Vman
04-03-2003, 01:29 AM
Since I'm fairly new to the whole Flash scene, and hooked by the way, I'm curious as to how some of you feel about Flash decompilers. They're obviously not illegal since you can buy them. But I imagine there are a lot of people out there who steal other peoples' hard work.
Me personally, I wouldn't get any personal benefit out of doing that. To me there is a lot to be said about self gratification and being proud of the work you produce.
I guess I'm just trying to get a handle on ethics here. This site is all about helping other people. Newbies and vets, right? Actionscript being thrown around left and right. Nobody expects to get paid for something they've learned and want to share with the other people on this site. Or so it would seem.
Is there a limit to what people share. I mean if you come up with some really kick -ss script that does the coolest thing on your Web site or in your game, would you share it or sell it?
The reason I'm asking is there is a really cool site and it's been mentioned on this site before. www.neostream.com. It's got this little character named Shockboy on there that you can slap the crap out of and he does short little animations depending on the velocity and placement of the mouse movement.
Now here's the thing. They're selling the script for this little guy for $25. Or, I got a friend at work who's got one of these decompilers that I can use and buy a weeks worth of smokes instead. This is the first site I've seen that is selling actionscript. Any other sites seem to just give it away. After all, I just want to disect the script to see if I can figure out how they did it. You know, learn from it? I couldn't care less about the rest of the content. 25$ seems like a lot of money for some actionscript. You should be able to buy the whole .fla for that price. My views may emerge from ignorance though. I do a lot of 3D modeling and am a member of a few of those forums as well. If I know how to do something or discover something new and exciting, I love to share it with other people because hey, it saves 'em time and makes 'em happy. One thing they do include for the $25 is comments.
I guess what I'm getting at here is, the decompiler is legal, but if you use it, then it's illegal? Or only for the sites that are charging for their actionscript.
They say they're selling the script as an educational tool. So obviously someone who buys this script has intentions of using it in some of their own work right? And they know this. Otherwise, why would somebody waste the dough. So, if you apply your own artwork to it there is no copyright infringement. You can view the source code from any Web page you go to. Why would actionscript be any different as long as your not using the other content.
Just wanted to get some views on this. Thanks.
Vman
Me personally, I wouldn't get any personal benefit out of doing that. To me there is a lot to be said about self gratification and being proud of the work you produce.
I guess I'm just trying to get a handle on ethics here. This site is all about helping other people. Newbies and vets, right? Actionscript being thrown around left and right. Nobody expects to get paid for something they've learned and want to share with the other people on this site. Or so it would seem.
Is there a limit to what people share. I mean if you come up with some really kick -ss script that does the coolest thing on your Web site or in your game, would you share it or sell it?
The reason I'm asking is there is a really cool site and it's been mentioned on this site before. www.neostream.com. It's got this little character named Shockboy on there that you can slap the crap out of and he does short little animations depending on the velocity and placement of the mouse movement.
Now here's the thing. They're selling the script for this little guy for $25. Or, I got a friend at work who's got one of these decompilers that I can use and buy a weeks worth of smokes instead. This is the first site I've seen that is selling actionscript. Any other sites seem to just give it away. After all, I just want to disect the script to see if I can figure out how they did it. You know, learn from it? I couldn't care less about the rest of the content. 25$ seems like a lot of money for some actionscript. You should be able to buy the whole .fla for that price. My views may emerge from ignorance though. I do a lot of 3D modeling and am a member of a few of those forums as well. If I know how to do something or discover something new and exciting, I love to share it with other people because hey, it saves 'em time and makes 'em happy. One thing they do include for the $25 is comments.
I guess what I'm getting at here is, the decompiler is legal, but if you use it, then it's illegal? Or only for the sites that are charging for their actionscript.
They say they're selling the script as an educational tool. So obviously someone who buys this script has intentions of using it in some of their own work right? And they know this. Otherwise, why would somebody waste the dough. So, if you apply your own artwork to it there is no copyright infringement. You can view the source code from any Web page you go to. Why would actionscript be any different as long as your not using the other content.
Just wanted to get some views on this. Thanks.
Vman