Have you looked at copyright law lately? It is my (admittedly non-expert) understanding that generally ANY redistribution of copyrighted material is forboden, whether for monetary gain or not. Anyhow, if it can be (moderately) easily worked around, there's no reason to step on toes. ya.. making a profit from sales isnt a deciding factor for copyright infringement.. its just one of the "usual" reasons people litigate...there are plenty of others (distillation of product value, injury to the brand etc etc) Its best to avoid the issues, rather than assume they wont arise. piracy is also forbidden but you dont see the companies go after every single pirate. just look at recent case of huge mod for skyrim, where after years of work on recreating LOTR story in it, all they got was "ceased and desist" letter from warner brothers due to copyright infringement. because its always the first warning before real lawsuits. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Warner-Bros-Shuts-Down-Fan-Made-Skyrim-Lord-Rings-Mod-46799.html i made mods for heroes of newerth, porting 3d models from TERA online, Land of Chaos online and other famous titles. nobody gives a damn. lots of guys were porting 3d models directly from starcraft and WoW. http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?223950-Lich-King-Arthas-Accursed as long as you dont try to sell it, there shouldnt be any problems. such mods do nothing but advertise the original game for free. its actually beneficial for the company who owns the title. with warner brothers case, they either have a game in works that might compete/overlap with this mod, or they are just haters. either way, 99.5% dont care about small mods swapping models and stuff.
