If it is actually illegal Valve will confront you and politely ask you to remove the copyrighted content, then when you do everything's OK. No trouble!
2009/5/14 Jonas 'Sortie' Termansen <[email protected]> > Technically, you are not stealing from Valve by making a copy of their > works, if they don't lose anything, which the clause that you only use a > small portion of their content includes, because the content cannot > substitute CS:S, and then it won't affect their sales, thus it can quality > as Fair Use under the US Copyright laws. But it's still untested in court, > and will vary on a case basis, and I am not an US copyright expert. The > same > argument goes for editing the content. Again, note that I don't recommend > doing this, but if it's legal due to Fair Use, and you only use small > amounts of content, it will be much faster for the mod to load the content > from its own folder, instead of adding another search path, which increases > loadtimes. > > Oh and be careful when mounting .GCFs from code and not the gameinfo.txt, I > had some experience that some people couldn't launch the mod successfully, > even if they had the .GCF I was mounting. Might be fixed though, but still. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Julian Moschüring" <[email protected]> > To: "Discussion of Half-Life Programming" <[email protected] > > > Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:57 PM > Subject: Re: [hlcoders] Game Content > > > > "-You only included small amounts of Valve's copyrighted works" > > Nice reasoning, so if I go into a shop and only steal eg a part of a > > computer thats okay? :-) > > > > I think you should mount the CS:S content because you have to make sure > > the users who use your mod own the right to have the models you provide. > > Legally you are not even allowed to ship the modified model. To do it > > totally right you would have to extract the gcf during install and modify > > the original model... but, as Jonas said, I don't think valve will > > complain about this. > > > > > > Jonas 'Sortie' Termansen schrieb: > >> My personal expierence is that you can use CS:S Content in your mod. The > >> 100% legal way is to mount CS:S content but that requires CS:S to be > >> installed and owned by everyone who own your mod. Then if you modify a > >> few > >> models, you can simply make some replacements in your own mod folder > that > >> will override the CS:S content. > >> > >> If you want a more questionable method that allows everyone to play your > >> mod > >> (and faster because you don't have to mount another .gcf file or two), > >> you > >> can simply extract the few models you wish to edit and their materials, > >> and > >> put them in your mod's folder. This way you don't depend on any extra > >> .gcf > >> files or that people have CS:S installed. This should work fine for > small > >> amounts of content. While untested in court, it could qualify for Fair > >> Use > >> because: > >> - You only included small amounts of Valve's copyrighted works > >> - The content required at least one of Valve's products > >> - The content used doesn't include the whole CS:S and doesn't limit > >> Valve's > >> sales, because the content isn't CS:S > >> - You do not earn any money from their works > >> - (You edited their works to some degree) > >> - (I have never heard of Valve having any complaints about this, as long > >> as > >> the above is true, despite the EULA probably saying otherwise) > >> > >> Again, whether it's legal or advised to extract and ship the contents of > >> a > >> GCF file, the perfectly safe but annoying way of doing it is mounting > the > >> CSS GCF file, but the way you do it is up to you. > >> > >> ----- Original Message ----- > >> From: "Yaakov Smith" <[email protected]> > >> To: "'Discussion of Half-Life Programming'" > >> <[email protected]> > >> Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 12:09 PM > >> Subject: [hlcoders] Game Content > >> > >> > >> > >>> Example: I want to mess with CS:S models and include modifications of > >>> the > >>> said models in my mod. > >>> > >>> Could I legally do that, but mount the CS:S content to cover the legal > >>> aspect? > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > >>> please visit: > >>> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > >> please visit: > >> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > > please visit: > > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > -- Thanks, - Saul. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
