A kind VGMaps.com visitor has brought
this auction to my attention.
It's apparently a CD with a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't seem that hard to find on the Internet...NES, Super NES, and Game Boy guides. What is irksome about it is that it's stolen material, being sold without the owners' consent.
If you scroll down a bit, you can see that some of the material includes screenshot maps, some which look too much like the kind you'd find on VGMaps.com. It's no coincidence or from other mappers - I recognize the border on the Mystical Ninja map, the format of the Super Mario World map, the text on the Metal Gear map, etc.
When people make maps for VGMaps.com, it is assumed that it is for viewing purposes only and that no money would be made off of them. (I make money off the site's ad revenue, not off the maps directly.) When someone else steals their work and profits off of it, that's just wrong. I don't want people to be afraid of contributing to VGMaps.com because other people are trying to squeeze some bucks out of it that they don't deserve.
Perhaps I may have to write a new "Contribute" page at some point soon after all - outlining the expectations, purposes, and legal uses of the web site and its contents. This auction is definitely not a proper use of my site and your maps that you worked so hard on. It's hard to put a copyright on these things since the graphics are not yours in most cases, but original content that you put in and the assembly of them makes these maps unique, and it can't be right for someone to make money off of them without you knowing.
The person who brought this to my attention has said that he has reported it, hopefully it will be taken down soon.
EDIT: Oh, and
this one too.
