i wanted to ask you, dark one, moderator, people who have somthing to say-

i happen to know that jannix quinn stopped modding caused copyright,, modding an DCL.. but i see modded DCLs all the time,, do you need to have premission from beth??

another thing, i have not jet seen anyone who had problems with copyright when modding SI, is there no copyright there,, for exsample: i saw a mod today that added the madness amor to the oblivion world.. isnt that illegal:??

but when you make something complety from scrath that is not breaking the copyright.. even if you make the exsact same thing as: lets say an amor from another game?? right?


i hope someone can clear this foggy land up for me..

Jannix Quinn wasn't actually modding a DLC, but using resources from a DLC in such a way that the DLC isn't required to use them. Similarly, just dropping some Madness Armor in Cyrodiil isn't copyright infringement because it still needs Shivering Isles to work. If said mod took the Madness Armor models and textures from Shivering Isles, packaged them in with the plugin, used those to make a new Madness Armor equivelant, then put it in Cyrodiil, it would most definitely be copyright infringement, effectively taking something that Bethesda is charging for and distributing it freely.

But "the line" is quite ill-defined. Many modders have sworn off modding DLCs out of the vagueness of it all. Bethesda didn't expect modders to be able to access the .BSA files at all, and by distributing (sometimes altered) the vanilla models and textures for even the retextured armors you see about might be copyright infringement. For that reason, since Bethesda hasn't exactly been cracking down on modders, nobody's really keen to ask them for an official stance on what's copyright infringement.

May be wrong, but I think there is no problem with Beth you modding a content the user "have". I's a complete "another thing" you placing material from DLCs that doesn't have it as requisite.

Note this answer doesn't take account for any particular case.

Edit: BTW you can modify copyrighted material you have license to do so. But not to "introduce" it at the environment the original lacks.

Ex: You can use textures from SI in you Cyrodiil located mod once the mod user have SI. You can't supply those textures standalone in your own mod.

I'm one of those modders that does not care to mod with DLCs.

As already mentioned, it was not necessarily "expected" that the BSA files would be extracted so that NIF and DDS files could be modified and redistributed. But, Bethesda has not "gone after" anyone that does it so long as the files are used for Oblivion mods, remain free and are not ported to other games.

The official stance of Bethesda (if asked) regarding the legality of modding for DLCs is that you should not redistribute any content (plugin, meshes or textures) that was contained in the DLC. With that said, they once again seem to be OK letting people mod for it if the plugin that is created requires the existence of the DLC and will not "work" without it.

This sounds like it is splitting hairs and it is. Realistically, you should not (according to their stated policy) redistribute anything (regardless of your mods dependency on the DLC). So taking a texture, changing the color from white to green and then uploading it as a texture replacer seems OK because it requires the DLC for it to be useful.

The flip side of the coin regarding the distribution of ANY assets (which is probably why they officially stay not to distribute any assets) is that if one modder distributes a mesh, another modder distributes a texture, one could (on their own PC) take both assets, put them together and create a plugin that uses both to make the asset available without the DLC requirement (NOTE: TESNexus would not host such a mod...knowingly).

Regarding the "creating from scratch" thing, it is generally OK to do such a thing but also know that some companies do not like their intellectual property being made freely available...especially if it might be in a competing market. There are many examples of this regarding LucasArts shutting down game modifications that attempted to create a Star Wars universe. I was once following a particular group that was making a Star Wars mod for a strategy game. It got shut down primarily because LucasArts was in the process of making a Star Wars strategy game and they would be basically competing in the marketplace against their own intellectual property.

Sometimes companies just like to make sure their IP is completely exclusive such as the BBC. I tried to get permission to create a mod that featured the likeness of a robot in their "Dr. Who" series but was denied permission as a general rule of thumb...it did not matter what game it was for, what genre, who was doing or if it was free or not.

The Vvardenfell Glass armor that I'm involved in is re-creating (re-imagining) the Morrowind glass armor and adding it in Oblivion and Bethesda doesn't have any problems with this as long as assets were not used from that game.

Well, that is about the limit of what I know about this subject. Keep in mind that I am no lawyer...so none of this would hold up in a court of law. You have to "figure things out" for yourself and make up your own mind if you want to create mods related to the DLCs. The most I will do is create completely new texture replacers (not re-colors) such as in Lost Paladins of the Divines which has a steel horse armor texture replacer.

LHammonds

that did the trick..

thanks guys..'

i will admit i mod DLC for fun and dont post it anywhere ae adding a level list to the Battlehorn Guards and makeing the Guard Captain Essestal but i only use Vallina oblvion items if i do mess around with the DLC nothing more


Col John Sheppard

Closed by request of OP