Edited.
The title was poorly written. This is about Textures and peoples feelings about how to best share them so we can all grown. Again the title was poorly written. I can't change a title now. I can either close the thread because of the confusion which is rightfully being pointed out. Or we can just move on here. It's up to you guys which direction to go.

Please respect each other as an opinion is only an opinion.

You should definitely get permission from someone to use their textures and credit them as well.



I feel that this is true of all modding material.

I've made a number of faces using high res photos - can't say I asked the individual if it was okay to make an avatar of them nor the original photographer - why should I ever then place a restriction on someone using the texture created in their likeness then?

You bring up a good point. I still feel, nonetheless, that you should ask permission and credit the original artist, but I suppose it's not necessary.


Though you must be prepared to get [censored] out for stealing in case the original artist takes it as such.

Like Painkiller said, instead of worrying about copywrights and the like, we should instead just focus on the ethics of it.
No need to bring lawyers into this.

edit: There was no "stealing" involved in the compilation mod as the author never claimed it was his, he gave credit. He just didn't ask for permission.
We also gotta stop acting like "mine mine mine". Instead of thinking individually we should all work to make MW better.

I agree, it's all about what happens to it in the end, if someone's taken your texture and manipulated/used it to make a wonderful peice of art, but not credited me, I wouldn't care. I'd probably still ask the author/user about it, but I wouldn't want it removed or anything.

An example to this is a youtube user by the username of sarakling76 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU2EtLHVoiI, then another user by the username of DigitalPiece http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8coPXbrIvcg made from the clips of that video. DigitalPiece had contacted sarakling76 about it, without response, so uploaded the video anyways.

If I were sarakling76, and I found out about DigitalPiece's song, I would let him keep the video up because it is a unique piece of art and deserves to stay up because obviously some work was put into it and the video can't really be claimed (ethically and artistically, in my opinion) as hers.


For other situations though, like if someone took a texture and put it into a game and sold it, because they thought it was "free", I would be pretty upset.

For Me this is a respect issue ... The only way a modding community works is if we modders respect each other ... I didn't say agree, I said respect.

I've been PC gaming basically since it started ( I'm old) & modding almost as long & I've seen modding communities for other games completely die because of lack of respect ... all it takes is few idiots to severely damage a modding community.

The Morrowind modding community has been incredibly resilient & has been, for the most part, idiot free .... its amazing really if you think about it.

As far as current events ...... no agreement was achieved ... but respect was maintained in the end.

Posted part of this in the Connary thread but moving the salient part to here:

As one of the main contributors of Better Heads (i.e. Arathrax/Darksharp)...I could care less if someone used my work in their mods (and they do).
Even if they didn't credit me or Gorg or Rhedd or Motoki, it just isn't a huge deal to me. If anything it's flattering. Ultimately, all I care about is that the game is all the better for it.
My intention when starting Better Heads with Gorg was not to make a name for myself, it was simply to replace those cringe-worthy vanilla faces or hairs.
So this attitude about copyrighting and trying to protect one's work for a publicly modded game really befuddles me.

I also work in the game industry as a lead artist at a pretty big studio/publisher...and yes, when it's a commercial endeavor, and many people are being paid huge amounts of money to generate content and assets, by all means that work is protected by law and owned by the studio. But when it's a single person or a couple people and they are doing something for a community, and there is no profit (or expense other than time)...I am kind of baffled by this attitude of "due to the internet being what it is, then I am going to hold onto all my work".

If you want to protect your work and you're THAT good, either start a studio or join one, or freelance with one of the outsourcing companies like Liquid or Nikitova.
Otherwise, you have to just accept the fact that aside from the few hundred dedicated people on this forum, most people on the Interwebs downloading MW/Oblivion/Fallout mods simply don't care.
They just want the mod, want to run it in their game with the least amount of hassle and really don't give a rat's [censored] who made it.

I think it's fair to say some of us have been thru this kind of thing many times. But there are those of whom this is just happening to them the first time. I just don't want to see something like this jade our latest texture makers. :brokencomputer:

I don't know that there is necessarily wrong with talking about copyright. *shrugs* At least to the degree of pointing out that apparently every author pretty much has it automatically, though in a community like this (as has been pointed out) it is pretty much a matter of respect and goodwill. Going further and obtaining registration seems necessary if one is concerned about situations like possible commercial infringement. Hmmm, perhaps I am repeating myself. *chuckle*

Ah well, hopefully most people don't let the possibility bother them. I mean, however insanely good a texture is, what is the likelihood of someone stealing it from a retexture of a game several years old (albeit an amazing one)? And that said, even if someone did, what are the odds of anyone ever noticing to raise a copyright issue?

Personally, I don't think I would mind use of a texture I made (all I have ever done is play at redoing a couple of textures) as long as I got credit. Hell, even if I didn't, welln at least someone would be using it. To each his own I suppose eh?

An interesting point about mods in general is that they are a privilege to have. A modder doesn't have to release their mods, so when they do, others should really take them in with the utmost respect and remember that getting what they are getting is very lucky.

Modding isn't a job, we do it for free, and a lot of the time, modders trust that others will respect and abide their wishes for usage of their mods. In my opinion, anyone who does steal or use mods, in any form inappropriately should get in trouble some way.

That brings an interesting thought, for the protection of mods, hosting sites like PlanetElderScrolls should have moderator tools available that let the mods ban IP adresses/users from downloading things or downloading certain mods because of inappropriate usage.

Textures and taste, the two things that have caused more modders to leave than anything else... people need to learn that if they create and upload something, somebody WILL reuse it or redistribute it without asking; it's the nature of the digital world. The community needs better mechanisms to deal with the trolls who keep throwing muck around.

Well, I've contacted APY recently with a list of new feature requests for PES, including setting up creative commons licenses for your work in the submission process like on Deviantart, let's see what'll come out of it. :shrug:

There is no such thing as "ownership" in Internet. There is no other way but only to consider your work as property of whole community. Copyright rubbish just will kill any evolution of this work, and wouldn't help at all.

Remind me to NEVER, EVER release Nakoma as I intended her to be released, then.

Copyright at it was intentionally envisaged would provide a temporary monopoly to allow for another invention. I don't think it was intended to be the 70 years thing it is now.

You also have to understand that most projects have a vision and some people don't want that vision messed around with. I can understand it when it is more on the art or dialog side.

It's not rubbish at all, have you even seen what creative commons is? Depending on what licience you pick you grant others what usability you'd like.

Okay. Ownership was a poor choice of words. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a whole internet and what can anyone do on the internet and how to police it. That wasn't my point and it will just side track the whole point of the topic.

This is about TEXTURES and what people think of what's best the way that we can grown and continue to enjoy the game. :foodndrink:

No, it is completely rubbish. Any strict prohibitions can't protect work after it is released; any permissions will be observed only because of respect to author and not owing to any formal prescriptions.

In context of TES-community, I think, attempting to prohobit using of textures (or anything else) is pointless. Community is rather small, so if anybody will try to arrogate authorship of other's work, he will gain only negative reputation. On the other hand, when somebody creates something great using other's resourses - everybody profited, besause it makes Elder Scrolls better.

Again. Ownership was a poor choice of words. I'm asking that you please try to not turn things into a he said she said thing.
Thanks for understanding. :foodndrink:

What is this thread about then?
If it's about permissions, then you should take it to Archimaestro Antere's thread. There's no point making another permissions thread soley for textures.

No it isn't. This is dealing strictly with textures.


Bringing lawyers, laws into this isn't the way to do it. What are you gonna do, sue people?
The past incident was so minuscule, I don't understand how it caused such an uproar. Kingpix went along well with everything you guys said to the point of just stopping. You are acting like he is claiming it is his which he did not do.

Textures and peoples feelings about how to best share them so we can all grown. Again the title was poorly written. I can't change a title now. I can either close the thread because of the confusion which is rightfully being pointed out. Or we can just move on here. It's up to you guys which direction to go. :foodndrink:

Uhhm... I said anything about "ownership" there?

Sorry, it was the opening post that got me confused, you said it was about permissions, so I thought you might as well use Antere's thread.
If it's about how people feel about the recent incidents, I have a suspicion I'm in the silent majority when I say it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. :shrug: