Topic: Lawyers and stuff...

[T' Kang]

*Disclaimer* I am not an attorney. In many jurisdictions it is “illegal” to give any “legal” advice without being licensed by the State Bar Association. For the sake of casual conversation: when dealing with a part of “the *.mod” I do not know. The tools to convert are Taldren’s (actually the bankruptcy receivers). The *.mod format used by the game converts the models from the licensed AutoDesk’s 3DSMax to the realtime (Quicksilver?) engine in SFC3. From that point, now in the format to be used by the game it is either “illegal to be used-distributed” or identified as “New Game Materials,” and it falls under the EULA. If dealing with reality involving “Art Work” (aka a model), it all comes down to who has the copyright. Intellectual property falls under a different set of rules.

We have orchards around here so; the conversion might be like this: I can buy some fertilizer for my palm trees (legal). I can buy some fuel oil-diesel (legal). I mix them together, and blow up stumps on my property (legal); I might have problems without having an explosive license. The license is the EULA (legal). No license to use explosives might be deemed very illegal. I also had it explained as you have some tomato seeds and throw them on someone else’s property. The plants grow. You take the tomatoes off the plants, and eat one. What do you think can happen?

I am just an engineer.  I had the “game stuff” explained to me like this:  The “land” is owned by Viacom (they own Paramount). The “apartment building” is owned by Activision. The “construction-contractor” that built the building is Taldren. I am the “renter” of the apartment.

I can buy some cans of paint and a roll of carpet. I “borrowed” some of the tools for installation from the contractor. I now install the carpet and paint the walls. The paint and carpet is now part of the apartment building. The permission to do it is part of the agreement you have on your apartment lease (EULA). The operative part of this is that the end user “owns” nothing. As a renter I can do a lot of things with the apartment, but there are many things I cannot do, but I do not own anything.