Tremulous Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Megagun on October 16, 2008, 05:20:36 pm
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Comparison between Battlesuit and the Quake 3 keel model's taunt and jump animations (http://mooses.nl/temp/anims/trembsuitversuskeel_low_taunt-jump.avi)
Comparison between human_base and Quake 3's Visor's taunt animation (http://mooses.nl/temp/anims/tremhumanversusvisor_low_taunt.avi)
As far as I know, you can't take these animations and relicense them as part of your model/the Tremulous package under CC-BY-SA 2.5 as the right to these animations belong to ID Software.
Is there anything I'm missing here (such as obvious proof that you *can* use these animations freely)?
Is 1.2 going to use the same models/animations?
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It is also my belief that the Q3 media still belongs to id. Prior to Tremulous being released as standalone, it was perfectly acceptable that it use q3 models as it required a retail version to play. In order to transfer from q3 to standalone, it seems likely to me that the modellers for Tremulous attempted to recreate the models they had been using and their animations as accurately as possible.
I'm not sure how similar the two have to be in order for claims of copyright infringement to hold water, but I'm sure that id don't own the copyright on those gestures, or on jumping up and down. It is easy to understand why two developers might independently create two extremely similar animations, especially if one has seen and used the other's work beforehand.
From what I've heard, 1.2 may have some new animations but is unlikely to revoke any of the current ones unless there is a very good reason for the animators to create more work for themselves.
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trem uses the quake3 engine, so im sure theyre able to use the animation.
no offence, but i hate people like you, its people like you who ruin it for everyone.
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The engine is open, then assets are proprietary to idtech, so we can't use them (Unless those bits were also released).
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In a private conversation I had with someone in the development team, I heard that the actual intention was to use the Quake 3 animations, and that that person thought that using those animations 'would be okay'.
no offence, but i hate people like you, its people like you who ruin it for everyone.
How exactly do I ruin it for everyone? Please do tell me.
All I'm doing is shining the light on something that could eventually lead to an even bigger situation, depending on the people involved in this. Especially 'further down the line', if people use the Tremulous models and animations under the CC-by-sa 2.5 license, not knowing that the animations are actually by ID software, it could cause some trouble. I'd rather not want to spend time myself on doing a project and then getting an angry note from ID Software claiming that I infringed on their copyrights without myself actually knowing that I did so.
(If I wanted to ruin it for everyone, I'd notify ID and the people responsible for the Debian repositories about this a few days after the release of 1.2)
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this accusation might hold a little more weight if you were talking about a skeletal animation format like doom3's, where it is quite easy to import the skeleton complete with animations and use it to animate your own model.
quake3 models are actually md3 models which don't have skeletons. Animation is recorded by describing the position of every vertex in the model for each frame of animation1. so if you wanted to "take these animations" you could only do so by using the original model, which obviously isn't the case here.
1from this page (http://linux.ucla.edu/~phaethon/q3/formats/md3format.html).
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no offence, but i hate people like you, its people like you who ruin it for everyone.
That was an unnecessary troll.
He did not flame, troll or blindly accuse the developers of theft. He merely stated his observations and asked whether they were accurate. He did nothing wrong. Being an open-source project does not relieve us from the requirement to remain legal, and vigilance in the community is important to achieving this.
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I think you should call id Software and rat out on the people that made Tremulous, and then all kneel down and start praying very hard that the bastard CEO with the long brown hair will send evil lawyers to Scotland to take with is rightfully theirs.
Or, as an alternative, you could just not give a shit until nobody else gives a shit, since the original creators, thusfar, certainly have not expressed to give a shit. But somehow I feel this option is way too comfortable for a certain kind of people, with a certain kind of unpleasant appetite.
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What's your point?
(More accurately, who gives a fuck?)
Fuck off.
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http://www.fileplanet.com/hosteddl.aspx?q2pmp/tools/quake3/bips-q3-steed.zip
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no offence, but i hate people like you, its people like you who ruin it for everyone.
Why is it that whenever someone says "no offense", the following remark is always tailored to provide the highest possible amount of offensiveness?
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Tremulous human playermodels use animations from Quake 3
Essentially, all of us couldn't give a fuck, lets try using my computer buddy WinDOS(tm) to examine this problem:
(http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd259/irisheathan/1720Attempting-To-Give-A-Damn20Larg.gif)
Hmm, I guess he came up with 0 results. I suggest you stop posting such crap into the forums and try to rat out the Tremulous developers from getting a lawsuit from I.D, even though I.D couldn't give a crap about Q3 anymore.
Btw, who the hell wants to download pictures for comparison? What the hell is wrong with just hosting them on Photobucket or something? It seems to yell "I'm a virus, lolololol" when we need to download something that is unnecessary to download.
Meh, my mistake, they were downloadable videos, because YouTube's video quality sucks. ;D
(I'll be the first to accuse him of being a NS agent sent to destroy us)
I was thinking of him being a Gloom agent. Yea, yea, gloom is more balanced and they like a game inspired by them, but they always have been jealous of our....engine...superiority. You could call me crazy, but wait.
One day, Quake 2 will rise once again, and will squash all of you Tremulous noobs in the dirt, with your fancy engine bells and whistles. And you wouldn't ever known a member in the forums worked as a double agent to bring you Q3 nubs down, mwhahahahahHAHAHA!
*cough*, umm, I mean, go Tremulous! :angel:
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Its a video. Click it and it plays in your browser, much preferable to youtube's bastardisation of videos. And if he hadn't posted evidence then this thread would have gone in a much more "fuck you noob" direction. (I'll be the first to accuse him of being a NS agent sent to destroy us)
Anyway, all the smart ones of us do care. We care a lot. Non-free items in tremulous can cause major shit, its a lot better to clean them up on our own terms than wait for the DMCA takedown letter to be sent to the upstream.
IMO there's no problem here, but its certainly worth checking.
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I think the smart people are the ones who just don't care, while the retarded ones are the people creating a fuzz over next to nothing.
Look at the link I posted, it is most likely that TremDev got the bipeds from the archive that Paul Steed put online years ago. The archive does not include a readme or a license. There is a chance that these bipeds receive much the same treatment from id Software as the vwep models in Quake2; they just don't give a shit.
Of course, retards like you people don't give a shit about this, you just want attention.
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You're missing the point and misrepresenting the situation.
When you say Id software 'doesn't care anymore' what you're really saying is that the product is old that they are unlikely to enforce copyright action against it. This isn't a decision that you can make for Id neither is this how open source endeavours works.
The point here that licences are important to people and big distributions, and if it can be demonstrated to distributions that piracy of other companies and individuals works has taken place then they won't hesitate in kicking those works out of the repositories.
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I'm not sure how similar the two have to be in order for claims of copyright infringement to hold water
In the UK, all and any derived works would be considered copyright infringements, regardless of the level of similarity. Naturally it can be difficult to demonstrate something is a derived work however there are many cases that are obviously derived works.
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Look at the link I posted, it is most likely that TremDev got the bipeds from the archive that Paul Steed put online years ago. The archive does not include a readme or a license.
In many jurisdictions in the world (especially within the EU) copyright is an automatic process that doesn't require any registration and is immediately applied to any new works.
In light of this, imagine you're preparing a submission to a solicitor for the tremulous project so that he can defend a copyright infringement claim made by an agent of the author. Please regale us with your submission and imagine that a legal representative was reading it and imagine how it would sound!
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Look at the link I posted, it is most likely that TremDev got the bipeds from the archive that Paul Steed put online years ago. The archive does not include a readme or a license.
In many jurisdictions in the world (especially within the EU) copyright is an automatic process that doesn't require any registration and is immediately applied to any new works.
In light of this, imagine you're preparing a submission to a solicitor for the tremulous project so that he can defend a copyright infringement claim made by an agent of the author. Please regale us with your submission and imagine that a legal representative was reading it and imagine how it would sound!
Copyright holds for automatically for all works, if they have a license file or not. If the work does not include a license from the copyright holder that explicitly states that it is ok to use for free, then you cannot use it legally in an open source project (unless you wait 70 years for the expiration of the copyright). Adding a creative commons license file yourself would make your legal position only worse.
So if these animations are derived from Id's copyrighted material, they should IMHO be replaced because if Id doesn't claim it's copyright now doesn't mean that they (or any future owner of Id) will never change their mind and also because every linux distribution (except Gentoo maybe) would immediately remove tremulous from their repositories.
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All of you license gestapo seem to overlook the fact that the only people that should care about this are the creators of Quake III Arena and the creators of Tremulous. What I can see from over here, none of them care.
So, if there is no problem, why create one?
@silverbak: Please keep on triple posting, that way I can happily remove you from these forums.
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What about people who redistribute the Tremulous files? They might care that they're redistributing illegal files.
Of course, retards like you people don't give a shit about this, you just want attention.
EDIT: and people who want to use the Tremulous content in their own projects might care, too.
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Please supply me with any proof that these files are illegal. Do not post generic text about copyright and what not, be a real man and email id Software.
[EDIT] Also remember that the biped files used by TremDev for these animations were not a part of Quake III Arena and its copyrighted data.
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All of you license gestapo seem to overlook the fact that the only people that should care about this are the creators of Quake III Arena and the creators of Tremulous. What I can see from over here, none of them care.
So, if there is no problem, why create one?
There is a huge problem because a.) we don't want to personally redistribute files illegally and b.) there are people here like myself affiliated with GNU/Linux distributions where we just cannot distribute files of this nature.
So really what this comes down to is a userbase issue. If tremulous as a project wishes to reduce its userbase then certainly the quickest way of this happening is to start including files that cannot and will not be distributed by mainstream linux distros.
I don't want to see that happen to tremulous :(
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As I see it now, you create a problem where there is no problem. Out of a theoretical problem, you try to create a real problem.
My suggestion is that you do not distribute Tremulous to your userbase if this is such of a 'huge problem'.
Do keep in mind that any suggestion coming from me is one of a mere forum moderator, who speaks for nobody but himself.
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Firstly, thank you Megagun for your information and insight.
If there is a chance that this animation could cause trouble, should reluctance to put in the effort be any reason against changing it?
@silverbak: Please keep on triple posting, that way I can happily remove you from these forums.
You, as a forums administrator, have just asked a user to provoke you so that you might remove them seemingly out of resentment to their point of view. Regardless of any level of sarcasm intended, I would urge nobody to accept such behaviour. Please keep your hot head out of the discussion.
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My suggestion is that you do not distribute Tremulous to your userbase if this is such of a 'huge problem'.
It won't be a huge problem, distros will just pull the package.
It is incredibly short sighted to underestimate what this will mean from tremulous if linux distros won't carry it.
For example, in Debian, there have been 564 people who have installed tremulous of which 413 are considered regular users.
http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=tremulous
This is just one distro.
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If all those people 564 feel they cannot play Tremulous because of this 'huge problem', then I don't think they really care about the game itself.
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I think you will find that any of the animations/player models that Tremulous "steals" from Q3 are in the shareware version. Which, as far as I can remember, is freely redistributable.
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If all those people 564 feel they cannot play Tremulous because of this 'huge problem', then I don't think they really care about the game itself.
Your response is indicative of someone who isn't intimately familiar with the open source philosophy, and your response is also indicative of someone who looks like they would seek to 'blame' tremulous players with such a philosophy for not using the pirated works of others to entertain themselves.
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I think you will find that any of the animations/player models that Tremulous "steals" from Q3 are in the shareware version. Which, as far as I can remember, is freely redistributable.
The media of Tremulous claims to be licensed under the Creative Commons licence. This is only legal if the developers who chose to do so owned the original copyright of the work (and I think we are yet to see really compelling evidence that they did not).
Given that the models look different, and from what I hear the model format doesn't really support easily transferring animations from one model to another, I don't think there's anything to worry about until evidence suggests otherwise.
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Those stats tell me there are 87 people with the evil tremulous-server package, would be doing them a favour to remove it.
But that is not the point. You are arguing with lava who has no power and is hated by a lot of people. If there is evidence of infringement then I am sure the devs will react, although as it is I see none.
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The morality of this issue is secondary, in my mind, to the possibility that this- or something like it -will come up if/when tremulous gets bigger. You might think such attention to detail is unlikely at the moment but how likely will it be a couple of years down the line? Some clarification on what repercussions could ensue would be appreciated.
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All of you license gestapo seem to overlook the fact that the only people that should care about this are the creators of Quake III Arena and the creators of Tremulous. What I can see from over here, none of them care.
So, if there is no problem, why create one?
There is a huge problem because a.) we don't want to personally redistribute files illegally and b.) there are people here like myself affiliated with GNU/Linux distributions where we just cannot distribute files of this nature.
So really what this comes down to is a userbase issue. If tremulous as a project wishes to reduce its userbase then certainly the quickest way of this happening is to start including files that cannot and will not be distributed by mainstream linux distros.
I don't want to see that happen to tremulous :(
1. Who is "we"?
2. I don't fucking care what debian does. It is useful for server systems and that is it. (In my opinion regarding desktop systems it is outdated crap)
3. Give prove or !mute yourself
@Nux
Seeing how playerbase is decreasing I don't think popularity is anything Tremulous has to be concerned about at the moment. Or do you think Tremulous 1.2 will win a moddb award again?
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He's already strongly implied he's affiliated with debian.
Your opinion means jack shit. Do the research, if you use the ultra stable version of course its out of date. 99% of ubuntu packages are straight from debain, are they out of date too?
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I have seen no compelling evidence of infringement, however I'll try and look into it further when I get some time, as well as question those more 'in-the-know' about these things than myself.
Khalsa
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It would look like those animations were from the Paul Steed bip files, I can't say for sure.
What I do know is this:
*Paul Steed released the MAX animated skeletons for several Q3 characters so people in the community could bake them into their own characters. The reason he did this was to foster the community and promote people to release models because it would have been unreasonable to expect people to come up with a few dozen or so animations for each model.
*Several hundred Q3 models have been released by community members using those baked animations.
What I don't know :
*What preconditions Paul Steed released the files under
*What percentage per animation do some of the Tremulous models use. I know there are percentage laws around modifying images, I'm not sure how this applies to animations. For example, if you ran a noise modifier on the animation stack, it would in essence alter ever frame of animation and therefore no longer be a direct copy.
Finally, what I assume from my knowledge of Paul Steed, the Quake community and copyright issues (ie my opinion) :
*Tremulous is an open source, free project that promotes the power of the Q3 engine if not providing a fun experience.
*I know people at id and other game companies have had plenty of exposure to it's existence and the animations used. In the same way Paul Steed released the animation files to foster the player model community, I feel he and id software would have no problem with these fragments of the Q3 content existing in Tremulous based on the company's previous encounters with ip misuse - again, Tremulous is a free, open source project, if this was a commercial project trying to make money off the files, I feel the situation would be drastically different.
*From a technical standpoint the models might use the same animated skeleton but NOT the same geometry. Because of this, the animation will never be the same as the files released, different sections of the model were weighted to different sections of the skeleton, not in the same quantity as the original animations.
FOR EXAMPLE - the popular online MMO, World of Warcraft has characters that can recreate popular dances from copyrighted movies, tv and music programs. Yes, these could be under parody and they didn't use the skeletons from which those dances were created, but like I said above, even if you use the same skeleton, the model will be applied to the skeleton in different proportions rendering the result unique if not similar to the source.
Again, this is my opinion, I'm not a lawyer. I think realistically animation in this case is treated a little different than code or texture theft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066_q4DIeqk
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Copyright issues are not black and white.
A judge would have to ask- Why are you using the material
- What is the material
- How much is used
- What is the market impact
Since Tremulous is a free game and iD is not currently selling the Q3 code (and have developed/sold more advanced code), this is a non issue.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066_q4DIeqk
Haha ;D that made my day.
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iD is not currently selling the Q3 code
http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech3/
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Copyright issues are not black and white.
A judge would have to ask- Why are you using the material
- What is the material
- How much is used
- What is the market impact
Since Tremulous is a free game and iD is not currently selling the Q3 code (and have developed/sold more advanced code), this is a non issue.
I hate to disagree but copyright laws do not take into consideration any of the points you listed, they are only valid to evaluate damages if infringement did happen.
For example, there is no legal difference between selling teeshirts with Daffy Duck on them or giving them out for free. In both cases the infringement is equal while the damages might be different.
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What I don't know :
*What preconditions Paul Steed released the files under
This is possibly the most pertinent part of the situation. Aside from anything else, is there anyway to contact Paul Steed to request that he re-licences the files under GPL or another free licence that he deems appropriate?
This would then be problem solved.
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I hate to disagree but copyright laws do not take into consideration any of the points you listed...
From what I've read about copyright law (IANAL) what you said is true up until the assessment of 'fair use' which is an important step in assessing whether the copyright has been infringed. The definition of fair use is the same or similar to what temple mentioned, for most countries concerned.
...they are only valid to evaluate damages if infringement did happen. For example, there is no legal difference between selling teeshirts with Daffy Duck on them or giving them out for free. In both cases the infringement is equal while the damages might be different.
AFAIK the infringements aren't equal. By selling rather than giving away, you aren't convincing anyone you're attempting to use it 'fairly'. If it weren't for 'fair use' then it would all be considered infringement and we'd move on to the little matter of damages. As it is, 'fair use' is the exception which gives copyright law subjectivity.
In the case of your example it would be considered that by offering the shirts for a price you're likely to have given away less (if stats aren't available to go by) whereas if you give them away for free you will have likely lost the copyright holder many more customers. Any profit the infringing party might have made from this would not directly contribute toward the copyright holders 'lost profits'. That said, the intent is very much relevant here.
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there is no licensing issue.
It is just that some assets are not CC-SA( but they are incorrectly flagged as CC-SA ).
It is not a big deal.
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So its OK to pirate something if you correctly label it as pirated?
Nobody knows what the licence for that stuff is, so it defaults to "All rights reserved"
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i didnt read this thread but by now if they cared im sure someone would have done something.
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i didnt read this thread but by now if they cared im sure someone would have done something.
You don't understand, it's the philosophy that matters.
Hahahahahahahaha.
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You don't understand, its the fact that timbo / whoever could get sued for a lot of money and lose that matters.
Hahahahahahahaha.
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You don't understand, its the fact that timbo / whoever could get sued for a lot of money and lose that matters.
You live in a land of fairytales.
Timbo? Sued?
Hahahahahahahaha, if that happens I will laugh so hard I'll never post on these forums again.
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You live in a land of fairytales.
Timbo? Sued?
Hahahahahahahaha, if that happens I will laugh so hard I'll never post on these forums again.
Well damn, in that case...
*Fumbles for ID's number*
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So its OK to pirate something if you correctly label it as pirated?
Nobody knows what the licence for that stuff is, so it defaults to "All rights reserved"
You are over generalizing. Tremulous doesn't contain pirated media.
They are not "all rights reserved". They are "free for non commercial use" but not cc-sa.
Of course, It is not right but not a big issue for Tremulous.
You can have them for free. But, You can also have Tremulous for free.
Problem can occur when someone gets them from Tremulous, uses in a commercial project.
He/she would think "they are CC-SA, so I can use it in my commercial project" however they are not.
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Where is it said they are "free for non commercial use"?
What I don't know :
*What preconditions Paul Steed released the files under
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You license zealots are amusing.
1 - *If* tremulous even used Paul Steeds biped animations, those bipeds are NOT copyrighted, and not distributed with Quake 3.
2 - If you go by your Euro rules, then if anyone owns the copyright it's Paul Steed, since he uploaded them(according to you guys). He put them up there as public domain.
3 - You talk about 500 or so Debian installations? Good lord, you must realize that there are probably more than 10x that many new Tremulous installations every week, right? I'm pretty sure Tremulous will continue to thrive regardless of whether Linux distros carry it.
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1 - *If* tremulous even used Paul Steeds biped animations, those bipeds are NOT copyrighted, and not distributed with Quake 3.
Wrong. As per international law, everything that is copyrightable is copyrighted to whoever made it, by default. Copyright is automatic and instant. There is no need to say "Copyright <name> <year>" although doing so is common. It is not needed though. If Paul Steed made them then he owns copyright unless he transferred ownership or made them public domain (Not valid in some places)
2 - If you go by your Euro rules, then if anyone owns the copyright it's Paul Steed, since he uploaded them(according to you guys). He put them up there as public domain.
Again wrong. Copyright is hard to get rid of, unless he provides a legally binding licence granting you permission and you agree to it, you can't use it. Public domain is a special case handled differently in different places, but can be assumed to be licence for anyone to do anything with it. Would still require him to give a legally binding statement saying it is public domain though.
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1 - *If* tremulous even used Paul Steeds biped animations, those bipeds are NOT copyrighted, and not distributed with Quake 3.
Wrong. As per international law, everything that is copyrightable is copyrighted to whoever made it, by default. Copyright is automatic and instant. There is no need to say "Copyright <name> <year>" although doing so is common. It is not needed though. If Paul Steed made them then he owns copyright unless he transferred ownership or made them public domain (Not valid in some places)
2 - If you go by your Euro rules, then if anyone owns the copyright it's Paul Steed, since he uploaded them(according to you guys). He put them up there as public domain.
Again wrong. Copyright is hard to get rid of, unless he provides a legally binding licence granting you permission and you agree to it, you can't use it. Public domain is a special case handled differently in different places, but can be assumed to be licence for anyone to do anything with it. Would still require him to give a legally binding statement saying it is public domain though.
wrong
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Let's just return to the old mode of not caring, since these people are just fanatics.
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wrong
Wonderful argument there.
And lava_croft is a paedophile! lets all shun him now!
Oh look, I can make baseless accusations too...
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This discussion is pointless.
Why did it take two years for someone to come up with this licensing issue?
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Where is it said they are "free for non commercial use"?
What I don't know :
*What preconditions Paul Steed released the files under
IIRC there wasn't any restrictions for non commercial use.
You can just ask Paul Steed, id, or whoever the copyright holder is.
If they were downloaded from a warezz site /their license restricts their usage in a free game.
THEN you must remove Tremulous 1.1.0 from the internet. :P
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wrong
Wonderful argument there.
And lava_croft is a paedophile! lets all shun him now!
Oh look, I can make baseless accusations too...
Firstly: Don't feed the troll. Whether a post is informative or not should be self-evident. No need to even spare a thought for those who don't see it already.
I'll point out that your claims- though more numerous and detailed -are still largely unsubstantiated.
Cited from wiki: "In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights."
"In 1989, the U.S. enacted the Berne Convention Implementation Act, amending the 1976 Copyright Act to conform to most of the provisions of the Berne Convention."
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The thing is, as long as the copyright on the bipeds is not determined, the chances of it being favorable to you fanatics are as large as the chances that Timbo, thanks to you fanatics, might have to sell his kidneys to keep him out of a Scottish correctional facility.
In other words, let's all be positive and stop caring!
Nobody else has cared for all these years, neither id, nor the Tremulous developers!
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Let's just return to the old mode of not caring, since these people are just fanatics.
I decided to sit most of this argument out, and I finally find a post in it that I can wholeheartedly agree with.
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Let's just return to the old mode of not caring, since these people are just fanatics.
I decided to sit most of this argument out, and I finally find a post in it that I can wholeheartedly agree with.
Absolutely true. +1
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Think of it this way:
1) 'Fanatics' have found something disputable (This animation).
2) If Tremulous is to grow it will likey become affiliated with big name hosting services.
3) Hosting services won't hesitate to take disputable content down at the first sign of trouble.
4) You would have to deal with it then because you didn't deal with it before.
For those who want to ignore the issue, you can do so by ignoring this thread. The only reason you might want to hush this discussion is if you're actually afraid of the attention it's bringing to the issue. Well too late guys, attention has been brought to it now.
I'd prefer it if we just nipped this in the bud. Can we have a word with Mr Steed?
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It will be solved in the next release.
This thread is not the first one to mention the issue.
http://forum.freegamedev.net/index.php?t=msg&th=1469
@nux: do you need timbo's kidney?
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Can we have a word with Mr Steed?
http://www.exigent3d.com/
It will be solved in the next release.
How can you solve something that is not a problem?