A Quick Note About Copyright

Dee

Hello, Intrepid Adventure-Makers!

We've had some internal discussions and after hearing some (justified) complaints from artists, we'll be enforcing the following rule:

Do not post copyrighted material on the modding board. It is both illegal and disrespectful to the original artists. Content from BG, BG2, ToB and the other Infinity Engine games is fair game (within reason, of course), but if any other content is posted without the express permission of the artist, it will be taken down without notice.

(Note: the entire thread will be removed, not merely the links or attachments to the mods themselves. All removed threads are stored internally, so if you feel your thread has been removed incorrectly don't hesitate to let one of us know.)

This rule is not up for discussion. If you have questions about this rule or how it affects your mods, feel free to send me a message.

Dee

A short addenum follows.

Using Other People's Work

So here's the scenario: you see a mod with some things that you really like--a new animation, an item with a unique icon and description, an NPC--and it gives you an idea for a derivative piece of your own. You want to use that animation/item/NPC in your own mod. What do you do?

The first thing to do is remember that, although everything created with Infinity Engine resources is more or less proprietary to the owners of that engine, mods are the property of their respective authors. The modding community thrives when people collaborate (and we encourage that collaboration), but ultimately the decision belongs to the author whether or not their work can be used in derivative pieces. Using someone else's work in your own work without their permission is stealing, and using it without crediting the original author is plagiarism. Both are against site rules.

So that being said, how do you get permission to use someone else's work? The easiest thing to do would be to contact them directly: if they're on the forums and active, send them a Private Message; if they're not active here, send them an email. If you don't know their email address but you know where their mod was originally posted, go there and ask around if anyone knows how to contact the author.

Make it clear that you were inspired by what they created and that you want to use it in your own work. If you plan to make changes, try to describe what sorts of changes you plan to make. People might not mind you modifying a portrait or an item description, but changing an NPC's character arc is more likely to upset someone if they spent a lot of time coming up with that character's story.

If the author refuses to grant you permission, you may not use their work. I can't stress that enough. If for whatever reason the author of a mod or the creator of a piece of artwork decides that they don't want you using their work, that's final. You might not understand their reasoning, you might think they're being rude or inconsiderate, but at the end of the day it's their work, and they have a right to keep their work as-is.

If they do give you permission, you still need to credit them. When you post your mod, cite any and all collaborators, contributors, and co-authors. Try to be descriptive of what each author contributed--if not in the post, then in a text file contained alongside the mod itself. Credits are supremely important when it comes to mod authorship; if, fifteen years down the line, a developer sees the mod and wants to use it in an official release, the developer needs to know who created it. Developers follow these same rules; we don't use a mod or a resource without first obtaining permission from its creator.

Hopefully that clears some things up.

Dee

A new addendum has been added to the Site Rules, specifically pertaining to copyright. The posts in this thread can be viewed as being applied on top of that addendum, which you can find through the following link: LINK