Public Domain Meshes/Textures/Sounds/etc

[TheMastersSon]

A longstanding issue on video sharing sites is usage of copyrighted music and other audio being used as background (and sometimes even foreground) material in other people's video productions. Somebody finally woke up and found a permanent solution to the problem, which is simply to start and maintain a database of public domain audio material with no copyright issues to deal with or even worry about (I won't link to them directly, but search for 'no copyright sounds' or NCS and you'll find it on Youtube and elsewhere), and I'm wondering if the same can or should be done for audio MP3s, NIFs, DDSs etc for games.

 

Are the file formats themselves, especially NIF and DDS, proprietary to game developers? Could a public domain database of these files be created without legal issues?

Edited July 27, 2016 by TheMastersSon

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, with NIFs I rather doubt it, as it is a GameBryo engine proprietary format indeed, and as far as I'm aware is only used inside Bethesda games so far, thus likely their proprietary file format.

 

DDS, however, is a file format proprietary to Microsoft's Direct-X, so maybe Microsoft's proprietary ownership, but I've seen a lot of games, commercial or not, using it by now and have in fact used it myself back when I was still creating my own 3D render engine years and years ago at university.

 

You will definitely have more luck with finding the resources you're looking for in different, more open formats, like .3ds or .blend files directly instead. But 3D models and the like released in the actual Public Domain like ages old music pieces for example is something I haven't seen happening myself so far, yet. There's a lot of "free" resources out there for sure, but those aren't actual Public Domain but rather underly very open and free licensing terms instead.

 

For what it's worth, keeping the previously mentioned points in mind, I've already seen quite some resource lists coming close or similar to this before by now, so it's definitely not impossible, or illegal, to do. After all, even here on Nexus there's a category, or tagging, to mark a resource as a Modders' Resource already as well, which is likely the closest you will get to what you want here in many points of this specific regard anyways.

[TheMastersSon]

Thanks for the info. What confuses me is, if NIF is a proprietary format, doesn't inclusion of them in modders' resources require licensing from Gamebryo? Public domain textures wouldn't be of much use without meshes. :)

 

I imagined taking the modders' resource concept a step further, since they sometimes or often include attribution and other requirements. This would be entirely public domain with no restrictions whatsoever on modification or redistribution etc. Sounds like a no-go for NIF.