Isn't it illegal to charge people for mods?
I have been wondering how it is that Counter-Strike seems to be able to charge people to by it. If fact, it has even gone retail. It's that copyright infringement?
Quote:Original post by stargate3216
I have been wondering how it is that Counter-Strike seems to be able to charge people to by it. If fact, it has even gone retail. It's that copyright infringement?
no. because the half-life engine was set up such that it was legal to mod the engine and distribute it. The original counter-strike was free. The Counterstrike Source is actually owned by Valve, who own the Half-life engine so they can do whatever they want with it.
Generally when a mod is sold, either the authors of the mod own the engine or they pay money to the people who own the engine so that they can sell it.
-me
Well counter-strike was developed by a team of people who at the time of its creation were not ran or operated by Valve. It wasn't until after seeing the success of counter-strike that valve decided they wanted to purchase (for lack of a better phrase) the team who developed counter-strike.
Although valve did not "own" them until later, it was not illegal for the counter-strike developers to mod the game, because valve allowed them to, in their license.
Now, besides valve, some games ARE illegal to modify. If someone tried to make a MOD of final fantasy XI w/o square's approval, that would be copyright infringement. It all boils down to what licenses you have with a particular developer/publisher. I hope that makes sense lol.
Although valve did not "own" them until later, it was not illegal for the counter-strike developers to mod the game, because valve allowed them to, in their license.
Now, besides valve, some games ARE illegal to modify. If someone tried to make a MOD of final fantasy XI w/o square's approval, that would be copyright infringement. It all boils down to what licenses you have with a particular developer/publisher. I hope that makes sense lol.
Wouldn't this only be copyright infringement if you're distributing copyrighted materials/code? If, for example, your Mod consists of a program that makes various changes to the game's resources, without including any of the originals, that does not constitute copyright infringement. You're not distributing anything you didn't write. It might violate some sort of EULA, but it's questionable how enforceable something like that is.
Generally if a game has mod tools the licence states that any mods made with them must be distributed for free. If you wish to sell a mod you'll have to get in contact with the game's developer and work out some licencing (e.g. if you wanted to sell an HL2 mod you could either just directly licence the Source engine or contact Valve and negotiate a lower price licence that doesn't include the engine source code etc).
It's illegal unless you got permission to do it from the developer/publisher of the game you're modding.
Quote:Original post by superpig
It's illegal unless you got permission to do it from the developer/publisher of the game you're modding.
Why? I don't think there's a legal argument there, and there's certainly not a moral argument.
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