Topic: all my SFC model downloads will be deleted

[Katherine]

He aint banned from the SF and SFC Community boards, i phoned up Nikki to check, i cant acess them myself for some reason.

[Red_Green]

I am sorry to here this. I have thought of not releasing ships at some point, but don't like the fact that it hurts the 99% of gamers that will not abuse my readme requests concerning conversion.

What bugs me is how ships end up in mods with no readmes in the 1st place. I know people have made 1 big ship readme file for mods. This is ok but why take out the individual ship readmes? Ther 1kb at most. The 1 big readme is not adequate. Simply because no know is going to spend the time trying to figure out what ship is done by who in thos big mods with 260 ships. Now all the mods are sharing ships betweeen mods and see  a ship with no readme and think its fair game.

I do not think it should be up to the modeler to chase after  someone who released a mod with his ship uncredited or converted against there policy. It needs to be up to the person using the ship to find and contact the modeler BEFORE it gets added.

This banning a modeler because he asks for a ship removed is outragous. I saw it once before already. A modeler questioned about ships with no readmes. The thred was locked and he got banned. Kind of telling sbout the attitude abd disrespect people have over the modelers rights over their intellectual property.

I am sensitive about this topic as my roots are in modeling but am now doing a mod as well. Using mostly my personal ships for a couple reasons. I requested ships for a mod before and never finished the mod due to my Vid card not reading light and damage maps. Felt bad about maybe making people expecting to see there ship in a mod I never got done. Also had no idea how much time it took. I want to release the mod 1st, then perhaps add others ships later. People will then be able to see how the models are credited.

In SFC3 I think they should be credited in each seperate ship folder. In 1 big complete readme and in the VL as you scroll to the bottom of the text.

I kind of like the idea I saw once where someone had a passworded site. You needed to register to d/l ships.
However once 1 person gets get, it can be passed to others via email, so there is no fool proof system. Its the honor system.

Personal I think this asking for permission and model crediting needs to be shored up or there will be other modelers that stop releasing.

[The Pelican]

According to Katie, he's not banned nor suspended. His account is still fully active at STGD.

I'm not that bothered, I'll just cut them from the Mod like he asked. It's only 2 ships, I can replace them pretty easily.

[Katherine]

Well red-Green thats the way I see it as well.  Ya need to remember though the life of a single ships for ANY game, not just SFC 3.  Lets take Armada 1 for instance.

I used to mod for Armada 1 a long, long time ago along with Vic.  We released ships via the old STMD, added the read me which was very basic and then released it.  2 months later we seen the SAME ship with the SAME texture re-uploaded to the STMD and classed as "unknown author".  Sometime between the first person downloading that ship and the first person uploadig the ship again the readme was removed. 

It can be removed for various reasons.  One of the classic cases (especially for the old Armada 1 days) was that the ship was packaged up in a full mod, like The Millenium Project (VERY old A1 mod) and distributed out via the download sites.  Someone seen the ship, took it out of the mod and didnt include the readme.  The ship then gets re-uploaded with no readme and no way of knowing who done the original ship.  Thats one case which is very common.

The other case is mods which date back to the old times, again, i'll use Millenium Project or even Wraiths Babylon 5 mod for Armada 1.  These mods add ships for there first build.  The mod is then downloaded countless THOUSANDS of time by thousands of people all over the world.  Other mods are based off those mods, i can name a few which have been based off Mill Project.  Between the strip out of ships from an original mod to the packageing of the new mod based on the old mod the readme gets lost.

There is then the wording of the actual readme to consider.  A modder cannot claim copyright or full ownership of that particular mod as it is based on the intellecual property of ViaCom and Paramount respectively, which means that when that ship is added to ANY site, wether its d.net, STGD, Starfleet Universe or even the modders own website, it is basically for the public to download and is therefore in the public domain.  The BIGGEST arguement is over the "concept" ships which look nothing like your standard saucer or eliptical main hull trek ships.  A classic example is the "Concord" class from the yards of Nightsofts Network.  Those meshes are really owned by Raven cause he basically payed the modders to make those ships and the completed items were sent over to him.  I know that you MUST ask permission for any of the nightsoft and affiliate ships.

What it would take is the big download sites...BC, STGD, SFU and SFC3files to work together and go through ALL of the ships currently in circulation for SFC 1 right up to SFC 3.  If there is a ship in any of those databases which doesnt have a readme, they get removed.  That way there can be absolutely no arguement about it.

However, if that happened youd lose over half of the ships made for SFC 1 and about the same for SFC 2/OP and SFC 3 combined cause a lot of the ships are now kitbashes and who knows if permission was seeken for that ship to be kitbashed?

[Wicked Zombie]

Don't get too upset Terradyhne, you aren't the only one who's had a sudden urge to take their work offline. The thought had crossed my mind a few times these paste couple of years for similar reasons. There's a number of sites out there that have posted mine and other's models without credits, or even asking the author(s) permission to do so, let alone informing them of it (the only site with express permission regarding DRS models is SFC3files, and that's because they asked first). The same goes to conversions to other games. People just assume that because a ship is for download, there aren't any special conditions concerning their use. As Marauth said, if nobody knows who made a ship, ask around first and don't post it until you get an answer.

The thing is, you have to expect people to ignore a modeler's wishes when there is no money involved or no blatantly obvious statements about it. Taking your work offline is a bit drastic, especially when contacting the site owners/converters usually solves the problem. You could also be specific about what can and cannot be done to your ships and list that on your site and in your readmes. Most people do pay attention to such things, though (as in my case) there are a few who ignore it. It's really just a case of a small group ruining it for the majority. Try not to mistake ignorance for direct intent, people do make mistakes and often times, these details slip through the cracks.

[Wicked Zombie]

Even if paramount owns the rights to a ship design, they don't own the actual model and textures. The modeler put their time and effort into making such a ship and that alone should entitle them to some degree of ownership. I'd hate to think that someone can just come along and take a scale model of a P-51, the HMS Victory, or the Enterprise A just because the one who put the ship together didn't design it. People tend to forget that just because they didn't design a ship, it doesn't mean it still isn't there's, at least on some level. This is our hard spent time, effort, and in some cases, money that is put into these models. The fact we expect nothing more than a little credit and respect in return isn't much to ask for, is it?

[Core]

couldn't agree with you more

[Katherine]

Yup, i know exactly how much time and effort goes into making ships, i done it for Armada 1 and now i do it with 3d Character renders since leaving modding trek games to the people who can do it in half the tme it takes me to do it

The point is though it's now completely impossible to police something like this simply because some of those models and meshes have been around for over a year and have changed hands so many times that things have been removed or altered.  Usually when the original modder does check the blame firmly gets put on the mod that the ship is included in when in reality the fault can be tracked back to a long time before the mod that had the ship in was released.  Some of the fault can also go to the download sites (that includes STGD) who do have some ships, a minority of them, listed with "unknown author".  STGD itself does have an agreement setting which people must click on to confirm that they are downloading a ship and they have to ask permissin if they wanna use it etc etc etc.  Thing is it's never been used as no one has requested to have the license agreement switched on.  Even if it was, there is no viable way to track what is happening to that particular ship.

[The Pelican]

Even if paramount owns the rights to a ship design, they don't own the actual model and textures. The modeler put their time and effort into making such a ship and that alone should entitle them to some degree of ownership. I'd hate to think that someone can just come along and take a scale model of a P-51, the HMS Victory, or the Enterprise A just because the one who put the ship together didn't design it. People tend to forget that just because they didn't design a ship, it doesn't mean it still isn't there's, at least on some level. This is our hard spent time, effort, and in some cases, money that is put into these models. The fact we expect nothing more than a little credit and respect in return isn't much to ask for, is it?

If I remember correctly, you can't claim ownership of any Model based on anything Star Trek (or something else like Star Wars for example) because Ownership implies that you either purchased or can sell on the item. If you created the Model yourself, you can only claim "intellectual copyright" - which means that the idea was yours. You can't actually claim ownership of the design (exception is to totally original designs, whether designed for use in a Star Trek game or not) if the model has some basis on a copyrighted design. For example, anything with a saucer is not a totally original design, as you are not the person who came up with the saucer concept. Someone else conceived it and has a patent on it. That is why Models have to be distributed for free.

I'm sure all Modders (including myself) make every effort to obtain permission for the Models they use in their mods. But nobody is perfect, even the most meticulous modder can make simple mistakes.

[Red_Green]

Well I claim complete ownership over my Hydran and Lyran ships, except the HMS defender. The reason being is the  mesh designs and textures are inspired by Hydrans and Lyrans but not based on the tmp designs.
They are original. Now all I have to do is call them Hirpozine's and Litopacforms instead of Lyrans and Hydrans. Then they would have no ties to ST or SFB. My Lyrans(Litopacforms) I made for my mod are listed as exclusive to the ROK mod, for personal use only. Kinda wonder where they might turn up.

[S33K100]

Even if paramount owns the rights to a ship design, they don't own the actual model and textures. The modeler put their time and effort into making such a ship and that alone should entitle them to some degree of ownership. I'd hate to think that someone can just come along and take a scale model of a P-51, the HMS Victory, or the Enterprise A just because the one who put the ship together didn't design it. People tend to forget that just because they didn't design a ship, it doesn't mean it still isn't there's, at least on some level. This is our hard spent time, effort, and in some cases, money that is put into these models. The fact we expect nothing more than a little credit and respect in return isn't much to ask for, is it?

If I remember correctly, you can't claim ownership of any Model based on anything Star Trek (or something else like Star Wars for example) because Ownership implies that you either purchased or can sell on the item. If you created the Model yourself, you can only claim "intellectual copyright" - which means that the idea was yours. You can't actually claim ownership of the design (exception is to totally original designs, whether designed for use in a Star Trek game or not) if the model has some basis on a copyrighted design. For example, anything with a saucer is not a totally original design, as you are not the person who came up with the saucer concept. Someone else conceived it and has a patent on it. That is why Models have to be distributed for free.

I'm sure all Modders (including myself) make every effort to obtain permission for the Models they use in their mods. But nobody is perfect, even the most meticulous modder can make simple mistakes.

The point is though Paramount couldn't just come along and say - we came up with the saucer so every ship here with a saucer is our property, even models of the Enterprise they are not legally able to claim possesion of the individual model as they had no part in the model's creation, only the design behind it. So the modeler couldn't sell it, but likewise Paramount couldn't come and take it away. Not that they'd bother as they're too busy running the franchise into the ground to notice us.

[Katherine]

It would surprise you just what ViaCom is capable of doing.  It's not Paramount you should be worried about, it's Viacom themselves. Anyone who is a member of this board who remembers the last time Viacom entered its mass hysteria in the mid to late 90's will tell you what they can do.

Over 100 Star Trek fan sites closed within the space of 2 months.  Some of those sites were the backbone of the Star Trek RPG community.  My late sister and the co-founder of the original Armada Clan Directory ran one of those sites.  Even if the site had minimal Star Trek content, even if the site had images that were not directly related to Star Trek but had ties to that franchise...the site was closed.  Viacom started to get worried about the amount of sites that was displaying Star Trek imagery and other Star Trek related materials.  From what i remember (this was a long time ago) Viacom went on the offensive when 2 sites entered a legal arguement and threatened to drag Paramount into it.  Viacom nipped it in the bud before it could spread.

I dont think a lot of people in here remember those days.  I do, it wasn't nice.

The point of the matter is it doesnt need to be obviously Trek related.  It can have the minimalist of ties, the minute someone or some site claims full copyright and ownership of any kind of item they will see the power that Viacom really has.  As long as modders dont start making money from there models (as in selling them to downloaders) everything is fine.  The second that happens the sleeping giant that is Viacom will step in.  Ownership of said models, well, the DMCA takes effect to an extent.  Anything published on the web that has credit where credit is due is considered to be "owned" by the original artist and/or author.  The ships out there with no readme is basically in limbo, and thats the problem.

STGD in it's entirety is a fully registered site with the DMCA.  We had to cover our backs from the early competition ripping the actual site off, copying the WHOLE site and claiming it as there own, and that has happened countless times during the past 5 years.

There has been cases of modding for Star Wars games that NEARLY caused Lucas Arts to step in and start slapping people around, luckily enough things calmed down before that happened.

[NannerSlug]

yeah, i remember that incident.. it started because 2 or 3 sites started charging money for somthing.. then they cracked down HARD. i remember that vividly.

[NannerSlug]

what is tera's site.

thanks in advance.

[manitoba1073]

as i have stated before anyone one who has gotten a converted ship from me knows all readmes r intact and i just add the line converted to sfc3 by me. if that is a prob with anyone let me know and i will do like i do with other ships from games and include a second folder in the file with all the original data, yes it makes for a huge model folder but it is only fair i believe that they then r intake in full. as please terra what ever u do DONT LEAVE US.  and i am not sure if i have any of ur ships, but i have seen them and they trully r amazing, sorry u dont sfc3, but i do like it, and i do really like ur ships they would be even better looking in sfc3, i feel sfc3 brings the best out of a model in any of them games. doesnt matter how the game plays they do look awesome in it.

[NannerSlug]

agreed 'toba!

[Katherine]

yeah, i remember that incident.. it started because 2 or 3 sites started charging money for somthing.. then they cracked down HARD. i remember that vividly.

Changed days now though

Now we have one of Viacom's higer ups (*waves to Harry, i bet he's already read this) actively participating with STGD, STGU and d.net which is MASSES of Trek related imagery, downloads, links, articles, posts etc etc etc.

[J-O-K-E-R]

I really don't see what the problem is here, no one altered your work (as far as looks), no one is making or has made any money from your work, no one is claiming your work as there own.
If anything I would think you'd be honored to have your work in a mod.
Happy that people are getting enjoyment from something you did.

From what I can tell, your pissed off because there converting it to sfc3, just because you hate sfc3 doesn't mean you have to throw a fit.

I don't think there is one modeler here that wants to see his/hers work end up on a butcher block, like MUDD said, if you put it up for public download, this kinda crap will eventually happen.

This subject makes me think of a child, when another child takes one of his toy & starts playing with it, that child starts crying out loud in hopes that someone will comfort him with attention & help him get his toy back.

Instead of getting pissed off & going over & TAKING his toy back & saying "THIS IS MINE" & then kick his ass!!

The moral of this stupid little post is, Stop whining & go kick some ass!!!


THIS SUBJECT IS OLD & BORING !!!

[Starforce2]

well said Joker.

[Red_Green]

Well I don't agree with you Joker or SF2. From being around these forums and games For 3 yeards(close enough)  I feel I have gotten more grief than any satisfaction. Anyone is entilted to set what ever boundaries or restrictions they want on there work. If you do't agree with there restrictions or beliefs, calling them childish is childish.

Now for my soap box. Before I started modeling I really enjoyed Star Trek. But I still can't get over how serious everyone takes this stuff. I hate all the infighting between game versions, All the bickering over different eras. In short, for me these forums and modeling ST has zapped most of the fun and taken the innocence out of ST for me.

I been thinking about this for a while. And I am so close to finishing my ROK mod, but perhaps I burned out doing it. I feel like if I released it, all I would get is more grief about fixing the balance and stuff. Like people who d/l stuff for free act like you owe them something after you spend months on  a project. Anyway Its like time for a big break again.  I doubt I will be back. Cause I never really found a 'click here after all this time.  Also think its sad that modelers can't even agree to support one another. When your hobbie is more a source of frustration than joy its time to move on.

Cya's