So this issue has wasted about four pages of comments in our feed, I'm kinda sick of having to keep explaining the same thing over and over again.
Here's how it boils down:
All the modellers who contributed to the Tyranid Mod own their work. That's a legal thing, they own them, it's enforceable in court. End of story.
A lot of modders like to think they can use anything on the internet because it's just there. Legally, that's not the case. The internet works exactly the same way as the real world when it comes to ownership.
A lot of modders like to think if they credit the original author, that's enough to keep out of trouble. Legally it isn't. It's no different to stealing something from someone else and then shouting publicly that that other person really owns it whenever you use it.
A lot of modders think if you can't contact the owner, that means they can do what they want because it's "abandonware". The law doesn't acknowledge abandonware. Ownership is ownership.
The fact is, you need the creator's consent. The only reason people get away with not obtaining it is because they fly under the radar. But when you ask for permission, get told no, and then do it anyway then you've got to be a special kind of scumbag.
What GrOrc is asking for isn't to combine the Tyranid Mod in his mod - we said yes to that, like we do for most other modders. And he'd be able to use our models and animations freely (and make his mod a smaller download) if he did that, but he doesn't want to do it that way because it would mean some extra coding on his part.
What GrOrc is asking is that he can take the models out of the Tyranid Mod, do what he likes to them and repackage them in his mod for independent download. He explicitly does not have permission to do this. He's known he doesn't have permission to do this since he asked back in June.
Conclusion: I've reported GrOrc, and the Soulstorm version of his mod, for having stolen resources and I invite you all to do so as well. I'm hoping that will be enough for him to learn respect for other people's work because currently he has none.
Edit:
All comments in our main feed related to this issue have now been removed.
Additional Edit:
So since we haven't covered this in one easily citable place - the full scope of GrOrc's theft was actually quite a lot larger than our models. He also took all of our sound assets, our UI art, our buttons and our code (none of which he asked for at all) and ripped off pretty much all of our work. He was asked to take this version of his mod down, he refused. He was told if he did not take it down further actions would be taken, he still refused. So as of late December the ModDB admins AND the RelicNews admins agreed that GrOrc had been behaving improperly and respectively shut down his mod here and locked his RelicNews threads for breaching both site's Terms of Service. He has since been allowed to put his mod back up without our content, keeping the offending version of his mod out of public circulation.
Probably the most fair way how to solve this "issue" with GrOrc getting what he really deserves.
I'm always surprised how often some DoW-modders talk about "copyrights". What kind of "copyrights" mean? Modding is a free fans' activities. It's just a hobby. Our modders' "copyrights" is just a polite recognition of the merits of each other in a common work, and nothing more. Non-commercial activity is not protected by the laws. And none of the laws of society are not violated when one DoW-modder takes something from another DoW-modder. If the some DoW-modder does not indicate in his credits (readme-files, Inet-resources) "copyrights" of some other DoW-mod, then he just violates the rules of courtesy adopted in our DoW-modding community. And this story is not about me and it's not about Titanium Wars Mod. I was mentioning always the contribution of other people and other mods in the Titanium Wars Mod. And I 'm doing a great contribution to the common work of our International DoW Community by my hardwork on DoW Community stuff for 5 last years. Please think more friendly about other DoW-modders. No friendly actions unable to lead us in times of the Greater Good.
Sincerely yours, Grumbling Orc
You're actually wrong here. All creative activity is covered by law.
True, its covered under a creative commons licence, which is essentially a free copyright licence.
Unless explicitly stated, work remains copyrighted to the owner, and requires written permission of the original creator(s) to be used.
Which he explicitly does not have.
Hello GrOrc
firstly thank you for your contributions to the Dow community in the past.
I am not a modder but i enjoy playing Dow and am thrilled by how the community has kept the game alive for so long.
While as i say i am not a modder may day job does involve dealing with the law of copyright and intellectual property in great detail.
Copyright arises from any creative medium or action and is an absolute real right of the creator. Copyrighted material can only be used with the permission of the copyright holder or their representatives.It is true that in some cases in some countries where the law is less developed that approval may be considered to exist by virtue of no active disapproval however that is not the situation here. In this case Zahaqiel represents the original creators interests and has refused you use of the material. This is a direct denial of permission. Therefore you may not use it- this law is found in almost every nation on earth including Russia.
I hope this helps.
not sure why it didn't log me in before i posted but hey-ho. Just so everyone is aware i am not some random anon.
Why are you against freedom of speech? You delete other peoples worthy comments! After viewing the media, i am not impressed with Russian politics & outlook towards the free world! Where is Gorbichev when you need him!
Imagine you're a fruit vendor.
Since I'm your friend, you let me get your fruit for free.
Then somebody comes to me and asks me for your fruit (after seeing it's nice and apparently free).
Should I give this person your fruit, free of charge?
"fruits" stand for models, which can indeed be sold
To Miros. Bad example. We are not sellers. We are not engaged in a commercial activities. We are DoW-modders. We make our work free and only for fun.
Good example. We make paper birds and distribute them to all Earth-people for free, and just for a good mood. Whether or not to be greedy, if someone painted bird a little better and he's ready to share it for everyone?
My modellers, however, ARE engaged in commercial activities. They own these models and use them in their portfolios to get jobs.
You stealing them undermines their real world life, because it makes their work look non-unique. It also encourages people who might employ them to steal their work because it's less easily traceable if other people have too.
Get your head out of your arse. This isn't just about modding.
(buried)
You reveal yourself here. Rude behaviour detected. Sad to see your unfriendly actions.
DoW models for free modding can not be used everywere. Only within DoW. A serious person never allude to hobby as real commercial work. A serious person never allude to a DoW-mod, when he gets a job. Your arguments do not hold water. Even if they allude to their Tyranid models, the Titanium Wars Mod (TWM) does not violate their copyrights. I have indicated all copyrights of Tyranid mod in all TWM-info-resources.
I'm sure the old team of modelers would not prohibit their work. Usually creative persons are doing their work for all people on Earth. You are not a modeler, Zaha. You can not decide for everyone. Your mod in stagnation now. And now you do not accept my help. It's not a good example of communication between DoW-modders.
And here we go again. You seem to either not understand the whole big picture here or you just want to impose your own reason.
More than ONCE Zaha has explained the reasons and the ways to treat on his assets, because:
A) He is the one who motors the whole thing (that is the Tyranid Mod).
B) He is the one who has the final say regarding these assets.
C) The people who worked on these models also trusted in Zahas word, not in anyone elses.
Zaha may not be a modeller, but yet again he has a say on the utilisation of these assets; and it has been explained ad nauseaum about it. What you are doing right now is just jumping the ****, saying "**** it all I do this because I want".
Not to mention as well, that you are indirectly causing another problem. Wanna know what it is?. Causing yet another big gap between mods.
I am also interested in bringing on this mod to Korbahs mod, but of course, I wanna do it through other means instead of what you have done (which is just at all means, totally repulsive and I feel nothing but shame).
You are not only putting yourself at risk, you are also putting others work in consequence.
I have lost a lot of respect towards you, Im sorry but this cannot go any further.
You have been reported.
GrOrc understands well, it´s just utter desperation of a lying scumbag with zero respect towards anyone except himself. Seriously telling that Zaha isn´t capable of deciding what to do with entrusted content was "such a good move", the rest could be debatable even when decision was made already but this sealed the deal really well.
The best thing on is that he probably could have made some preparations in order to make it compatible with TW with Tyranid mod as requirement and actually really show his community support and respect (if it wasn´t just another lie since he "helps" only where it suits him). Maybe he would even get his dreamed permission later, but instead, he ****** it up really well. GJ GrOrc, TW is a good mod, but supporting it means supporting piece of **** such as you and I doubt that somebody who isn´t too blinded by your "generosity" or biased due content it uses will miss it.
Reported.
Want to see some stagnation?
Here you go:
Postimg.org
Postimg.org
I may not be a modeller, but I am a professional software developer. I have used some code that I have developed, and even some game mod code as part of my portfolio when applying for jobs. This code is copyrighted to me, and is my intellectual property. It allows me to say "This is what I am capable of" to a potential employer.
True, DoW models can only be used within DoW, but there is nothing stopping those who made those models including them in their portfolio when applying for work, as it shows their potential value to an employer. When created, they are copyrighted to the person who made them, and are their intellectual property. But not obtaining legal permission under copyright law, what you are effectively doing is art theft, which is illegal under ModDB's T&C. I already know one modeller who was banned because of similar scenario.
Zahaqiel is not being unfriendly here, instead you are. He is merely protecting the work of those who created the original models, and gave permission for them to be included into the Tyranid Mod. You, on the other hand, are claiming that because the original model owners cannot be contacted, the copyright on their work has automatically expired. Copyright law doesn't work like that.
Reported. The ModDB community doesn't need people with your attitude (and hopefully this is the last time I need to do this)
The reason my response is "rude" is because I'm sick of explaining this to you over and over.
Use without permission violates ownership rights and the law. End of story.
How are you not getting this?
GrOrc you are a modder yourself:
"You must obtain permissions from their true authors. If you have received this agreement, you can freely use the model provided the correct copyright in your readme-files and the start messages of your topics on the forums."
On the tyranids subject you lack the first part the permissions, simple as that. You can't say one thing applies to modders and then you disrespect it yourself. Thrust me making the tyranids team angry won't help you at all. You are allowed to disagree with the tyranids usage terms but you still should respect it.
Nonetheless trying to find a solution with the tyranids team would be the best for either sides as many have stated before, so you should try to put your efforts in that.
That rule is extracted from your FAQ and you are currently not following it but yet say that everyone should follow the example of your rules because it is the best for the DoW community. How can you say things in a way and then act against what you say? It doesn't make any sense!
You either calm down and solve this in a civilized manner or you continue with your criticism and the discussion will probably never end. It is your choice but trying to justify the breaking of your own rules is not nice.
Reported, sorry you guys have to deal with this after all your hard work. Hope you can get it sorted out.
Here https://www.moddb.com/mods/titanium-wars-mod-ss/news/discussion-about-copyrights-within-dow-modding-activity is my open answer to all Copyrightser. Welcome to discussion.
Considering so many moddelers (for example) have been recruited for big companies (Games Industry and others) due to their work on mods for other games i wonder why DoW moddelers would be flatout left out.
What would happen if a moddeler gave a set of models as example of its work and then a copy of it appears on the internet with another name associated with it? The employer would consider the moddeler a liar and not hire him.
Remember your actions affect people on the entire world we are not considering only the ammount of people you deal with in real life daily but on a wider scale due to international modding.
I explain again and again. Free usage is not violate copyrights. All normal modders mention about true copyrights in all own info-resources (readme-files, Inet sites). If the employer able to read then he will be directed to strings about copyrights on many-many Inet-resources. All modders show proper copyrights of any other mods. Copyrights of all modelers are not violated and they are not exposed to any risk. All authors of DoW-models can sleep peacefully. Each experienced DoW-modder of our International DoW Community knows true source of our 3D content.
>Except you haven't been granted free usage.<
Free usage >requires the assets to be put under open license which has not been done.<
There is no free usage clause on our mod or its assets. Mentioning that you didn't make the assets isn't sufficient, as you've been repeatedly told now by multiple people.
Copyright battles, what an obsolete exercise, when money is not involved, and only affects the player base, and with only a handful of modders around, with a good old game, only alive thanks to modding, so shake hands, and forget, for the greater good, the player base, Happy 2014, always bear in mind that few are active modders, and fewer the old games alive.
Read the other comments. This affects the modders' careers. It is their intellectual property and they have the rights to it.
They can sleep peacefully if this, one of your own modding rules is respected:
"You must obtain permissions from their true authors. If you have received this agreement, you can freely use the model provided the correct copyright in your readme-files and the start messages of your topics on the forums."
You can talk as much as you want but without permission your words are hollow and meaningless.
You spread tyranids mod content without permission and without respecting the usual combiner mods which are pretty much allowed and do not generate this kind of problems.
Why do you try to make excuses relating to your actions instead of redeeming?
If tyranids mod is not compatible you could make it compatible but you prefer insulting everyone who tries to put some sense in your head.
I could have reported you already but for the moment I have chosen to try and put some sense in your head (don't know if it was a good choice but it is up to you). Take this advices and avoid further discussions on this particular subject.
A final note: If you don't have permission and other modders grab tyranids from your mod and don't ask permission to tyranids mod team and they edit the files and claim as their own, do you think the moddelers would be honored or dishonored?
A combiner doesn't prevent that situations but anyone with those claims would be easier to discredit as honored modders would always work with combiners and the team would easily track any misuse.
Commercial business and non-commercial fun-activity are the different. No fight between them. Commercial activity have copyrights protected by the laws. Non-commercial fun activity unable to have copyrights, and it can not be protected by the laws. Fun-activity is not interest for serious business "as is". Fun-products is free for all and they can not be sold for money. There is no reason to fight. There is no reason for protection. This activity is not considered serious. Thus any talking about "copyrights" within DoW-modding is just for LoL among serious people... ;) Asking permission is not "copyrights" for DoW-modders. It's a just polite correct behaviour...
Alright, let's get a few things sorted here.
- Dawn of War is copyrighted to Games Workshop.
- Mods are generally made without permission of the original IP holder.
Now, to me it seems you're using these two facts to justify your unethical use of someone else's work. Let's look at some other facts here;
- Tyranids are owned (copyrighted) by Games Workshop. Anyone using Tyranids to make money is in breach of that copyright.
- Mods are free, therefore the IP holder cannot claim 'violation of IP for financial game'. They could claim 'violation of IP' like GW often does when their legal department need to justify those oh-so-long expense reports.
However, say I were to draw with pencil and paper, an image of a Carnifex, and put it on a website so people can use it as a wallpaper. I credit it in the corner with my name, and also mention it cannot be used without permission.
I have now created something that belongs to /me/. Not to anyone else. I am the person who created that image in that medium, no-one else. If someone takes it, modifies it, then posts it, despite the 'no use without permission' sign, it is a breach of my IP, and could in some rare cases, be considered theft.
Now let's further the analogy. I want to use the drawing for a portfolio to show potential employers. Meanwhile, you have taken the image, modified it, and taken the credits off. Now it looks to any employers like I've taken an image off the internet and photoshopped my name on. Some people could probably try to make a case for damages if they got a lawyer who believed that they had a strong case.
Think about that, won't you?
Continuation of examples. I take free fun-content, I impove it, and I make it open for all. I mention all needed copyrights in all my info-resources. This is polite correct behaviour. All people know where I take the content. Is this a theft? No obviously. But Zaha consider this as theft. It's strange point of view. I would agree if it was a serious commercial content. I never use serious commercial content in such manner. I lawful person as all of us. Commercial content is serious property. However DoW-modding content is free fun assets. No one suffer from using it. Thus I unable to understand Zaha and any other Copyrightsers...
Okay. If I take your entire mod, after you've said to me 'no, don't use it please', and put it into a mod combined with one I've made, then I've stolen your work. Just because you cannot understand this doesn't make your actions right. I hope you do the morally and legally right thing here and withdraw all stolen data from your mod and apologise to the Tyranid team.
To use a more accurate comparison; I draw a lineart of a tank, with my name on it and I also say in the description that it's not to be used without permission. Let's say you then take that lineart, change some things on it, and post it yourself. What you have done is taken the work of someone else, or in other words, theft.
You might be asking yourself now, 'how is that theft? I left the guy's credit on'. Now, that is true. /But/, you've still not asked me permission first, and when I ask you to take it down, you refuse arguing that since you credited me, it's still perfectly fine.
I'm sorry, but is there a language barrier here or are you just ignoring what everybody else has said? MODS, AND THEIR CONTENTS, ARE A PART OF THEIR RESPECTIVE MODDERS' CAREER. Just because people can download them for free doesn't mean other people can use them in their own work without permission. That's not how copyright law works. Do you think it would be legal to put out a game called "Legends of the League", that is almost an exact replica of that one Free-to-play game you might have heard of with a similar name, ripping all the content from said game, modifying them slightly and putting it up for download? Even if you let people download it for free, even if you said "THE CONTENTS OF THIS GAME BELONG TO RIOT GAMES", it would still be illegal, and you would still get sued. Please do some research before acting like you know what you're talking about, you're just making an *** of yourself.
It would have been nice if you'd replied to GrOrc with that, since it looks like you're arguing with me :P
We aren't talking about a game we are talking about a mod and never use a copying of a game as an example for this issue are you an idiot. No I can't make you feel wrong and it is not for me to decide if you are an idiot or not but I will make an exception today. As I said many times before this is a trivial issue, it doesn't matter and no one should care because it is making both mods better. This should be up to the 2 modders to fight it out, using other people on this site to report on GrOrc's mod is just pathetic. I would love to see Zaha bring law into this so I can see him fail and laugh at his wasted pride. .Clash if you are going to be apart of this use a little more sense and don't bring law, copy-right and life principles into this. I would love to hear what you would say now.
Never mind, used wrong reply button.
(buried)
What a waste why would you bother to put this on News. Continue your own business that matters and don't tell me this matters because it doesn't. Can people waste time *sigh*
@noobgonewildtnt
Judging by your comments on the site, the date you joineed and the description in your profile (and that you are the only one defending GrOrc's actions), someone could think you might have created this profile specifically for this discussion.
Russian authorities do not take kindly to pirates of any kind! Currently, at sea (Utube) they kill them. On land, its Gulag #9! You need proof of certificate to seal any deal. So be careful GrOrc what you say & what you steal. Russians do not want their image tarnished by one rotten apple who interfere in other peoples business - Human Rights Artical 12...
WOW, laws in mother Russia ? I don't think Putin calls them laws, just ways of crowd control, like he's doing now to shut up your sorry ***** while trying to take more territory to do the same to them.
The Ukraine is a fine example! The Crimea will be flattened by nuetron bombs!
Wow. I haven't been logged into Moddb for eight years, yet this whole snafu was enough for me to take the time to get a password reset, just so I could post here.
As a former mod developer myself, one who was among the first of all mod developers to release a mod (anyone remember the Total War series I made? Moddb.com), I can tell you that I know a fair bit about modding, and I know that GrOrc made a fatal error. It's one word: Plagurism.
To be honest, there's one very stupidly simple way he could have had the best of both words, and he blew it. That is, as you guys eloquently said, he could have build his standalone mod, then create 'patches' to -allow- the additions of other people's work, without actually including them. How, some of you may ask? By creating specially modified files, that allow people to, say, install his mod, install the Tyranids mod, then, using a patcher he could have released, would seemlessly integrate the two together the way he envisioned.
What's the difference, you may ask? One modifies and INCLUDES all the content of the mod, without any permission. The other, the one I'm suggesting, includes NOTHING. It forces people to find the mod in question (ie Tyranids), download it, install it, then, using a patch utility that he should have created, would integrate this and other mods with it. The big difference, is that by doing this, he could have given the Tyranid mod creators the traffic, downloads, and hits for their mod, while giving the players what they want in a TWM integration. ->
-> To be honest, all he really needed to do was to do that, to take all the files he created/modified from people's various works that made it work with his mod, put them into a patching program, then delete anything that's not directly from the mods he plagiarized from. Then, he could have modified the readme to provide the links to the mods that his mod -supports-, rather than -includes-, and the mod installer should have the patch installers included. Of course, this only works if he didn't modify any content that they had created. Otherwise, he'd need to scratch-write files to make them compatible when the patcher installs them.
It may not be too late for him to try this approach, but to be honest, I'm aggravated that someone so relatively well known in the modding community, would treat someone else's hard work as if it were their own, even if he included the references. To me, what he did was just lazy, and his defense of it is just insulting.
Thankfully, his moddb site is now down. If it goes back up, I hope it comes with a new respect for the hard work people like the Tyranids mod people deserve.
I see only misunderstanding here. Other modders can use "simple combiner" method and they can stay happy with glitches from external projects. Good luck everyone. However TWM never use combiner method. It never allow external glitches. It is unacceptable for TWM level of quality.
Plagiarism? LoL. Who tell this word then means he never saw Titanium Wars Mod. Only original concept there. Only models, textures, and sounds were taken from other mods (and were improved within TWM!). All other work is original. No copyrights were broken by TWM-creation. All copyrights are mentioned in all TWM-info-files and Inet-sites.
Zaha prohibit TWM to use Tyranid content without "simple combiner" method. This is all. All messages about" breaking copyrights", "stealing", etc. are just funny for all serious people.
We'll look what new young Tyranid-mod-team will make in future. Maybe recent events will increase their modding activity and they'll stop their long stagnation. If not, then DoW-players can play in the Tyranid race with high quality within TWM framework right now. In any case, DoW-players and Tyranid-lovers will be grateful to me in the end. ;) Happy modding and gaming everyone! :)
Combiners with glitches from external projects? Never noticed... Yet people complain in your forum & can't get your Titanium mod to work!!! Whats going on there?
Zaha did not want to collaborate with me. He did not want to allow for TWM the Tyranids content without "simple combiner" method. This is all what we saw. No copyrights were broken. Zaha's concern, that Tyranid mod will be forgotten and creation of Tyranid content will be assigned to GrOrc. All such copyrightser' fears have no real foundations. All people know where Tyranid content was taken. TWM have true references about all copyrights in all TWM-info-resources. Zaha's behaviour is strange. Nothing more was happened.
Ahahaha you never give up do you ? =)
Round and Round we go!
When this will stop nobody knows!
Beats the heck outta me! I bet 1,000,000 dollars on "never". :3
Thats Zaha's choice, respect it!
Holy ****, this asspulling is still going.
Yeah seems like it O_o