A lot of people are currently in an uproar over Tom Fulp's recent comments, but he's fully in his right to make them. If you read the entire thread - and not just the first post - Tom has said he wants to protect the history of the portal, but he wants to cut this stuff off at the head from here on out. We should be respecting this; legal defenses are horribly expensive and, something which many in the thread seem to fail to get, fair use laws do not protect the usage of copyrighted music at all. Why do you think Robot Chicken always uses sound alike music, even when they otherwise copy likenesses exactly, every time they do a parody of something. Besides, for those of you thinking it's the end of the world for sprite movies, I bring you this comment from page 8 of the thread from Tom Fulp:

"We generally get the vibe that video game companies are cool with sprite movies - there isn't going to be a sprite movie crack-down unless it does become an issue, but at the same time, the bar for making front page with sprite movies is a lot higher than it used to be. Unlicensed photography is a much more pressing issue."

We can still have sprite movies, and It'd actually be great if sprite movie makers took this as a challenge to raise the bar to do more than just have most sprite movies be a collection of sound bytes from various fims and utter inane randomness. Let's be honest, shit like that is why the rest of us can't get a single ounce of respect for what we're doing. Would it be awesome if CTU was fully hand-drawn, as opposed to using sprites? Well, actually, sweet lord yes it would be. Some of you are probably wondering why it isn't, having looked at my art section (I know at least one admin - whom I shall not name - definitely feels that way). Problem is, those images take 20~40 hours on average to make; so there is simply no way I could ever make a movie if I drew it myself, at least not if I wanted to finish it before the Mayan Apocalypse.

CTU will continue to be made, and it will continue to be made with sprites. However, from henceforth no music shall ever again be used in it that doesn't meet the following Criteria:

- A) Music from the Game Itself
- B) Music from the Portal, which I've been trying to use as of late.
- C) Original Music made for the series, I've made friends with many musicians
- D) Music I got actual permission to use, it will never kill you to ask and be told no.

It's not like it'll be a big loss... for the most part it just means we'll change how we do the menu screens (I'm keeping the parody of the ancient Iria Credits in until I can think of an idea for a third set of credits, expect a new credits sequence some time next year)

On the matter of topic C, you can be suprised the help you can find if you search AND - and this here is the real trick - already have a fanbase. If you want big help then you have to prove you are the sort of guy that delivers big, as I have continued to prove to Chrono Trigger fans everywhere with continued updates to CTU. When you have lots of fans who actually like your work, you never know when one of them might be someone with amazing talent willing to lend a hand. In fact, taking Tom's advice to collaborate more, I recently met a band called "The Gloom".

The Gloom rocks, you should check out their music.

I'm not going to say too much about the plans, but there is a major moment coming in roughly episode 25 that would have used the song Thriller. As I fully support Tom Fulp, the plan had to go. However, it wasn't just a random joke; the scene coming up in Episode 25 is actually the culmination of a chain of events that began back in Episode 14. Thefore, if not Thriller, something had to be there for that moment. So I asked around if anyone knew of a song of similar bent we could use that we could actually get permission to use, either from the portal or somewhere else. Within thirty minutes of asking, over at the Chrono Compendium, I got rushed by the head of this awesome band as he happened to be a fan of CTU.

It's also for the best because, even if Tom Fulp hadn't asked stuff like this to stop, the Michael Jackson estate are some scary people to go up against. Does anyone remember how they made the MJ Zombie leave Plants Vs Zombies, they are not exactly people who take a joke at all... or even worth fighting in court. You're probably wondering why, if I knew all that, it was in the plans at all. Well - as I said before - this has been in the planning since sometime before Episode 14, we heavily believe in the use of Chekov's Gun as we write CTU; we plan in advance (we don't just make it up as we go along). So the idea was thought up quite a ways back, and Tom Fulp laying down the law finally got us off our asses to make even better plans for the betterment of everyone.

You might notice I asked around, but I didn't ask at Newgrounds. This now brings me to the suggestions part of this journal that I mentioned in the header. Newgrounds really needs a watch system like they have at places like Deviantart or Youtube, that way when people can log in they can find out if anyone they're watching released new movies or statements while they were away. Let's face it, many good movies never make the front page which makes it really easy to miss the release of something new. Sure, you can always check everyone's user page non-stop, but that's a bit tiresome and something most people honestly only do once every blue moon. Had there been a watch system here, I might've asked here also. I certainly wasn't about to ask in the forums... didn't you hear, all sprite animators are the scum of the Earth.

My other suggestion for Newgrounds are folders. While it wouldn't matter so much for me, it definitely would for some other artists. Many artists' galleries would become infinitely more parsable if they could group their movies/art by series or topic. I know something like this would have to first wait for the redesign to go through, but I think it's a really good idea to consider for afterwards.

Ciao, all.