I recently delved into mods, after years of only using MCP, Morrowind Patch Project, and official Bethesda plugins. I first got MGE working, then added better bodies, better heads, better clothes. All awesome. I then made the final leap into a texture replacer... and chose the seemingly-exactly-what-I-wanted Visual Pack 3.0rc1:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2915

Then, much to my amusemant, when I stepped into the Mage's Guild in Sadrith Mora for the first time... I was greeted by numerous tapestries depicting an exact copy of the [copyrighted] cover from Terry Brooks' Elf Queen of Shannara book:

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4726.jpg

So... is this OK to do? I assumed all the stuff in these mods had to be open source or open copyright?...

No, it's not okay to do. Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know that it was stolen, but I have always hated that texture.

nope, not ok. i don't think thats a singular case though

Technically it's not okay to do, but as long as the copyright owners don't ask for it to be removed, there's not much that can be done about it aside from asking the administrators of wherever it's hosted to take it down.

I've always seen that texture and figured that Terry Brooks worked something out with Bethesda -- you know, with the whole "Morrowind" game and his fantasy novel which took place largely on the island of "Morrowindl." I guess I've had some of these modded textures in my game so long that I didn't realize they weren't vanilla.

Thing is, it is pretty easy finding art that one can use. I have quite a bit tucked away for eventual use, art I asked for the OK to use. Many artists are very nice about giving specific usage OKs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Parkinson

http://www.keithparkinson.com/gallery.php?icid=1&nextid=25&img=kpelfque1

Vtastek, what exactly are you saying here? Because it's on his website it's okay to use? Or that because it's also on his website, it's not allowed to be used twice over?

Just wondering. You kind of didn't say anything but provide links...

As a off topic side-note, I do love Shannara >>

That mod is what, five or six years old? And only now is it suddenly not okay to use?

No one has ever cared over the years, if it bothers you that much kmelch, then delete the relevant textures. Personally I never liked the visual pack tapestry textures, I am not a big fan of the art that was used.

The thing to do here would have been to contact the author with your concerns. It's always possible that it was used with permission, and even if not, it's still best practice to assume good faith.

A while back the majority of people thought that anything posted on the net was free to use, like cutting out pics from magazines (which *is* OK, just to be clear) - so you'd find stuff like this all over the place, often as "free images" and usually with no source info. So even if permission wasn't given, it still might not mean the modder knowingly did anything wrong.

Popular acceptance of an illegal practice does not make it legal.... [not that this is necessarily a breach of copyright - I'm just playing devil's advocate here. ] And it's not that it really bothers me, I was just really surprised to see one dubious image in a gargantuan collection of otherwise inconspicuous textures.



Yes, I can see your point, I should have just tried to contact the creator through the hosting site... but on the other hand - I looked for "Images by XXX used by permission" in the readme, and found none. I'm not accusing anyone, just wondering what the policies and common practices are in the modding community. I've never once used the CS for modding - you modders blow my mind.

Oh come on, the game came out in 2002, who going to give a damn really?

According to community convention this, in principle, isn't really okay.
In practice, however, people are unlikely to go about fact-checking.

Even for people who do recognise the image, they're also likely to recognise that such minor infringements may not necessarily conform to the letter of copyright law, but certainly conform to the spirit. No harm, no foul, right?

[Sigh] I thought it might turn into this... Mr Big-Brother doesn't care if his laws are ridiculous. Look at it from this perspective - College campuses now have specialized IT experts to identify and bring down college kids that illegally serve/stream music from there personal PCs. No one cares if it's ABBA's greatest hits, or even a recording of one of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. The material is copyrighted, and the FBI is cracking down. A friend of mine was called into the admin office one day to be told that if he didn't take his mp3 server down by the end of the day, he would expelled. He was placed under academic probation for the rest of the year, and I guarantee his IP address was monitored for all traffic.

What's the point of the story? Copyright infringement is getting a bit more touchy these days... and you can roll your eyes all the way to the courthouse in the back of a police car. It won't change the law.

EDIT:
On the other hand - this could easily be construed to be fan-art. It's not for profit, has been sufficiently altered in an artistic nature, and is aimed primarily at a specific fandom. Which is, in almost all cases, perfectly legal. No harm, no foul... I suppose so.

[Sorry, can't help the devil's advocate in me. ]

For what it's worth, I agree, kmelch.
While it might not necessarily 'matter' and there's going to be no consequence at the end of the thread, it's still an interesting point of discussion.

wow....just wow...

Im commenting on some people's comments here. It is a big deal, copyright is pretty damn important, im pretty sure the person who drew that book art didn't want someone to take their work and put it up as thier own....and im sure the publishers of the book who payed for the art would be pissed off that some has taken, re-used it and put it up as thier own.

i know alot of modders feel outside of copyright laws, but this stuff is trackable and a very very stupid thing to do. I think the little moral rule modders hide behind is "Im not making money out of this, so nobody will care", but thats one fast way to get into all sorts of trouble. The fact its only book art, doesnt make it any more/less useable....Im sure if someone put up a great tapertry with a famous painting on it without giving any credit, people would call foul......this is no different.

Fairly sure they'd be out of copyright by now.

A more important question is how far it is allowed to go?
I mean retextureing/editing etc of Bethesda meshes happen a lot. I name no mod but I know a lot of mods that simply use slightly edited meshes that are redistributed on the internets.

As long as it is TESIII Beth meshes, it should be okay. Afterall, they made construction set and they aren't trying to bring down mod hosting sites.

------------
As for the OP: such replication of art like that may fall under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Fair_use_and_fair_dealing.



I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that a book cover with photoshop cloth filters in a mod for a video game probably isn't going to impact the artist's profits/potential market.

Still, credit should be given where credit is due (like with Painkiller's Tapestries mod).

Bethesda have stated previously that we are totally within our rights to use re-upload morrowind meshes (same with oblivion/fallout 3) with small edits (like retextures and whatnot) if we need to to. They realise that if we cant do that then the community would be hit hard, so as long as you dont rip straight from other games to put in, then its fine.

I have used copyrighted images and material in my house mods. I also am very careful to give credit where credit is due. For example, from the readme for my "Captain Jack's House":



Of course I make no money from their use, and if you were to take the .dds files and blow them up to hang on your wall, they'd look quite blurry. This to me is fair usage. However, if the creators or their estates (West and Pyle being dead) or the museums that own the originals objected, I would remove them from the mod.

Speaking of museums, who do own usage rights to their collections:



Again, if either of these institutions objected, goodbye images.

I consider the addition of such things to my mods as a tribute to the artists, and a mark of respect for their work. Not to mention free advertising.

If you want to see how I used these things, click on the second link in my sig to see the video. Or not. :hehe:

The sheet music itself may be out of copyright... but I guarantee any CD published by a record company with it's salt will have the performance copyrighted.

My hat goes off to your impecable adherance to the law. Were it that all of us obeyed so keenly the rules, everything would be splendid.

My knowledge of Bach is a little low, but I do not think legally you can copyright anything about his work anymore. Once it fell out of copyright about 30 years ago, it basically became public domain. Just like Tchaikovsky and Wagner. I might be wrong though. But public domain stuff cannot be copyrighted.

In relation to this mod, I think we all need to take a step back and relax. I think if you were to contact each one of the people responsible for that artwork, with the information on this, they'd say it's okay. That it falls under fair use.

I'm not certain, I could be wrong. However, I do not think it's needed for people to freak out over what people post. We all have our different views. There's nothing wrong with that.

Da mage, you know, not many mod makers think they're above copyright laws. That would be stupid on their part.