Data Usage & Permissions

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Infragris
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Data Usage & Permissions

Post by Infragris »

As this is coming up more and more often, I believe it might be a good idea to develop a set of general outlines in regards to the use of Tamriel_Data assets by third parties. In theory, Tamriel_Data has been developed both for the projects and as a general resource pack for the community. However, this secondary purpose has always been a bit implicit, and it is not assured that everybody who has made or donated assets to the project is even aware of it. Modders have always had the option to declare their assets exclusive to the project, but this is again something that hasn't been talked about much and might not be common knowledge.

So far, we've had no problems related to this, which is also why there are no solid agreements on the subject. With that in mind, I would prefer we have a decent permission declaration before some kind of disagreement crops up.

With that in mind, I think we should sticky a general-purpose guideline in the assets dev forums which touches on the following subjects:
  • Usage of Tamriel_Data objects by other affiliated projects. Tamriel_Data is a joint asset repository for several related projects (P:C, SHOTN, TR, etc.) Any asset made or donated to one project should therefore be implicitly usable by other projects. Give the cooperative nature of Tamriel_Data, we cannot accept files that are exclusive to one project alone.
  • Usage of Tamriel_Data objects by the community. Tamriel_Data is built as a repository for high-quality resources that can be used by other modders in the community, either by making their mods dependent on Tamriel_Data.esm, or by unpacking the files and repackaging them in their own mods. We ask that all third-party modders acknowledge the origin of repackaged assets, and give credits in their readme files. Any PT modder who does not wish for his work to be used outside of Tamriel_Data should mention this explicitly alongside his contribution: otherwise, it will be assumed that the modder agrees to share his work with the community.
  • Usage of Tamriel_Data objects for other games. Occasionally, it happens that we are contacted by third-party modders who work on projects for Oblivion or Skyrim. Not quite sure if we can make a general rule for this? Thoughts? Of course, any asset that is partially based on a vanilla asset cannot be used for other games in any way.
  • Pre-arrangement assets: obviously, this agreement cannot work retroactively. For assets that are currently in data, the best course of action would probably be to track down the original modder, if they are still active, and ask for permission directly. If anybody currently active has qualms about sharing one or more of his assets, it would be best if they note this somewhere so that we can include this in a permissions file.
  • Maybe a general reminder that assets have to be either wholly original or based on resources that themselves offer full permission for usage and modifications.
  • Related to this, I think it might be a good idea to include a "no take-backs" rule: once an asset is donated, you cannot arbitrarily demand that it is removed from data. Maybe a bit paranoid, but I think it might pay to write this down somewhere.
Anything else that should be included?

puddles
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Post by puddles »

I am sorry if I opened up a can of worms, Infragris! :E

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

Not at all, these are things we should have thought of long ago.

puddles
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Post by puddles »

From my interactions with a few other modding project groups, a common prerequisite for access to their assets is to join or at least contribute something to the project; that's why I offered to assist with textures or something when I stopped by here.

PT is so huge that making a catalog of permissions and credits for everything you already have seems near-impossible...especially since a common issue with credits and permissions with the older TES games is that people who made a lot of assets aren't active or responsive anymore...heck, I know two very prominent Oblivion modders actually died in the last few years. Discovery1 and someone else.

Miamian
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Post by Miamian »

Hi,
I think it is correct place to ask such question.
What about permission to translate these mods?
Can I do this? Because I want to translate Skyrim HotN (and later Project Cyrodiil and Tamriel Rebuilt) into my native Polish language, and I don't know if I can put it later on Nexus for my countrymens.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I think you may absolulely feel free to do that.

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Moritius
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Post by Moritius »

Miamian, if you need some help at some point, feel free to PM me (tbh I stopped to bother with Polish translation when I started to roam more inside international Morrowind modding community, but could help a bit).
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