Fear The Anger

[Guest Risen]

Guess Ola got an update in there before me... I was referring to the "qdoom exists" post.

[Guest Risen]

Hmm... I wonder what happened? I think I found the culprit of the whole post deleting thing... seems if you post and someone has posted while you are still writing, yours gets dropped. Damn. Oh well...

[Guest Anonymous User]

so, i'm curious like, what about all the ripping of heretic & hexen & strife textures/sprites/flats ? why is it ok to do that, but not rip an end user's stuff ? double standards ? i've always been curious about this one.

[Jon]

Nobody rips my textures. Strange that.

[Guest Risen]

Before my post got dumped, I was commenting on the same thing: the simple "qdoom exists" post says a lot in 2 words. QDoom, Armored Core DOOM, Generations, Aliens-TC... all are copyright infringements. Some survived, some didn't.

Someone, please learn from this! There are some good reasons for ripping a texture WAD apart and using individual textures elsewhere, but there are none for not asking for it and releasing it as your own. If someone else built something you want to use, ask! Usually it's not too difficult to get permission. Then credit them on it.

If they say no, you're stuck - but it's their call, not yours. Build your own stuff or find someone who will. I plan to abide by this fully for the full release of Twice Risen (the pre-release contains a few questionable resources... these will be dropped.) and I suggest that everyone else takes the extra 10 minutes to do the same.

[Guest Tawney]

I wouldn't consider using Heretic and Hexen's textures "ripping" because they don't seem to really care. They couuld have said "We don't want you using our textures" amd I not right? And they CAN do that if they want to, but they don't seem to realy mind, do they? Did Ola say we could use his textures? Yes, but only under certain conditions, and did Nick follow them? No.

and what's with people saying "It's only 3 textures"? Textures are not that easy to make. well, they are, but its hard to make the good! taking someones textures and changing the color of it wouuld be like me taking someone's level and changing the textures. Is that really a big deal? It certainly is if you didn't get permission from it. Not in a legal sense, but in a moral sense. I remember when someone uploaded their own modified version of ragedm onto the doomserv server. All they did was throw in some extra items (make that a lot), but i was pretty pissed, because they uploaded over the original, and i STILL dont know who did it. whoever did sure is a puss for not fessing up. so, coming from a neutral point of view, i honestly think that nick should apologize to ola. as far as i can tell, at least one of those textures (that stone one) is based off of ola's (though the other one's are debatable because they're brick textures and those are kind of hard to avoid looking alike), and nick has done iit before, and nick has admitted that he has in the past. but i didnt hear one apology, and that's all ola asks for. i think that's a pretty fair deal to nick, dont you agree?

[cph]

IcarusWing: It could be one pixel and it would still be both legally and morally wrong, so should be fixed. And Ola's anger rightly comes from the fact it's not the first time.

(anonymous hexen/heretic poster): Yes that is also wrong, but the community has quietly accepted it. I guess a group of people making stuff in their free time realise the value of individuals' work, but not companies.

Actually, most of the copyright violations in Doom levels come from people new to editing - I know at 14 I didn't have much appreciation for copyrights, and editing the original levels was an easy way to start; the same applies to textures I suppose.

[Guest Anonymous User]

>> I wouldn't consider using Heretic and Hexen's texture "ripping" because they don't seem to really care.

so, the copyright posted on said games, and the license agreement and all that is just a bunch of show and not how they feel about it ? give me a break. i'll agree that if baker used some of ola's textures as a base and didn't ask first, that is wrong - but for the community to get in such a fuss over it is incredibly stupid and shameful when there are plenty of hardworking people at raven software and idsoftware who have had their work ripped without having given permission to do so.

look at afterglow's page! there are some quake(2) textures available. now tell me this isn't wrong ?

ripping textures and sprites from commercial products is ok, but ripping them from soloists is wrong and causes an immense public outcry ? wtf ? can we please have a sanity check on the doom community ?

[stphrz]

Look, it's as simple as this: Ola is right and Nick is wrong. Nick should apologize, not make excuses. The boundaries Ola places on the use of his stuff should be respected. Agree or disagree, it is irrelavent. If he says "paws off", then that's that.

[Guest Anonymous User]

It's odd that everyone seems to have overlooked the fact that most of DE2's textures are VERY similar to Quake 2's textures. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the Quake 2 textures converted to the DooM palette. I'm not accusing or pointing fingers at all. It's just that when I went through the levels I would keep saying to myself, "Hey, that texture's from Quake 2. So is that one. And that one. And that one." I don't think that all of the textures were COMPLETELY original. And yes, I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for saying that, but that's my opinion. And, as you all know, opinions are simply that. Take it at face value and don't bitch about "going against a god". A lot of you need to wake up and not be so amazed when you see Quake 2 textures in a WAD. The levels were great, that's true, and the obviously original textures featuring the "Y" logo were stellar, as well. But don't get your panties in a wad (heh...) about texture theft when some of the textures in your WAD aren't original themselves. Ola is a very talented artist with a knack for creating great textures, this much is true. But, I think people need to just calm down, think rationally, and not be so quick to anger over the use of textures without permission. To tell you the honest truth, I think that if someone uses someone else's textures in a WAD, whether they got permission or not, is very flattering. This means that they liked your textures enough to incorporate them into their project. Don't get mad about it and start screaming and ranting and cussing like a 12-year-old. Just express your concern. We're the DooM community; not a lynch mob. And, these are not the Salem Witch Trials. We will not be burning people at the stake because they used a texture without permission. Just correct the offender in a polite and courteous manner. If they still do not give any kind of credit or an apology of any kind, then they're just plain wrong. Still, that doesn't mean we have any right to be out for their head on a stick. In conclusion, just drop it. Let it go. We all know that Ola is pissed off and all, and he has SOME room to bitch. But, I think that he's taking it a little too far. I mean, come on. Texture comparisons using animated GIFs? It sounds like obsession to me.

[Guest beigesmite]

i agree, nick was wrong. he should have asked fo r permission and given credit. but... this may be pushing it a little! some of these textures are quite different! these are obviously based on ola's textures, but isn't everything we do based on doom anyway?! but then again... nick should not have pushed ola. (ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID? ARE YOU NICK? HUH?)tmake your own textures, or base them off of something more public acess-like such as doom, or heretic or something. or get permission and give credit! the doom community isn't exactly getting bigger much anymore, we don't need this kinda fucking around. i know some of us are new (i am, sorta) but we ought to know better.

[Guest Juggalo]

1.) Companies allow individuals to use their textures in their work because it promotes the game, and expands the gameplay. ID Software loves the fact so many gamers keep pumping out Doom Wads, it keeps the game popular, so it still isn't forgotten. So why would companies not share their textures with the fans..>? 2.) Nic Baker uses other people their work to promote it's own. That's pafatic, what a loser. I wonder why though, you shouldn't fucking backstab homies like that, he can certainly kiss my ass. Lame ass..... 3.)Offcourse we all dig Ola his work and want to use it ourselves, but don't forget he made it, an he has the rigth to use it. So Permission is needed. That f*cking logical or isn't it, would you like you work being stolen...>? I rest my case Anybody who disagrees with me ( mobstah@hotmail.com ) step up and whatch you fucking ass meet defeat

[Guest Anonymous User]

all those textures are ripoffs of something else anyway

[Guest Schronzki]

No one here is making wads and stuff for a living. We just do it to kill our spare time, and maybe also to please others. The only thing we can hope for is being told that someone had fun with our stuff, and that would be already a lot. I know some people who made really cool Doom stuff which wasn't appreciated at all by anyone. Ola Björling definitely isn't one of them. Being hired by the game industry for making exciting Doom stuff is very unlikely nowadays. Getting credit is a nice thing, giving credit is mainly necessary for one's own interest, to avoid the shame of someone else mentioning the lack of it. I'm sure Vincent and Nick would have act different if they'd been aware of the fuss awaiting them.

[Julian]

Well, having your textures ripped could be considered flattering... but isn't it a lazy way of doing a TC ? Anyway, I'm involve in Hellstorm and I hope Colin will give credit to Raven Software. Nick should have credited Ola and asked him before. There's no money involved in all this and that's why, I suppose, Id and Raven don't argue about texture ripping. But we should all be intellectually honest and ask and give credit... It's not that hard ;)

[Guest Schronzki]

I've just sent this by email to Ola Björling: I've seen the sick show on your web page and I must say that you've gone too far. Right, you've shown by a few pixels that Nick used your textures as a base to make new stuff. Yah, I said NEW stuff, because the appearance is quite different. I think they even look better than yours (is that your problem?). Anyway, I wouldn't call it a rip off. You might have had the right to complain that there was no credit given in text file that came with execution, just this, and everybody would have been on your side. Instead you've bombed the lad with extremely hard offenses in the web, for everyone to see. I can understand that he has problems to apologize after that though he's probably convinced that he'd done a mistake. I wouldn't apologize either. Was that really necessary? I've seen the people going crazy about Darkening 2 although it's full of bugs (I wouldn't have released it). People consider you as a 'texture meister' for some reasons. You've been given more credit than the most people in the 'Doom community' and you're running wild due to a handful of stolen pixels? Maybe some people will think different about you after that show.

[Guest unfy]

User level creation licenses with respected games are within the scope of addons/levels to their respected games, not put into public domain. As far as I know, you're not allowed to copy a Doom texture and include it in your pwad and distribute it because you're distributing it. Doom wads that use Doom textures use namespace references, not the actual texture data itself within the pwad. Also note that you aren't given permission in the Doom user license to use Doom textures in a Hexen level (or vice versa).

a fine example of this would be that the source code to these games were released under GPL, not the artwork (which is why you don't see doom2.wad sitting on cdrom.com).

if baker used ola's textures as a base without permission, then that's wrong -> yes. what i see as being hypocritical is the doom community's outrage towards his actions, yet not towards the countless other projects (several major) that have 'borrowed' textures from commercial products.

[Guest Fanatic]

I know I'm pressing my luck with QDOOM, but, I have never said I did the art myself. Even if I was told to not release it, I would still finish it for my own satisfaction. It's been over a year of daily work, no way am I stopping now.

However, I did convert the textures to DOOM's palette and actually had to adjust a lot of colors to look clean (a lot of pinks and color merges ocurred).

I also took all the screenshots of all the Quake models and cleaned them up in the same way, converting the colors to DOOM's palette, cropping, and cyan'ing the transparent areas, etc.

There is also a lot of original work in QDOOM. It's not a straight conversion replicating Quake, cause that wouldn't be much fun (for me at least).

But as you all can guess there will be big thanks in the QDOOM readme file to id for several things -making DOOM, making it GPL and releasing the source (so EDGE could exist), and making Quake and releasing it's source (so I can be accurate).

But I guess that is the whole point of everyone's posting -give credit where credit is due.

All I can say is I have myself covered. :)

[Guest Anonymous User]

He has flipped for sure. Have you seen his 'evidence' page? It's insane! He has textures flipping back and forth as if to prove something! Get a grip, man! Nick is a DICKHEAD! Don't give yourself a breakdown!

[boris]

You all must agree that especially the last texture shown is a ripoff of Ola's (maybe the Hexen texture was layed above Ola's?). But I can tell that he (Ola) does not get mad when you rip off some textures the first time. I also took one of his (accidently), he told me about it, asking to remove it. I explained everything to him and did what he asked for... and everything was ok.

[Guest unfy]

giving credit for using someone else's work when you don't have permission to use it does NOT make it ok to use that person's work.

---

Person A releases a level and implicitly requests it not to be used as a base for another level.

Person B modifies Person A's level despite this, and releases his modified level and gives credit to Person A for his work.

---

Company C releases a commercial product with a license that prohibits the copy of it's content.

Person D borrows a few sprites or textures from Company C's game without permission, but gives full credit to Company C for what he has borrowed.

---

Why does the doom community chastise Person B and have such a huge outcy, but not Person D ? How many megawads have used Hexen/Heretic textures/sprites and have been so wildy hailed and accepted ? TeamTNT's Eternal Doom relies on Heretic/Hexen textures a fair amount, but there was no public outcry then ? What about Herian2 ? As Risen said - there are alot of major projects out there that have borrowed things from people/companies who didn't have permission -- but simply tacked on a line in the credits section.

for the community to try to castrate baker for this when there are numerous other glaring offenses that are HAILED is quite hypocritical.

[Chief]

Hey, why doesn't everyone launch some court case about textures so future lawyers like myself can get rich off it. Come on, I dare you...

From what I can tell Ola just would like credit (and now an apology) for his work, which seems faily reasonable to me. But yeah, that second last update was one of your best yet Ola, keep it up ;-)

[Guest Anonymous User]

Nick you dickhead

[Guest Elim Garak]

Is anyone else sick of this, yet? I just viewed Ola's slideshow and I must say there is a fair ammount of evidence. However, despite that fact, Nick's are different enough to call his own, even if he did use Ola's as a template... Ola, I can't believe you took the time to put together that slideshow! Verbally condemning Nick is fine and we all believed you, even before your exhibit, but taking the time to find and point out stray pixels is going way overboard...

[AndrewB]

Unfy, the difference in this case is that person A is very visibly upset, whereas person C couldn't care less!!

[Swedish Fish]

<HTML> It seems as if people are adding their opinions before reading all the evidence before them. Once again people:
1) Using textures from commercial releases is NOT comparable to textures made by an individual from the community. Reason: As Juggalo said that companies don't put any unreasonable restrictions on textures because it promotes editing and usage. This is the easiest way for most newbies to get into editing is by modifying (as CPH said) and that's why the game companies don't restrict it. Therefore: Stuff like QDOOM and Afterglow's texture wads are exempt because they are made by game companies or in Afterglow's case he got permission to convert some individual author's textures to DOOM2 from other games.
2) Being inspired by another's work is different from modifying or ripping someone else's work. Reason: Being inspired is something that people are continually experiencing. It's very rare to see something completely original. Even quake2 textures and the game itself are inspired off of movies, real life texture schemes, whatever. When your inspired you create something building ideas from one concept. When you rip work off you take something that is already completely created and modify simple concepts. Therefore: DE2 textures possible 'inspiration' from Quake2 is not comparable to Nick's blatant ripping.
3) The number of textures ripped (whether 3 or 9 or 5000) is mostly irrelevant. Reason: First off, would it be acceptable if someone only ripped 1 level out of a 32 level TC? Or if I stole 1 area from a level in a megawad (say for instance the outside area of Rand Phares "War Temple" map in Icarus?). No it would not. For Schronzski it apparently isn't a big deal if someone modifies or uses parts of his levels. Or he feels that in the long run of his short life it isn't worth bitching about. And if the author(s) doesn't care, then we shouldn't. But Ola did, and 3 times warned Nick. And I think that a big part of this that people don't realize is that making one texture or creating a room in a doom level can be very time consuming. Especially when your working on such a polished project like the DE2. If some of you think that we create a room or a texture in 3 minutes your dead wrong. Maybeye if that was the case it would be no big deal. But I know myself: working on map4 of DE2 each major room or area takes me about 6 - 10 hours. This may sound exaggerated but when you work on a professional level and go thru conceptual, actual building time, modifying, texturing, itemizing, bug fixing, playtesting, and even more modifying it adds up. We all spend alot of time on something that interest us, and to others it may seem ridiculous that we obsess over getting it right or getting credit where it's due. For Ola, it is artwork and more specifically textures. This is part of the reason he is so passionate about what has happened. Add that in with Ola's already bitter tongue for stuff he dislikes and it seems pretty mean to outsiders. Therefore: In most ways, how Ola is reacted is justified. The way IcarusWing and Schronzski have replied is understood but shouldn't be agreed with. Finally, the number of textures stolen is irrelevant. It's the concept that matters here. Think about this is music terms: If I stole a guitar riff from Marc Pullen or sampled something from a famous musician it would still be offending. It may only be a few music chords but the person that created it worked out countless ideas and possiblities and perfected it.
4) Nick did not give any FUCKING credit!
-anthony </HTML>

[Guest Cadaver]

What's going on here? If Nick used any of Ola's textures, either in all it's glory or even as a template then he should have given credit where credit is due. Also, asking for permission is nice because it let's the author know that his/her work is appreciated by the community. We all know that alot of hard work goes into creating these textures and people take alot of pride in that work. Ask permission and if you get it then give credit where credit is due. On the other side of things I did not expect such a loud and at times such a demeaning way of telling someone that they are f****** stupid! Especially on a web page that is public to anyone who can find the URL. If you want to tell someone that they suck then do that between you and him...might as well put the page on CNN and let them know too! Also, to me I consider no one a so-called "GOD" within our community of Doomers. We have a great wealth of information and talent within this community and the projects that we do show this...The Darkening series, TeamTNT stuff and the Gothic series of maps, that's just a few out of alot of the great stuff out there. For Ola...keep up the good work on the textures, they sure do look fantastic and hopefully I can use them one day in a project.

[prower]

a few of ola's textures look like they're based on the BRICK7 or BRICK6 textures in doom2.wad

[Guest Captain Mellow]

1. Ola's "evidence" does capably demonstrate that Nick's texture's were based on his own. 2. It also demonstrates that in some instances Nick's versions had _improved_ upon Ola's base. Sorry, Ola, but the rock texture & some of the bricks had better contrast & depth in Nick's versions. 3. I have perceived that Ola has quite a bit of his reputation / self-esteem tied into his artwork. I can relate to that to a point, though I lack the talent that Ola has. He derides the use of filters (coughcough), & boasts that he hand-pixels everything. Since he does look down on taking short-cuts (e.g. using filters), it makes sense that he would also look down on the short-cut of using another person's work as a base. And if that work was his own, he would be even more offended. While I am always put off by arrogance, I do respect talent. And Ola is very talented. I personally would be flattered if someone ripped my textures. :-) 4. I have always found the tight-fistedness of freely released stuff to be asinine: "You may not use this map as a base for other maps". How presumptuous. What about the illegal copying of commercial software or music? Question: How many of you, who rabidly defend the intellectual property of a free map or free texture, will have no qualms about pirating commercial software or music? Let's have a show of hands. In a culture of disdain for intellectual property rights, I find it hard to understand this inconsistent position. (NOTE: I am not saying that Ola or anyone is a pirate. But I know it is quite commonplace amongst our demographic.) Can't all the pots & the kettles get along?

[Guest unfy]

1) Using textures from commercial releases is NOT comparable to textures made by an individual from the community. Reason: As Juggalo said that companies don't put any unreasonable restrictions on textures because it promotes editing and usage.

swedish fish: your swedish<->english translation dictionary must be broken. the user license agreements and copyrights on every single one of those games state that the artwork (and everything else) is copyrighted and that copying is prohibited.

user created levels are within the license agreement, but only for the game in question. also, they in no way imply that you are allowed to distribute the game content (levels, textures, sfx, etc) within your created level. when you use a doom2 texture in a doom2 level, you're using it's namespace reference - if you copy the texture within your wad and use it that way, you're in violation of the agreement (both morally & legally). also note that you are allowed to use such things with their respected game, not with other games.

if you have any questions, you should check the license agreements that come with your games. quake has an excellent license agreement that allows end user levels, but not content 'borrowing'.

AndrewB / swedish fish: when it comes to copying a part of a commercial product (or anything else that you dont have permission to copy), it doesn't matter if you credit the original authors or not. You do *NOT* have permission to copy it. Copying something you're not allowed to and simply tacking on a 'Credits...' line does *NOT* make it right/ok/acceptable that you borrowed it. Wrong is wrong, "slightly wrong" is still "very wrong".

if companies didn't mind if their stuff was copied, doom2.wad udoom.wad hexen.wad strife.wad and such on ftp.cdrom.com.