to mail it to yourself, though mailing it won't remove the copyright. The process of mailing it to yourself and leaving it in the sealed envelope was designed to provide proof of creation date, but if someone is worried about an infringement lawsuit, they really need to send it to the Library of Congress' copyright office with the very affordable copyright fee (you can register multiple works under one fee) and register it officially. The mail-it-to-yourself trick no longer holds up well in court.

In-game note pages aren't indexed on the Web, so the chances that any artist will have a coyright issue with Cantr is exceedingly remote. They would have to locate the image, then their lawyer would have to locate the image for himself--meaning what? That he'd have to play the game for weeks so as to stumble his noob way towards eg "Shortinazy Mountains North," where his client claimed the image was to be found?... They all have better things to do. I simply don't believe this is a practical problem for the game, period.

And of course the staff can easily remove an image once identified.

But frankly, I'd be more interested if people tried to describe things more. What does your Cantr town look like? Many of the more literary-minded MUDs provide descriptive prompts when you enter a "room". Obviously, we can't expect New Lands to provide such. So descriptive prompts should be player-created.

description doesn't have to be textual...

visuality does have it's place in Cantr, and I'm all for artistry by players/characters - as long as it it personal and not ripped-off - i.e: you drew/painted/terragened it yourself...

Humans appreciate art because sight is one of our main senses.
Sight simply isn't the same thing for Cantrians. I prefer to see things evolve due to things the CANTRIAN faces, rather than it's human counterpart.
That is, I love seeing notes with laws against note thieving. That simply isn't a big deal in the real world.
Yet it would be dumb if someone started to talk about copyrighting, IC.

An example, I detest religions based on "mothers" or "fathers". Cantrians don't have them.
Every human has one, and those figures are HUGE impacts on everyone's life. So it's natural to place a grave importance on it.
I'd like to see a religion revolving around healing foods. Damn, they work freakin miracles!

On a related note, the Nossé would have been on my good list rather than bad list if they had used original terms rather than family related ones. Otherwise, they're one of Cantrs few unique establishments.

I think there are reasonable arguments to why using terms like 'mother' and 'father', as the Nosse do, is acceptable and unavoidable. Afterall, it's not like we can make up our own language to play cantr in, although that'd be an ideal for a society simulator. We are forced to use those terms. And if you were to think up your own confusing names, it'd simply over complicate and confuse people- etc

Nick wrote:On a related note, the Nossé would have been on my good list rather than bad list if they had used original terms rather than family related ones. Otherwise, they're one of Cantrs few unique establishments.

When the Nossé was created there were very few other religions/clans in cantr anyway, and I don't know of any that was around at that time that had a system like the Nossé's--with a father-figure (a LIVING person, not a mythical one) sort of tying the rest together without taking advantage of them (the Olip. Forest clans, although they did have de facto leaders, have almost nothing in common with the Nossé and I didn't know about them at the time anyway).

I actually did use different words than "father" and "mother" at the beginning. Unfortunately my grasp of the CR wasn't what it now is (was anyone's, back then?) and the words I used were in Quenya.

Of course, my involvement with the Nossé ended only about seven years after it started. Any direction it took post-El Adan was purely the result of natural in-game society evolution.

Incidentally if I haven't said it before I'm really thrilled that the Nossé has survived so long...nearly 40 game-years, all told, 30+ after the death of its founder...how many other in-game institutions can say the same thing? Mad props to those who have kept it going. Even if I've made no other sizeable contribution to cantr society, I'm thrilled that the Nossé at least is still around.