/v/lancer strikes again?

Not a point here that’s worth arguing about, little boys.

Here’s the bottom line: does anyone here who is offended have the money to go to court?

All we have said from the beginning in many other threads is:

1. Nobody has the right to refuse permission to use something if they made it available (without locks or encryption that need to be defeated).

2. It’s a matter of pure courtesy to ask for permission and not use if it is denied.

That’s all, little children.

'bye.

Haven’t read all posts yet, plus I am at school so excuse me if my points got answered álready later on.

Anyone who makes models for freelancer, then distributes them to the community via mods, and then complains when other modders use them in their own mods is a bit hypocritical. You can’t put something up for free on the internet and complain when people use it. You can’t steal anything that is free

That’s actually TOTALLY wrong. Take a free software like the VM Player as an example (I hope I didn’t miss-choose again ^), just because it doesn’t cost anything it doesn’t mean that you are free to use it and even alter and re-distribute it like you are going to. DEFINITIVLY NOT.
Also, in terms it is a HUGE difference between using a software and re-distributing it. And we both know what /v/lancer did, don’t we?
You mostly just get the servitude for the most software, not the copyright.

Skeletor speaks the truth. None of the so-called “stolen” content can be legally copyrighted, as it is a modification, not an original IP.

IP stands for?

Also, the content CAN be copyrighted. A few examples…first off it might be important if the modifications are trivial or not. INI-Coding might not be trivial but audio, for instance, is. Music, sound effects, movies, models - They all CAN be copyrighted. There is no reason why they shouldn’t. They aren’t even limited to the use of Freelancer.

Another point is, for instance, if a mod uses copyrighted content for which the autors might got the permission. This doesn’t mean that actually YOU got the license as well.

Plus, if a mod uses copyrighted ressources illegally it doesn’t make it legal for you to use it then.

I also find it funny how everything here is always belonging to one person and one person alone. I’ve never seen that in any other modding community.

Says something about the modders in the FL Community.

Well, first off, there is a huge difference between MP and SP modding communities since MP modding scenes are in a harder competition.
Plus, I am sure, MANY would have offered ressources if you asked them, maybe they would wanted something in return (your ressources, for instance), maybe not.

However, independent of how cooperative the FL modders might be, they still have the right - in a moralic way - to decide about their work. They have created it, shouldn’t they be the one who decide about what do they want to do with it?

I’m sorry but no. I fully expect to be banned for this post, but it will be worth it entirely.

As I know the administration I highly doubt you will get banned for expressing your opinion as long as you stay polite. Maybe you guys should think about this point as well, you think we are such a bad community but actually let you express your opinion at this plattform, don’t we?

So you might should consider to re-pay this respect to us in the same way.

First, I suggest you look up the term Fair Use, and pull your head out of your ass.

Second of all, your statement has no legal backing whatsoever. Not to mention that there is no such thing as a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” That is just blatantly the most retarded thing I have ever heard. I for one, am glad we can’t advertise /v/lancer on this site, because everyone here is babbies. Real men don’t whine about ONNOEHEUSEDMYMODELTOMAKEAGAMEFUNFOREVERYONE. They sit the #$%% down and have fun with bros. This is why /v/lancer will forever be funner then SWWT and PURPLE. It’s made by bros, for bros.

First off, see above.
Second, W0dk4 never stated that the Gentlemen’s Agreement has any legally power. But if you read my whole posting you might see that ressources can be copyrighted, though, it depends on the content.
Another exaple: Normally a picture whcih you created with, for isntance, GIMP is your work and you hold the copyright. Now, tell me one reason why you should loose your copyright once you include it into one modification?
Also, I remember that you guys said that you want to create the modification for yourself and your “bros” - This simple does mean that your mod isn’t for anyone. So stop advert it that way.
And please don’t make statements about what real men are. This is for what biologists are for.

I hereby request you submit legally documented proof of your copyright on said models that you do not want in /v/lancer. They must be signed and dated BEFORE they were ever uploaded to the internet, or else they become fair use. You can’t upload something, then months later apply for a copyright, and have it be valid.

Totally wrong. you actually HOLD the copyright when you CREATE that object. Thus, if you upload it to the net, even if you don’t include a license, you still HAVE a copyright over it. Just because you decide later to switch to a license it doesn’t mean that your work isn’t protect before that action.
You simple assume that a person doesn’t has any copyright over his work if he doesn’t use a license which is definitivly wrong.

Could you guys please stop this discussion? Just because you tell them that the things they do are illegal/not wanted/whatever… they wont stop doing it…

I agree, simply stop discussing with them. Its clearly trolling and I’d rather not have a constant flame war going on.

Not to mention that we can not keep up with their large community and the hundrets of players playing /V/lancer.
Dont mess with them… they are better, guess that why they dont need to advertise their mod anywhere else.

Well, no, this discussion might become quite useful for the future of FL modding. may i remind our fair gentlemen of early times, on MD’s Rebalance mod? it was mostly a constellation of contents from other mods whether credited or not, whether with permissions or not. however, although for most models/images/whatever we do, we have a legal copyright, just because we wrote it with our fingers, yes even for most unique codes we hold copyrights (and it is irrelevant whether we have a legal declaration of our rights, you do not need a copy of the constitution to have the right for a happy life - yes, i know, this example is bullshit, but you get the idea i mean), we are neither in position financially or socially to go to the courth and claim for our rights, nor we wish to do so, because its simply not worth it. on the other hand, most of the artists over at our’s only would be glad to see their models in multiple mods. i can not model but there was no modeler yet, who denied me to use his models for my incommercial freelancer project to use for joy of the player community. one even liked the interface of the game and is happy to know i work with his mesh.
noone cares, most not even recognise, if you use their models, sounds, images, videos, whatever you’d like to see in your mod. but once you call it your work, once you try to make innocent players think you have paid time and mental power to create something they like although you havent, no artist will be happy about it. he’d share the model, if you asked, he’d even share, if you do not ask, but if you call it your own, you break the law on the one hand and on the other hand you just handle ungently and honourless. please, at least, credit the artists. i think this is the only thing they want of you, not hunting your mod down, not your community. they just want to keep their names up and they defend their rights. it might work aggressively, sometimes, but the idea behind it is simple and kind.
please, do all of us a service and stop giving us reasons to dislike the months you paid in putting our artists’ stuff together. we don’t want to damage your work’s name. so, help us to get rid of the necessity.

@Mindhunter wow true irony respect
This guys also need to carefully read the meaning of the word “unique” in the Oxford Dictionary :)))

I just had this happened with the saarlancer fools, raiding my mod and telling players ingame they made the starsphere and ships etc etc they have stollen.
But still with my content (beside the stuff from WTS NSU etc) they can NOT keep up with one of those mods.

How will u be on top of u only copy content from others?
While doing that u will always be one step behind!

How will u be on top of u only copy content from others?
While doing that u will always be one step behind!

Sorry, but nobody really cares about your magical server ranking competitions, save for you delightful human beings.

HeIIoween wrote:
@Mindhunter wow true irony respect
This guys also need to carefully read the meaning of the word “unique” in the Oxford Dictionary :)))

You need to look up the word “original” as well, I would imagine. All of your precious mods likely count as Derivative Works, and without demonstrating a substantial amount of original content they can’t by copyrighted. I haven’t seen a single mod that actually includes content (except for /v/lancer) that isn’t directly copied from another IP or includes trademarks built upon those IPs, so. The same goes for models that were made for the mod, I would think.

Also, the ironic thing about all of this is that the entire reason this mod started was because we asked for permission to run a private server of another, and were refused for no real reason at all.

x) No one here has trouble with credits except subj so no.
Inability to agree only yours problem and it is no reason to steal content

Mods as a whole can count as Derivative Work. Individual components however, do not. I make a model. I let someone use it. They use it in a, say, Gundam Mod. The Gundam Mod is a Derivative Work of the Gundam Universe. My model still holds individual copyright. It’s simple.

Anubis wrote:
Mods as a whole can count as Derivative Work. Individual components however, do not. I make a model. I let someone use it. They use it in a, say, Gundam Mod. The Gundam Mod is a Derivative Work of the Gundam Universe. My model still holds individual copyright. It’s simple.

Unless your model is a Gundam. Or uses elements from the Freelancer IP. Then it isn’t.

EDIT: Also I don’t remember ever seeing a mod/model that wasn’t copied from an IP or using Freelancer resources, so.

the model can be created as a mech, non specific to gundam, and still be no IP related. Technicalities, but still. Most of my model work is done seperate from any IP. I then allow someone to use it in their mod as they see fit. My rights are still protected.

Go google internet copyright laws,

Taken from http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

1. “If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it’s not copyrighted.”
   This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people’s works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise. There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure.
   It is true that a notice strengthens the protection, by warning people, and by allowing one to get more and different damages, but it is not necessary. If it looks copyrighted, you should assume it is. This applies to pictures, too. You may not scan pictures from magazines and post them to the net, and if you come upon something unknown, you shouldn’t post that either.

The correct form for a notice is:

“Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]”

You can use C in a circle instead of “Copyright” but “” has never been given legal force. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” used to be required in some nations but is now not legally needed most places. In some countries it may help preserve some of the “moral rights.”

They you go It stats there about your so-called “Berne copyright convention” So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So in short . . .

ALL WORKS ARE COPYRIGHTED UNLESS SAID OTHERWISE! ! ! !

also, if we model, let’s say one of the famous starships “Enterprise” they are copyrighted by the modelers, not paramount. the idea, and inspiration might come from them and this might be declared but unless it is a recreation or copy of the very same model they use (and they use only a few as most of the video stuff was made by solid models yet by virtual resources) it is an interpretation of the modeler and is his property even if he declares it to be open source. it remains the time he spent and the power and noone can take that away from him.

I’d say that most of Solcommand models (which he btw. freely shares for all mods because he wants to see them in mods, actually) are original and are not based on any IP.

Bottom line is, if its based on another IP or not doesnt really matter, if somebody takes a model without permission he should at least give credit to the original author and not call it his own work, which is simply rude.

Pastaspace/Trainwiz did not do that at all when he first announced “his” mod, he just slapped content of other mods together (wow, what an achievement) and called it his own work alltogether (also saying that pretty much all other mods suck, which you guys are still saying, also simply rude).

How in the world is that a fair behaviour in any respected modders community?

This should be the question to ask, and not if somebody has a legal right and stuff like that. Even if you want to quote your “internet copyright laws” a thousand times, who cares? There will be no sues over free content anyways because the matter has too little significance.

I think there is a simple reason your mod got banned from one of the biggest and most respected modding communities (moddb.com) and this is simply theft of content. They also pretty recently made a blogpost saying that such behaviour should be reported immediately, because they take the matter very serious.

So its not like we are the only place to value civilized behaviour when it is about sharing content.

Let’s be honest, there’s not a lot of point having an argument about whether something someone creates is copyrighted or not, it clearly is and the copyright belongs to the creator. It’s not a grey area, it’s black and white.

If you take a photo of something, someone can’t use the photo you took without your permission. If you stop and think about that then it all becomes obvious. It doesn’t matter what it is you created, it’s yours.

The reason moddb takes the issue seriously is because of distribution rights, if you use their portal as a means to distribute something you don’t have permission to distribute then you break the law and potentially drag them into it.

This all boils down to common sense, everyone has a little of it, just use it. Have the sense to ask the people that have made something if you can use it, if they say yes, which most people do, then say thanks, give them credit, everyone is happy.

If you are denied permission to use something, it doesn’t mean you have to take any notice of that fact, you can still use it but you are breaking the law.

Don’t bother taking the time to argue about whether you’re breaking the law or not, you know you are, just do as everyone else does and decide whether to break it or not.

The only thing that sometimes surprises me is that some people have the nerve to cry foul when they themselves are guilty of the exact same crime they are screaming and shouting about.

No point naming names, it’s irrelevant and you would already know whether you’ve done this or not, but let’s just say your mod uses ships or models, textures, whatever, from X3, X2, Starlancer, Homeworld, Spaceforce Rogue Universe etc, etc.

If it does then you’ve done exactly the same thing, just because they are corporate and not the little man doesn’t make it any different.

With that in mind, isn’t it best that we all just get along.

Gisteron wrote:
also, if we model, let’s say one of the famous starships “Enterprise” they are copyrighted by the modelers, not paramount. the idea, and inspiration might come from them and this might be declared but unless it is a recreation or copy of the very same model they use (and they use only a few as most of the video stuff was made by solid models yet by virtual resources) it is an interpretation of the modeler and is his property even if he declares it to be open source. it remains the time he spent and the power and noone can take that away from him.

I’m pretty sure whoever owns the Star Trek franchise also owns any rights to the depiction of the Enterprise. Through an extension of your logic you would be saying that it’s perfectly fine to completely recreate published books, as long as you make it yourself (that’s illegal).

Anubis wrote:
the model can be created as a mech, non specific to gundam, and still be no IP related. Technicalities, but still. Most of my model work is done seperate from any IP. I then allow someone to use it in their mod as they see fit. My rights are still protected.

So why call it a Gundam mod if it doesn’t use Gundams? Plus, you couldn’t get the arms to move around or swordfight or anything so it’s pretty much a pointless endeavor.

w0dk4 wrote:I think there is a simple reason your mod got banned from one of the biggest and most respected modding communities (moddb.com) and this is simply theft of content. They also pretty recently made a blogpost saying that such behaviour should be reported immediately, because they take the matter very serious.

No, I’m pretty sure it’s because OPR8R is an internet superhero and has some kind of personal vendetta against having fun, so he reports us to every single website we ever use, regardless of if we’re actually violating rules or not. That’s why he tried to get our Wiki shut down, and he did succeed in taking down one article because it violated some obscure rule. It’s back up though, I do believe.

w0dk4 wrote:
Bottom line is, if its based on another IP or not doesnt really matter, if somebody takes a model without permission he should at least give credit to the original author and not call it his own work, which is simply rude.

Pastaspace/Trainwiz did not do that at all when he first announced “his” mod, he just slapped content of other mods together (wow, what an achievement) and called it his own work alltogether (also saying that pretty much all other mods suck, which you guys are still saying, also simply rude).

I’m pretty sure he only took credit for the good part of the mod, not the ripped models.

w0dk4 wrote:
How in the world is that a fair behaviour in any respected modders community?

I don’t know, we would probably have to go find one to find out.

Also, fixed this for you.

w0dk4 wrote:
So its like we are the only place that doesn’t value civilized behaviour when it is about sharing content.

No, I’m pretty sure it’s because OPR8R is an internet superhero and has some kind of personal vendetta against having fun, so he reports us to every single website we ever use, regardless of if we’re actually violating rules or not. That’s why he tried to get our Wiki shut down, and he did succeed in taking down one article because it violated some obscure rule. It’s back up though, I do believe.

Ok, let’s assume he is doing this. Does he delete the articles, wiki or what ever? NO, the service provider(s) actually do(es). If he reports your mod to the moddb.com staff, then the staff, NOT HE, decides if the article gets deleted or not.

So actually there WAS a reason then. And this reason isn’t named OPR8R.