Retrorama Comic Theme

[MrJordaaany]

@dankcushions More importantly, profiting off his work. That was the biggest issue.

[Clyde]

@dankcushions There are two sides to consider here, the legal side and the moral side. Legally, if the theme was released with a free license, redistribution should still be legal. As for morally right … I think that should be left for anyone to decide for themselves. Is it moral to share a freely licensed theme if the author doesn't want it to be shared anymore? Vice versa, is it moral of the author to ask for that after he released it freely?

I don't think there's an definite answer to that. My personal opinion is, in all due respect for the author, that I won't reproach anybody for still sharing the theme under the terms of its licence, because I'm a strong supporter of free licences and their validity beyond future whims of their authors. If I give something away freely, it should be free of my own control, for both now and tomorrow.

[dankcushions]

@Clyde
you may be right, legally, but we should support creators and not try and look for loopholes to go against their wishes. art/design work in particular is not well-served by these software licensing models.

i strongly feel that retropie should support contributors to this project. we want to be a welcoming community, not an exploitative one. if lipebello ever comes back, then we should be the ones who respected their work and decisions, unlike all these custom image groups who exploited them and caused them to leave in the first place.

[mike001]

@robmcc83 if things get sorted out I would like to put retrorama on my raspberry pi3 as well . I'll check back to see if shareing is ok and if you don't mind.

[Clyde]

@dankcushions I don't think it's a loophole or exploitive if we act according to the license @lipebello originally published his theme under. It may sound a bit harsh, but any author who puts his work under a licence that's not terminable at will should know what he or she is doing.

One central feature of such licences is that they provide security for their users to do as the licence allows them, and they don't have that security if it becomes void as soon as the author changes his mind; for that, we don't need any licence at all. Without such licences and their ramifications, neither Retropie nor the free software that it's based on would be possible.

That said, I just think it's unfair to deprive innocent users of a work that was once freely given to the world because the author has been offended by others since then. It would hurt the exact kind of people I presume @lipebello created the theme for in the first place.

I hope you won't take this the wrong way. Thank you for this thought-provoking exchange of views.

[grupoapunte]

@lipebello Thanks for the awesome theme you made, fortunately for me I been able to get the last version (or at least that's what I think based on your youtube videos) . I don't think this may help in any way to make you change your mind but I have to say, I strongly believe you did this purely to share your art with us, who greatly appreciate it, and as an artist you are totally right about demanding that your name is not removed. Please consider that most of us who appreciate what you did actually recognize it's yours and don't let others (who are the real hatters) make you think that us, the real users who love the art you did, will think that you are not the real author, the entire retropie community and platform recognizes you as the author of this great themes you created.

I been reading the messages in this post and in reddit and I can clearly see that a lot of people want's you back on stage!

Personally, your theme, Retrorama, was the reason why I picked this platform for my personal arcade cabinet. Again, thanks for the hard work you did.

[felleg]

@lipebello Hi Phil, I'm a huge fan of your work. I fully respect your decision to pull the theme from github. It must be maddening to see someone steal your open source work for profit. I find it sad that it had to come to this.

When I learned about this situation, there's one thing that I realized, and if you have time, tell me if you agree or disagree. The people selling your theme surely already have backups of it, at least the version where they (cruelly) removed your username. The version you removed from github is the one with all proper credit and license that people were accessing when self-building their machine. I believe the action taken by revoking access to the repository hurts the people for whom you created this theme in the first place, more than it hurts the thieves. I'm also worried that the theme keeps spreading around from backups, possibly with missing credits. Stopping development out of frustration is one thing, pulling down the official version and letting stolen copies strive is another thing.

I know that @herb_fargus also faces every day a very similar situation with how RetroPie is being sold for money. Did you consider having a chat with him? Not really to help change your mind, but just to feel like you're not alone and to get through this.

This message might be too little too late, I hope you're doing well and that this will not keep you from being artistic, whatever your canvas may be.
Cheers,
Felix

[lipebello]

@clyde Actually, you're right. i got in the middle of a situation that i can't describe, and i know most of people that was send links of people selling retropie with my themes on it was trying to help, but i was felling real bad about it and the trigger was all the harassment that i went with people who became mad when i ask that dude to stop selling my drawings with my name erased from it. (he is indeed a seller).
Maybe i needed a time away from all this and i really tought a lot about this situation and now i'm feeling that i'm punishing the wrong people.
I don't know if or when i'll make more content for the community, but i'm uploading the last 4 complete themes that i've made, so people can use them.
Thank you all for the kind words.
https://github.com/lipebello

[herb_fargus]

@lipebello we are unfortunately very familiar with greedy scumbags taking our work and selling it as their own, tis a pity.

I think I speak for everyone in saying your work is top notch. Thanks for your contributions even if you're put off from future developments

[lipebello]

@herb_fargus I can imagine, it's pretty easy to lost the will to contribute when you realise the amount of people that do these stuff.

I've finished to create all the repositories.
https://github.com/lipebello/es-theme-retrorama
https://github.com/lipebello/es-theme-strangerstuff
https://github.com/lipebello/es-theme-spaceoddity
https://github.com/lipebello/es-theme-swineapple

[mediamogul]

@lipebello

Glad to see you back and sorry for your troubles. Thanks for sharing your work. It really is spectacular.

[meleu]

@lipebello hey bro!

If you remember well you'll know my older son (a comic book nerd) loves your RetroRama theme so much, with all those references to the Super Heroes logos. When the repo was gone I became very sad...

You coming back and posting your work at github again made my day! Very happy to see you here :D

By the way, would you mind to reupload your awesome RetroRama themed launching images too?

Just to remember, the repository was named retrorama-launching-images and it had a directory named 16x9-packs with three directories:

• FRAME
• GRID
• NOGRID

and each one had its own subdirectories with the name of the systems.

You may wonder why I am providing all these details... It's because I made my rpie-art tool able to install your launching images getting from your old repo. If you keep the previous directory structure I won't need to change anything on the rpi-art files (please, don't call me lazy! :P ).

[Clyde]

@lipebello If we would meet in person, I would buy you a drink. o/ᵁ

[lipebello]

@meleu Of course i remember, that's why i was feelling sad to have 10GB of work lying on an ext drive without real use, while sellers out there already have them. I really loved how my childhood passions are the same as a lot of people out there. Also that's why i agree with everything that has been said here, i was feeling like i was punishing the wrong people.

I'll upload the launching images now, but i'm remaking the overlays to make them look more real, so it will take a while for me to finish it.

https://twitter.com/PhillBello/status/984261794435862530

@Clyde , i would love that. Thanks!

[Eldrethor]

@lipebello Thanks for all of your hard work, and I'm glad that you're back in the scene. You have the support of everyone here, and you're not alone; your hard work does not go unnoticed, and neither do your struggles. I also think that as your gain more traction, people will know when they see someone ripping off your work. To add to that, there might even be a way for you to secretly hide or blend in your name, logo, or insignia somewhere in your work, almost like an Easter egg.

[felleg]

@lipebello I echo @Clyde 's sentiment. If you have a paypal.me, I would gladly send over a $10 for the hard work you put into this and the ultra nice graphics I've been showing my friends for the past year. Cheers, thanks for all the fish!

[meleu]

@felleg here's what we can see on his youtube video descriptions:

---

Buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/phillsdoodles
If you like to donate, here's my paypal account.
Paypal account: filipebello@yahoo.com.br

---

[Clyde]

@meleu Many thanks in the name of all who are too lazy or dumb to look that up, like myself! :D

[meleu]

@lipebello could you please step in here and confirm that you want to see your themes installable via RetroPie-setup: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/2373

[cyperghost]

@lipebello Welcome back! Where can I donate?