Dear colleagues,
I have a problem, a programmer with whom I participated in game jams, behaved like a child after we removed him from the team (due to his toxicity and doing nothing - a long law, in which we wanted to help him but all attempts ended in failure), who as part of his revenge removed me as a co-creator on itch.io? I had a few cool games there and I put them in my CV, currently looking for a job. Is there anything that can be done about it?
Thanks.
Hmm. What could staff do here? Or is it possible for a co-author to hijack a game? The short help only tells that new admins could also edit admins, but I hope they can not remove the original admin. This would be a blatant security oversight.
Assuming this is not possible, there is one uploader that has the project on the account. If that master account removes the co-authors, how should Itch know if that was the correct representation of the game's legal status? Would they even be able to enforce any joint copyright? I doubt this. While they call it co-author, it just is admin privileges for a project. Being listed as co-author without admin rights is an often requested feature.
If being removed as adming from the project is all that was done, I do not see anything staff could do.
If the game was modiefied in a way that there are copyright issues, than there could be grounds to remove the project.
Or am I misunderstanding something here or missing something?
To my understanding this is outside the control of Itch, so staff will only be able to help if things were done that violate tos and otherwise can and will not do anything about this.
Ýou seem to have a different understanding of the matter, because you advised contacting support as a best bet. So maybe you know things I do not.
This is not legal advice. But I seem to remember that joint copyright is a thing in some creations. Check if you have such a right or not, and what it entails.
And if you do, you could release the works on your own account.
Being "co-author" on Itch is not a legal term.
Another beast entirely is removing credits from a work. If your former team member does this, there might be nasty legal things you could do. If credits are still there, you need not be "co-author" to point to that work. But pointing to a work on another developer's site that you had a dispute with, might not be the best idea.
If you really were "co-authors" in a legal sense and agreed upon nothing, in my opinion you have joint copyright.
If you only were "co-authors" to be credited on Itch for your contribution and this project is mainly done by the other account, you are a contributor.
Removing your admin rights to the project changes nothing about this either way, so I seriously doubt that Itch staff could or would do anything about you having admin rights to a project not uploaded to your account.
And I have no idea how or if contributors have to be credited for a project. But I would assume that if you did not agree upon such a thing, there is no obligation nor right to have you listed on the presentation page of the project. Maybe you need to appear in the credits section of the game after downloading. Maybe not.
The fact that you seem to not be able to build the game from before "the fork", might indicate that you are a contributor.
But this is open community and not lawyer support. Do not expect qualified advise here. My suggestion is, find out what type of copyright you have, and how much it extends. Could you present your models on your own page as a prototype and claim that they were used in that other project? Could you force the other account to remove your contribution from the project? Could you force the other account to credit your contribution in some way? Could you rebuild the whole project from before the fork and have it on your account?
I use fork here, because that is what it sounded like. A software project where the developers parted and continued in different directions.
It sounds like you are an artist for the project, correct? Are you credited somewhere in the project? You should be able to still list the project on your CV even if you arent in control of the page on itch.io, I dont think most employeers would really care about that.
Yes, what that guy did sucks, but it doesnt look like its against itch.io's TOS and I cant see how it would effect your career in the long run. That said, you could always talk to a lawyer to see if you have a case here. I'm not familiar with Polish copyright law, so I have no idea if a situation like yours would be handled more seriously than it would in the states
