Oolite Bulletins

I've got some mails as answer to the texture pack.

Some good, some bad

Well I'm a lawyer not an artist, but I cannot see how you could be said to have pinched anything from the pic of the ship you've posted.

Oolite is a non-commerial enterprise. Anybody who contributes anything does so on the basis of share and share alike. Nobody owns copyright to anything they do and everybody is free to pinch stuff either from Giles's code or the OXPs (as long as you use it for Oolite stuff and don't sell it!). The only restriction is it is polite if you crib somebody eles's stuff to use in your own OXP, you ackowlege it and credit the author in the readme.

I think it would be a shame if you gave up, but I'm sure everyone will respect you wishes and not distribute your textures if that is what you want.

LittleBear wrote:

Well I'm a lawyer not an artist,

You are? Because this:

Nobody owns copyright to anything they do

is completely and utterly wrong. (It’s also irrelevant to the accusation at hand.)

I don't know much about copyright laws, but it would be horrible if styles could be copyrighted.

Does this mean that Andrew Lloyd Webber could buy up rock'n'roll and do unspeakable things to it

“Styles” of design are not subject to copyright, no.

Well I do Crime not Intelectual Property!

But I thought under the Creative Commans Licence, the idea was anything we do for Oolite is for the project rather than somthing we would be entitled to sell or assert ownership over?

I was talking in the contex of things we write for Oolite not things people write generally. Obviously!

If I'm wrong though, I'll bow to greater knowlege.

It's considered "Fair Use" if it's a least 50% different from the copyrighted material. So there shouldn't be a problem with Sung's work.

And what should i do? I don't want any annoyance be working on a Licence free Game. I also do not understand everything what is written here. This is realy no joke.

I'm really not an expert on this at all, but a lot of OXP designers have contributed ships to Oolite inspired by Blakes 7, Star Wars, Star Trek etc and nobody seems to have objected. My limited knowlege is that if you just copied work from another game and ported it into Oolite, that would be a breach of copyright. However, the fact that your work maybe in the same style as another person's is not.

When I said "nobody owns copyright to anything" I didn't mean the world in general, but things we write for Oolite. You can freely copy from another OXP writers work, but you are not meant to (strickly speaking) use an images from anything that is not the work of another Oolite Developer. without permission.

That said, copyright holders don't seem to mind too much about people using their images in free games. See the Doc's Your Ad here thread and OXP. Must be at least 20 breaches there! But Coca-Cola, Pesi-Cola, KFC, Tesco etc haven't come after the Doc yet. Murgh's Torus station looks rather like the one from 2001, but neither the Director of the film's estate nor Mr Clarke have raised any objection. Geroge Lucus has yet to raise any objection over the Star Wars Ships OXP.

Look at this picture, the blue cockpit looks like the same as the homeworld ships, because it is the same style. Is the Boa like the homeworld ship? (The Backround is from a Wallpaper not from myself)

sung, i can't see any problems between your textures and that picture of the ship from homeworld, there's loads of info on the web about how to create that paneled bas-relief look in photoshop, it's not a copyrighted art style and almost every conventional space craft i've ever seen drawn uses that technique. ooh, you posted those boas as i was typing - really amazing!

Master Sung (oh that sounds so martial arts)
I too agree with the folks who state you should not worry yourself. If styles were able to be copywrited, music would be awfully sparse.

CaptKev wrote:

It's considered "Fair Use" if it's a least 50% different from the copyrighted material. So there shouldn't be a problem with Sung's work.

In the UK, fair use has nothing whatever to do with what proportion of a work is different. Fair use allows the use of excerpts from copyrighted works for the purpose of illustration, review, example and so on, and for the derrivation of some works for the purpose of parody. If you're not sure what rights you have under a given copyright license, the best thing to do is talk to a solicitor who specialises in copyright. They're insured to give legal advice, for starters...

Quite right!

But as Snug has not in fact copied anything from Homeworld and as far as I can see his textures don't actually look like the ones in the Homeworld ship, I really don't think he should panic!

If anything, the Homeworld ship looks like it was "inspired" an FFE Link Bulk Carrier!

Whats going on here?!?

This has been by far the most good-natured bb I've ever been part of...

Oolite needs people like Sung.

Critisism both good & bad is fine, assuming it is constructive.

Though not being in possession of the facts ( which are none of my business ) I wonder if all Sungs critism has been constructive having felt the need to start this thread.

FWIW:
All artwork is based on what has gone before, so to that extent you can't do anything that isn't in some way an uncoucious 'rip-off' of other's work.

Has Sung passed off other's work as his own?
Probably not.
Do I care? Not much. ( Oolite is free, all the contributors muck-in for the sake of it, not for profit )

Hell, what about my contributions?
I've had no complaints...

Falcon.oxp: An obvious 'rip-off'.
NavyStarships: A more obvious 'rip-off'.
( Though my own work with regard to the Oolite models & textures )
Pallas.oxp: 50's sci-fi?
Condor.oxp: The more I look @ them the more they remind me of 2001 & I intended them to be wholly original!
The list goes on...

I'm currently working on a BIG Thargoid vessle. The more I look @ it the more it reminds me of a Silon base ship from BSG. I didn't set out to do this.

The only .oxp I've done for which I can't obviously see the influences ( unconscious or not ) is Orb.oxp
Having said that I'm sure plenty of people will be able to tell me where they have seen something like it before...

Sorry for the long-winded rant.

As D.H. mentioned in another thread, not everyone on the bb uses English as a first language, so care must be exercised if offence is not to be inadventantly caused.
A least that's what I choose to believe to be the cause of this...