PVP Ult

I’d just like to stick my oar of enlightenment in here before people get too hoity-toity about law suits and other rubbish…

If you are using ships from ship packs released by ship modellers, then they have released those for this reason, so that you can use them in your mod.

When you find ship models on the web most of them ask you to contact them to tell them how you want to use their model and those who reply will agree. If they don’t reply (maybe they are no longer interested) then you have a decision to make.

The only time you may have a pissed-off modeller is when he/she made a model for his own or his friends’ mod and you nicked it out of the mod.

As I have said in another post, using a model without the author’s permission (assuming he / she did not reply at all) might end you up in a court case in the US, but such a “case” would have a very hard time succeeding against you in Europe, even assuming that the modeller had the resources to see it through financially. After all, it’s just a hobby and just a model already copied from someone else’s TV series or movie model, if it’s not a unique design, and if it was made available for downloading without charge, that makes it FREE for use no matter what the attached “usage notes” may say. Mostly you will just have a pissed off modeller.

Most modellers are happy to be credited in your mod’s credits page. A good place is in the dll file along with the game original FL author’s credits, or on the flashcard when the game starts up so it’s in the mod and seen every time.

Having said that, if you do use models when the modeller has designed them for use in a specific mod only, you will have a lot of bad feeling from the FL community (that’s us) against you and your pals and your mod.

Over…

Griffin, please contact me via messenger, I might be of help to you, but I need to know about the details.
I am in time zone GMT+1, and I won’t be online too often. I will be today (saturday), and tomorrow evening, but from monday to wednesday I get up at 5:30am and get home at 9:30pm, no hope to catch me for a longer period of time online on those days.
My msn is: bbalazsmail (at) freemail.hu

Thanks.

stopped reading after the first TLR that was mentioned
sry

I like the idea and at some point had something similar in mind, a PvP mod (aka Arcade Action) with different “maps” that would represent another mod all the time.

So in one hour, you play a star wars team death match, then you play BSG, then 88 Flak etc…
But that would likely not work simply due to the size of the mod and compatability issues.

@StarTrader:

If it was made available for downloading without charge, that makes it FREE for use no matter what the attached “usage notes” may say.

Not even remotely accurate or true. By this measure, I can download iTunes (it’s free) repackage it up, and then charge people by selling it to them (based on assumption he’ll be distributing the ships basically inside mod). Being available on the internet does not mean you also get to own it, or have rights to use it or distribute it!

You may argue that privately produced work is different, but only in the fact that they’d have to bother taking you to court over it. Idea of “they won’t, so it’s open season” is a very poor attitude - so please don’t take that advice.

To original poster now

I’d simply say - whichever ships you’re looking at, the vast majority will have contact details associated. Email - it takes 30 seconds per email per ship, which isn’t too much to ask considering how much effort they put into creating it is it (if you plan on releasing it)?

You’ll get a much larger number of positive responses with emails to creators than a post on a forum that they most likely will never see as they may not even visit it.

Basically, if a jobs worth doing - it’s worth doing well I’d at least fire emails to all you can and see what responses you get

I agree with Chips here, and I wish to add a little idea I thought about after you spoke to me on MSN about the mod:

If you really want this to be a monument to FL and its community, I say… Why not make so each ship name has the modeller/texturer’s name(s) in them? As in:

FriendlyFire & CheeseOnToast’s Mega Death Giver

That would give people who worked hard for their stuff double-credits (both in the readme and ingame) and I’m sure you’d get positive replies from such a concept. Could also do the same for particularly well made systems, guns, equipment, etc.

Just my 2¢…

If you really want this to be a monument to FL and its community, I say… Why not make so each ship name has the modeller/texturer’s name(s) in them? As in:

Quote
FriendlyFire & CheeseOnToast’s Mega Death Giver

That would give people who worked hard for their stuff double-credits (both in the readme and ingame) and I’m sure you’d get positive replies from such a concept. Could also do the same for particularly well made systems, guns, equipment, etc.

Why not add an infocard entry rather than putting the credits into the name. I mean an entry like

Additional Equipment: blabla
Modeler/Author/whatever you want it to be: (Author)

Could also do the trick, but it’d be less visible. That’s a design choice I leave into their hands

Don’t wprry about law suits, costs to much cash and to much effort to do such a thing even when most cooperate its not doable at all.
The unwritten rule in this is that you contact the moddelers / scripters and ask them if you can use it. The probably respond with “yes you can if you credit me and my server and http://freelancerserverhostedbyamodder.com”

Send out emails or PM them on the forums where they are most active.

And accept it when they say no, or when they ask you to wait for 6 months, because they just released it.

have the creators look over their works and see them ballanced with weapon systems, engine drives, manuverabilety all as acurate to the real scifi ships from their universes along with the origenal content ballanced to compliment them with all the little neat features that we want to test and add.

Please do not use anything from The Void mod in your work.

Feel free to use our models in your mod, just make sure u contact the autor listed in the credit files.
Or contact me i can give u permission for a few models in our mod.

@Chips:

@StarTrader:

If it was made available for downloading without charge, that makes it FREE for use no matter what the attached “usage notes” may say.

Not even remotely accurate or true. By this measure, I can download iTunes (it’s free) << SNIP>>

Thanks Chips for saving me from ranting even more about this. A 100% Original creation can be considered a “Artistic Work” to protect it. Imagine trying to decry items such as the Mona Lisa “Public Domain and free to copy and imitate” rather than a work of Leonardo da Vinci that he should be paid for. You might think that was an extreme comparison until you find yourself standing in front of a work of Abstract Expressionism in a Museum.  I think some would argue there is more art involved in the ship creation than in that style of painting so the definition is quite wide.

All I am saying is, don’t be flippant and disregard anyone’s desire to not have there work included. Most will Co-Operate, but you deify the wishes of one Modeler, they may all suddenly turn on you like my namesake…

See - people jump in without reading carefully, and attack lines they think they have read but have not.

Chips - Don’t try to put false words in my mouth, it upsets me to be misinterpreted deliberately, there’s a nice chap (pats him on the head patronisingly).

Mona Lisa? Do me a favour!

I am not advocating “use anything you want and thumb your nose at the creator”. Far from it. I did specifically and explicitly imply to contact the creator, since I mentioned that most will say yes, and since I addressed the possible non-response.

By free for use I mean exactly what I say, not for you to sell it on. And we are not talking about commercial products, nor about companies that design original space ship models, nor persons who sell their ship models. Those will most certainly have some legal recourse when their products are used without the due payment.

Basically and in plain terms:-

Prevention is better than cure. If you don’t want it used then don’t put it up for downloading.

If you put it up for downloading without passwords or other preventive measures then it inherently implies that you allow people to download it and use it at will.

You disagree? Hmm… Why would anyone put up a ship model or a ship pack for free (as in unhindered and without payment) downloading if they didn’t want it downloaded or used? It’s meant to be used, and… ship packs are specifically designed to be put into a mod.

About modifying it - unfortunately there is not much anyone can claim in the case of a ship model if they make it available for downloading in a form in which it can be modified.

Remember that honourable people would not transgress in the first place.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably logical and honourable person. What little original stuff and info that I do make and release is with the full knowledge that it will be used and maybe modified too. In fact when I do release it I intend for it to be used, it’s my pleasure. Credits? Well, thank you very much, of course. But - Why would I insist? I wouldn’t. Because my head is not the size of a water melon.

Very naturally, I would be very annoyed if someone else claimed he/she made it when it was my original work.

As for legal action against the user - whether unfair or not, courts in the UK (I admit I said “Europe” without being 100% certain) would definitely not support the plaintiff, whether as an individual or as a company, unless he/she had patented and / or registered the ship model as being his/her original property and could prove it.

An individual may shout and belly-ache but needs to have lots of money to throw into a private court case against a poor and scruffy student. Pointless and probably a fruitless exercise.

Honour and respect for others should guide our way in what we do at all times. As I said to Griffin, if the creator does not reply to an email then the permission requester has a decision to make.

What comes back time after time with this “credit me” business is this - many people say they “made something for the community” when they really mean “Hey, look how great I am, look but don’t touch it, just bend down and give me lotsa homage, man!”

Time for another doughnut.

Bye.

@Griffin:

… Origenaly this was posted on TLR …

……

@Griffin:

… post your permissions …

……

@Griffin:

… it’s just going to be a personal lan thing with us and our close personal friends. …

……

@Griffin:

…. Ultimate …

……

@StarTrader:

…. Prevention is better than cure. If you don’t want it used then don’t put it up for downloading. …

……
Maybe there should be a function like THIS.

A small addition 4 interested pebs:

We Can’t Decide Inc. was originally founded with the thought that one of our three directors (Alfa Astrix) had discovered the source code to Freelancer. It was later found that he had, but not in a readable language.

LOL ;D
That just made my day

@w0dk4:

We Can’t Decide Inc. was originally founded with the thought that one of our three directors (Alfa Astrix) had discovered the source code to Freelancer. It was later found that he had, but not in a readable language.

LOL ;D
That just made my day

Lmao … thats so funny ;D

…… 4 one more little smile ;D
you might want 2 go THERE

PS. and u shouldn’t miss the XFire page linked in the signature.

Startrader is right to a certain extent.

@ Original poster
Basically do whatever floats your boat. There is precious little anyone can do to stop you, so it’s up to your concise - as said.

@Startrader
Most of your post just seemed to highlight that if they wish to take things willy nilly, then they can. Furthermore, it seems to indicate that putting anything on the internet means this is okay to do as well.

Fair enough - personally it’d have been more valuable to simply give the flipside of what respecting people’s requests will mean, as well as the downside of not doing so. Simply stating that nothing will happen if you do what you like seems… to be advocating them to do what they like.

It’s the way it reads. Whether it’s what you mean/intend it or not, it does read like you’re basically saying “hey pal, if you decide to take stuff, nothing bad will happen - so if they say no, or you hear nothing - you can, ya know, either not have the ships OR just sod them!”

goes and removes own source code and looks around suspiciously
I suddenly don’t feel comfortable with this idea of “sharing”, as “sharing” has taken on the feeling of bending over and grabbing ankles

Why I read this thread I dunno, I waste too much time and don’t really have any interest in anything here to be quite frank.

Adios.

@F!R:

…… 4 one more little smile ;D
you might want 2 go THERE

PS. and u shouldn’t miss the XFire page linked in the signature.

Wold it make you feel better for me to just reply here? I’m also glad to see someone found out site. ;D

---

Now back to the original matter. As I read through this, I’ve notices that it’s beginning to turn into a battle of rights. I would like to add me 2 cents on this.

First off, this thread was started to ask the develops of all the major mods if we / he could use the models from them, not the info or anything else, as long as credit was given to the fullest extent. I’ve done the research and we understand the copyright laws on custom materials and models for customizations made to existing corporate video games. Long story short, we have to have a written permission of each designer / contributor to every ship. That’s where this thread comes in. Yes Griff should email everyone he can, but as many people don’t realize, most of the emails that are posted in the readme files and the script files don’t work. Now being that most of the emails don’t work, or no one ever responds with a yes or no, how do you contact those people?

I’m just saying this because I would like to see Griff’s project follow through. As well as the idea behind it on how he’s going to build the universe behind it, I feel is ingenious. If nothing else, this could become a community project. I mean what would it hurt for all the groups to get together and help a little, if not just offering their ships? This is just my opinion. To get things straight, I’m not a part of this project except to help him where he needs. In essence, Griff’s on his own here. So why sit here and say, “No you can’t have our ships”, when just letting him use it, and only the ship wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Which with that said, I’m going to ask y’all somethng;
Why is it so bad to allow someone to use your ships?

lol Chips dont make a drama out of this, get your act together ;D