Hope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster

Fair use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Derivative work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

Transformativeness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformativeness 

Letter of the law is one thing ... Not wanting to even chance having to deal with it is another. I can totally understand the latter. 

Moddb would get a DMCA takedown notice, there is practically zero danger. Copyright infringement is a basic part of modding. 

You know when lawyers get involved? If there is real money to make. Otherwise they have better things to do like troll companies making millions a day. Us guys tinkering away in the dark is just not on their todo list. 

Until it is. I can see the risk aversion. It only takes once... 

in the unlikely event someone cares, you'll get a C&D before anything resembling a lawsuit happens. 

I hereby order a Cease and Desist of premature, unnecessary Cease and Desisting. 

Would this mean no fancy document for the readme?
Probably not, the readme file does contain a ton of stuff about the new features and the special fgd/def files have full details of all new parameters. There is also all the test maps (source included) that can be loaded in any Quake editor.

So it's more another case of sock overreacting than an actual problem found or caused by ModDB?
There are plenty of trolls on ModDB that love to stir up trouble and I did not want to argue over "other" content when in theory its wrong. I would prefer to move on and concentrate my energy on new projects!

I understand the moddb thing, but why would you take it off sites 'personally connected to you'?
I don't need to host it anymore, its available on Quaddicted (main file+patches). I don't always host all my work on my site; speedmaps, jams and retrojams are not on my site either! 

Congrats on taking control! That's awesome. 

fair enough.

As long as there will be new projects and you are not put off the whole idea because of ModDB trolls :) 

I've always been a pretty strict copyrightarian in my other endeavours (Doom, Debian) but AD has made me reconsider things a little bit. I mean I own the other games anyway, and having the assets reused and remixed with the incredible original content is basically giving a new breath of life to these old games gathering dust on my shelf. (or shoebox in the attic, more realistically). At the end of the day I guess AD would not exist and I would not be enjoying it if it hadn't lifted some models from hexen2, etc., and I'm glad it does exist, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and those old assets are honoured by their inclusion IMHO. 

-AD and the other mods, the alleged infringers, are in reality the only reason why people still buy quake today.

- the fact that AD contains some assets from hexen2, etc, but only need a purchased version of Quake to run, might be consider a copyright violation, but on the other hand, the copyright owner still benefits from the infringer.

- even if purchased, these games do not run on a modern machine, they need modern engines, developed by the same infringer community.

a very nice case 

People complaining about copyright infringement can fuck off.

Copyright is supposed to protect entire products from being stolen and resold at another's benefit.

Modding is by definition based on others work, for a non profit end. 

the right of the copyright owners should be protected. Especially if money are involved.

but alleging copyright infringements on a 20 year old game(s), after that the source code was licensed under the GPL on 1999, is something different. Especially a case like this one, in which the owner can only benefits from the situation; even more, these benefits seem to be the real intent behind the decision of the GPL licensing. 

You guys are arguing from an emotional and logical point of view. The legal view is the one that matters. 

 

But money makes the world go round :)

If the return on prosecuting / ordering a cease and disist on a modder isn't going to cover the lawyer's salary then they don't bother.

My point was more about internet denizens trying to spoil things for everyone else. 

If the various sounds, models and textures from other games were slowly replaced with community made versions, would that make everyone shut the fuck up about this?

That alone sounds like a good motivation for a community project.

Sounds, textures - that would be pretty easy. Models not so easy, but I'm sure there's room to use re-skins of existing monsters in place of new ones to cut down on some of the work? 

But not the energy to go through with it. 

Just for the record I don't believe any lawyer will ever give even a single solitary fuck about what we are doing here...

but if it means we don't have to endure pages and pages of this tedious shite everytime someone releases a map with a hexen 2 model in it, then I think it's worth doing for the long-term good of the quakery. 

I think we'd need a solid modeller/animator for that kind of work. Those guys tend not to stick around for too long, no idea why but it's probably because they're usually replacing assets and not creating new stuff (which is the best thing about modding). Plus you usually have to couple them with a good programmer to enjoy the fruits of the labour. 

 

for kinn 

fuck you that's worse that goatse, tubgirl and motorcycle.jpg all combined

trigger warning that shit, maybe? 

Maybe shaved wookies?