Fotos for Italian Game

I received an unusual request yesterday and thought I'd let you in on the conversation. I'll leave the English as-is. The writer is from Italy and I don't want to try to correct anything lest I misrepresent what she says.

Dear Mr Schoonmaker,

I am writing to you as developer and webmaster of New Arcadia (http://www.newarcadia.it/), to ask for permission to use your copyrighted material.

New Arcadia is a free textual Role Playing Games based on a virtual alternative city of Newark.

I found yours pages http://newarkusa.blogspot.com and http://www.resurgencecity.org/ while doing research for information about Newark, and thought your image might be appropriate for inclusion in our pages as representative image of some location used in the game.

If you do agree to grant permission for use, we will credit you, state the image was based on your work and is used with your permission, and provide a link back to your website.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
I look forward to your reply.

Yours Faithfully,

Micaela Stipancic
Trieste - Italy

I replied:

I'd have to know the NATURE of the game you are talking about. I do NOT want anything to do with any violent game or game that uses Newark in a crime-related storyline. Please advise.

Wilentz Justice Complex.

And got this back:

Thanks for the ready reply

I don't have a lot of practice with your language, but I will try to answer in exhaustive way.

First of all, New Arcadia is a role playing game that uses the chats as mean of interaction among characters, therefore every action inside the game must textually be describes from the player.
Our objective, since the opening of New Arcadia, has been to show to our fellow countrymen which are the differences and the similarity between the European and United States cultures.

We try to bring inside the game themes that concern the scholastic system (very different from ours), the private sanitary system (the state in Italy pays big part of the medical expenses of the people, the sanitary insurance is a concept that many Italian can't understanding), the facility of purchase of the fire arms (in Italy is normal not to see a true gun in the whole life), the judicial system, the residence permits, the different division of the powers among county, state and nation, etc.

We look for, through the game, to make the characters lives every aspect of the American (with the due adaptations to make him/it stay a game) lifestyle.

We treat, at times, also uncomfortable and violent (homosexuality, racial hate, low crime, drug) themes, but always supervision from the moderation and from the storyteller (or Game Masters in normal RPG) to allow all the players to be able to participate in the game (our target has been 14+ years).

We avoid to exalt the violence (also the strongest scenes can be compared to what we see in tv series as Cold Case, Without to trace, Law & Order) and we specify from immediately to all the players that choose to undertake the criminal activity that they can lose the character (because been killed or, more often, arrested and confined in the jail) to the first false footstep.

We don't accept actions of deliberate violence, to the players it is not permitted to kill the characters of the other players without the permission of the involved player or the supervision of a game master. It is equally forbidden every type of game regarding the explicit sex and the pedophilia.

I love the United States and above all Newark (that I knew also across your blog) and I am programming a journey in Newark this summer. Across the game I want to transmit this feeling to the other player and in first person I would not accept nothing that can give a wrong or negative impression of your town.

If you need other details or I did not be clear in some point, I am available for further explanations.

So I responded:

IF you do avoid the kinds of graffic violence and glorification of crime, violence, drugs, etc., as you say, then YES, you can use, or alter, fotos from my Resurgence City website and Newark blog. How many fotos would you be interested in? Would they remain recognizably the same fotos as appear on my websites or be very altered by the game's graffics?
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To the extent that the game is educational, I'm not concerned about payment for my fotos. BUT if the game is intended to be, or turns out to be, a big moneymaker, I would want standard compensation for the use of my fotos. I would in any case want a foto credit, for use in my portfolio (so I can tell commercial ventures about where my fotos have been used).

We'll see what happens. I went to NewArcadia.it and, sure enuf, there are two pictures (not mine) of beautiful Downtown Newark already on the welcome screen. My Italian is extremely limited, so I can't evaluate the site. If anyone out there is fluent in Italian and wants to check out the site and tell me if the game sounds like something we should want Newark NOT to be associated with, please advise.