Leave Your MARK On Your Mods!

[Haoswidasee]

 

Heh. I suggested this in the thread that was about the 'texture stealing' not that long ago actually. Though I suppose if they wanted to steal it still they could erase your signature. But still. Maybe I should've put my signature on this idea!!!! (Seriously kidding, lol.)

 

Sometimes that 'stealing' doesn't even happen on purpose. Like someone mentioned in another thread: When you have hundreds of textures it gets difficult to track the sources.

 

That is much easier if everyone just adds a logo or a marker and contact info in the texture - maybe in the area that isn't used on the model in the game. A player wouldn't see it, but other modders would see the marker when they open the file.

 

Optimum would be: Logo for the players (visible area) and copyright marker + contact info for other modders (invisible).

 

You could even take it a step further and throw contac info/copyright info on the bottom of everything, since nobody sees the bottom of basically anything in fallout 4. And a little Logo on the back of something, as an authors mark

[xxdeathknight72xx]

yeah, I install all of my mods into a folder labeled "xxdeathknight72xxMODS" for convenience on both ends
as for the art work, I sometimes add a little something just incase there is any discrepancy

[tomomi1922]

This is a suggestion for Nexus:

In the real world, photographers can "register" with the government their photos with the government (I forgot exactly where). It will make it legal that the photos belong to them. Sort of like patenting, but with a lot less process. This can be used later against people stealing their works in the court of law. I learned this from a seminar of a photographer 20+ years doing commercial photos for big corporations.

 

What Nexus can do: open this service to allow anyone to upload any art work (texture or 3D mesh) to have it "patented". They can charge a small membership fee (or maybe have this be part of the Premium membership feature). The difference with uploading a mod is .... register/patent an art does not have to make it downloadable (like a mod) to users. I can create a wonderful texture, but I have not yet found a way to use it for an outfit of my own .... I can patent this texture file, then show it on forum. Anyone uses my texture without my permission I can easily prove with Nexus archive, even if they uploaded on another side, I can still use Nexus archive to show their site admin. What the admin will do about it is of their own accord, but most reputable mod sites police IP stealing seriously.

Edited January 18, 2016 by tomomi1922

[Jeesmies]

My mods are the signature themselves

[bunneh13]

My mods are the signature themselves

how poetic :sleep:

[Nyquist]

I would personnaly be against leaving a mark inside a mod explicitly. Brand usage is a good idea albeit I would personnally never use brand clothes that have the it all over the backside nor would I use a body that has a watermark under the left foot of my character. Characters that are action figures are just not my thing. Such things should be best stored in metadata or in readme files. Also modders work should speak for itself anyways.

 

This answer is aimed at @tomomi1922

Textures and images fall under the copyright law. Meshes would fall in Europe under Industrail design rights and in the USA either under trademark or copyright law. Copyright protection comes into existance by the whole creation of the artwork itself. It does not need special registering and usually falls under the copyright law. I would certainly not trust that photographer's legal counsel. The best you can do is go to a notarius and get certified that he saw you with this exact object at that date. This is the law that lasts 75 years after author's death.

If another person uses your texture and adds enough original expression within your work it is no longer considered derivative therefore stands in its own right. In case of textures the limit is very very low to get into the creative expression barrier. How many cases of legal disputes have you seen due to in game textures between publishers? The modification is not required to be very important. Obviously the copyright infingement is tested for viability in court. As well as copyright can be challenged in court.

 

Meshes on the other hand protect the whole design element however not individual parts of it. As seen in prior cases if I suddenly started producing a car that has the front of BMW 7xx and the behind of Audi A8 obviously I would not be infinging upon the design rights of either Audi or BMW or both. Obviously design rights have to be requested and registered at the relevant authorities as well as paid for, for the requested duration.

 

And obviously it is the responsability of the copyright holder to verify if there is any infringment of his copyright. Unless the copright holder himself claims the infringement no third party may intervene by exerting the rights that are only his to exert.

 

Also there is no registry of all copyrighted work because it is just not needed nor possible to have.

 

I thought it is interessting to point this out since many people talk about copyright, trademarks, patents and so on but do not necesseraly know what is hidden behind it. Even in photographer's forums one can see impressive misconception to the "width" of the domain that that they percieve they are protected from.

[Boombro]

Okay, you guys may wonder how to make your mod safer.

In the early days of FO4 modding, a website stole mods. A thread was made and some talked and about this a rus dude said that happens a lot for rus mods, and said the best way to fight back is NMM installer mods.

So if you want to leave signature, leave it packed there.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Boombro

[Haoswidasee]

 

Heh. I suggested this in the thread that was about the 'texture stealing' not that long ago actually. Though I suppose if they wanted to steal it still they could erase your signature. But still. Maybe I should've put my signature on this idea!!!! (Seriously kidding, lol.)

 

Sometimes that 'stealing' doesn't even happen on purpose. Like someone mentioned in another thread: When you have hundreds of textures it gets difficult to track the sources.

 

That is much easier if everyone just adds a logo or a marker and contact info in the texture - maybe in the area that isn't used on the model in the game. A player wouldn't see it, but other modders would see the marker when they open the file.

 

Optimum would be: Logo for the players (visible area) and copyright marker + contact info for other modders (invisible).

 

 

People also need to understand that your logo should look great and overall improve the texture. If you have a low-quality logo that degrades your textures it's not worth using it. I would even think a cool little glow-in-the-dark cursive signature would be cool, like painters use but more awesome.

[Gruffydd]

You could even take it a step further and throw contac info/copyright info on the bottom of everything, since nobody sees the bottom of basically anything in fallout 4.

 

Heh...

Vault Dweller: "Hey! Why is 'Andy' scrawled across the bottom of my boot?"

[Haoswidasee]

 

You could even take it a step further and throw contac info/copyright info on the bottom of everything, since nobody sees the bottom of basically anything in fallout 4.

 

Heh...

Vault Dweller: "Hey! Why is 'Andy' scrawled across the bottom of my boot?"

 

Lol, is that a toy-story reference :D lol. GOLD