Author Topic: Legal Questions  (Read 1593 times)

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Offline Killer Whale

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Firstly, is there a sticky or wiki page on this subject? If not, why not?

Lets say, hypothetically, Hades releases his Leviathon (hard to imagine I know :p). Is it assumed that it falls under a creative commons licence? I then take that Leviathon and use it for a basis to make a Fenris with an interior (something I'd like to do in the future, put probably won't) and want to release it. Would I have to release that also under a creative commons, I'd guess I couldn't release it as public domain? Who would I have to credit in that circumstance? Myself, Hades, Volition or Interplay, all four or some mixture of the four? Could I then use that ship in an independent Star Citizen mod (by which I mean one unaffiliated with CIG), one that presumably requires a purchase of SC but not FS2?
What hold over the Fenris/Leviathon do Volition or Interplay have? They obviously haven't trademarked greek names, but is the "look" of a ship copywrite?
Say I was to take a ship like the diomedes and use it in my mod, would I have to credit Aesaar or could I just credit the "Blue Planet team"? Would Stratcomm have anything to do with it?
Thanks

 

Offline The E

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Yes, the look of a ship generally falls under the purview of the IP.

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Say I was to take a ship like the diomedes and use it in my mod, would I have to credit Aesaar or could I just credit the "Blue Planet team"?

You would have to credit Aesaar. While the Dio is used in BP and was made with BP in mind, it is not a "BP exclusive" model. The only things BP claims as its own is the story, everything else is fair game for anyone to use (with attribution to the responsible artists, of course, or the BP team, if no artist is listed in the credits).
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Offline Kopachris

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As far as specific models are concerned, it should be assumed that the modeler reserves all rights unless otherwise specified, meaning you need permission to use it, period.  In practice, the community here is usually friendly about letting people use models, and you'll almost always get an okay as long as you ask.  It's the asking that's important, though, and it'd be rude (and illegal) to assume permission where none exists.
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Offline karajorma

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Firstly, is there a sticky or wiki page on this subject? If not, why not?

We had some discussions on this subject a little while back actually. It really does need to be formalised and fact checked in some way though.

Quote
Lets say, hypothetically, Hades releases his Leviathon (hard to imagine I know :p). Is it assumed that it falls under a creative commons licence? I then take that Leviathon and use it for a basis to make a Fenris with an interior (something I'd like to do in the future, put probably won't) and want to release it. Would I have to release that also under a creative commons, I'd guess I couldn't release it as public domain? Who would I have to credit in that circumstance? Myself, Hades, Volition or Interplay, all four or some mixture of the four? Could I then use that ship in an independent Star Citizen mod (by which I mean one unaffiliated with CIG), one that presumably requires a purchase of SC but not FS2?
What hold over the Fenris/Leviathon do Volition or Interplay have? They obviously haven't trademarked greek names, but is the "look" of a ship copywrite?

It absolutely is. All the works you mention would be derivative works. i.e based on someone else's IP. In fact most of the major mods and games on this website fall under that heading. Only stuff like Wings of Dawn, etc which are based on the users own IP aren't. I'm no lawyer but the way I understand it, the person who first came up with the object owns the IP but anything original about the newer version belongs to the person who made that work.
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Offline Killer Whale

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  • Oh no, not again.
We had some discussions on this subject a little while back actually. It really does need to be formalised and fact checked in some way though.
Ah, I thought my post was suspiciously specific. That thread seems to answer a few of my questions.
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Is it assumed that it falls under a creative commons licence?
No, you cannot assume a licence and cannot use the asset without the creator specifying some manner of terms of use.
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I use his Leviathon and use it for a basis to make a Fenris with an interior (something I'd like to do in the future, put probably won't) and want to release it.
It depends on the licence, I may or may not be able to do this. If it is a CC ND/NoDerivs I can't alter his work, if it isn't, I can.

Firstly, is there a sticky or wiki page on this subject? If not, why not?

Lets say, hypothetically, Hades releases his Leviathon (hard to imagine I know :p). Is it assumed that it falls under a creative commons licence? If he does specify creative commons, I use his Leviathon and use it for a basis to make a Fenris with an interior (something I'd like to do in the future, put probably won't) and want to release it. Would I have to release that also under a creative commons, I'd guess I couldn't release it as public domain? Who would I have to credit in that circumstance? Myself, Hades, Volition or Interplay, all four or some mixture of the four? Could I then use that ship in an independent Star Citizen mod (by which I mean one unaffiliated with CIG), one that presumably requires a purchase of SC but not FS2?
What hold over the Fenris/Leviathon do Volition or Interplay have? They obviously haven't trademarked greek names, but is the "look" of a ship copywrite?
Say I was to take a ship like the diomedes and use it in my mod, would I have to credit Aesaar or could I just credit the "Blue Planet team"?
Would Stratcomm have anything to do with it?
Thanks

  

Offline karajorma

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The Creative Commons licences are actually very nicely designed but there are more than one of them. What rights you'd have depend on which licence Hades had chosen. You can break down the licences into the important components fairly easily but all of them would require you to credit Hades for his work plus anyone else he credited (So the onus would be on him to credit Volition, etc. You'd just have to copy whatever he did and add your own name if you changed anything).

Under CC you could use the object in any mod you wanted but if anything commercial was being done with it, that would be subject to whether or not Hades had released his mod allowing commercial use. Depending on the licence Hades picked, you also might be forced to share your mod. e.g. if Hades released the unflattened textures so they can be altered in photoshop and you have altered them, you should release your versions too.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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