Contrition from Dorkly and College Humour for Uncredited Sprite Use

[Xander]

A Twitter thread was trashing my Mario sprites (that Dorkly uses) and the thread caught some fire:
https://twitter.com/CursedAni/status/143...6274693125

Longtime spriter and pal Tonberry2k went to bat for me and pointed out that my (and many other spriters) work has been used by Dorkly without credit for over a decade:
https://twitter.com/stymiedthoughts/stat...8219206659

Tonberry2k was able to get enough people to retweet his concerns and this morning, I got a formal apology from Dorkly in my inbox:
https://twitter.com/dorkly/status/1431473180670050305

@Dorkly: It has come to our attention that *tons* of our videos use artists' work w/o acknowledgement or permission. Unbelievably poopy of us, and there really isn't any good excuse for it. We're going to be contacting every artist in order to right this wrong.

Quite a ride! I thought I'd share here.

[SonicKade2048]

Well dang, can't say I expected that to ever happen. Good job to Tonberry for getting Dorkly's attention and good on Dorkly for coming to this decision.

How are we gonna do that? Well, first, an apology to each of them. Then we're gonna offer to take down the videos that includes their art or leave it up with proper credit added and compensation. Entirely up to them.

In addition to fixing old videos - going forward, no video will ever be uploaded without the proper credit and consent from the artist who made it. That is our vow. Please brutally rip us if we ever break it. Also brutally rip us even if we don't, we kinda deserve it.

Twitter / YouTube / Bandcamp / Neocities

[VinnyVideo]

Yeah, it's good to see these sites trying to make amends. Plagiarizing/not giving credit to small-fry fan artists is not cool at all - especially when you're creating content for profit.

Also, Xander makes good sprite-y things.

Course clear! You got a card.

[GeneralGuy]

Your sprites are awesome, Xander. They should have credited you from the beginning.

[Parakarry]

Wow, props for being on top of it.
You think they legit didn't think about (or inquire about) fanmade sprites? It's all on the internet, right, so why bother, right?
Maybe they thought they were real.

[Xander]

Well dang, can't say I expected that to ever happen. Good job to Tonberry for getting Dorkly's attention and good on Dorkly for coming to this decision.

Yeah, agreed. I just assume it would continue on indefinitely.

Yeah, it's good to see these sites trying to make amends. Plagiarizing/not giving credit to small-fry fan artists is not cool at all - especially when you're creating content for profit.

Also, Xander makes good sprite-y things.

Haha, thanks! College Humor had a couple of animations, but Dorkly really took things pro, and their videos have millions of views.

Your sprites are awesome, Xander. They should have credited you from the beginning.

That would have been ideal!

Wow, props for being on top of it.
You think they legit didn't think about (or inquire about) fanmade sprites? It's all on the internet, right, so why bother, right?
Maybe they thought they were real.

Well, the communication I've received basically conveyed that animators have come and gone and I guess whoever originally used them never told anyone that they were not original creations. They don't seem to have deep knowledge of the spriting community and aren't really aware of the fan customized sprites conceptually. So it's largely a legacy issue, I think.

But it's good they're trying to do right by all the affected artists!

Me.

[Jazz]

This was long overdue

I go by OmegaF.