Lifting your Avatar

jayce

Just out of curiosity, how attached are people to their avatars? Would it bug you if someone took yours and started using it? I think I am more the yes side of the fence, but I am curious how other people feel and think about it.

pitu

sugar, did you miss the avatar hostile takeover frenzy we had here recently?
you might want to add an option to your poll that is about hunting down and (insert cruel act of choice) . . .

jayce

I guess I must have.
do tell.

apollonia666

It was annoying as hell to have someone lift my avatar recently. The person who did it was clearly trying to get a rise out of me and saying something would have only given her satisfaction, so I didn't say much about it at the time. I know it bugged other users, though, because a few of them piped up about it.

doublediamond

I have a journal over at livejournal, which is a community/journal site. You can be banned and have your journal deleted if you take an avatar without permission and don't remove it after the original owner asks you to.

At LJ, you credit the creator of the avatar if you know who it is. And oftentimes, someone will tell you who created it so that you can give due credit.

It's a big deal over there. People spend quite a bit of time making them too. I rotate some of the ones I've made here once in a while, but a few of them I took w/permission and on LJ, I credit.

pitu

appollonia666 wrote:

yeah, Little Edie was *not* herself that day.

Said user stole the avatars of whoever s/he was hating on at that moment, resulting in exchanges between the same pictures. It got tired fast.

It made for a bit of confusion - and resulted in a timeout for the offender, since it was bundled up with a bunch of bad behavior.
If anyone is thinking of doing it all I can say is DON'T.

Although I have to say that sh*t is funny when it's done in love and with good writing - there's been some cute jokes played around here that were obvious sight gags . . .

bendy broad

I think this depends on a few factors.

If we're talking about an original image, e.g. a photo you took, a photo of yourself, or a graphic you created, then it's pretty cut and dry. I would not be ok with someone lifting that.

However, there are some images that are floating around that a lot of us use in different places. For example, when I first started posting on these boards, I was going to pop up the Little Edie avatar that I've been using elsewhere until I noticed that Apollonia is already using the same one. So, I didn't use it. Did I change it on the other board? No. Why? Because it's a completely different board, I've had that image up for nearly two years there, and I didn't lift it from someone's profile, I found it in Google Images. In that case it's no big deal.

So, here's a question: what if you found out that someone whom you know from this board lifted your avatar (not an original image as described above) and is using it elsewhere? Would you mind?

jayce

It would bother me, yes.

So i may not have created my avatar... it is clearly from South Park. But I also spent the time trying to dig around for that image (which was no small feat), crop it, resize it, etc. In all it took me about an hour to make my avatar. Do I have copyright entitlement to it? Clearly no. For me, it would annoy me though. If you want it, totally ask me for it and if I like you, I will totally tell you to grab it and use it elsewhere. but I'm just the kind of person who likes to be asked first. i guess i think its just a matter of etiquette.

but thats me. and i guess thats why i am asking what other people think.

pitu

Bendy Broad wrote:
So, here's a question: what if you found out that someone whom you know from this board lifted your avatar (not an original image as described above) and is using it elsewhere? Would you mind?

depends if they were being a jerk, no?

let's say they were a non-jerk on that other board
if they just thought my publicly-obtained avatar was cuter than everything else out there in the avatar world, I would think that was kind of sad

of course if you both just *happen* to wear the same dress - what you describe with Little Edie - then no harm no foul no pathos

pitu

jayce wrote: It would bother me, yes.

So i may not have created my avatar... it is clearly from South Park. But I also spent the time trying to dig around for that image (which was no small feat), crop it, resize it, etc. In all it took me about an hour to make my avatar. Do I have copyright entitlement to it? Clearly no. For me, it would annoy me though. If you want it, totally ask me for it and if I like you, I will totally tell you to grab it and use it elsewhere. but I'm just the kind of person who likes to be asked first. i guess i think its just a matter of etiquette.

but thats me. and i guess thats why i am asking what other people think.

so, you having a south park issue with somebody somewhere?

jayce

I don't want to get into a he said she said kinda thing. I was leaving it deliberately broad because i just wanted a general sense of etiquette really. its not really a big enough deal to be concerned about it, I was just curious if my own sense of it was so far out in left field from the rest of the world.

t-fal

I wouldn't mind if Phyllis Diller wanted to use mine, but only her.

apollonia666

pitu wrote: Said user stole the avatars of whoever s/he was hating on at that moment, resulting in exchanges between the same pictures. It got tired fast.

Yeah, part of the annoyance of the whole thing is that I think many of us get to know users' avatars, so you glance over and you see the wrinkly pooch with the tiara and you know it's Pitu, for example. So when identical avatars were showing up in a thread, I think it was misleading, even if only for as long as it would take people to go, "Wait, that doesn't sound like something she'd say," and then double-check.

I've got a great animated one saved for whenever I get tired of using the pic of Little Edie, but you're all just gonna have to wait for that. Might be quite a while.

armchair_warrior

you can take mines anyday . i ask someone on vn(owned by fox) to make this icon out of those popular happy bunny things. she made it and loaded into their icon database. and i seen other people on vn use it.

whyfi

pitu wrote: [quote=jayce]It would bother me, yes.

So i may not have created my avatar... it is clearly from South Park. But I also spent the time trying to dig around for that image (which was no small feat), crop it, resize it, etc. In all it took me about an hour to make my avatar. Do I have copyright entitlement to it? Clearly no. For me, it would annoy me though. If you want it, totally ask me for it and if I like you, I will totally tell you to grab it and use it elsewhere. but I'm just the kind of person who likes to be asked first. i guess i think its just a matter of etiquette.

but thats me. and i guess thats why i am asking what other people think.

so, you having a south park issue with somebody somewhere?
I saw someone with the same avatar as Jayce on another board just last week... tech forum, so not too surprising.

Also, there's a phpbb add-on/plug-in/whatever to prevent people from using the same avatars... but I think that it would be more trouble than it's worth... then again I don't know anything about phpbb and how easy it would be to implement, it may take 30 seconds, for all I know... in which case, it might be worth it.

theoryofpractice

I can't imagine anyone being interested in my avatard.

doctorj

I change mine regularly. Anyone found using one of my old ones is an also-ran.

littleredmenace

Man, I didn't even know what an avatar was until I jumped on this thread.

I'm a little ashamed to say it, but I am a little computer phobic. I only really use one because I have to.

That being said, I guess I need to obtain said avatar and hope that you all don't steal it.

apollonia666

LittleRedMenace wrote: Man, I didn't even know what an avatar was until I jumped on this thread.

I'm a little ashamed to say it, but I am a little computer phobic. I only really use one because I have to.

That being said, I guess I need to obtain said avatar and hope that you all don't steal it.

You don't *have* to have one, LittleRedMenace, unless you want one. And the stealing thing has only happened once here, so I don't think there's a huge chance it'll happen to you.

littleredmenace

Yeah, I know I don't have to have one. On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to hang out on cool community boards! Besides, I guess these things do come in handy. I mean, you can't IM on a typewriter. Although it'd be funny to try.

erikka

If it's a something you don't have ownership rights to in the first place (eg, South Park), I don't think you have much claim over it, really. It's Matt Stone's and Trey Parker's IP and if anyone should be upset it's them.

In the same public forum, I'd say it's poor form and rude. In another, fair game.

jayce

LittleRedMenace wrote: I mean, you can't IM on a typewriter.

depends on how quickly you can tear out the paper, ball it up and throw it. oh and how far you can throw.:D

littleredmenace

I think this is a new movement we need to start. Of course, I am not sure how throwing paper wads at people will go over. At first.

brooklynpotter

go ahead, steal my avatar

mr. tips

...I was bored...

drano

I change mine too often to really get worked up about it. I think I'll keep Gumballhead for a good spell, though.