Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Alex Navarro on December 06, 2008, 10:39:54 am
-
First, excuse my english ;)
I have some doubts ...
Aamh *cough*, surely many of you have a personal mod that you're not going to publish. Well, I have one (with an exhaustive story, characters ...) that as the years went by it was modified, and modified, and modified... and I think the result is quite interesting. But this mod was manufactured with materials published by other mods and modders, almost everything on my mod was obtained from other's stuff (nearly everything, not everything). I wonder if I would have problems if I publish it. I suppose I'd have to say from where I took the materials... who are the creators of these ships, these textures, these sounds, these head ANIs... right?
And another important thing... I have sounds and music in my personal mod that I have taken from other games. For example, the Starlancer's music, sounds from Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (this game can be modified like FreeSpace and I think that there would be no problems), sounds from Battlefield 2142 (these sounds were inside a RAR file, so I guess that can be used without problems as well) and others. Would I have problems if I publish this mod with this music and these sounds?
This mod is called Sol Wars, and as for the history of the mod it is somewhat similar to that of Starlancer and Freelancer (slightly). For example, in Starlancer was the Coalition of the East, in my mod is, first the Communist Colonial Coalition, then it turns into the Martian Coalition and then becomes simply the Coalition.
Another example: the Alliance in Starlancer... I don't know well the story of Starlancer, but in my mod is initially called the Earth Alliance, and then becomes the Solar Alliance, or just the Alliance.
In my mod, briefly (very briefly), the Communist Colonial Coalition is a corrupted political party which is part of the Earth Alliance Senate. This party will cause separatisms, until it finally separates from the Alliance and take control of half of Mars, half of the Earth and much of the outlying colonies... The story is too long (with long i mean LONG :P) to summarize correctly. There will be a cold war in space, and then an open war. Then a second space cold war, and then another war. Stratagems, spies, secret projects...
In the first campaign the player will be an Alliance pilot (Malcolm West), and in the second campaign the player will be his great-great-grandaughter, another great pilot.
What would you do? Keep it or publish it?
-
By publishing, do you mean simply uploading to the Internet for others to download, or actually selling it in any shape or form to make some sort of profit?
At any rate, the strictest definition of US Copyright Law (I am unfamiliar at the moment with any international laws) essentially state you need written permission from the owners of all the original materials you are utilizing in your modification in order to avoid any legal action (which can range from a simple cease & desist to a full-blown trip to the court room). This is not only because you did not make these (and thus, you do not have either the distribution rights nor the rights to make a derivative from them on your own), but more recently it was suggested (not established, as the case was settled out of court with no official statement from the judge) in common law that owners may also have cause if their material is represented with material they don't want associated with their name. For example, take the case of Tecmo and their game Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. Someone created a nude modification of the models, and Tecmo objected to having their names associated with it in whole or part.
Here's a general "10 Myths of Copyright Law Explained" website:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html (http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html)
However, this is the strictest definition. I would suggest, if you are truly worried, doing a search for court cases or legal action taken against game modifications within the past 5-10 years to see what common law states specifically on this matter. Likewise, things get different based upon what laws the owner decided to apply to the original material (Creative Commons Law, Copyleft/GNU, etc).
I'm sure others here who have actually been making game mods (I have not, only a few levels here and there throughout my gaming life) can help you better than I can. ;)
-
By publishing, do you mean simply uploading to the Internet for others to download, or actually selling it in any shape or form to make some sort of profit?
Simply uploading to the Internet for others to download, no profit. Like the others around here.
About the US Copyright Law, thank you for the teaching. I don't know how you do things in US, but my question is:
If you have this campaign in your hands and you would like to release it, what would you do? And what do you have to do?
Perhaps my questions are <stupid> questions, but i would like to know everything you can tell me...
-
You should try to find out what the people who've created the stuff have said about it. Some people, for example, state clearly that their ships/other stuff can and should be used by others, as long as they are given credit for it. Basically means that you include a readme file where you explain that this was done by that person and so on.
If, however, some people haven't said anything about their stuff or if you're unsure about whether you can use it, it would be most polite to ask for a permission to use the stuff. Most likely they'll agree.
My two cents.
-
Ultimately, I doubt there're too many modders who would prevent you using their stuff - hell, why release it publically if you don't want it used? As long as you make a clear statement in the readme that you didn't make any/all of the ships,, and credit those whom you can remember/find, nobody should mind.
-
And what about the Starlancer soundtracks?
-
And what about the Starlancer soundtracks?
BP Stole plenty of stuff.