Permissions discussion (continued)

[JackGriffin]

I always see this discussion bandied about and it always goes wrong. As someone who has "danced with the devil", please allow me to share some of my experiences.

A few years back I was trying to support monsterhunt by posting zips of my installation folder. Here's a zip for Textures, there's a zip for Maps, etc. Well, unthinkingly I added too much to the System folder, including some core files. This was enough that someone could (conceivably) unzip a free usable game. Now it was obviously not my intention to try to post the game for others (no int, ini files were in it) but I did cross the line on posting too much default content (by honest mistake). This led to a quick cease and desist from Epic and me grovelling apology after apology and pointing at what I was trying to accomplish. I removed the zips and they let it go, but I did have an opportunity to understand the licensing as they see it.

First, you don't own diddly squat. I don't care if you made the entire map from textures you took with your own camera and you own the images. You can quote creative commons, etc. and that's all germane to a normal discussion but Epic has the final say and here's why: If you read the EULA you will understand that any project compiled in the editor transfers rights ownership to Epic. You use their tools and you lose your right to it. Now they generally don't get involved in the petty squabbling but rest assured I can prove this to you.

Go make a map, even a simple one. Then post it 'for sale' and see how fast you get noticed. The whole point of creative commons and 'rights' and such is to preserve your ability (and no one else's) to profit from your work. Now at times Epic has allowed teams to turn a buck on things (Operation NaPali springs to mind here) but it's not common and it's always negotiated well ahead of time. Generally speaking you aren't going to profit financially from anything unless you work it out with Epic in the first place.

Now I've offered several times in this board and when this discussion happened at UA to put my money where my mouth is. You post your 'copyrighted' work and I'll clearly 'steal' it and repost it and I dare you to even approach me legally. It's just not going to happen. I have an uncle that's a patent attorney and we've discussed this several times and he laughs at me every single time it comes up. He tells me that's why he gets so much work, people misunderstand the entire process, they think they have more rights than they do and they end up losing the house in legal fees to save their asses. There's a reason lawyers go to school for years and years and it applies strongly here.

All that being said, I totally understand people's 'ownership' of their work and I have always respected that. What bothers me is when people bandy about legal threats after a short internet search, try to espouse it as gospel, but just don't really know what they think they know. You can argue me all you want, but I'm right here and you aren't. So there.

Ugh..wall text...

TL/DR
You don't own it. End of story.

[Flatus]

That is so correct! It's like making anything, you can use another person's tools & materials, but in the end it's theirs & not yours. The only credit would be on who made it, that's it.

[Carbon]

Good to know. I had thought of doing a similar thing; zipping up some of my folders for others, but not any more! Good call and very timely.

[Feralidragon]

In short: things done using their tools belong to Epic, but it doesn't belong to random person X in the community just because said person plays the game or develops for it.
If I do something for UT, it belongs to Epic and to me, and although Epic overrides my rights, unless they decide otherwise, it doesn't belong to anyone else.

Of course, Epic's EULA is so lose that no one will take seriously any copyrights at legal level, but "legal" was never the reason why people respect "copyrights" within the community, is it?

If you use UDK however, you retain full copyright of your creations there (either free or not free ones), hence doing anything UT related in UDK (or Bulletstorm related, or GoW related, etc) is strictly forbidden, mostly because it would go against Epic's EULA regarding those games, unless negotiated otherwise with Epic Games.

[JackGriffin]

I probably should add that I'm very pro-ownership even though I also understand the legalities of what's involved. Hell, I chased KAAL all over UT while he pandered his 'work' that was clearly ripped from Ferali and others. This community needs everyone to respect each others work and treat it accordingly. Mappers wouldn't strip brushes if they didn't need to and coders wouldn't try to obfuscate if they didn't feel threatened.

I've said it time and again: I've asked permissions over and over for a huge amount of stuff. In thinking back quickly I can't recall a single absolute NO from anyone. I've had a few want clarification of what I was going to do but after that I got the green light. Overall developers want to help each other and there is no greater honor than to have someone want to build from your work.

No better example exists than that hero who just posted above me. Ferali has went out of his way so many times to share his work with me, often rewriting it on the fly to accommodate what I wanted to do then spending an hour composing delicate instructions outlining the changes. That's the UT spirit!

[DeathoX 8]

I'm not going to spend much time on this since it's also been ages since I last read the EULA so I might very well be spewing some nonsense, however:

First, you don't own diddly squat. I don't care if you made the entire map from textures you took with your own camera and you own the images. You can quote creative commons, etc. and that's all germane to a normal discussion but Epic has the final say and here's why: If you read the EULA you will understand that any project compiled in the editor transfers rights ownership to Epic. You use their tools and you lose your right to it. Now they generally don't get involved in the petty squabbling but rest assured I can prove this to you.

You're basically saying that any asset that I release in an UT map becomes sole property of Epic Games? I'd like to hear you opinion about these:
Could Epic games take Feralidragon's Nali Weapons 3, rebrand it as an Epic product without even asking him, and sell it as an UT expansion pack?

What about the Quake 3 textures that some mappers put into their maps, did these became property of Epic Games too when the maps were released online?

Why did Epic have to buy a couple of maps from some of the mappers (like Kami (IIRC), I don't recall the name of the map ATM but I think it was in the Mega Pack) for some of the UT2004 official Bonus Packs, didn't Epic already own them?

Did the makers of Killing Floor (first UT2004 mod, then UE3 game) have to buy all the assets and rights of their mod (not speaking of the license here) back from Epic Games when they released the stand-alone game?

If I took one of my released maps and recreated it into another engine with the exact same polygons (with all custom textures, no default UT content) for let's say a commercial game, would I have to buy the rights from Epic to sell the new game? Could I do it if I took Deck16][?

By the same line of reasoning, do game companies have to buy the models they produced in 3ds Max from Autodesk when using them into a commercial game (extra to the commercial license to use the program)?

Go make a map, even a simple one. Then post it 'for sale' and see how fast you get noticed. The whole point of creative commons and 'rights' and such is to preserve your ability (and no one else's) to profit from your work. Now at times Epic has allowed teams to turn a buck on things (Operation NaPali springs to mind here) but it's not common and it's always negotiated well ahead of time. Generally speaking you aren't going to profit financially from anything unless you work it out with Epic in the first place.

This is correct, however just because you can't use commercially any part of the Unreal franchise it doesn't mean you gift anything you produce for it to Epic Games. I don't own the 100% of a map I release but neither does Epic Games.

Basically Epic grants you the right to use their tools to produce free content, stating that from releasing content you get no ownership at all of any Unreal content (which is why you can't sell anything, since you don't own the Unreal Engine and Unreal Tournament content in the map). You cannot gain profit from anything created using Unreal tools, you couldn't even create a map with entirely custom assets and sell a screenshot of it since it would still use Unreal technology.

On the other hand Epic doesn't automatically get all the ownership of anything released with their engine, custom assets are still owned by their author. As I said it's been ages since I read the EULA so feel free to point me to the paragraph where they take all ownership if I'm wrong, I'm speaking from memory here and I might as well be rusty.

UDK has exceptions in that you can use the assets provided in the UDK package (all the static meshes, textures, sounds, etc.) in a commercial game (of course after buying a license), except for the skeletal meshes (basically the weapon models, gameplay related things, etc.) since they don't want you to recreate another UT into UDK. If you want you can take their example maps and sell them directly into another game (still done with UDK) without any problem.

[Dr.Flay]

Maybe we need a concise article such as this, stickied in the threads for content discussion and release.

@DeathnoX 8 - Yes, Epic co-own anything you make with UEd, but no they cannot sell NW3 without Ferali's permission.
The UDK has a similar limitations.
They have no ownership of assets you create with other software. Make it in UEd and that changes.

The looseness of ownership with Unreal content, is why I have always stressed more than anything, to show the lineage/history of any derived work (there is also a CC licence that mirrors this).

eg. I have a map I have worked on. I have made many changes and fixes. At some point I realised it was already a modified map. It would make my life easier if I could work with the non-butchered original, without all the BSP errors, and H.O.Ms.
The author of the version I have, did not credit the original map author, or any of the authors of the many deco/meshes that are used.
My task has been made very much harder and time consuming than it needs to be.

My main choice of CC licence, mirrors the situation of UEd users.
The Licence I use states, that you are allowed to take my work for free, and create derivative works, on the condition that you MUST credit me, and you have to use the same licence on your version (so the next person credits you and me...and so on). You are not allowed to sell it.
I use this licence on my Photos and Art (and will for Unreal, when I finish a damned map).

In practice you will notice many mod makers include the Epic copyright and credits at the bottom of the readme.
Commonly you just include the previous readme, and refer to it in your own docs.
You never even need to re-write the info, just copy it.

I use a licence that allows the sale of my Poetry, and your own derived work, but again you "MUST" credit me.
By downloading and using my work, you agree to the same conditions of my chosen licences.

It may not be legally-binding everywhere, but it is something I can pin to your chest, as I punch you to the ground, screaming "I told you".
It means I retain the right to track you down, and punish you

The restrictive licences do allow for individual waiver of restrictions if agreed.

It is always worth stating your restrictions and allowances, whether people follow them or not.
It is always worth following other peoples restrictions and allowances, so you avoid pointless arguments.
Simple as that. It is about showing respect, and earning respect.

I posted a template of a good readme for filling out, a while ago. It is the same format as Frag uses (and fills very thoroughly).
If a stickie topic is made, can we have a copy attached please ?

You can also add a CC licence to clarify your position, but as Ferali points out, not every county considers them legally enforceable.
http://creativecommons.org/choose/

[Feralidragon]

Could Epic games take Feralidragon's Nali Weapons 3, rebrand it as an Epic product without even asking him, and sell it as an UT expansion pack?

Yes, Epic co-own anything you make with UEd, but no they cannot sell NW3 without Ferali's permission.

Yes, they actually can. If they wanted to do such thing, they could just do it legally, since I used their tools and some of their resources as well, which are only provided with the game itself, which has a EULA that says that everything done with their software becomes their own property too, that includes doing whatever they want with it without having to spill a single word to me.
Although in the entire history of Epic, I don't know of any situation where they actually took the resources without at least publicly appreciating that and crediting the original maker (besides offering certain things even in some cases), that's why I still respect them.

The UDK has a similar limitations.
They have no ownership of assets you create with other software. Make it in UEd and that changes.

UDK is the exact opposite of Ued actually: you can obtain their tools for free, and you can retain absolutely full ownership of everything you create. Epic cannot touch anything made by others in their UDK by their own terms of usage.
The difference comes on it either goes commercial or not. If you commercialize your creation in some way, then there is a license you must buy and royalties to pay up to a certain value, to which you have to renegotiate the license.

In either situations, until it steps within Ued or UDK, it's out of Epic's jurisdiction of sort to speak.

For instance I made a PHP script that can successfully process and retrieve data from compiled .u packages (like package dependencies, good for maps for example), and this script is 100% mine and copyrighted, and Epic cannot touch it unless I expressly allow them so, because I didn't use any of their tools and all it does is reading some serialization of bytes and reorganizes them to be readable by humans.

Take UCMaker for instance, all it does is helping to compile packages, but it does it so by externally calling "ucc make" for the compilation, and the rest it does by itself, hence it's also copyrighted and Epic can't do anything to it.

If someone happened to do something that compiled .u packages without using their UCC or Ued, then it would be copyrighted too and Epic couldn't do a thing.

I hope this clears doubts (and yes, I read the UT EULA once and the UDK terms too when I installed it last year).

[JackGriffin]

Yeah, lets be very fair to Epic in how they have handled the UT community while we have this discussion. There are really two faces to Epic, though not in the two-faced way you might be thinking.

One face is their corporate one. This one quit noticing UT quite a very long time ago mostly because of financial reasons. There was nothing more to be gained by the UT brand that would compel the company forward. If it weren't for the community here the game would be like so many others and pretty much forgotten to time by now.

The other face of Epic is one like Flak, individuals within the corporate structure who still remember UT with fondness. She takes her own time to help the community, many times without everyone knowing it. For instance when I trained under Shaun Goeppinger (Iniquitous) and he was developing all the monsters for 2K4 invasion she sent him one of the many "swag bags" I had heard people get just to show her (and Epic's) appreciation. This kind of thing goes on all the time and it just hardly ever surfaces to the general UT population.

Lastly, this is why true source code for the UEngine has never, and will never see release. Until such time as they do there is no legal way for anyone to compile work for use in the engine that can circumvent the legal process they so smartly put into place. Epic heavily protects the UCC part of the engine since the beginning and this whole discussion is why it's so hard to shortly explain to people when they say "Why not just release the code? The game is so old!"

[DeathoX 8]

Yes, they actually can. If they wanted to do such thing, they could just do it legally, since I used their tools and some of their resources as well, which are only provided with the game itself, which has a EULA that says that everything done with their software becomes their own property too, that includes doing whatever they want with it without having to spill a single word to me.
Although in the entire history of Epic, I don't know of any situation where they actually took the resources without at least publicly appreciating that and crediting the original maker (besides offering certain things even in some cases), that's why I still respect them.

Sorry to keep this discussion going further, but in this copyright section here I don't see any part that transfers the ownership to Epic:

Code: Select all

18. Editor and End‑User Mods.
  (a)  The Software includes an editor and associated tools and utilities (the "UnrealEd"). UnrealEd is a really cool feature which allows you to modify the Software or to construct new variations for use with it. These modifications and variations can be both playable and non playable. UnrealEd is NOT shareware. You may not freely distribute it to any BBS, CD, floppy or any other media. You may not sell it or repackage it for sale.
(b)  Using a licensed copy of UnrealEd, you may create modifications or enhancements to the Software, including the construction of new levels as well as computer-generated linear story animations or other forms of emergent gameplay (sometimes called Machinima), (collectively referred to as "Mods"), subject to the following restrictions:
    i.  Your Mods must:
      (A) only work with the full, registered copy of the Software, not independently or with any other software, or
      (B) If Machinima, only be recorded to film/file for replay/reproduction. Machinima Mods must display the "Powered By Unreal Technology" logo as a watermark in one of the lower corners of the screen at startup for a minimum of 10 seconds and carry the legal text: POWERED BY UNREAL TECHNOLOGY logo is a trademark of Epic Games, Inc. The logo file is found at http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/TrademarksAndLogos.html.
    ii. Your Mods must not contain modifications to any executable file(s).
    iii. Your Mods must not contain any libelous, defamatory, or other illegal material, material that is scandalous or invades the rights of privacy or publicity of any third party, nor may your Mods contain, or be used in conjunction with, any trademarks, copyright protected work, or other recognizable property of third parties, nor may your Mods be used by you, or anyone else, for any commercial exploitation including, but not limited to: (a) advertising or marketing for a company, product or service.
    iv. Your Mods shall not be supported by Midway, Epic or any of Epic or its publishers' affiliates and subsidiaries, and your Mods must include a statement to such effect.
    v. Your Mods must be distributed solely for free, period. Neither you, nor any other person or party, may sell them to anyone, commercially exploit them in any way, or charge anyone for receiving or using them without prior written consent from Epic Games Inc. You may, exchange them at no charge among other end users and distribute them to others over the Internet, on magazine cover disks, or otherwise for free.
    vi. The prohibitions and restrictions in this section apply to anyone in possession of the Software or any of your Mods.
  (c)  We just LOVE the idea of you using and distributing content or script from any prior Unreal branded game developed by Epic in your Mod. Therefore we grant you a license to use content from any prior Epic Games Unreal� game in your Mods. For the sake of clarity Epic retains all copyrights and you will not gain any ownership whatsoever in any Epic content or script nor can you use any Epic content or script outside the scope of the rights granted here. Any attempt to do so will bring about the wrath of our attorneys.

19.  Copyright. The Software and all copyrights, trademarks and all other conceivable intellectual property rights related to the Software are owned by Midway, Epic or such parties' licensors and are protected by United States copyrights laws, international treaty provisions, an army of clones, and all applicable law, such as the Lanham Act. You must treat the Software like any other copyrighted material, as required by 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq. and other applicable law. Please do not make unauthorized copies. The program you've licensed was produced through the efforts of many people who earn their livelihood from its lawful use. These people like to eat, so don't make copies for others who have not paid for the right to use it. To report copyright violations to the Software Publishers Association, call 1‑800‑388‑PIR8 or write: Software Publishers Association, 1101 Connecticut Ave., Suite 901, Washington, D.C. 20036.

I just found this online so I'm not sure if it's the EULA of one of their later games (I guess it's UT99 since they mention floppies ). I don't doubt your opinion (you made a huge mod yourself so if someone would know it's definitely you) but I am still not 100% convinced, especially on the custom assets (what if you wanted to make a new game with your NW3 weapons, would you not be able to do it legally since the assets would be owned by Epic? (assuming you changed the Nali name which might be Unreal default content)) although I'm probably confusing myself with some of the newer games (UT3). However I agree 100% on the UDK part as I remember its EULA pretty well.

I'm not going to discuss further on EULAs and such as I'm not really informed on them, TBH I just find it kind of funny to see all this turmoil after my post in the other thread (where I stated that the copyright forbids alterations of the mappack files), of course no one is going to send lawyers around for UT99 maps but I didn't expect to hear "you don't own your map so I can do whatever I want" as a response.
Even if that would be true legally (at the cost of making a fool of myself I'm still not 100% convinced on that ), in the UT communities I frequented the copyright was binding in the sense that if you ripped something without permission the members would tear you a new one, regardless of whether you think you have the legal rights to use the content of others. If it would still be alive I would have dared you to release a ripped map on NaliCity and see how fast it would have been deleted.
It's not just NC, some time ago at UnrealSP someone (I won't do negative publicity since he worked hard to solve the problem immediately, however I'll PM you the thread link if you wish) posted a pack that used cave brushes copied and pasted from maps of Xidia and ONP, and reception wasn't exactly what I would define positive. I would be surprised if similar episodes would be tolerated here.

I doubt that I'm the only person that thinks like this, I am not some kind of copyright nazi. Like many others I create UT maps for fun, and I am happy when someone plays and enjoys them. I just don't like when people take other persons' hard work and use them for their own gains, often times without pouring any effort at all (how many monster hunt maps have you played where some clan took an original map, added a bunch of unbalanced monsters and clan posters and rebranded it as an original work? I played so many versions of Hebereke that I don't even know who the original author was). I wasn't sure whether to reply further to this thread, this topic has probably been rehashed a bunch of times, but IMO the last thing the UT community needs is excusing all the content rippers by saying that legally you can do that.

TBH I'm ranting about this only for the sake of discussion since for me it doesn't really matter much, it's been a long time since I started releasing maps with deleted brushes... I don't really like doing this, but between the choice of deleting brushes and getting mad when people start ripping/doing alternate versions I chose the first. I myself am open for any request about changes and stuff, but there are a lot of people who don't even bother to ask permissions before editing the maps.

I myself am grateful to all the mappers that do not obfuscate their maps/code, I did some map edits for my personal use that gave me lots of fun. I'm just a bit short-tempered about these matters

[Feralidragon]

Sorry to keep this discussion going further, but in this copyright section here I don't see any part that transfers the ownership to Epic:

Don't be, you're absolutely right.
Thanks for not getting my word for it and bring this up again: I actually looked at the EULA again, and I misread the part of:

We just LOVE the idea of you using and distributing content or script from any prior Unreal branded game developed by Epic in your Mod. Therefore we grant you a license to use content from any prior Epic Games Unreal� game in your Mods. For the sake of clarity Epic retains all copyrights and you will not gain any ownership whatsoever in any Epic content or script nor can you use any Epic content or script outside the scope of the rights granted here. Any attempt to do so will bring about the wrath of our attorneys.

Basically they retain copyrights on their own stuff (which makes sense), but not in the mods themselves. Good catch.
On another hand, probably using UT2k4 and UT3 content in UT is illegal... ooops:

Therefore we grant you a license to use content from any prior Epic Games Unreal� game in your Mods.

[TheLame]

Funny thread

Remember to say that the EULA only apply to those who actualy own a legal copy of the game. I've heard about people who was whining about someone "stealing" their work, and not even pays for the game. You steal the game and expect to obtain copyright from using it?

About the EULA, you need to read the EULA attached to the product you've purchased right? you can search the internet, but last i did, I could only find the one shipped with UT2k3? ... If you purchase say ut99 and the EULA states PRIOR versions, then you go back from that, if you've purchased UT3 and it still says PRIOR versions you are free to pick among all versions .... as i see it. You need to look at it it from your products view, not from the latest EULA view?

oh ... and I'll make a tut to rebuild a map even with the brushes deleted for say ... 10$ there is nothing you can do to prevent your stuff from beeing edited, abused or "locked" .... you just need to find the key. If it works online for a connecting random client, it's always editable, trust me, I've tried so much to prevent it in the past.

[JackGriffin]

oh ... and I'll make a tut to rebuild a map even with the brushes deleted for say ... 10$

I'll take you up on that. Tell me where to send the money. And I further promise not to publish or share it in any way.

Now, as a separate challenge, I'll delete the brushes the way I had proposed to build for everyone's use last year (and was so soundly castigated for proposing) and if you can't recover them I get my 10 bucks back

[TheLame]

oh ... and I'll make a tut to rebuild a map even with the brushes deleted for say ... 10$

I'll take you up on that. Tell me where to send the money. And I further promise not to publish or share it in any way.

Now, as a separate challenge, I'll delete the brushes the way I had proposed to build for everyone's use last year (and was so soundly castigated for proposing) and if you can't recover them I get my 10 bucks back

Kelly my friend, it's me Jacob. This secret you already know if you think about it, but I'll be happy to show you how ... free of charge ofcause, you are the only person in this community who I feel obligated towards, so you must promise never to share - a promise will be good eneough for me. But right now, you have other things to focus your strength on!! Hehe, and you know me ... I can ofcause prove it can be done, but I'm lazy as you remember, so hit me with a little nice map with brushes deleted, I don't want to get repeatative on a huuuge map, you know very well through our work together that repeating stuff is a no-go for me I'll open the map, add some brushes - new pathnodes - lights - whatever, do a full rebuild, DELETE the brushes again and upload the map here ... so make a little quickie so you know it's original and haven't been made public in any ways, please ignore your urge to put in "complications", just delete the dang brushes hehe, it must be playable as is.

I wasn't arround to see how you proposed pepole to build maps as you refer to, please hit me with a link, i'm qurious ... and perhaps you got a challenge there for me?

[JackGriffin]

I'll tell you the truth old friend, I was sitting in the waiting room this morning thinking about this discussion when it occurred to me who I might be chatting with. Of the people I know there are only about 5 with the skillset to do this correctly and you were certainly one of them. I have no doubt that you can do everything you propose, you are incredibly gifted as a coder and dev.

Last year I proposed a way to lock maps, mods, etc that would be extremely hard to break. Not impossible mind you, but very, very hard and uber-time consuming for the one attempting the reconstruct. The surprising thing was that after doing the background research on the 'how' part (thank you Anthrax, you are a beacon of light in the darkness of uscript buddy!) and seeing that it could be done per-actor/map setting/whatever you choose...well I got lit up for creating "DRM". There was actually no interest at all in the process and in fact I got a lot of hate over it.

Now let me explain a bit more. If you locked one of your maps then it's up to you how much you lock. Say you only want to lock the map name? Easily done. Then someone can't make an edit then resave your map BUT it allows for wholesale copying of brushes, etc if you decide that's OK. It allowed almost unlimited ability to remove things from being altered from single items to entire maps. But, alas....it wasn't met with any positivity.

If you want to take it up then ping me away from here. I'll outline it all for you and show you what I mean. I promise you'll go: "OMG Kelly...why didn't I think of this?"