Howdy!

Before we start this off, I want to give a special thanks to Kuouo, Bench, and Swords from the Team Switched Official Discord for helping me out with this PSA. The reason we’ve made this is to bring attention to the major issue of theft in the Undertale community—something that Team Switched, as well as fellow content creators, have frequently experienced in the past.

Theft has always been a major problem in the UT community. Art theft, music theft, design theft— Even the theft of entire projects has occurred as early as December of 2015! Not only is it morally wrong to steal stuff that isn’t your own, it’s extremely disrespectful, makes the community as a whole look bad, causes creator burnout, drama, and in some cases with music theft, has the ability to temporarily demonetize someone’s musical work. In one case, the theft of a project had gotten the original taken down. Not to mention that if you are caught being a content thief, you are going to be heavily shunned by the community for doing such.

However, there is a big difference between inspiration and theft, don’t get it twisted. Inspiration is perfectly fine! Theft is not. Inspiration is when you are inspired by something, and create something of your own that is based off of it. Theft is directly taking designs, music, or projects, or making a very small change to it and claiming it as your own. For example, let’s say someone created an Undyne sprite for an AU. If someone were to create a sprite similar to it from scratch, then it would be inspiration compared to someone directly taking it/changing a few pixels. That’s literal theft.

If it’s not yours, always make sure to ask for permission before you use it. If you use something without permission, even if it’s credited, it is still theft. The only exception to this is edits where in most cases, but not all, are fine as long as the original work is credited.

Sometimes theft occurs without the perpetrators even realizing it. For example, many people confuse custom Sans sprites they find on Google Images as something they can freely use, when it’s not. When doing so, it’s always important to try and find the source material. If you find it from Pinterest, then it most likely does not originate from there. Reverse image search is your best friend in these kind of scenarios. Just be cautious; if and when you find the source, make sure you get permission to use the art or confirmation that it can be freely used. If you’re unable to find either, it’d be best to just not use it.

In the end, it all really boils down to respecting the creator and their works. Whether it’s something you wanna help share, edit, or use, respecting a creator’s wishes on their piece of creative work is always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, the best thing you can do. Always ask for permission and respect a creator if they ask you to revoke their assets. Never steal! There are an immense amount of content creators or tutorials that can help you express your creativity. For instance, here’s a helpful UNDERTALE / DELTARUNE Spriting Tutorial by FMS and CHAOS_FANTAZY!

That’s all we have to say. Please take these words to heart, and remember to encourage creativity and originality, rather than perpetuate theft and copying.

Expect to see some new content and previews at some point :P
Also, check out the wiki.

• Beethovenus, Leader of Team Switched