AToop1 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 (edited) Check out this topic: Link to Middle-Earth Roleplaying project forum post Basically MERP (which stands for Middle-Earth Role-playing Project) a total conversion mod for Skyrim was sent a cease and desist letter from Warner Brothers the current owner of the Lord of the Rings franchise. Right now they seeking to resolve this and continue modding. Try and spread this and gain support for the mod developers. Edited September 1, 2012 by AToop1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satorinu Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 (edited) I'm not a lawyer, but this is the case at least to my knowledge. They obviously, need a lawyer more than anything. (and have one.. and seem to comply with all the legal requirements : a lot of the forum posts even say this.) MERP can be sent all the cease and desist letters in the world, if they don't use a donate button : aka don't accept ANY donations at all what-so-ever even free muffins from fans or AD's on the webpage; at that point it's not something they can be legally fined for. It's just at home project being shared with friends non-profit and not for charity. Same with Morroblivion project. The only exception at all is if they are taking assets from say, Lord of the Rings games and using it in their project, at that point they are breaking TOS agreements they "sign" when purchasing the game; just as with Morroblivion's project - aren't allowed to directly transfer any asset of Morrowind; and why they had to build a on-the-fly converter so that your installed version of Morrowind would convert it's files to the needed settings and placement ect ect. They cannot claim intellectual property rights are being violated if no gifts/money changes hands, as the whole idea of copyright itself is just to protect x idea from being sold by another person within the limitation that your not directly 'taking' work someone else has put in and suddenly giving it away for free (pirates). Alternatively to deflect any lawsuits they can simply change the name of the mod to "Middle Nirn" and rename each city and character to some very slight difference. Indirect imitator's afterall are not illegal, as at that point it's just a re-imagining of the story, inspired by, but not directly the same and nobody is going to outraged that Legolas is now called Legolin .. and instead will just go into the construction set and rename people on their own time in all of ten minutes :tongue: The only reason I can see that WB would actually sue, is if they're stealing the voice files out of the movies rather than going to voice-acting websites and asking someone to do voices for them and I don't believe that's the case: So this is just a big company's set of lawyers trying to throw weight around and pretend they are actually earning the outrageous paychecks they get. Yay. Best of luck to them regardless; was never all that interested in the project myself but mainly just out of lack of belief they'd pull off anything of the scale I'd find worth investing time into 3; Then again I said the same thing about Morroblivion two years ago and .. here it is, with a Skyrim version on the way. Heh. Might have to peek in on project when this lawyer ridiculousness poofs. Edited September 1, 2012 by Satorinu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basescu Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 You might want to call it Middle Earth Role Playing Project in the title instead of MERP. Some people may not know what you're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AToop1 Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 (edited) Yeah your right. I started a new post since i cant figure out how to change title. I also don't know how to delete a topic. Edited September 1, 2012 by AToop1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basescu Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Maybe ask a mod? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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