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copyrighted textures
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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Gwil on Mon Oct 4th at 10:26pm 2004

Hush now. This is the forum where questions are asked, questions are answered, and so they sink into the primordial soup of editing knowledge,

Thrashing out pointless additions is tedious, a waste of time - and above all, a waste of bandwidth And we all know the dangers of using all the bandwidth, don't we?

and no i dont think this is the official line, but it makes sense
[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Oct 4th at 10:50pm 2004

? posted by Gwil
Hush now. This is the forum where questions are asked, questions are answered, and so they sink into the primordial soup of editing knowledge,

Thrashing out pointless additions is tedious, a waste of time - and above all, a waste of bandwidth And we all know the dangers of using all the bandwidth, don't we?

and no i dont think this is the official line, but it makes sense

hmm, the concept has merit, maybe you should patent it

seriously though, i am trying to imagine us moving all derailments discussions to "general"

i'm game though, cause i did sanction the creation of the question/answer/reward ideal

[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by BlisTer on Tue Oct 5th at 2:01pm 2004

? posted by Crono
A specific texture falls under a piece of art which you CAN copyright. If the person who created the texture says they don't want you using them outside of their MOD, they have every right to say that. Especially if you agree to their terms by installing their mod.

i havent agreed to anything as i havent got ns installed, and i most certainly didnt rip it out of their .wad ...as mentioned i got them out of the foe.wad provided by gua. Moreover, i only stumbled upon this accidently by seeing these textures in screenshots of some ns maps, now i dont know if i use more ns textures besides those 2...

thx for trying to figure this out. so it seems that its useless and i best replace the textures, which isnt funny as they form the main style in the map, +-60% (or release it as a CO_ map :/ ). You guys are 100% sure they are ns textures and not foe textures, right?





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Orpheus on Tue Oct 5th at 2:14pm 2004

people have bitched for years about using stolen textures bud, but i have yet to see the texture police arrive at anyones home..

if the textures are so ingrained, i'd leave them.. i have not seen the map yet, but i am doubting its professional quality, so i doubt they will sue.. course its your call.

/ 2cents

[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Crono on Tue Oct 5th at 3:07pm 2004

I doubt they'd sue anyone at all. If your map became heavy rotation, they'd probably contact you and be like "HEY!". But, the whole idea is a respect thing more then a legal thing, however, if anyone really became a problem with taking credit, they could easily sue them. [addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Dred_furst on Tue Oct 5th at 3:43pm 2004

what bandwidth limit? [addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Crono on Tue Oct 5th at 8:00pm 2004

Snarkpit's, it has gone down a few times since the site has had too much traffic. Larger then the servers allowed monthly bandwidth. (Happened month before last, I think). [addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by thursday- on Wed Oct 6th at 8:11am 2004

You can use the textures. I believe that some of the DM maps submitted for a snarkpit competition last year had some of the 'NS textures' in. KFS' map certainly did, and there was also some controvosy last year in the NS forums about a similar modification to NS being built on a different platform which also used the textures.

So you are free to use the textures you want, although I suggest giving credit.




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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Gollum on Wed Oct 6th at 8:32am 2004

No, Andrew's map did not use original NS textures. It used some Shaderlab textures that were included with NS, but were not original NS content and therefore were not covered by the restrictions.

Copyright exists as soon as any original work is created. For example, here is what Writers' and Artists' Yearbook has to say on literary plagiarism:

Copyright exists as soon as you (or anyone else) records anything original to you on paper or film or disk. If you want to quote or otherwise use any material which is someone else's copyright, even if it a short extract, you will have to get permission to do so, and possibly pay a fee. ..... You must always give full acknowledgement to the source of the material. Use copyright material without such clearance and acknowledgement and you are guilty of plagiarism - and another name for plagiarism is stealing. There are some circumstances in which you may use small amounts of text under a rule called "Fair Dealing".

Er.....A & C Black Publishers gave me permission to quote that on a website forum

The NS team are entirely within their legal rights to restrict the use of their textures to NS maps. They own the art, and there's nothing you can legally do about it. Of course, you are not likely to be prosecuted, provided that you are suitably unsuccessful and lame.





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Leperous on Wed Oct 6th at 9:04am 2004

Gollum, by that logic I could copyright all my maps, models and textures; I could even copyright my website code and all the images too. But I can't for the latter due to the licensing of PHP; similarly, I believe the HL licensing forbids you to copyright any materials you make for the game as Valve will automatically own it. Though HL doesn't seem to come with an eula anymore saying this, so maybe that's why they did it...





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Orpheus on Wed Oct 6th at 9:23am 2004

i wanna copyright my critiquing method

*dodges onslaught of bricks*

/runs

[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Gollum on Wed Oct 6th at 9:25am 2004

? quote:
All site content ? Leperous & respective owners, 2002-2004

Hmmm.....

In so far as your maps, models and textures etc. are original work, they are copyright to you. You don't need to go through some process to obtain a copyright - it's just there automatically.

However, as you say, there are limits imposed on copyright by other binding legal agreements. At what point does a texture become "game materials"? Unless you use Valve's software to create the texture, it cannot be affected by their licensing agreement.

I don't know what the exact copyright status is of maps - that depends on the EULA - but textures at least should remain the property of their original authors.





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Leperous on Wed Oct 6th at 9:34am 2004

Then I suppose they've copyrighted the pictures themselves (visual art works) rather than the whole .WAD... Anywhos, I can see the point, and we've been into this several times before, but I'm still against it in this case- nothing about CS was diminished due to 'over-use' of its textures :/

I would not be happy if someone copied this website, for whatever use. The difference would seem to be that textures are designed for people to copy and use, whereas websites are built simply for people to use (and not copy), and that is only because of the mindset of people and "unwritten rules"... ho-hum.





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Gollum on Wed Oct 6th at 9:57am 2004

Yes, I agree that it's a bit mean of them to restrict the texture use. It would probably have been wiser to make the textures public domain - if anything, it might add to the popularity of NS ("Wow, where did all these great textures in your map come from?" etc. etc.).

I can see their point too - Flayra and the NS team put a lot of work into making NS unique, and wanted to guard that uniqueness. It's also a potential investment, since NS is "semi-commercial".

I think the right attitude to take is a sort of grumbling respect for their decision





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Agent Smith on Wed Oct 6th at 12:16pm 2004

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of not allowing other people to use the textures outside of NS, but I think there should be some acknowledgement and credit given where its due. I always include the mod team or individuals name in the txt accompanying my maps, thanking them for their resources I used, and generally giving them the kudos they deserve. Not allowing anyone to use the textures when they are, as dred_furst pointed out, not encrypted in the map but included in handy and removable wads seems a bit silly. Generally when a wad file is included it is acceptable for people to take it and use in in other mods and maps. If it's compiled into the map, fair enough, other wise its fair game.





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Dred_furst on Wed Oct 6th at 4:11pm 2004

NS cannot be "semi commercial" as it states in the limited EULA
? quote:

Whereas, Licensee wishes to develop a modified game running only on the Half-Life engine (a "Mod") for free distribution in object code form only to licensed end users of Half-Life;


and you were saying about the EULA used to state in early versions, look:
? quote:

1.3 Reservation of Rights. Valve reserves all rights not explicitly granted herein.
[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Gollum on Wed Oct 6th at 4:31pm 2004

? posted by Dred_furst
NS cannot be "semi commercial" as it states in the limited EULA

Any mod. can become commercial if Valve agrees to it (cf. CounterStrike), or if the concept is later used to create a standalone game. Effort and I believe even some money has been invested building and protecting the NS brand, which is why I call it semi-commercial: it is not commercial, but has been developed with a care for future commercial possibilities.

I choose my words carefully





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by fishy on Wed Oct 6th at 8:05pm 2004

and there is sven-coop. they say it's a token of thanks to people that have 'donated' money to them, to hard code their steam I.D.'s into the game, and give them extra-powered weapons.

one step further would have mods selling advertising space in their official map packs.





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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by G.Ballblue on Wed Oct 6th at 8:40pm 2004

? posted by fishy

and there is sven-coop. they say it's a token of thanks to people that have 'donated' money to them, to hard code their steam I.D.'s into the game, and give them extra-powered weapons.

one step further would have mods selling advertising space in their official map packs.

Sven-Coop is also the most picky mod-team I've ever seen. Recently, they've gone nuts over the use of NS textures (which we're discusing) in a few popular maps. The maps are already on everyone's computer, so there's no way to stop it.

Unless, one day, Sniper made the old maps go mysteriously "uncompatible" with the next version....

[addsig]



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 Re: copyrighted textures
Posted by Dred_furst on Wed Oct 6th at 10:24pm 2004

I dont think that donator features is a bad idea, its an extra feature you get, and it isnt breaking the rule of
? quote:

Whereas, Licensee wishes to develop a modified game running only on the Half-Life engine (a "Mod") for free distribution in object code form only to licensed end users of Half-Life;

So its fine, you just get a bonus feature, and they do run compos sometimes, which i so happened to win... [addsig]




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