SSE Translation Permissions

[Starko187]

tl;dr: Do I need to ask every Orignial Mod Author for translation permissions, or can I translate and publish what I want and help the German Skyrim community?

 

Hi! I'm not a Modder, but a Skyrim SE Player. I'm from Germany and I have 200+ Mods installed. Nothing special. I tried to achieve a 99% German game. I Installed all mods with translation patches, where available, and I hit about 80% on the first try I guess.
Then I found out about about More Informative Console which allowed me to find out which mod was causing English descriptions etc. Through this, I found a few language files I missed. I jumped to about 90% German translation. But I wanted the 99%.

So I looked up about how to translate mods, because thanks to "More Informative Console" I knew which ones were causing me trouble. I found xTranslator and a Quick Start Tutorial. Enough to create my first two translations for Legendary Artifacts & Audio Overhaul for Skyrim SE. I'm now at about 98% and very happy!

Now I wanted to give back and publish those Mods on Nexus, and link them properly with the Original Mods, so everybody who might be interested, would see them on first glance at the Original page. I've already prepared the first Mod publishing completely, but the Mod page is still hidden.

I asked both Mod authors for permissions, as I have no clue what the proper way to handle translations is, but received no response, yet.

 

So my questions is, do I need to ask the original author for translation permissions, or can I just go on, as it helps the German Skyrim community?

And what if they don't respond? Do I have to keep those translation Mods a secret?

 

Thanks!

[DoctorKaizeld]

you can release patches without asking (though it is polite to do so) you cannot, however, upload the whole mod without permission though

[cumbrianlad]

Guten tag mein freund!

 

That's a good question and it's also good to see you asking it. Your mod would probably be taken down if you break any permission rules.

 

I've been lucky so far, I've been able to use very few resources and if I think I could need one that needs permission I ask before I even start to use it in my mod. That saves a lot of work if I don't get permission or don't get an answer.

 

DoctorKaizeld is right. If a mod author requires permission to use their resources, you must get that permission.

 

You've probably done this but have you read the permissions and credits on the mods you are translating? Some authors will say in permissions that their assets are free to use without permission. I'm going to make my mod permissions like that and just ask for a credit to be given to me.

 

Also, does it look like the mod author is still replying to posts? If not and they have stopped modding, you could be in trouble... but not if they don't require permission to be given!

 

Before you do a major amount of work, you should always make certain that you don't hit a problem like this!