That's all well and good, and it's also a point I made in my original post. Where's the line, though? Is it okay to steal from Klax's authors because it came out in 1989, or because Atari isn't around anymore, or because Klax isn't for sale anymore, or because you're not explicitly charging money for it?
It's one thing to use someone else's art in a 'remix' fashion, where you use it in an early prototype to get the feel of things, or you're building a riff on an existing game that makes it different in some new or interesting way.
You certainly won't find what the original author is doing described on the wiki page for Fair Use [1], and sadly that doesn't apply to your use of Klax either.
I don't think your little HTML5 port of Klax makes you a bad person, but you should re-evaluate whether it really makes sense to have a 'software consultancy' link right above material that - no matter what you say to justify it - does not belong to you.
You did the hard work to build a playable Klax clone: Great! Now, how about you go out there and find someone to replace the art so it's legal? I'd bet there are plenty of Klax fans out there; I follow some of them on Twitter. If your goal is to promote your for-profit software consultancy, how about you spend some of those profits on making your HTML5 game legit? It's not actually that expensive.
When I was last building a for-profit title on my own, I definitely used some existing assets in early prototypes. You can find footage of them in the archives of my youtube account. But you had better believe I eradicated every last pixel of them before ever putting a trace of that game out on the internet or using it for profit. It's nothing more than the cost of doing business.
>> Now, how about you go out there and find someone to replace the art so it's legal? I'd bet there are plenty of Klax fans out there; I follow some of them on Twitter.
I have actually tried looking for a pixel artist to replace the art work, but not had much luck. Seriously I'll replace it if you can point someone in my direction!
It's one thing to use someone else's art in a 'remix' fashion, where you use it in an early prototype to get the feel of things, or you're building a riff on an existing game that makes it different in some new or interesting way.
You certainly won't find what the original author is doing described on the wiki page for Fair Use [1], and sadly that doesn't apply to your use of Klax either.
I don't think your little HTML5 port of Klax makes you a bad person, but you should re-evaluate whether it really makes sense to have a 'software consultancy' link right above material that - no matter what you say to justify it - does not belong to you.
You did the hard work to build a playable Klax clone: Great! Now, how about you go out there and find someone to replace the art so it's legal? I'd bet there are plenty of Klax fans out there; I follow some of them on Twitter. If your goal is to promote your for-profit software consultancy, how about you spend some of those profits on making your HTML5 game legit? It's not actually that expensive.
When I was last building a for-profit title on my own, I definitely used some existing assets in early prototypes. You can find footage of them in the archives of my youtube account. But you had better believe I eradicated every last pixel of them before ever putting a trace of that game out on the internet or using it for profit. It's nothing more than the cost of doing business.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use