[!!!] Copyright and You [Dev Showcase]

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10Kaziem
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[!!!] Copyright and You [Dev Showcase]

Post by 10Kaziem »

As per the discussion in the August 8 Skype meeting, it might be useful to have a sticky or a section of a sticky devoted to copyright and how it affects Tamriel Rebuilt. Therefore, here is a proposed sticky for that. Feedback welcome.

[This post will be the second post in [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=329408#329408]How to Contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt[/url].]

Title: Copyright and You

Tamriel Rebuilt is based on source material copyrighted by Bethesda Softworks (a "derivative work"). Since Bethesda and their parent companies have not officially given us the rights to The Elder Scrolls, what we are doing is subject to the usage agreements of Morrowind's End User License Agreement. Technically, Bethesda could step in at any time and demand we stop this project or release their own version of Tamriel Rebuilt.

Similarly, all user-created assets are copyrighted by the individual modders who made them. Since you (hopefully) want to contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt we need to talk about copyright and how it affects you.

Disclaimer: Tamriel Rebuilt and its members are not qualified to give legal advice. Seek a copyright lawyer if you need actual legal advice.

As a modder, you're making assets for us, which includes things like models, textures, concepts, interior and exterior cells, and also includes lore ideas, quests, names, and dialogue.

What TR can do with your assets

When you create assets for us, you are allowing Tamriel Rebuilt to use those assets (or not) anytime, anywhere, even if you leave the project. We can also edit, modify, or remove your assets to suit our needs. TR assets may eventually be released as a Morrowind modder's resource.

What you can do with your assets

You still retain as much control over your creations as copyright allows; you're welcome to use that work elsewhere as you please, such as in another mod or your portfolio.

What Bethesda can do with your assets

Bethesda owns the Elder Scrolls, and everything to do with it. Similarly, when you agreed to Morrowind's End User License Agreement you gave Bethesda the rights to use and redistribute anything you made using the Construction Set. You might not get credit or get paid for this, nor can you say "no".

Also, during the creation of assets for TR, you might end up using stuff copyrighted by Bethesda. This includes anything lifted from the vanilla game, ranging from textures to lore. Because of this, Bethesda can claim ownership of it or at least force you to remove your creation from whatever it's being used in. In particular, if you want to use the things you made for TR in another project not related to Morrowind, make sure you remove all assets that were not completely made by you.

The thread for discussing this sticky can be found [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=25018]here[/url].
Last edited by 10Kaziem on Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:34 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Gnomey
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Post by Gnomey »

This sticky proposal was discussed in the Skype meeting. This should be a global announcement, but we're trying to keep the number of globals down, to avoid intimidating or confusing members. As such, we think this might fit in the existing [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21914]Rules and Guidelines[/url] thread. In other words once this sticky is done it will be merged with that thread.

Edit: oops, we actually agreed to make this part of the How to Contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt sticky in Dev Showcase.
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Post by Gnomey »

Here's Swiftoak's text on copyright from his pipeline document. My apologies for the lack of formatting.

[spoiler]Appendix Zero: A Caveat on Copyright & Distribution
Part of having an informed development process is understanding the final form of Tamriel Rebuilt. All members should also understand their rights when contributing to an open-source creative community such as Tamriel Rebuilt.
While the majority of Morrowind’s content may eventually end up being the intellectual property of Tamriel Rebuilt, Tamriel Rebuilt, in of itself, has to deal with the unavoidable fact that it is still a derivative work of copyrighted franchise (The Elder Scrolls). Tamriel Rebuilt will inevitably always (to some extent) still rely on a good amount of assets and concepts from the vanilla creation (TES III: Morrowind), and thus, the final work is to be seen as a joint-effort between Bethesda Game Studios and the Tamriel Rebuilt Team, and this limits our ability to levy particular claims and defend our rights with respect to the overall work.
As a contributor to Tamriel Rebuilt, you agree that you are contributing your own work, without expectation of financial compensation, and that you agree that the Tamriel Rebuilt Project has the right to release that work into the public domain, under a unified fair-use clause for all user-created assets and intellectual property. Individual contributors may not dictate their own permissions for assets contributed to Tamriel Rebuilt, although they maintain full rights to their work outside the context of Tamriel Rebuilt (excluding of course, any work that incorporates any aspect of Bethesda or Zenimax IP for obvious copyright reasons). As a derivative work, you or the TR team as a whole may also not levy claims against Bethesda Softworks or Zenimax Media should any aspect of your work make it into any official Elder Scrolls media.
Tamriel Rebuilt’s final release will not be a plugin or mod that is attached to the vanilla game (TESIII: Morrowind), run either in that engine, or OpenMW. It will be released as a game platform of its’ own, as a completely independent conversion. Tamriel Rebuilt will consist of a single game file, that incorporates our modified version of Vanilla, as well as the additional Mainland content, and some parts of the Tribunal expansion, running on the OpenMW engine. It must be installed in a blank directory, with no existing vanilla game files. Tamriel Rebuilt can not be run in Vanilla Morrowind’s engine, or alongside any of its’ files.
Since there is still a dependency on vanilla assets, the asset file for Tamriel Rebuilt will be generated during the install process. A user must have a legally licensed copy of the original game (during install only), in order for the installer file to read the Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon BSA files, and extract the relevant assets. The installer will then combine the extracted assets alongside our own TR assets into a single archive file. This archive may not be distributed under any circumstances, again due to obvious copyright reasons. TR assets may be extracted and distributed for use with credit, but if you’re just modding, we recommend just a simple dependency on our main file. All user created assets are clearly defined by the TR_ prefix. Any game files with this prefix may be used and redistributed, with the appropriate credit to the Tamriel Rebuilt Team.
The Bloodmoon content is not conceptually part of the main game, and thus remains a separate expansion. The Installer will let you convert the Bloodmoon file into a file that is readable by OpenMW. Since we do not change any major aspects of gameplay, it is also possible to backport other existing Morrowind plugins into Tamriel Rebuilt in a similar fashion, provided they do not conflict. Most of our changes to vanilla Morrowind involve characters, dialogue, and NPCs, rather than cosmetic changes. We intend on working with the authors of several popular quest/dialogue plugins to ensure their content at the very least, maintains technical compatibility with our game, if not conceptual compatibility. However, our mandate is to our creative vision, so full compatibility is not guaranteed.[/spoiler]
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10Kaziem
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Post by 10Kaziem »

As a note to anyone reading this: the first two paragraphs of Gnomey's spoiler are the relevant ones; the remainder refer to a hypothetical distribution platform which is, at best, far off in the future.
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Post by Anonytroll »

I have tried to reword the section because it seems unclear in parts.



Title: Copyright and You

Tamriel Rebuilt is based on source material copyrighted by Bethesda Softworks (a "derivative work"). Since Bethesda and their parent companies have not officially given us the rights to The Elder Scrolls, what we are doing is subject to the usage agreements of Morrowind's End User License Agreement. Technically, Bethesda could step in at any time and demand we stop this project or release their own version of Tamriel Rebuilt.

Similarly, all user-created assets are copyrighted by the individual modders who made them. Since you (hopefully) want to contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt we need to talk about copyright and how it affects you.

As a modder, you're making assets for us, which includes things like models, textures, concepts, interior and exterior cells, and also includes lore ideas, quests, names, and dialogue.

What TR can do with your assets

When you create assets for us, you are allowing Tamriel Rebuilt to use those assets (or not) anytime, anywhere, even if you leave the project. We can also edit, modify, or remove your assets to suit our needs. TR assets may eventually be released into the Public Domain.

What you can do with your assets

You still retain as much control over your creations as copyright allows; you're welcome to use that work elsewhere as you please, such as in another mod or your portfolio.

What Bethesda can do with your assets

Bethesda owns the Elder Scrolls, and everything to do with it. Similarly, when you signed Morrowind's End User License Agreement you agreed to give Bethesda the rights to use and redistribute the resources and ideas you created for Morrowind. You will not get credit or get paid for this, nor can you say "no".

Also, if your creation includes something directly edited from something of Bethesda's, they can claim ownership of it or at least force you to remove it from whatever it's being used in. In particular, if you want to use the things you made for TR in another project not related to Morrowind, make sure you remove all assets that were not completely made by you.

If you'd like to know more details about copyright, check out the Master Plan [link].
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10Kaziem
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Post by 10Kaziem »

Thanks for the suggestions! They have been incorporated into the first post.
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Post by Theminimanx »

The last paragraph was a bit unclear to me. There were too many vague uses of "it" and "things". I tried to clarify it a bit, but I have no idea if I accidentally changed the meaning. I also added the obligatory "TR is not a legal adviser yadde yadda" disclaimer. I'm not sure where to best put it, but in such a short piece of text I don't think it matters much.

----------

Also, during the creation of assets for TR, you might end up using stuff copyrighted by Bethesda. This includes anything lifted from the vanilla game, ranging from textures to lore. Because of this, Bethesda can claim ownership of it or at least force you to remove your creation from whatever it's being used in. In particular, if you want to use the things you made for TR in another project not related to Morrowind, make sure you remove all assets that were not completely made by you.

Tamriel Rebuilt is in no way qualified to give proper legal advice. At best, we hope to make you aware of what situations you could run into, so you may then do your own research and/or find proper legal counsel. We Are Not Lawyers. Seriously, don't do anything in a court of law based on what some people on the internet told you.
The death of vanilla Morrowind will end this prophecy and unite all Morrowind fans again under one mod, one faith, one rule by our divine project. The puppet Morrowind overhaul mods will lay down their arms and bow to our will. Those who do not yield will be destroyed.
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Post by Gnomey »

With Theminimanx's edits, I personally consider this done, but will want to give this particular post some more time to receive feedback, due to its delicate nature. To my understanding the post is in no way legally binding in its current form, but it should probably stay that way.

This will be the second post in the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=25018]How to Contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt[/url] sticky, (as that sticky will be a global announcement, I think this will have greater visibility that way rather than if it were a separate normal announcement), and should probably be linked to from one or two locations. (The first How to Contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt post points readers to it as well).
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10Kaziem
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Post by 10Kaziem »

I like your edits, Theminimanx.


How about this for the disclaimer?

"...we need to talk about copyright and how it affects you.

Disclaimer: Tamriel Rebuilt and its members are not qualified to give legal advice. Seek a copyright lawyer if you need actual legal advice.

As a modder..."
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Post by Theminimanx »

Edited the post with the text discussed above. I also made a small clarification about what you agreed to in the EULA.
The death of vanilla Morrowind will end this prophecy and unite all Morrowind fans again under one mod, one faith, one rule by our divine project. The puppet Morrowind overhaul mods will lay down their arms and bow to our will. Those who do not yield will be destroyed.
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