Inspired by Gus' excellent Tomb Rabbit intro cutscene... what do you believe the current community policy is now on taking tiles from, or even editing as a whole, other tilesets? How does it depend on factors such as age of tileset, presence of creator, or whether the graphics were purchased or not?

To explain more what I'm talking about, let's use a few examples... the most illegal, game conversions, are probably viewed as the most acceptable. Nobody bats an eye if you upload a conversion of a tileset from JJ1, filled with ripped graphics, or a conversion of Xargon, or Jill of the Jungle, or Mario, or Sonic, or anything like that. They're not always the best quality (a general statement, not intended to refer to any specific .j2t), but whatever, they can always be converted again by someone else. because the graphics are out there. I think we all know that these conversions are illegal, but for whatever reason - we paid for the game so we should be able to convert the graphics? the creators just won't notice so it's not immoral? - that doesn't stop us from making and using them.

How about free games, where we can't use the excuse that we paid for the graphics? Last I checked, nobody had any objection to, say, Lark's conversion of the freeware Jetpack... well, there were objections, but not relating to the morality/legality of the conversion, just relating to its usability or accuracy. I imagine the same would apply to other games, as well, even if they weren't technically freeware but had been downloaded illegally. However, I also suspect that the lenience with which a conversion would be viewed, or even MADE, would vary by the game's creator/s. A game made by a faceless corporation would probably be more likely to be converted than a game made by a single individual, or at least, the corporation would be less likely to be contacted asking for permission first. And if the single individual said "no," I imagine that the conversion would not be made.

Editing or ripping from other people's tileset conversions is another area. I've made a few JJ1 conversions in my time, and can generally notice if someone rips some tiles from one of those and puts them in their own conversion. Sometimes these tiles are just edited parts of the original graphics, sometimes they're original, and either way, I don't really mind, though I'm amused that the author doesn't seem to regard permission or even credit as necessary. Are they? My Deserto conversion is based off of Tarquin's, and makes no effort to hide that fact, to increase portability. I did not ask Tarquin about this. Is this wrong?

Then there's taking another person's personally-drawn tileset and incorporating some of its own tiles into your own set. The first example that comes to mind is Mez Reloadet, which met with rather less-than-optimal reactions, but probably for reasons other than the ripping alone. Assuming permission is not granted (as in "not asked for," not "forbidden") by the original tileset author, how should this be viewed? If the author is no longer in the community and no one knows how to contact them, does that make it somehow more permissible? Aside from authorship, surely this is no different than using the standard JJ2 destruct blocks or poles. What if the set is not intended for general use, as with Gus' Tomb Rabbit intro, but is meant for a cutscenish transition between two tilesets, where there's simply nothing in either tileset to represent going to or from the other? Do cutscenes transcend ordinary ownership?

In fact, what if a user tileset is used in some context other than JJ2? Aside from an old hotel set, I can't think of any tilesets offhand that specifically require you to ask for permission before using them for JJ2 levels. I imagine such a request might even be met with some degree of ridicule. What if they're not used in .j2l files, but still used for a level, say if someone wants to have Spacey Universe as a level in their free Sonic fangame, and Disguise cannot be tracked down to ask about it? What if someone has a Jazz-themed sprite comic and doesn't want to be restricted to just the official (and their own) sets? Hypothetically these tilesets are created for people to USE, so should there be/are there restrictions here?

Then finally there's upgrading tilesets. Moonblaze's The Demon Invasion introduced a set called Nature's Ruins 2, which was Disguise's Nature's Ruins with a few additional tiles that were needed for the episode. Disguise gave his permission beforehand - I'm sure no one sees any objection to this. I once edited (it's in here) a set called Jazzjackrabbit2, by Nitro, which I can't find on J2O right now, so that it would have a working palette rather than a garbled mass of colors. That was the only change I made, but I did not find Nitro first to ask for permission. How should that be viewed? Team Foo Races 1 includes edited versions of both Mez01 and Tavern, edited to include Fooruman and possibly other stuff. To the best of my knowledge these were not licensed edits... what should our reaction be? If any sets classify as "classic," those two should probably be included. Does the recency affect your judgment? What if someone went several steps further, and rather than just changing the palette or adding Fooruman, performed the same "upgrading" job on another community member's tileset that we see done to Carrotus and other official sets?

When a tileset is released, how public are its contents, or how public should they be, if there is a difference? How long does that last, if not forever? What affects that state, if anything? How much does the context matter, if at all? If you release tilesets, how much do you expect people to be able to do with them, and what might you object to?

Discuss.