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I'm sorry but I don't really think this is appropriate. Not only is he copying the maps Tolkien made himself, he is also copying his style and font typings almo
by adflux 6y ago
I'm sorry but I don't really think this is appropriate. Not only is he copying the maps Tolkien made himself, he is also copying his style and font typings almost 1:1...
If this was open source work, sure. But he's charging quite an amount for something I personally consider plagiarism.
EDIT: For anyone unaware, he's selling these on his personal site.
- madmoose 6y agoTolkien has been dead for a while now, I don’t think he minds.
- notacoward 6y agoJRR has been dead for a while, but his estate still exists and has been highly protective of his works (putting it kindly). They're the reason it took so long for a movie to be made, and why LOTR Online had to make up a bunch of stuff to fill in for inaccessible source material.
- matkoniecz 6y agoI am not convinced that copying style is somehow evil.
- adflux 6y agoNeither am I, I just think its icky.
- arethuza 6y agoHe's handy producing these things and gives a fairly detailed tutorial on how to do the same thing. As I love OS maps and Tolkien I really like this - I might even try and get him to do my local map square.
- adflux 6y agoHe does commissions aswell, if you check his website.
- galadran 6y ago1. Of the literally hundreds of maps on his site, there are only two which are actually based on Middle Earth. 2. 'Style' is not copyrightable. No one owes royalties to Picasso for Cubism. 3. Plagiarism is representing someone else's work as your own. The tag line of his site is literally "Tolkien Inspired Cartography". He's very clear that he's following Tolkien's style. 4. Tolkien borrowed from previous cartographers, his own style evolved considerably over time and what you probably think of as the iconic Tolkien map, was actually by Pauline Baynes.
- adflux 6y agoI'm not saying its illegal. I just think it's cheap.
- CorrectHorseBat 6y agoTolkien is 50 years dead, The Hobbit's copyright expires in 10 years. I think it's fine.
- dageshi 6y agoI would call the second or third person copying what he's doing "cheap", I wouldn't call what he's doing cheap.
- SamBam 6y agoWould someone who paints photographs for you in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night also be "cheap?" Particularly if their website were called "StarryNightPhotos.com" and they clearly said on their site "these are painted in the style of Van Gogh?" Because that's all this is. And there are plenty of AI sites that do exactly what I just said but poorly, and probably plenty of artists with a side-job of doing something like that better.