Is this still Fair Use?

[JD]

A friend of mine is working on his mod project with a few other people, and he was rather suprised when he learned that it's being mentioned in the latest issue of Edge. The thing is - he's actually not that happy about it. First of all, he thinks they should have been credited properly, names and all that. There's a link to the project on ModDB, which is where they got the content from, but that's it. They're not happy about the context either. All people involved in it are working on the game industry, so it's not just a team of 'hobby developers'.

The artwork and the concepts they created were used extensively and fill up a whole page. (See here (http://www.polyphobia.de/nonpublic/airborn/edgemugshot.jpg) - and OMG, it's not like the complete mag got scanned). They do think their copyright was violated since they weren't asked for permission at all. It's not like the team intend to sue for millions now, or something along those lines, but they think it's questionable nevertheless.

1. What's your take?

2. If anybody knows someone (at the mag) they could get in touch with about this, send me a PM, please. Thanks. They used the standard contact address given on the website and fired off an email a few days a go, but given the fact that such addresses are bombarded with spam, it seems unlikely that they'll get a quick response.

-Julian

[Kael]

Publicity is good. The magazine is doing their project a favor by doing a writeup of it. Its hard to get coverage that is handled exactly as you want, but if you lay out your project on the internet then you cant be to surprised if others write about it.

Yes, it would have been nice if they would have contacted the team to get their input before publishing the article. But the magazine reports on what is going on in the game industry, your friend is developing in the game industry and posting publically about whats hes doing. The magazine hasn't done anything illegal (there is no copyright infringement) by covering it.

ps on a personal note what does "so its not just a team of 'hobby developers'" mean?

[Wheelkick]

A friend of mine is working on his mod project with a few other people, and he was rather suprised when he learned that it's being mentioned in the latest issue of Edge. The thing is - he's actually not that happy about it. First of all, he thinks they should have been credited properly, names and all that. There's a link to the project on ModDB, which is where they got the content from, but that's it. They're not happy about the context either. All people involved in it are working on the game industry, so it's not just a team of 'hobby developers'.

The artwork and the concepts they created were used extensively and fill up a whole page. (See here (http://www.polyphobia.de/nonpublic/airborn/edgemugshot.jpg) - and OMG, it's not like the complete mag got scanned). They do think their copyright was violated since they weren't asked for permission at all. It's not like the team intend to sue for millions now, or something along those lines, but they think it's questionable nevertheless.

1. What's your take?

2. If anybody knows someone (at the mag) they could get in touch with about this, send me a PM, please. Thanks. They used the standard contact address given on the website and fired off an email a few days a go, but given the fact that such addresses are bombarded with spam, it seems unlikely that they'll get a quick response.

-Julian

Don't know what local law (Germany?) says on this, but it is definitely not ok over here. Artist has full ownership of their work, unless it is contracted* or he/she is working as an employee. In that case the ownership is with the company (or whom ever gave the contract). To reproduce (internet or mag) their work without their consent is an infringement of their intellectual property.

* Actually, when contracted, ownership is dependent on what's stated in the actual contract.

[Wheelkick]

Publicity is good. The magazine is doing their project a favor by doing a writeup of it. Its hard to get any coverage that is handled like you would like, you will always have preferences but if you lay out your project on the internet then you cant be to surprised if others write about it.

Yes, it would have been nice if they would have contacted the team to get their input before publishing the article. But the magazine reports on what is going on in the game industry, your friend is developing in the game industry and posting publically about whats hes doing. The magazine hasn't done anything illegal (there is no copyright infringement) by covering it.

ps on a personal note what does "so its not just a team of 'hobby developers'" mean?

Reporting on what's going on in the industry is fine, but using an artists images without consent is not.

[Kareem]

ps on a personal note what does "so its not just a team of 'hobby developers'" mean?

I think he means the modders all have full-time positions in the industry, so they aren't hobbyists.

I doubt anyone will eventually remember the details of how the people working on the mod were credited, and you'll never get magazine coverage that you're entirely happy with unless they print out your press releases verbatim. Besides, the publicity gained from Edge referrals would probably outweigh any perceived negatives, especially since they didn't slag off the mod or anything and the coverage was positive.

[Kareem]

Reporting on what's going on in the industry is fine, but using an artists images without consent is not.

You'd rather all reporting on a game you're working on use bland words and stock images, and not give any potential audience any idea of what your game looks like?

[JD]

The magazine hasn't done anything illegal (there is no copyright infringement) by covering it.
As Wheelkick said - it being available online doesn't give you the right to simply publish it in your magazine. The question is: Where does Fair Use end?
ps on a personal note what does "so its not just a team of 'hobby developers'" mean?
They do what they do for a living and don't consider their project and output representative for the work of a normal mod-team.
Don't know what local law (Germany?) says on this, but it is definitely not ok over here.
Yeah, I think it's covered by EU law in general.

[Wheelkick]

You'd rather all reporting on a game you're working on use bland words and stock images, and not give any potential audience any idea of what your game looks like?
I rather not anything. That is the law.
The artist has full right to the use of his work. And for any newspaper or magazine it should be a fairly trivial task of emailing or calling the artist in question.
As for words, no need to use bland ones.

If this was my game I would contact the paper immediately to work out how this could be mitigated in the next issue or whatever. Of course an artist should get full credit for his/her work. And as part of marketing this would be an excellent opportunity to get some more for free.

[Kael]

Reporting on what's going on in the industry is fine, but using an artists images without consent is not.

Thats exactly what fair use was created for, to allow for a sample of a larger work to be used in various situations (including review) without copyright infringement. If you were reviewing a book and included a quote that would be covered by fair use, likewise if you are reviewing a game and you include screen shots.

There is a legal distinction between copying a work of art (selling t-shirts with Salvadore Dali's "Giant Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano") and including artwork from a larger work as a sample. There isn't a hard rule on "you cant use artists images without consent".

At least thats my (limited) understanding of american law. No idea how that is covered in Germany.

[unbongwah]

I suspect it's skirting the edge of Fair Use. OTOH, if they weren't properly attributed, could it count as plagiarism instead / as well?

[Wheelkick]

Thats exactly what fair use was created for, to allow for a sample of a larger work to be used in various situations (including review) without copyright infringement. If you were reviewing a book and included a quote that would be covered by fair use, likewise if you are reviewing a game and you include screen shots.

There is a legal distinction between copying a work of art (selling t-shirts with Salvadore Dali's "Giant Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano") and including artwork from a larger work as a sample. There isn't a hard rule on "you cant use artists images without consent".

At least thats my (limited) understanding of american law. No idea how that is covered in Germany.

Yeah, note that I am speaking on how Swedish law works. I have no experience with US law (or German, though this might be covered by EU directives or similar).

[Wheelkick]

I suspect it's skirting the edge of Fair Use. OTOH, if they weren't properly attributed, could it count as plagiarism instead / as well?

Yeah, that is a big point imo. If you don't mention the artist at all, can you really claim fair use in the US?

[rezaf]

If I'd post an ad in a magazine saying "I'm selling these fine leather jackets" with a couple of images depicting leather jackets from a manufacturer, could the manufacturer sue me because I violated his copyright?
I hope not - even though I'm not planning of actually doing so...
_____
rezaf

[Wheelkick]

If I'd post an ad in a magazine saying "I'm selling these fine leather jackets" with a couple of images depicting leather jackets from a manufacturer, could the manufacturer sue me because I violated his copyright?
I hope not - even though I'm not planning of actually doing so...
_____
rezaf

You could take your own pictures. Otherwise I'm inclined to advise against using other peoples work like that. I haven't looked at recent rulings in this area, so I don't have a better answer to your question.

[Hanzii]

I suspect it's skirting the edge of Fair Use. OTOH, if they weren't properly attributed, could it count as plagiarism instead / as well?



I don't think Swedish law is as clearcut as Wheelkick seems to believe either - unless they're outside EU in that matter entirely.



The problem with fair use is defining the art in question. Is concept art as pictured in Edge individual artworks or part of a larger whole? If it's the latter, like actual in game screenshots, then Fair Use seems right.
Edge is clearly skirting the Edge and should have asked. But the concept of gamedesigners/modbuilders not wanting free publicity is probably very alien to them. And understandably so.

The Scan of the Edge article should fall within EU Fair Use because it's for documentation purposes and it's not possible to read the whole article, which is the part that Edge holds the copyright to. You can see the pictures, but Edge have no copyright of those - of course if Edge was sued and found guilty of copyright infringement for publishing that artwork then whoever scanned the article would be just as guilty ;)

[red guy]

Correct me if I'm wrong; but the scanned page looks as if the images are being used to illustrate an article about the ease/difficulty of UT3 engine modding, with the ModDB attribution only in the image caption.

In my opinion, and based on that assumption: using one picture juxtaposed with other modding projects, could have been fair - "look, we found this charming project at http://very long and untypable address" - but that entire page of pictures more or less screams "Edge has been too lazy if they haven't asked, and owes your friends an apology and an in-depth interview".

[Brian Seiler]

Well, I'll chime in with my own understanding, gathered from observing any number of Fair Use and copyright arguments on Wikipedia, where this is a big issue. First off, I'm not a lawyer of any stripe, so none of this is legal advice. We're good? Okay.

The first thing that I understand about Fair Use is that it isn't a status. It's a defense. If the question is whether this act was permissible from a legal perspective in the United States, that's up in the air, but if the question is whether it's copyright infringement, the answer is definitely yes. Any use of any part of any copyrighted work not released under an open license or placed in the public domain is copyright infringement. Fair Use is an affirmative defense that a defendant can make in a lawsuit over the issue. So, if copyright law works the same internationally with Edge's country of incorporation, then yeah - you could sue. That's one good reason why Edge should have called the guys involved before using the image - lawsuits are expensive and annoying, and you have to prove Fair Use, which isn't a cost-free thing to do. That's why Wikipedia won't use it if there's any way they can avoid it.

The second thing that I remember is that Fair Use requires some critical address of the material. You have to be using that image for a reason. I haven't read the original article in question, but the squiggles on the scan sound like a general story about how ordinary people can do development and that the pictures in question are included as general examples of ordinary people doing development. That's shaky ground, if they're not examining that work in particular.

If it was me, I'm not sure how I would feel, but I can say for sure that if I were the publisher, I might try to get in touch with the designers just to make sure everything is free and clear.

[Peter Frazier]

There is a certain irony of seeing a group of people piggy-backing off someone else's product getting snotty that someone else is getting a free ride from them.
Also, if they're not getting paid for it and aren't planning on making it a commercial release; why aren't they 'hobby developers'? Does making free content to put on your CV or get you up the ladder suddenly change your status? It's not like they were called 'talented amateurs' or anything.

[Kirian]

Correct me if I'm wrong; but the scanned page looks as if the images are being used to illustrate an article about the ease/difficulty of UT3 engine modding, with the ModDB attribution only in the image caption.

In my opinion, and based on that assumption: using one picture juxtaposed with other modding projects, could have been fair - "look, we found this charming project at http://very long and untypable address" - but that entire page of pictures more or less screams "Edge has been too lazy if they haven't asked, and owes your friends an apology and an in-depth interview".
The article in question is actually about the modding scene in general. It concentrates on the ModDB (only site mentioned, most of the article mentions it), and they picked out a number of mods that they thought looked interesting. There are ten specifically chosen for depth by the ModDB team.

Then two mods (Warm Gun and this one) were given full-page art treatments and mentioned as particularly interesting mods.

I wonder if they asked ModDB for permission for the artwork, as they interviewed one of those chaps for the article.

Contact the editor, is my advice. I don't see why they should be credited individually, as other games don't get the same treatment. I do see why they might be miffed, but this is some pretty high-profile publicity for them. I'm sure Edge would publish an apology and maybe an interview no problem.

Not asking permission is a silly move, but I don't know how it lies legally.

[JD]

There is a certain irony of seeing a group of people piggy-backing off someone else's product
I'm not sure what the "piggy-backing" is in this case. They all bought UT3 and are now working with the mod tools provided by Epic. It's one of the selling points of the game. The artwork and the models were developed by them.

They chose to go with UE3 because some of then are familiar with the engine and the tool-set. Not because they wanted to get free publicity.
Also, if they're not getting paid for it and aren't planning on making it a commercial release; why aren't they 'hobby developers'?
Most mod teams do not completely consist of people working in the industry, that's what I meant. And again, that doesn't give Edge a free pass either way.

-Julian

[Rob Beschizza]

There's nothing you can do about them reporting your mod.

Their use of original artwork is copyright infringement, but there's little you can practically do about it apart from complain. If you sued them, it would cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And if you won, you'd be entitled to damages, which is a big fat zero because it's a mod.

But as others have said, you've just been given major free promotion by a top gaming mag. What is wrong with you? They like you! When it's ready, get in touch with them, remind them they ran it and liked you enough to devote a full page to your work, and offer an exclusive interview!

[Tim Partlett]

Also, if they're not getting paid for it and aren't planning on making it a commercial release; why aren't they 'hobby developers'?

If John Malkovich did some experimental theatre for no pay, would he suddenly become an "amateur actor"?

[Kareem]

I'm still just absolutely flummoxed that some mod creators are actually angry at the positive publicity, coverage and flaunting of their art assets and mod by a major industry magazine.

[JD]

I'm still just absolutely flummoxed that some mod creators are actually angry at the positive publicity, coverage and flaunting of their art assets and mod by a major industry magazine.
They're not dancing in the streets because no proper credit is given, because they had to learn about this from someone else, because it seems like a copyright infringement nevertheless -- and from what I heard, Future doesn't hesitate to have their lawyers send an email if they feel that their copyright got infringed.

It's that they're super-pissed or something, and surely, they had no intentions to sue. Still, they'd like to know how this happened and why nobody thought about getting in touch with them. And yes, credit where credit is due.

I'm not an artist myself, but I can totally see why they care.

-Julian

[jpinard]

There is a certain irony of seeing a group of people piggy-backing off someone else's product getting snotty that someone else is getting a free ride from them.

That does seem awfully ironic to me as well... That's the crux so many modders had fought against for years (especially with EA and their fight to shut down Madden modder additions that had anything to do with the NFL). I haven't read the whole article, so obviously you should be credited the individuals who came up with the fantastic artwork... but crying about it when you're already utilizing Fair Rights yourself just seems a little weird.

But maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture...

[Peter Frazier]

If John Malkovich did some experimental theatre for no pay, would he suddenly become an "amateur actor"?
If John Malkovich jumped in for no pay to help a friend's amateur theatre company, would it suddenly become a professional business?

[Dave47]

This is not meant to be legal advice. If you're at all serious about this, don't look to a forum. Talk to a real lawyer. That said:

As has been stated, fair use in the United States is very messy. However, "criticism, comment, [and] news reporting" are specifically mentioned in 17 U.S.C. § 106 as examples of fair use behaviors that are not an infringement of copyright. That doesn't mean news magazines have carte blanche, but journalists have traditionally been granted a wider leeway by courts than the "average" potential fair user.

It's impossible to predict how any particular instance will fair under the four factors test. Transformativeness and market impact (in that order) seem the two most important tests these days. Transformativeness is rather wishy-washy, but the 2nd Circuit has allowed the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted images to illustrate the story of the Grateful Dead in a situation that seems somewhat analogous. (See Bill Graham Archives v. DK. (http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:8080/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcT1BOXDA1LTI1MTQtY3Zfb3BuLnBkZg==/05-2514-cv_opn.pdf#xml=http://10.213.23.111:8080/isysquery/irld752/2/hilite))

Under a market impact test the free nature of your mod will weigh heavily against you. To the extent that the mod will ever make you wealthy, it will come from becoming popular enough to cause someone to buy you out (ala Counterstrike) which demands widespread public attention. I cannot come up with a convincing argument of how this publicity causes any negative market impacts.

[hong]

Some ppl are too stupid to recognise ego bucks when they see them.

[Lux]

If John Malkovich jumped in for no pay to help a friend's amateur theatre company, would it suddenly become a professional business?

Quick definition time: A professional gets paid to do something. An Amatur does it for fun. Quality isn't really addressed by these terms in any way. Malkovich probably considers himself an Amateur, I mean, it's not like he needs the money. He acts because he likes acting at this point.

[Mordrak]

Quick definition time: A professional gets paid to do something. An Amatur does it for fun. Quality isn't really addressed by these terms in any way. Malkovich probably considers himself an Amateur, I mean, it's not like he needs the money. He acts because he likes acting at this point.

In English, amateur can actually carry both meanings: poor quality and/or non-professional.

[Peter Frazier]

The original poster was saying that the makers of the mod don't like being described as 'hobby developers', which seems pretty much the same as 'amateur' in the classic sense. Even though they may have professional jobs in the industry, I would still say that if it's something that they're doing on the side for no money and they haven't set up a business for it, 'hobby developer' is not an unreasonable description. Pretty bloody good hobby developers too.

[cliffski]

I'm still just absolutely flummoxed that some mod creators are actually angry at the positive publicity, coverage and flaunting of their art assets and mod by a major industry magazine.

Agreed. I can't see them progressing the project past 'hobby' if they don't know good publicity when they see it.
If a gaming magazine wanted to republish any art I've ever had commissioned for any game at any point, I'd say hell yeah. Small projects need publicity much more than they need bragging rights about copyright.
As they are likely the only developers on Earth who want no publicity, it seems the magazine just assumed they would be ok with it. I'm not surprised at that.

[Wheelkick]

I don't think Swedish law is as clearcut as Wheelkick seems to believe either - unless they're outside EU in that matter entirely.



The problem with fair use is defining the art in question. Is concept art as pictured in Edge individual artworks or part of a larger whole? If it's the latter, like actual in game screenshots, then Fair Use seems right.
Edge is clearly skirting the Edge and should have asked. But the concept of gamedesigners/modbuilders not wanting free publicity is probably very alien to them. And understandably so.

The Scan of the Edge article should fall within EU Fair Use because it's for documentation purposes and it's not possible to read the whole article, which is the part that Edge holds the copyright to. You can see the pictures, but Edge have no copyright of those - of course if Edge was sued and found guilty of copyright infringement for publishing that artwork then whoever scanned the article would be just as guilty ;)

Sorry for my late reply (work and family getting in the way, as always).

In this case, Swedish law seems pretty clear cut to me. At least in regard to the concept art and 3D renders. It actually mentions concept material for computer programs explicitly as part of intellectual right. As far as screenshots go, that isn't usually covered, since it can be argued that they lack the needed originality. In this case it would be dependent on if there is a way for Edge or anyone else to take their own screenshots.

And regarding "Fair Use" (Fair Use isn't a concept in itself here. The closest we get is Citaträtt, which covers using part of work and Återgivningsrätt, which covers reproducing art), yes you can reproduce part of work (as long as it doesn't constitute the main part of the new work) but you must name the artist (which I understand Edge didn't).
You can actually reproduce artwork fully, but only in specific circumstances, none of which seems to apply here (I haven't read the article in Edge).

All this also depends on how the original images was published in the first place (ModDB?), but I have no insight in that.

(I'm studying law part time, so my views are mostly from a theoretical standpoint)

[Wheelkick]

Correct me if I'm wrong; but the scanned page looks as if the images are being used to illustrate an article about the ease/difficulty of UT3 engine modding, with the ModDB attribution only in the image caption.

In my opinion, and based on that assumption: using one picture juxtaposed with other modding projects, could have been fair - "look, we found this charming project at http://very long and untypable address" - but that entire page of pictures more or less screams "Edge has been too lazy if they haven't asked, and owes your friends an apology and an in-depth interview".


Depending on what other info was on the ModDB site and what agreement ModDB has with its contributors, just for Edge to mention ModDB might be ok in this case. ModDB could be considered the publisher of this *work, if nothing else was stated on the site. They might even be the owner of the *work, much depending on their agreement with the modders.

*work meaning the pictures reproduced

[Hanzii]

Sorry for my late reply (work and family getting in the way, as always).

In this case, Swedish law seems pretty clear cut to me. At least in regard to the concept art and 3D renders. It actually mentions concept material for computer programs explicitly as part of intellectual right. As far as screenshots go, that isn't usually covered, since it can be argued that they lack the needed originality. In this case it would be dependent on if there is a way for Edge or anyone else to take their own screenshots.

And regarding "Fair Use" (Fair Use isn't a concept in itself here. The closest we get is Citaträtt, which covers using part of work and Återgivningsrätt, which covers reproducing art), yes you can reproduce part of work (as long as it doesn't constitute the main part of the new work) but you must name the artist (which I understand Edge didn't).
You can actually reproduce artwork fully, but only in specific circumstances, none of which seems to apply here (I haven't read the article in Edge).

All this also depends on how the original images was published in the first place (ModDB?), but I have no insight in that.

(I'm studying law part time, so my views are mostly from a theoretical standpoint)

It seems to be pretty much the same as here.
Question is whether they have to credit the individual creators, though. Or just the project as they did - reading our citation rights paragraph means that somebody quoting an article I wrote have to credit me by name, but in actual use they just quote the paper/magazine I work for and that's accepted.
In actual use I think it's the same in Sweden.

I don't study law part time, but I like to get free money when people step on my copyright.

[Dhruin]

I don't get it. I can understand that better credit would be nice but some of the artwork is clearly labeled and it's great publicity. You've worked with the press from the developer side, JD - you know any screen released by the developer that isn't attached to an exclusive is considered fair game. I'd be writing to the mag and thanking them for the coverage and asking if we could do something else down the track.

[Wheelkick]

It seems to be pretty much the same as here.
Question is whether they have to credit the individual creators, though. Or just the project as they did - reading our citation rights paragraph means that somebody quoting an article I wrote have to credit me by name, but in actual use they just quote the paper/magazine I work for and that's accepted.
In actual use I think it's the same in Sweden.

I don't study law part time, but I like to get free money when people step on my copyright.

Yep, that's what I was getting at in my next post:
Depending on what other info was on the ModDB site and what agreement ModDB has with its contributors, just for Edge to mention ModDB might be ok in this case. ModDB could be considered the publisher of this *work, if nothing else was stated on the site. They might even be the owner of the *work, much depending on their agreement with the modders.

*work meaning the pictures reproduced

[Hanzii]

Oops, I missed the double post (and thus I blame you).

We seem to agree. Lets laugh and join hands in pointing fingers at the silly artists who don't like free publicity, then.

[CustodianV131]

Its a free mod project right? (BTW you also didn't link to them ;). (http://www.moddb.com/mods/airborn) )

I think any free publicity is nice then. It will bring more people to their work/site. Sure would have been decent to contact them or at least get the addresses right, but this might just have been a quick filler.

A lot of modders would happily trade places with them for that magazine space!

Write a letter to the mag introducing the team and stating the address, maybe they’ll publish it. Other wise just be happy with the attention.

[JD]

(BTW you also didn't link to them ;). (http://www.moddb.com/mods/airborn) )
*bump*
I see your link, and raise a http://www.airborn-game.com (which, well, redirects to ModDB) ;)

They just submitted the latest version to Make Something Unreal, and it shall be mentioned here because Podunk is now involved as well. :)

-Julian

[Hanzii]

Podunk?
Isn't he the guy who completely ruined Zero Punctuation with his modern music?

[peacedog]

Lack of proper credit is a huge dick move. I doubt there are any serious legal issues at work here.

[quatoria]

If I'd post an ad in a magazine saying "I'm selling these fine leather jackets" with a couple of images depicting leather jackets from a manufacturer, could the manufacturer sue me because I violated his copyright?
I hope not - even though I'm not planning of actually doing so...
_____
rezaf

Some companies actually get insanely upset about this. I interviewed at one point to do some IT work for a company in town that was just starting up. Their business model was hiring temps to scour the internet to look for ebay auctions - or other online auctions - using official images from their clients in their auctions, to shut those auctions down. In this case, I believe it was a speaker manufacturer, and they were targeting people selling those speakers - second hand or new, can't recall - using official marketing images or marketing print from the manufacturer on their pages.

[Mordrak]

Reporting on what's going on in the industry is fine, but using an artists images without consent is not.

Were these on a public website? If they were showcasing the artist, it seems like fair use to me.

You can excerpt books and articles when discussing them, why not artwork?

[Royal Fool]

This mod looks fantastic.

[Jupiter Jones]

Are the industry guys here "moon-lighting"? That is the only reason I could imagine that they would be upset by this. There are 1000's upon 1000's of game project happening on the web that would KILL for some exposure like this. Still, the magazine probably should have sent the developers a release form. Future France does this every time they want to feature one of our games in their magazine or online.

[Foxstab]

Podunk?
Isn't he the guy who completely ruined Zero Punctuation with his modern music?

If by completely ruined you mean gave new fresh breath of air that makes you keep coming back to listen to and a distinctive recognizable catchy tune one can always instantly connect to ZP upon hearing to the point of a trademark level, then yes.

[Moore]

A friend of mine is working on his mod project with a few other people, and he was rather suprised when he learned that it's being mentioned in the latest issue of Edge. The thing is - he's actually not that happy about it. First of all, he thinks they should have been credited properly, names and all that. There's a link to the project on ModDB, which is where they got the content from, but that's it. They're not happy about the context either. All people involved in it are working on the game industry, so it's not just a team of 'hobby developers'.

The artwork and the concepts they created were used extensively and fill up a whole page. (See here (http://www.polyphobia.de/nonpublic/airborn/edgemugshot.jpg) - and OMG, it's not like the complete mag got scanned). They do think their copyright was violated since they weren't asked for permission at all. It's not like the team intend to sue for millions now, or something along those lines, but they think it's questionable nevertheless.

1. What's your take?

2. If anybody knows someone (at the mag) they could get in touch with about this, send me a PM, please. Thanks. They used the standard contact address given on the website and fired off an email a few days a go, but given the fact that such addresses are bombarded with spam, it seems unlikely that they'll get a quick response.

-Julian

Eh, mods seem to be treated as public domain. I know Action Halflife got put onto, I think a PC Gamer UK disc without us ever being contacted. This was after trying to get it onto a Pc Gamer US disc and being turned down because we had character-alikes from action movies ('Ta-kill-ya' etc..)

Most of the team thought it was funny. I think PCG-US put us on a disc sometime after that anyways.

[Mordrak]

If by completely ruined you mean gave new fresh breath of air that makes you keep coming back to listen to and a distinctive recognizable catchy tune one can always instantly connect to ZP upon hearing to the point of a trademark level, then yes.

You come back to listen to Podunk's tune? No offense Podunk, it's fine, but it's intro material...

[Hanzii]

If by completely ruined you mean gave new fresh breath of air that makes you keep coming back to listen to and a distinctive recognizable catchy tune one can always instantly connect to ZP upon hearing to the point of a trademark level, then yes.

If by "ironic reference to another thread full of complaints about Podunks music" you mean that thing going over your head...

[Wobbo]

I'm not sure what the "piggy-backing" is in this case.


... using someone else's game engine is by no mean a trivial matter. If you are using the UT3 engine for free you are most definitely piggy-backing off Epic's work. The fact that Epic likes people to do this and encourages them to do it is irrelevant. So yes, it is extremely ironic that any mod team would get so uptight over someone using their work when the entire basis for what they're working on is another developer's work.

The group should be thankful that they're getting free publicity, legal or not.

[Alan Au]

Back to the original poster's question, it's probably fair use if it's for demonstrative purposes only. As for the "hobby developer" thing, magazines get stuff like that wrong all the time. In this case, they probably figured that nobody was getting paid to work on it.

- Alan

[nlanza]

... using someone else's game engine is by no mean a trivial matter. If you are using the UT3 engine for free you are most definitely piggy-backing off Epic's work. The fact that Epic likes people to do this and encourages them to do it is irrelevant. So yes, it is extremely ironic that any mod team would get so uptight over someone using their work when the entire basis for what they're working on is another developer's work.

The group should be thankful that they're getting free publicity, legal or not.

And most games and other projects are built entirely from scratch and don't rely on any tools or middleware, right?

Gimme a friggin' break.

Also, does anybody ELSE want to explain how nobody should ever want to turn down free publicity? What you'd personally want if you were in their shoes is completely and totally irrelevant to the question of what the actual legal rights involved are.

[Podunk]

Thanks for the plug, JD!

Podunk?
Isn't he the guy who completely ruined Zero Punctuation with his modern music?

Yeah, FUCK that guy!

Wait, what were we talking about?

[spiffy]

Looks like the game they're designing falls along the lines that Last Exile takes, a fantastical world-war-one era milieu with old architecure mixed with bulky but futuristic machinery. Not only do I want to play that game, I have sketches of something so similar I'm gonna sue their asses!