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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 13, 2015 4:41:46 GMT -9
Okay, so I have pretty much all of Tommy Gun's buildings and Grendle's Mother's car models. So far I've not been able to contact either of them, but was wanting to make some mods of their stuff. While I know I can do so for my own use, would it be legal/ethical to provide my mods free for download since the source material is available free?
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Post by bravesirkevin on Oct 13, 2015 5:53:20 GMT -9
I wouldn't distribute mods without the original creator's permission, even if the originals are available for free. Even though you're not trampling on their ability to make money it would still be an infringement of copyright and may upset them.
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 13, 2015 8:55:52 GMT -9
Yeah that's about what I thought. From What I can tell, TommyGun has been offline for 5+ years. Grendle's Mother 64 for the better part of one.
I just wanted to do up some accessories for the buildings and different trucking logos for the big trucks.
C'est la vie.
Guess I'll just have to design my own.
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 13, 2015 11:03:37 GMT -9
Couldn't you share the trucking logo's and let people paste them onto whatever trucks they like? Also offer the accessories without the buildings? Since TommyGun and Grendle's Mother 64 freely shared their work, I actually think they would be OK with you sharing your mods, but if you share as little of their work as possible and credit them you would be being especially careful.
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 13, 2015 11:15:08 GMT -9
That's crazy enough it just might work...
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 13, 2015 11:35:03 GMT -9
Artist's really do not like folks to mod their art without their permission and distribute. There are a few exceptions, of course. Most of the designers that I know would consider this piracy.
On the other hand, if you were to go to ecardmodels.com, you will find a lot of kits to modify other designers' models. These are usually offered for free on the site and fully acknowledge the designer and the original model.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Oct 13, 2015 15:55:49 GMT -9
Artist's really do not like folks to mod their art without their permission and distribute. There are a few exceptions, of course. Most of the designers that I know would consider this piracy. On the other hand, if you were to go to ecardmodels.com, you will find a lot of kits to modify other designers' models. These are usually offered for free on the site and fully acknowledge the designer and the original model. All of my free stuff explicitly has "do not distribute modified copies without my permission" stamped on the page even though I am giving the stuff away for free. A lot of my free stuff actually prohibits any form of distribution at all and everything I do has a clear copyright stamp on it. In truth I don't really need to say any of that, because, by law, they're not allowed to do that stuff anyway, but unfortunately nobody understands copyright law so I need to spell it out. The thing that people don't seem to realise is that even though an artist chooses to give something away without charging for it, that item still has a lot of value to them. I don't just mean sentimental value either... While an artist may be happy to not charge someone directly for the artwork, it may still matter a lot where and how the viewer came across the artwork. To illustrate the point, I'll use an example around my own work: Lately I've been giving away free paper minis on my facebook page weekly, but that's because I want people to go and visit and engage with my facebook page. I have it set up in a way that encourages folks to not only take the free mini, but to go explore my facebook page and see what else is on there. From there I hope that they will like what they see and "like" the page and keep visiting it. While they're there they may also look at some of the adverts for the premium products and hopefully that will lead them to my shops where they might spend some money and help support me. That is the price of that "free lunch"... Someone circumventing that plan by distributing my work outside of that chain is not necessarily doing me any favours even if he feels that he is doing me no harm. If he asked permission, I might grant it but there would probably be a few conditions to make sure that it didn't clash with my own plans. Cowboy Leland's suggestion sounds like it could be a good one. Creating kitbashes that still require folks to actually download the original kit is probably a good way of approaching it.
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 13, 2015 16:11:36 GMT -9
I don't think Dave Winfield would mind me using him as an example. AirDave does the Koolwheelz models. He also does amazing planes, tanks, and even boats. Koolwheelz are designed to get folks to his website so that they can see his other work and maybe purchase something. Sound familiar?
I don't know anyone who has become a multi-millionaire from designing paper models. Any time you circumvent the designer's process, you are taking a potential sale out of his pocket.
Take the high road
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Post by oldschooldm on Oct 13, 2015 17:45:34 GMT -9
This is how all my cutfiles work. Even most of the free ones. Very few contain artwork. And only by explicit permission.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using proboards
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 13, 2015 21:01:30 GMT -9
So creating logos that are measured to cut and paste-able (either in Gimp or by printing them out separate) to the side of the Semi-Trucks created by Grendle'sMother64 would be cool...
But using the red-brick texture from Tommy Gun's Big Buildings to create a roof-top access shed would be personal use only and not cool for distribution.
Got it.
I had a hunch that would be the case, but hated the idea of not being able to provide the rooftop access file.
I think I will create a "blank" rooftop access, and those who want to use Gimp to add the building texture can do so on their own.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Oct 13, 2015 21:23:52 GMT -9
Well, making the kitbash generic makes it easy to use on other projects. If you have the skills to do that sort of thing, maybe you should consider making your own line of models to complement those ones.
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Post by aaron on Oct 14, 2015 5:03:01 GMT -9
When I make free stuff and I don't mind if it's altered or re-distributed I will post that with the model. but for the most part I would like to maintain some (however limited) control over how my models are being spread around, if for nothing more than just gaining an idea of a target market, and what to make nex,however small or divers it may be. just because it's free doesn't mean I'm not using it to gain some kind of information. If someone comes along and circumvents that then I don't get what I was looking for.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Oct 14, 2015 5:38:01 GMT -9
There is this idea called Creative Commons (sometimes referred to jokingly as copyleft). Creative commons is basically a set of pre-written licences you can use when distributing your work that makes it clear which rights you are extending to someone who comes across your work and which you are retaining. For example you might have: CC0: (Public domain) Copyright has lapsed or has been waived. No restrictions apply. No credit required. CC4-BY: (Attribution licence) Can use, remix and distribute your work however they want, including commercially, but must credit you and provide a link to the original. CC4-BYND: (No Derivatives) As above, but no remixes or modifications allowed. CC4-BYNC: (Non-Commercial) Exactly like the first, but forbids all forms of commercial use. CC4-BYSA: (Share-Alike) People can remix your work, but the derivative must have this licence as well. (Technically this does allow commercial use, but it's a little hard to make money when you're obligated to give the work away for free) This is actually a very useful way for artists to specify how they want works they're passing on to be used, and it comes in quite handy for the end user. There's quite a culture of sharing around here, so it might be worth it for folks around here to get familiar with the idea and start implementing it. Just a few notes on this though: • The artist has to opt in for any of this to apply. This is something that allows the artist to choose to override certain aspects of the copyright he holds without waiving all rights. If he hasn't explicitly said that his work is Creative Commons it's still under full copyright whether he gives it away for free or not. • For something to be public domain, the copyright period must have expired (which usually means the artist has been dead for several decades) or copyright must be explicitly waived by the original creator. • Public domain works and those with Attribution Licences are the only ones that grant total freedom to other creators. All the other licences are very restrictive.
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 14, 2015 8:16:17 GMT -9
Thank you that was very informative!
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 14, 2015 9:55:11 GMT -9
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 14, 2015 22:49:21 GMT -9
Yeah I like paper brick. I need to ask him about using the images for free models.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Oct 15, 2015 6:15:23 GMT -9
Yeah I like paper brick. I need to ask him about using the images for free models. When you do, maybe you should let him know about creative commons. that's exactly where that sort of thing would be useful
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Oct 15, 2015 6:23:34 GMT -9
Just sent the email, also included the link about the creative commons licensing.
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