-= Gametoast.com =-

No offense, psych0fred, but I thought that only applied if we were making money off of these creations. I thought if it was for free, personal use it was perfectly legal.

I could be wrong though.

Ahh, Im still having trouble getting textures when I open a glm in MilkShape, here is what I do:

1. Find a pk3 and changed the pk3 extension to zip
2. Open the zip and extract the contents inside to a folder
3. Open the glm from the extracted contents in Milkshape.

Yes, but personal use does not mean distribution to other people. Personal use means you.

And yes, there's lots of models online, and yes some are even for sale. It doesn't make either legal.

It also doesn't matter much if no one ever gets in trouble for it, but it doesn't mean you won't get in trouble either.

You're right, of course, about it being illegal, but as said before, technically all modding involving Star Wars related characters/weapons/vehicles/maps is. I'm not too worried about anyone getting sued by Lucasfilms for this, I'm not saying they don't have the legal base to sue, they do, but it's just unlikely that they will. We're not harming the compagny financially or any other way, the opposite is more likely, therefore they won't care too much about what we do. Why sue if they don't have a good (with compagnies its mostly financial) reason for it? Sueing costs money too

I'd say the reason we ask the modelmakers for permission is simple ethics, yes, they did make a model of something that was designed by lucasfilms, but they did make it themselves (which, as you stated, doesn't give them any legal rights), and they put time and effort in it, so they should at least get some credit and be asked permission for using their models. Not for legal issues, but ethics.

Asking a thief for permission to use stolen goods is ethical? LOL. That's a good one.

They can't give you permission even if they wanted to. They have no rights.

Lucasfilm does, yet you are more worried about a fan than the real creative talent and legal owners at Lucasfilm.

And no not all modding is illegal, it's perfectly legal to do whatever you want and not distribute anything.

Let it be clear, giving a fan credit is about ego, nothing more. Asking a fan permission and giving them credit is real plagarism.

Simply put, don't treat the fans with more respect than you do Lucasfilm. Treat them the same and don't rationalize it because you think a fan has some rights or is due some credit for their design theft. A fan has no rights over a creative property they do not own, and even asking them permission is stealing credit and power from the real designers and owners and giving it to the fan. If the fan says no, do you listen to them? When you do people think the fan has more rights than the owner. By asking them permission you are giving them rights they don't have.

By your logic I can take any fan model, recreate it vertex by vertex and call it my own and people should ask me for permission before using it because I put the time and effort into it. That's just silly.

Asking a fan for permission is not ethical because it violates the law, if anything it is simply a COURTESY that pays a fan RESPECT for their efforts, and rightly so. BUT, by asking a fan for permission you are taking power away from Lucasfilm and giving it to that fan. That is not only unethical but also illegal according to the rule of law.

Again, I'm just telling you all of this so the truth is not confused by this site's rules which is why we are having this conversation.

For the record I do whatever I want and give credit to people who made the original models I converted if the credits are readily available. I don't let crediting fans stop me from doing anything, nor do I ask someone for permission who does not have the right to give permission. All that means is I don't post links here to my derivative works because this site says you have to ask for permission and recieve it to post a link or photo.

I'm telling you all of this because as I said the site rules confuses you to rights of the fans vs Lucas. You are inadvertently taking power away from Lucas and giving it to fans which legally is more unethical than not crediting a design thief who made a new model.

We're modders, co-opting other people's work is what we do. Otherwise we'd be designers.

Ask permission if you want to post a link of photo here, but don't think that permission means anything beyond the posting rules of this site.

whoa...

I'm thoroughly confused now fred...

but.... do you have xfire? I'd like to chat with you.

The bottom line is that it's Gametoast policy to get permission or at least try to get permission from the maker of the model in order to post it in any of Gametoast's W.I.P. or Release threads, but you can do whatever you want on your own website.

you can say it in a few words:

All in all modding is __NOT__ illegal

It DOESN'T care IF you ask the modeler of the model you converted for permission as he has not the right to give or to refuse

EVERY SINGLE object is property of Lucas. so if you want to be ABSOLUTELY LEGAL you have to ask for permission of Lucas....and be sure patents DO cost ALOT.....so......any questions still?

i don't want to say that you all just should convert and convert....i still think to ask the modeler is a good thing as it's his work and his time he spent......but where do we end? :p

Heh, if all modding was illegal, LucasArts wouldn't have made the mod tools.

Man. The law is strange... really strange...

Don't get me wrong, I understand what Fred is saying...but I dunno why, but all this is extremely...strange...

And Dohnutt... I agree with you.

And the thing about modeling is... sure they are recreating something...but they are really working hard... they are working their butts off to give us a model that we'd like to use for our maps, etc. But what I'm thinking is he should get a tad little credit atleast for 'recreating' a model from his own hands, regardless of what piece of a movie or game it came out of. That's the only credit though I should see that goes to the modeler. Not credit for recreating it, but just putting his own time into modeling it for use.

If I modeled a weapon, parsay, I'd be a little pissed if I didn't get some small pat on the back or something because I put my hard work to make it as accurate as possible. I wouldn't claim my rights over the model.. I'd just claim that I recreated it...that's all. I wouldn't take credit for the design. In fact, I don't think when we model things here we take credit for design...we just take credit of converting or modeling it from scratch. We don't claim that we made the designs ourselves...we just claim that we made the actual model.

And I think I repeated myself atleast 5 times...

But my point still stands...

Welcome to copyright law.

If you want to test the lawyers just create a pornographic star wars model and see what happens when you release it. And I mean model, not mod, because a pornographic mod would violate the mod tools EULA whereas a model is outside of any EULA.

And yeah Revan, like I said crediting fans is all about ego. If you think a fan would get pissed how do you think the original designer feels when he says fans getting credited for models but not him? Yeah I'll give a design thief a pat on the back, and I have. But I don't forget it's someone else's creation and I have yet to see a fan give the people who work for Lucasfilm as much respect as they try to pay the fans who are ripping off their designs, which as I said is hypocritical. Is it realistic to give everyone proper credit? Hell no, so if I don't bother giving anyone credit I don't lose sleep. Like I said, I just don't post links here.

If you really want to pay proper respect the fan should be at the bottom of a long list of credits, not the top or the only mention. And they didn't ask Lucas before recreating the model, so why should I ask them before I recreate theirs? Like I said, hypocritical behavior.

Does it matter? Not at all, that's why I do whatever I want and if someone gets upset unless they have a note from Lucas their argument is invalid. Just don't live in denial of that fact, or think that someone can say no to you and have it matter outside this site.

Create original designs and no one can complain or point a finger. Otherwise don't pretend there's not a double standard.

Delta_57_Dash no I don't use XFire since they sold out to Viacom and began spying on the users like Gamespy. If they want to install legal spyware on my computer they can pay me a percentage of the profits they make from my use of it.

Are we having fun yet?

i think now it should be clear for everyone....

Fred you know you're right so you can stop now It's all clear. And yeah, its an ego thing I guess. We are having lots of fun but lets not overdo it.

Don't mind me asking but, the point of your story is? Don't ask permission just convert it all?

Color me a punk, but I'm gonna take the opposite side of Fred's arguement. Sure, we're talking about legal issues, but the underlying issue is that we want Lucasarts to be happy with us and not to have anyone hating our site because our members converted their stuff without proper credit or permission.

Bottom line is that on top of any legal stuff Gametoast will not allow any work to be posted without permissions and credit to the original authors.

I agree that Lucasarts should be first on the list of credits when a map/model/mod is made. But when is the last time we saw a readme that didn't credit Lucasarts? All we're saying is that we need to keep everyone happy. With Star Wars community-made stuff it's much easier if five people don't make it for five games. Instead, it's made for one game then given to others to put in the other four. JKA is usually the one stuff is made for, but I've seen community SWBF stuff in other games. Getting permissions and crediting properly keeps a community well-oiled.

So whether a permission is legally needed or not we require it here.

And crediting an author is not about ego. Like Fred said, it's about respect. If an author freaks out about using their model elsewhere then it becomes about ego.

I have a couple questions. First, can 3ds Max open the files from the pk3 without any conversions being done. And second, does the model have a skeleton so that it can be animated? I'm talking about character models.

A pk3 is an archive file, like a zip. Rename ".pk3" to ".zip" and you've got yourself a zip file full of textures and models that can be opened by 3ds Max. (Correct me if I'm wrong, experienced people)

I don't know about the animations part.

It may have a skeleton, but I believe psych0fred released a BF2 compatible skeleton somewhere, so you should rig it to that. Then you won't have to worry about animating it. I think.

Teancum. I'm gonna have to side with you on this. Very good points indeed.

I'm gonna have to side with the law and not opinion.

Don't forget a fan granting permission to use a model they have no rights to is illegal (why I started all this), so respect or not GT is breaking the law by requiring a fan to break the law to post links here.

There is no sides, there's the law and whether or not you are breaking it. GT is breaking it. So in short, GT is WRONG.

My dissertations explained the why behind the laws. Consult a lawyer if you don't believe me.

I guess I'm the only one getting pissed on and hating this site because of GT's double standard telling people they must take credit for something they legally can't.

Also don't be a hyprocrit and ban people for plagerism when you REQUIRE it to post a link. That's a plain demonstration of being an AdmiNazi picking on people subjectively.

Like I said, opinion means nothing when you are dealing with the law. You should revise your rules or at least admit you are telling people to break the law or that you are legally putting them at risk so they know you are telling them to break the law.

The solution is simple, allow no posts or require no credits and you are free and clear. Otherwise you are always stealing someone else's credit.

This isn't a battle of opinions, this about the law. Like I said, don't allow posts or don't require credits and you are free and clear legally.

It's pretty clear my input is unwelcome on this despite the fact I've given you the clear roadmap to satisfy the law.

Keeping things the way they are is illegal, and I guess Tea has made it pretty clear that GT has no problem blatently breaking the law and not even trying to be legal on this issue.

There is no rationalization for this, the rules are illegal, period.

I guess GT officially chooses to break the law rather than skirt it. So be it, that's GT's choice.

I can no longer support the GT community in good conscience because of their rejection of the law.

Alright, I'm gonna' have to crash the party. I don't want to be an Diet Dr. Pepper, but this thread is not for legal arguments. I want to see models!



No, seriously, I politely request that Teancum and Psych0fred take this discussion into a separate thread dedicated to the legal issues.

And I'm kinda' 50-50 between Psych0fred and Teancum. I understand Psych0fred completely. However, at least citing who made what model, etc. should be done (somewhat related to "asking permission," as argued by Teancum). That's not breaking the law, nor is it "asking permission."

Hopefully that can be seen as a solution to this argument. Back to model conversions now, please.

- PR-0927/Majin Revan