Topic: Nightsoft kitbashing, EULA and other misunderstandings....  (Read 1113 times)

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Offline Raven Night

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Nightsoft kitbashing, EULA and other misunderstandings....
« on: March 25, 2006, 12:28:33 am »
I thought I might clear the air here. I have seen some misinformation with respect to how we do business in this community and the next, and I wanted to give the info from the horses mouth, so to speak...First, our EULA that is included with every product we purchase or design...


===Add your own title here===

___________________________________________________

LICENCE FOR DISTRIBUTION

This mod is the property of Nightsoft, Inc.,
patent pending, and is not to be distributed for
profit, sold, bartered, rented, or otherwise used
for personal gain without express permission from
the owner. All rights are reserved.

Permission is hereby given to all that wish to
distribute or alter this mod, as long as the above
conditions are met and this licence is included in
the readme, and appears at the top of the document.
The mod must remain proprietory; usage is
restricted to SFC, BCk, KA and Armada. Any other
conversions will be considered if requested. You
must also secure permission from the original author
of the mod. If you wish to alter this mod in any
way, we ask that you contact the original author for
permission before you release it to the public. If
you do not follow the aformentioned conditions, you
will be considered in violation of this user
licence agreement, and will be subject to legal
action. Any and all subsequent alterations or
additions to this product, or any products that
contain this product in whole or in part are the
property of Nightsoft. Nightsoft reserves the right
to alter this licence at any time.

Thank you and enjoy.

Raven Night
CEO
Nightsoft

http://www.nightsoft.net
support@nightsoft.net
____________________________________________________

===Model name and type here===

Credits:
Concept: Raven Night
Model and textures:
Conversion, hardpoints:

Weapons:

===weapons information here===


General information:

===general information here===


http://www.nightsoft.net

============================================

STAR TREK: TM, ® & © 2006 Paramount Pictures.
STAR TREK® and related elements are trademarks of
Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
Nightsoft and the orbit N are registered trademarks
of Nightsoft Inc. All other trademarks and
copyrights are the property of their respective
owners.


Next, our policy verbatum on kitbashing and permissions....

Kitbashing and Permissions
Nightsoft supports kitbashing. We ask that permissions are secured as a courtesy to the artist, and we will not allow any product to be stored on or released from our properties without the express permission from the original artist. If proper credits to the original artist are displayed and placed in the readme and the post on the boards, however, we will not block an announcement on our properties for release of the product from a server or site that is not owned by Nightsoft EVEN IF SPECIFIC PERMISSIONS HAVE NOT BEEN SECURED. Nor will we block a user in this instance. If your work is truly original, IE; not based on copyrighted material, the preceding rules do not apply, and your work will be treated by Nightsoft like copyrighted material, with all rights and privileges thereof. If a public effort is made to secure permissions and the result is no response to inquiry, we will assume that permission is given and treat the post as such as long as credits are listed in the post and the readme, until such time as we are to think otherwise. Nightsoft reserves the right to modify this rule at any time and to decide to remove a post that displays a product regardless of whether permission has been secured or not. We reserve all rights in this manner, and no moderator or staff member is required to explain his or her actions or decisions to this respect.


Note that no file is allowed on Nightsoft properties if permissions have not been secured under any circumstances. We simply do not persecute those that will announce a release of a product IF the author is unable to be reached after a reasonably vigorous effort has been made. ANY patron that releases a product on our properties without the proper permissions, regardless of whether the author is available or not will be punished accordingly. This has been and remains our policy across our properties.

Now our policy on public release...

Note About Public Release
Nightsoft strongly urges all kitbashers to secure proper permissions. We respects the rights of original artists, but it must be said that public release of your work, outside of copyrighting that work, is public domain and opens it to alterations web wide. If you do not wish to have your work altered, you should not base your work on copyrighted materials. Original work is, however, protected by proprietary rights around the world. It should also be said that any artist is welcome to approach Nightsoft to secure compensation for their model, in order to facilitate universal permissions for kitbashing if so desired.


Note that original work, including work derivitive of copyright to the point it becomes original in it's concept is protected by this clause. The only type of model it does not protect are designs copyrighted by Paramount Studios, Viacom, Mad Doc, Activision, Interplay, Taldren, etc. Since we cannot protect the copyright of the company that owns the patent, we in turn cannot protect the author that copies the work.

Now, this in no way indicates that we do not recognize the amount of effort and hard work that goes into model making, even of canon designs. We respect the amount of effort required, and try to appease this group of modders within our legal abilities...but we are a commercial company, and therefore cannot defend illegal activity, such as copying copyrighted material for ANY purpose. If you choose to copy someone's work, someone may copy yours. It is the nature of the beast.

Now, as far as the sites we own...that would be our public sites, SFU, EFU and BCU. We do not own any sites on Files Network, nor do we own STGU or any sites affiliated thereof. We own quite a few sites on Gamespy, but they are privately owned and we are not involved in thier day to day activities. We have other investments in private Trek sites, but again, we do not engage in thier ongoing affairs. The only sites we directly control are the three sites mentioned above. BCFiles is not owned by us, nor is STGU or SFC3.net, or KA.com, and we have no control over what is released there and when/if, though with some of the sites mentioned we can have some influence.

We are always eager to help anyone in the community with a problem that relates to other sites, whether we have influence or not. Sometimes we are successful in our efforts, sometimes not. It is up to the individual owners of the aformentioned sites to determine whether or not they choose to follow our recommendations...we make no claims or warranties as to the success of such efforts. We will assist in any way we can, but that is no guarantee of sucess.

I hope this clears up this isssue with the patrons here so we can get back to making dreams come true....one ship at a time.
Never let your ego think or act for you..........me.


Offline Raven Night

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Re: Nightsoft kitbashing, EULA and other misunderstandings....
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2006, 10:19:32 pm »
Bump for Mark.
Never let your ego think or act for you..........me.


Offline Magnum357

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Re: Nightsoft kitbashing, EULA and other misunderstandings....
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2006, 04:58:40 am »
Sorry to ask a stupied question, but why would you put a copyright on a user created mode?  Are you planning to sell this or something?  Is so, is that legal?  I thought mods and such are strictly for Freeware use?

Just wanted to ask is all.
"I sure am glad I like SFB!" - Magnum357 (me)

Offline Raven Night

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Re: Nightsoft kitbashing, EULA and other misunderstandings....
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2006, 02:30:50 am »
The designs are original, and yes, we do plan to use them in a commercial product at some point. We never release or distribute any canon vessels.
Never let your ego think or act for you..........me.