We were contacted by few people that don't understand the legal status of Phoenix Interactive. There is plenty of things to say even if it doesn't concern Phoenix Interactive, it concerns the way we work on our projects.
We do not copyright our content
Copyright a content that belongs to a special IP is forbidden and we know it. In that sense, Mass Effect Reborn, Stargate Space Conflict and Battlestar Galactica Fleet Commander are not at all protected. They don't have any copyright protection because their respective universes and IP's are not ours. Mass Effect Reborn belongs to the Mass Effect Franchise (EA/BioWare). Stargate Space Conflict belongs to the Stargate Franchise (MGM) and Battlestar Galactica Fleet Commander belongs to (NBC Universal).
We were contacted years ago by the legal department of the Stargate Franchise itself. The MGM told us that we can work on a free project if credit is due and if we don't copyright and use our products to earn money. Of course we respect it. Only the intellectual property is a guarantee of protection for us.
We do not seek profit
No, if you thought we want to make profit on our products, then you don't know who we are. Phoenix Interactive, before being an association, was a dedicated group of beloved developers who wanted to share their respective passions while creating mods. Mostly 10 years later (We decided to work in 2005) we are still working on our free products. We do not seek profit or make profit.
We're not like the Complex modification team which decided with their "access the content before the others by paying a contribution to our team" to make some profit. We do not tolerate something like that.
Intellectual property ?
Intellectual property is given when you create something (on your own). It belongs to you or to your association, like Phoenix Interactive.
For Mass Effect Reborn, you both know that 90% of the models and textures were made by BioWare. Always credit when credit is due. In such case this content belongs to BioWare for everything (Copyright and Intellectual property). However, Mass Effect Reborn is an exception in our association. It's the only project that uses third-party and copyrighted content. Stargate Space Conflict is protected only for our intellectual property. The rest (name, logo and so on...) is not at all our property.
Let's recap
The reason why we published a such news is that few persons are still thinking everything we create is copyrighted. It's purely wrong. We are an association and the only legal guarantee given by the European State is "Your name including its logo will be protected, like your intellectual property".
In such case, the only content protected at Phoenix Interactive, after the name itself and it logo, is our intellectual property (models, textures, musics and so on...). In order to get that "intellectual property" guarantee, we needed first to create our own content. We did it for both mods except Mass Effect Reborn.
Respect for Phoenix :) !
I am with you man. ME Reborn will be a beast(better grapichs, ships, and awesomnes). This mod should be an AAA game.
Thanks but you know, there is a lot of differences between and AAA game and a mod itself, even if sometimes some mods are better than AAA games themselves for their practical gameplay or their artistic design.
Anyway I just wanted to be clear to remove any non understanding. We respect both IPs and it means we respect Electronic Arts/BioWare for their work on the Mass Effect franchise. We hope #ME4 will be beast as well.
Yeah guys. Thanks for a such explanation.
It helps a lot of people who don't really understand what a modification is about.
Are you guys using new models and textures for BSGFC or are they still the old ones created by the old team?
Old BSGFC developers.
The content has been shared with the Nexus BSG team as well. Therefore, you may find the same textures and models in their mod. However, I noticed a difference between Nexus BSG models/textures and the ones created by the old BSGFC Developers.
Strange but logical. The guys at Nexus decided to continue their mod while BSGFC was down. In that sense, they probably improved their models and textures.
Anyway we really enjoy the way the old developers worked on these models and textures. They came with high details and a 2k texture.
A partnership is under way with the last Nexus BSG developer. The later wants to get an access on our stuff. In that sense, we will access to his stuff as well.
Let's recap.
For BSGFC we decided to create and improve the existing content. In such case we will use everything useful and we will improve with our own stuff or our partner's stuff the rest.
Oh ok cool. Looking forward to any release you guys do as long as the intellectual property of the original developers is kept. They also gave us permission to use their stuff, is this okay with you guys?
Yeah of course. In fact one of the last BSGFC dev is now in our association. It was the only way to access and continue the BSGFC development with legal methods. We respect the authors work and improving BSGFC is a great opportunity for us. With the hard work of two teams (BSGFC & Phoenix Interactive) I'm sure we can create a brand new generation. Truth is that we have our own stuff as well and merging our stuff with their old stuff is impressive. So far so good!
Anyway we respect the BSGFC old team, this is the reason why Phoenix Interactive will be the publisher and the BSGFC Dev team the developer ;)
Cool looking forward to it. I like what you've done with SSC, and the promo shots for BSGFC look really promising. I know we have a bad history but you guys are doing really good. Thumbs up.