Beppo wrote:
Changing features of a mod is actually illegal due to copyright laws and
someone would even be able to sue you if they have the time and money to do
so.
Not necessarily. See the recent Techmo vs. ninjahacker.net lawsuit...
http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/02/10/0347222.shtml?tid=211&tid=123
http://www.security-focus.com/news/10466
...many legal analysts say the lawsuit is baseless...
Jason Schultz, an attorney with the non-profit Electronic Frontier
Foundation, couldn't disagree more. "This complaint is absurd," said
Schultz. "The law allows for fair use of other people's copyrighted
works without any permission needed, and one of the key things that
you're allowed to do is make copies in order to reverse engineer and
understand how they work."
<snip>
But enough of this chit-chat... you have your opinion and I have mine...
just remember that there are several different things that automatically
have a copyright just by creating it (even your plug-in or add-on will have
this)...
...and just remember that you also have Fair Use Rights on any
Copyrighted works...
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html
...which basically means you can use copyrighted material for non-profit
educational use. How you define "educational" is not obvious.
In general, making claims about "this is illegal" or "that is illegal"
is usually not an absolute. Different laws apply to different countries
and those laws are usually un-enforceable outside the country where the
law was created.
--
Jeffrey "botman" Broome
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