Textures.......

[Wises]

Semi-Related-ish;

@Ferali..

Perhaps if you took a different approach to ... Hmm 'Public Correctional Services'
Things would not spiral out of shape as happens quite often .. Here.

Perhaps take your own advice .. And do these things via PM instead of publicly making asses
Out of the few of us Rebels in the forums?

Of course if we then persist in our devices after the warning ... Then 'Corrective Meassures' and
'Public Correction' would be warranted.

√

[Feralidragon]

@Radii: But that's the thing, he knew from where most textures came from, at least package-wise, because he extracted them himself. I never meant textures lost between dimensions in the time continuum, the problem are the known ones which certainly came with a ReadMe, or were at least known enough for a simple google search or even asking here in this forum to be rectified credits-wise since the beginning.
I know for a fact that some texture package authors absolutely do NOT want (by their own terms) for the textures to be extracted and to be used individually. It sucks, but it's their terms and should be respected as such.

@Wises: And continuing in the above, Dane is absolutely not a noob at this sort of thing at all and knows this kind of stuff perfectly, to the point of blatantly putting a disclaimer in his pages saying that the textures are likely copyrighted, and if someone doesn't want them there, to say so. I mean, come on, that's the equivalent of stealing a car and say that if the owner wants it back he just has to let you know of it, what kind of messed up logic is that? That's not how things are done.
If anything, I was too nice in my words considering what he already knew what he should have done since the beginning, and didn't it.
I explained that the idea was good, and what he would have to do to rectify the situation and even said that community would likely help with it if he so wished.
He rejected it, plain and simple, and made a huge drama out of it for no reason.

One thing is when a noob does it unaware of the basics behind this sort of thing, another is when you have someone like him doing it who already knows how at least the basic etiquette works. I treat adults like adults, and kids like kids, so probably my only mistake was treating a kid like an adult.

[TheDane]

I'm not going into further debate with you about this Feralidragon, but ask yourself, if you where correct, don't you think Google would be in a lot of trouble? I do it just how they do it, EXCEPT that I actualy sort the images manualy and not by a robot index. And just for the record, you asume too much, I got the texture packages allright, but I have no clue as to where they origin from? Only a few I know for sure, they all comes from uncached online gameplay, and that's the truth and all I have to say about that.

As you may have noticed I have opened my own little place where I think these issues should be handled in the future. I hope you will respect that. And since you are so kind to give me advices I will give you one: Stop beeing so much "pulling ranks" whenever you interact with someone who doesn't share your opinion. And stop calling me a kid. Kids are WHO childish things do.

[Feralidragon]

I will keep it as short as possible:

I'm not going into further debate with you about this Feralidragon, but ask yourself, if you where correct, don't you think Google would be in a lot of trouble?

Far too different situations. They only index results and they do not show anything that the sites do not provide already to *public view* (being "view" the keyword here, NOT "usage", as mind you, you *cannot* use the images google shows out of the box, most of them also are protected under copyright laws). As for you, you indexed the textures, and that's the only thing that's perfectly fine, however the main difference you don't seem to understand is that you went IN the packages, took the textures off from them, and went actively saying "right click here to save them and use them", with absolutely no reference to even the original utx package they came from, which you *can* provide, and search about.

And just for the record, you asume too much, I got the texture packages allright, but I have no clue as to where they origin from? Only a few I know for sure, they all comes from uncached online gameplay, and that's the truth and all I have to say about that.

That all resumes to "well, I don't know where they came from, so f*ck it, I will use them without even trying to do a quick search on them". Sounds legit...

As you may have noticed I have opened my own little place where I think these issues should be handled in the future. I hope you will respect that.

You can do whatever you want as long as you bide by the rules here and respect people.

And since you are so kind to give me advices I will give you one: Stop beeing so much "pulling ranks" whenever you interact with someone who doesn't share your opinion. And stop calling me a kid. Kids are WHO childish things do.

Yeah, because I am the one "pulling ranks" and with the "childish behavior"... /sarcasm

[...]
And to create a grid that links to the correct texture package with all it's credits and full glory is simply not possible, not even by you.

So, go ahead and use your admin power stick and remove the link.
[...]

If this is just personal and you don't want me here, just say so, and I'll be gone so you can rule your kingdom with all the rules YOU set.

I treated you like an adult there, you acted like a kid afterwards, what can I say?... sorry for being honest?

[ASLY]

Holy Shit guys, stop this rice storys...
It's easy, if you download a texture with copyright ask the author you can use it he's textures
(That's the same for all UT files, but I just say now Im currently working on my MH map and I use a LOT package and nobody said for me "Oh don't use it"... Everybody said "Yes sure use it JUST SHOW ON THE AUTHOR IN THE README FILE" Wow, how easy is that...
But if you don't find the original author don't use it, or show on something nice in the ReadMe file
But if you know the author but if you can't contact with him just show on the ReadMe file
That's my viewpoint and I think that's correct!

[Wises]

I think my point was overlooked.. :\

@ferali perhaps in the future you could resolve issues like this accordingly;

1. Edit links ..."Links Removed - see PM" ~ Ferali
2. if offender carries on ... then public.. 'Chastise'
3. ...

mainly because of the Sensitive Male Ego .. that many of us have..

is kinda like... grabbing your kids ear in front of his mates..

which hurt more, the ear pulling ... or the 'Embarrassment'?

better to have said .. get in the car , we'll sort this at home.. (PM)

Instead of yelling in the streets for all to see.. (Public Chastisement)

Then all this could have been avoided.. (everyone carries on their merry wayz)

you seem wise enough to at least see my point.. and please ...
no long explanations , a simple one liner.. yes / no would suffice.

[DeathoX 8]

I agree 100% with Feralidragon, I took a look at a few of the categories and I recognized a lot of common textures made by Hourences (basically all his packs are in here...), Shock Systems, Rorshach, Akuma, S'Calain and DavidM. Some come from other games like Quake 3 and Rune, and there are quite a lot of duplicates of default UT textures (I saw some from the Indus packages, some from SGTech1, some from Slums, etc.). Out of the 2700 texture is there ANY texture you made yourself from scratch with a graphics program?

Guys, do you realize how much time and effort is necessary to make a texture pack? A single pack takes several dozen hours to make, and you're complaining about doing a few minutes search for each pack to track their author? Some of these artists like Hourences and DavidM spent hundreds of hours making free content for UT games, that everybody can use, don't you think that taking a few minutes of your time to say "thank you" is the least you can do?

As for the Google example, they don't actually redistribute the images but provide a small snapshot/preview and a link to the original site where the content is located (if you did the same thing no body would be complaining). Plus there are ways to not make images appear on their, or other search engines', image search (e.g. blacklisting folders/files in robots.txt).


As it is now I'm not going to download any image from your site, because I respect all the hours that those artists poured into making free content. Do also keep in mind that if you use some ripped community content in your maps/mods there's lots of people who will notice, and it's not something that's taken kindly in most communities.


If you do want to make your site a true texture resource and not a bunch of unusable ripped content, there's people that would offer to help providing the original texture packages with relative readmes/permissions, which means you could properly credit all those artists. I'd be one of them, since I know a lot of texture packages (and their authors).

I think it would be much better though if instead of having a mashup of all the categories (base, deco, etc.) you had them organized by package, not only because most artists want their packs to remain in one piece but also because having a bunch of textures with all sorts of saturation and color palette differences isn't really useful for mapping (if you take a look at most maps you'll see they mostly use only a single texture pack for 90% of the geometry, since having a consistent set makes for much better lighting).

[Wises]

For the record.. And on topic.

I admit that both of you are correct.. And I can see that you both have great insight into such things.
Maps/textures/copyrights and all of the above are important.. Albeit not to the plagerist -eek
Agreed there are better ways to go about redistributing these things.. If they are allowed to be distributed
Outside of their 'mappacks' / 'embodiments' / 'capsules' ..

Most authors of course have strict regiments to go with their content and most strictly prohibit against such acts of debauchery.
However I feel that it is good to have resources of thus nature.. Shame that there were no easy way to..
Bulk extract from texture pack and insert readme disclaimer beside said textures.

Although it would be a huge task. To say the least.

Most time would likely be tracking down artists.. / readmes / credits.. And the likes...

Best way perhaps would be to build the infrastructure.. To allow for credits to be attached to texture paths .. Stored in database..

Something like this perhaps;

Texture name
Texture pack perhaps
Author name
Texture
(Claim this texture).. Allow owners to claim and add details
..
(Credit this pack) unknown sources could be credited by friends of author.

*pend admin approval.

Infrastructure at least to cater for these things...

Then comes sort filters ; type / palettes / sizes / red / we tc.

[Feralidragon]

@Wises: Ok, I am getting tired of this, allow me to synthesize:

The copyright and terms of usage on the packages ought to be respected in full.
Dane knows this, he was given ways to correct the situation the easiest way possible, he rejected it.
If he was a noob at this, I would have approached things differently (PM? another choice of words?), but he isn't, he's fully aware of what he did (it's not a case of bliss) and the fact is that he still thinks he's right.

In any other forum that takes this sort of thing seriously, he wouldn't have received a PM, he would have his topic removed and either received a C&D letter or/and his site reported at the very least. But guess what, I believe in the good faith of people when doing this sort of thing most of the time, and that's exactly what I also referred to in my initial post: to no avail.

It's already been clear our position in this matter in plenty of different situations, and we always try to respect developers and their property, and if something is found to be obviously off-track, things are handled accordingly, this isn't new to anyone that is registered here for a while already either.

If anything, I tried to argue too much about a subject which is already set in stone, therefore the actual correct course of action for a moderator in such case is in fact not a PM, it's not to argue with the forum users, it's in fact just to close/remove the topic (with just perhaps a one-liner explanation why), issuing a warning on the subject, and if it's re-incident, issuing either a temporary or permanent ban depending on the severity of the situation.

In other words, I have been too lenient, patient and tried to reason with users as a fellow user myself almost every single time to come to fair ground (despite getting insulted, disrespected, between other kinds of remarks in the process), trying to setup some kind of democracy around here, when as a matter of fact in any forum the moderator or admin are not obligated to even give a justification on their decisions other than among themselves and the forum founder/owner (which is not me, despite some people obstinately believing so).

So here's the deal: either everyone starts to respect everyone (specially concerning this kind of matter), or I will start to take measures as a *moderator* should do from the start, and not either argue it here or through PMs.

Furthermore, Wises, as far as database is concerned, I did that PHP class that I released quite a while ago (which reads UT packages and is able to extract things such as textures and sounds data and meta-data without any need for any other library), exactly for things like that. Afaik no one is using it, and is likely that I will end up using it myself later on down the road (which was the original intent behind its creation).
So when I say that doing things like labeling the textures and stuff are not impossible, it's because I actually already have something planned on that regard for a long time already which will likely come as part of OMP.


And finally, to avoid any further drama:
TOPIC CLOSED

(if any of you wants to talk about copyright, feel free to ressurrect one of the topics where such questions were already been discussed extensively, and stick to that one topic to talk about them)