[Hotfoot]

Hm...this sounds oddly familiar. I know a friend of mine has had some problems like this in the past. Copyright is a tricky issue, but when it comes down to amature artists, I can definately sympathize with the need for asking and giving credit where credit is due. Most people who are amateurs want to possibly become professionals, and it's rather difficult to achieve when one's art is taken on the net and shown without any credit given.

(ed. note: while I was writing this, I was in the middle of an ICQ conversation with a friend of mine, who offered some insights into this situation to me)

When I first read this thread, I thought that it sounded somewhat familiar, and in fact, upon further checking, it's actually more familiar than I originally thought. I happen to know the artist in question, and she's had a heck of a time with people taking her art and not giving her proper credit (or any credit in some cases: there's beed a few times when people tried to pass it off as their own).

I love her art, and I sincerly hope she continues to share it with people, as do the rest of her friends, and the best way to do that is to give her a reason to keep producing it. Right now, the best way to do that is give credit where credit is due.

As for the paranoid ramblings, well, yes, if a company wanted to, they could keep people from publishing shipsets and images if it kept them from earning money on the subject of the shipsets and images or if they had a similar game and the mods for SEIV cut into their own sales (like say Lucasarts were to revive Rebellion, they /might/ decide to come down on the Star Wars shipsets).

But in any case, just because it's on the internet doesn't mean that it's free. And when it comes to independent (or amateut) creators of anything, you always want to give them a reason to continue making stuff if you like it. It's like not just handing out the *.exe for SEIV or WAREZing it, because we want to see more.

I'm not certain, but I think that if you asked her and told her your intentions, you might get permission to use her picture, but that's really up to her, not me. In any situation, I look forward to seeing more shipsets to download.

-Hotfoot
"Hey, we can hope."