common practices on use of potentially copyrighted materials in non-commercial projects

Hello,

I have a question on common practices on use of images / sounds from various sources that may be similar of even the same as used in someone's copyrighted games or works of art.

My son uses a paid subscription to Construct for relatively long time and likes it but he wasn't posting / sharing any projects yet,

mainly because of fears that use of some images / sounds he found in the Internet and used in his projects may be protected by someone's copyright and taking them even to his early projects and sharing with others may be a bad idea and may somehow harm him now or in the future.

If he was an adult and was selling his games in Play Store, I would totally agree with him.

But how about a teen who found a recognisable car or a known monster or a tree or a stone with Google search of images and cut it from a screenshot of some game then using in his Construct project he intents to be publicly run or shared here? The same for sounds or background musics. Is this something to worry about or not?

If that matters, he doesn't even try to copy someone's games with all the resources, we're talking about use of some random images / sounds he liked while browsing the Internet, often in modified form (cut/changed colors etc.) as explained above.

I understand that to be on 100% safe side, I/he could either start bying/creating from scratch every image/sound or relying on some source of non-copyrighted images/sounds but I afraid that could ruin the fun for him as that will be a huge complication of the process or limitation to the characters used (still, if there are recommended sources of free stuff to use, I'd appreciate links to them).

I wasn't sure where to post this question, this seems to be an appropriate section.

I'd really like to hear your opinions on the topic.

If its copyrighted and used then it could be a problem. That being said if the app is not sold (including no ads) then not sure the publisher will bother to follow up?

I think you need to find out the license for the object. Do a google lens search and see if the image can be used non-commercially. Many are! As long as you don't charge money for it, including not earning from ads, can't see any issue but need to read the license agreement for the image to check.

The whole idea of the question was that we have a situation when a teenager is either unlimited in use of any images and audio he likes/finds in the Internet while creating his projects, develops some skills, shares his creations with some other people and what is important I don't sit with him controlling and he has fun

or he / I need to check everything for copyrights and he is limited to really few (or we don't know where to search for, so if there are recommended sources, it will be great to know) free characters and sounds.

Maybe to someone it doesn't matter which character to use or which sound to play since it's just a creation having the main intent to be just one the first projects but I think almost everone would agree it changes the whole mood of the process and could just make a child decide it's easier and safer to give up this complicated process.

Technically you can't use copyrighted content even non-comercially. But finding copyright-free content isn't that hard and it's just another aspect of game development, and it's best to learn this "skill" as early as possible if he wants to pursue this as a career/business/hobby in the future.

You could start with these websites: itch.io/game-assets/free kenney.nl/assets freesound.org

Obviously there's more you can find on Google if you search "(...) free assets", just don't download it from Google Images - rather click on the search result to go to the website and see if it's actually free there.

Obviously there's more you can find on Google if you search "(...) free assets", just don't download it from Google Images - rather click on the search result to go to the website and see if it's actually free there.

This. It's not that hard to find free content. On freesound.org you can filter the search results with 'Creative Commons' with the click of a button.

This website is good for textures; texturelib.com. There's a download limit of 2 per day but you can also save the images (right click) and use the smaller preview file. Or use opengameart.org, which has all kinds of content.

Thanks for sharing the links to the free resources.

I gave it try, but expectedly it doesn't work for a teenager. Being limited to a tiny set of some resources instead of the whole Internet isn't easy to accept, especially when you're not at work. It's almost identical for a teen to prohibiting a young girl drawing her favorite Little Pony (c) Hasbro because of possible copyright infringement and advising her to invent some other animal and draw it instead.

I'd like to mention that I even tried to sit next to him and help with creation of some characters from scratch where it was hard to find something free. To some extent it had somewhat positive effect in the beginning (aside of the fact that I did not want to participate his project nor lead it nor intrude into his process as the whole point is him to be completely independent) but it still failed in the end.

Maybe do it the other way around. Look for example on kenney.nl and make a game based on what assets are there.

Thanks for sharing the links to the free resources.

I gave it try, but expectedly it doesn't work for a teenager. Being limited to a tiny set of some resources instead of the whole Internet isn't easy to accept, especially when you're not at work. It's almost identical for a teen to prohibiting a young girl drawing her favorite Little Pony (c) Hasbro because of possible copyright infringement and advising her to invent some other animal and draw it instead.

If you intend to upload a game to the Scirra Arcade or itch.io or anywhere really they're going to want to make sure you own the content or at least have permission to use it. Otherwise your game might be removed or you will be banned from the platform.

So your choices are simple. Either host the game on your own hosting/website or comply with the law/rules. If you intend to make money from the game you WILL have to comply with the law anyhow. So I don't see why you're still complaining because it won't change your situation.