EVE Information Portal

I leave the legal parts aside and just ask the questions which are of technical and artistic concern:

1.) Why does the watermark picture include a gritty overlay on the rest of the image? Is the Concord star on the top right not enough? There are many sleek and solid NPC corporation logos, there is no reason why a capsuleer alliance should have their own image "stained", especially when corporation logos can be just as smooth. I suggest you will be removing that image and only leave the concord star on the top right.

2.) If you really want to keep the complete watermark, can you please at least provide the full watermark image as a standalone? This way we could see how much it affects new designs and incorporate it better. Or is the "gritty effect" dynamically created as a filter?

3.) How large can we expect the Concord star to be in order to design the logo around it without clashing? It appears to be 32x32 in the example picture, making it 128x128 when increased to the new 512x512 logo size. Is that correct?

4.) Are we allowed to submit our OWN downscaled versions for 256x256 / 128x128 / 64x64 or will the full 512x512 image be downloaded to the client and scaled ingame as necessary? If not, here is the reason for my question:
Downscaling does not always relate to good proportions or "eye-catchers" and the downsized image cannot be edited for proper clarity if used by the game. If you scale down an image and you know what sizes you deal with, you it is far better to make "hands on adjustments" to the file in order to present a clearer and more distinct image which is not based on estimated retained proportions but rather on "eye-catchers" which the human eye can latch on better when using post-edited downscaled pictures.

5.) Why are the example images in the devblog not squares but rectangles? Isn't that a bit misleading when the submission size is required to be 512x512? I can't quite think you intentionally add a column which does nothing but waste two thirds of it's space while only showing the Concord logo.

6.) Is there a reason why a member of an NPC corporation is not allowed to post in the other topic and why did you even put up two topics to begin with?

7.) So what stops people from making an alliance, then hiring people from bloodline corporations to join the alliance, reach 250 members that way, submit the logo, and then have these members leave again once the logo has been approved?

8.) I could understand why you only want to have ONE image, being 512x512 and no individual sub-resolutions and just scaling instead... to save space... but... well... let me put it in perspective;
The CURRENT Alliance files are 128x128 and average at 25Kb. You do realize that a 512x512 file is going to take a lot more space with lossless quality. Up to SIXTEEN TIMES depending on how detailed the image is. And if you already go with that much bulk, adding a current version of 128x128 is not going to cause that much of a hassle.


As someone who makes money with digital artwork and design, I'm not going to touch the silly subject of derivative work and copyright because in the end... well... it is not my problem.

I expect that part of the submission process is you granting CCP the ownership of that derivative work, which would mean that they own the derivative, but not the original.

Stuff you hold the copyright for springs almost immediately to mind. Since it's you know, yours and you can let other people use it legally.

Based on these compromises, I'm having trouble believing that your legal counsel are lawyers. If you could give details for contacting your legal department, it'd be much appreciated. Specifically, I'll be asking the following questions:

1) Why, exactly, was a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free licence to do whatever you want with a logo unacceptable, given the set of people who can grant permission to do what you're planning on doing with logos is a subset of the set of people able to grant such a licence?
2) Given copyright exists and begins at the point of creation of a work, how is it possible to submit something that isn't copyrighted?
3) If derivative works are copyright to the organisation or person doing the modification, can I apply a distress filter to Eve artwork and pass it off as my own?

Alternatively, if CCP Legal could post here instead of hard-worked community managers absorbing the flak from their customers, that'd work.

If for example a logo is created as part of a working contract then sometimes yes, depending on what the logo is going to be used for, private or business purposes, etc. etc.

I see the problem from a different perspective: What was wrong with the old system again that the community was unhappy about? Why was there a need to change it? Because let's be real here; while CCP makes money from the game, they don't necessarily make money BECAUSE of these alliance logos. Instead of this IP and copyright clash, why not make it a "right to use" thing? Like... "By uploading this image you grant CCP the right to use and display this image in the game by default without needing to give you credit and it is allowed to be viewed and used by third parties involving Eve online (zkillboard and others) as long as these third parties do not directly profit from the display or charge people explicitly for doing so."
No this is not lawyer lingo, this is ease of comprehension lingo.

I understand what CCP is trying to do. They don't want to "rip us off" and claiming everything related to Eve their own and stuff. Other companies might as well put it like "the moment you upload this, you agree to give all your IP and copyright to us, tyvmkkthxbye"

But the fringe case of the watermark could be interpreted as "we change the original product so much, it loses the copyright and thus we can use it". The problem is that even with the watermark and that gritty overlay, you STILL recognize the original image as such WITHOUT a shadow of a doubt. This is very shaky ground you're moving to.

But this brings up yet ANOTHER question.
What about the re-use of images already in the game? In the case of CAStabouts, will that still be okay? I mean we never want to see something like that, right?

I do have some other questions but again, I can't post them over there in the other topic because oh no I am a filthy NPC corporation member :c

Would still be nice to get official responses to the questions I asked above as I volunteered to make a recreation of the CAStabouts logo and want to get things straight c:
Thanks!

the fuss was people using alliance logos to sell stuff on 3rd party websites for rl money, probably using eve's name to help promote it, ccp then enforcing to remove the said things from the site, and in turn the people got angry.

Don't use effects or textures, it's pretty clear in the requirements.

NPC logos have these because CCP added them, if we deem it necessary we'll add them to player logos so that they fit with the theme we're looking for.

Like I've said, feel free to contact our legal team.

I'm not a lawyer, I can't answer your question, so it's pointless asking me on the forums.

yeah this was already cleared up by ccp darwin and makes sense now but thanks for the reply

also do you have a template which contains the actual concord icon with size to make sure logos are not being covered by the icon in the corner? from your examples the icon looks rather large in comparison to the logos themself. maybe make the examples in the post show the actual size of the logo at 512x512 with the watermarks so people can see which space they can use on the canvas.

for example if you used the fcon logo to use a whole 512x512 edge to edge then the concord insignia would probably cover the wing and look rather bad.

hopefully this makes sense



this is kinda of what we are asking, can we see a real representation of the final logo so we can design around it

Just an FYI:

After reading the feedback from the blog overnight, I've dropped the member count requirement from 250, to 150 given that there were some genuine concerns over it, and some valid points have been made regarding the healthy size of a small alliance.