Gez
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!
Posts: 6458
Registered: 07-07 |
In a much wordier way:
Spleen said:
Since we're on the topic of legality, would distributing Heretic or Hexen monsters in a WAD meant for use with DOOM be legal, even if you bought the game?
The question of copyright is not a question of ownership. It's the right to distribute copies (as the name of "copy right" actually does imply).
Regardless of how you obtained your own copy of the original material -- legitimate transaction, counterfeit, theft, pact with the Devil, etc. -- if you do not hold the copyright or a license to the copyright (not the same as a license to use!), any copy that you distribute is illegal.
Now that's for the whole package. For just a small part you can kinda invoke fair use in some specific circumstances. Let's be honest, fair use of monster sprites to make a common enemy would be bullshit. (You might try to argue fair use in the case of an easter egg, though. But it didn't work for Duke Nukem 3D's "doomed marine", so don't put too much trust in that...)
If you wanted to be truly in the clear, you'd have to distribute the mod as an installer program that would grab the needed content from the user's own IWADs, so that you would not be yourself distributing anything.
But in practice, most people will simply not care. Resources ripped from other games are nearly the standard. See Mordeth for a good example.
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03-12-10 18:49 
