Homebrew app Looking for some C&D avoidance advice

[Axido]

Hey, fellow tempers.

For some project I was working on for a while I need some advice regarding visual content. I made a tool that can read and mod parts of certain Pokémon ROM files. For the user interface I basically made giant maps of the games in question using ingame images available on sites like Bulbapedia and Serebii as well as screenshots from within the games. Now before I release my work to the public I wanted to ask whether this might be considered C&D-worthy as much as, let's say, a full-fletched ROM hack would be. The sole purpose of the maps is to give users some orientation as to which values they alter. Basically they are mere backgrounds and you cannot do anything with them rather than look at them.

Does anybody know of projects that have been C&D'd for using those assets as visuals in their tools? Or would you say that this is more of a fair use case, especially if I stored the images as semi-blurry JPEG files and/or reduce colors/resolution to make it clear that I don't want to abuse my tool to share some ingame assets.

 

[Hayato213]

If you get C&D order then stop doing it, if you don't next step is lawsuit

 

[DarkCoffe64]

Mean, the spriters resource is a thing, Bulbapedia too, if shittendo hated what they did, feel those sites would've been obliterated ages ago.
Afaik, modding tools for single games don't exactly get C&D, since they're more interested in the stuff that allows you to play pirated stuff?

Do think should be all good on your end, guess just maybe look up if craptendo has ever C&D modding tools before, but afaik, I never really heard that happen before, uh.
If you really just worried about it, could guess put the guide separate from the tool or something. Maybe make a pdf or what.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Run the artwork through a pencil sketch outline filter that gets the points across by "tracing" the main points of the image but without directly having any copyright material eg:

Thats enough for orientation and you haven't used anything they directly own as you reproduced it and filters will do so with minimal effort on your part. Nintendo are quite fierce about their IP (rightfully so) and if you've put this much effort in its best to not have anything ripped from their titles as a redraw avoids that issue nicely.

 

[Axido]

If you get C&D order then stop doing it, if you don't next step is lawsuit

First of all, thank you for clarifying that, since I seem to have left out that I already planned my steps in case of that event.

Mean, the spriters resource is a thing, Bulbapedia too, if shittendo hated what they did, feel those sites would've been obliterated ages ago.
Afaik, modding tools for single games don't exactly get C&D, since they're more interested in the stuff that allows you to play pirated stuff?

Do think should be all good on your end, guess just maybe look up if craptendo has ever C&D modding tools before, but afaik, I never really heard that happen before, uh.
If you really just worried about it, could guess put the guide separate from the tool or something. Maybe make a pdf or what.

Thank you. I was hoping there was no such incident yet. Seeing Ninty protecting their IP as much as they do, it's hard to judge whether some rather harmless project stood in the crossfire already.

Run the artwork through a pencil sketch outline filter that gets the points across by "tracing" the main points of the image but without directly having any copyright material eg:

Thats enough for orientation and you haven't used anything they directly own as you reproduced it and filters will do so with minimal effort on your part. Nintendo are quite fierce about their IP (rightfully so) and if you've put this much effort in its best to not have anything ripped from their titles as a redraw avoids that issue nicely.

Thanks for sharing that idea. I'll have to try to see if this works well with pixelated tiles. That's why I expected to go with color reduction, blur and resolution reduction, so that the tiles are still looking "kinda" like the real deal, but are not really usable as actual ingame graphics anymore.

 

[Hayato213]

First of all, thank you for clarifying that, since I seem to have left out that I already planned my steps in case of that event.


Thank you. I was hoping there was no such incident yet. Seeing Ninty protecting their IP as much as they do, it's hard to judge whether some rather harmless project stood in the crossfire already.


Thanks for sharing that idea. I'll have to try to see if this works well with pixelated tiles. That's why I expected to go with color reduction, blur and resolution reduction, so that the tiles are still looking "kinda" like the real deal, but are not really usable as actual ingame graphics anymore.

As far as I know the recent people who got cease and desist from Nintendo like MatinatorX dragoninjector, and people who were hard modding SX Core and SX Lite for people, they stop what they were doing, If you do get one you should stop what you are doing to avoid a lawsuit.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Taking a grab then editing it is very different to remaking it in a legal sense. People in the music business do it all of the time in order to avoid paying publishing percentages to copyright owners and its the only way you'll be able to use their art in your app without sweating. I'd change the aspect ratios slightly as well to avoid that 1:1 thing, generally edit the graphics so a point by point match isn't possible.

Easy enough to do and I think it looks great:

https://pencilsketch.imageonline.co/

If you can, avoid it all together. Noting they can do then if there is nothing of theirs in it. Alternative is to create a tool where the end user rips the assets from their own ROM so all you're providing is a clean tool they need to "finish" to use.

The Mario 64 decompile worked like that and it stayed around with no hassle.

 

[Axido]

As far as I know the recent people who got cease and desist from Nintendo like MatinatorX dragoninjector, and people who were hard modding SX Core and SX Lite for people, they stop what they were doing, If you do get one you should stop what you are doing to avoid a lawsuit.

You don't have to repeat that. My case is not piracy-related (users will still have to provide their legally obtained ROMs themselves) and I already knew about the legal consequences before opening this topic.

Taking a grab then editing it is very different to remaking it in a legal sense. People in the music business do it all of the time in order to avoid paying publishing percentages to copyright owners and its the only way you'll be able to use their art in your app without sweating. I'd change the aspect ratios slightly as well to avoid that 1:1 thing, generally edit the graphics so a point by point match isn't possible.

Easy enough to do and I think it looks great:

https://pencilsketch.imageonline.co/

If you can, avoid it all together. Noting they can do then if there is nothing of theirs in it. Alternative is to create a tool where the end user rips the assets from their own ROM so all you're providing is a clean tool they need to "finish" to use.

The Mario 64 decompile worked like that and it stayed around with no hassle.

That looks quite good. I might add some basic colors afterwards to make it easier for the user to find certain places (since one of the purposes of this tool is to make notes on the map quickly, which might require some visual cues).

I thought of letting the user provide the ROM first, but that would require a huge rework of the tool. Reworking the already existing graphics will have to suffice for a while.