Mod legal???

[putzboy]

Just curious if this project has lucasarts blessing? It would suck to get ones hopes up of playing the original dark forces again with modern graphics only to see the project shut down because of legal issues. Will there be some kind of check in the mod for the original DF cd (which probably most of us have)?

[VadWalker]

Originally posted by putzboy

Just curious if this project has lucasarts blessing? It would suck to get ones hopes up of playing the original dark forces again with modern graphics only to see the project shut down because of legal issues. Will there be some kind of check in the mod for the original DF cd (which probably most of us have)?

 

No its not illegal!

 

All they are doing is levels and sounds and skins and music to macth DF its not a copy they are starting basicly from scracth and useing some cut seans and voice acting as the go.

 

But if im wrong it would suck

 

:atat: lucas i bet wolnt care but if he does... :atat:

[ForceCommander]

there is no illegality in this project. they are not going to be selling their product, nor will they be passing the originality of DF off as their own. I'm sure that they will give credit to the original DF team as well.

 

And besides you can't believe that at least one person at LA hasn't visited jediknightii.net. I'm sure they already know all about this. If they are going to shut it down, they would have already done it by now.

[Darth_Linux]

My firm belief is that this MOD is completely legal for the following reasons:

 

1) users MUST own Jedi Outcast to play the MOD

2) the MOD does not in anyway modify the original Jedi Outcast pk3 files, .dlls, or .exe files

3) we give FULL credit to all original game designers from Dark Forces, we take no credit for ourselves other than in making our original works.

4) the MOD is made from 90% original content - all *new* models, art, cutscenes, level data and game code are original works (some models are obviously from JO, but you must have JO installed to get those models . . .)

5) the remaining 10% of the content (music, sounds) has been released and re-released by other third parties into the public domain a countless number of times with no action taken by LEC, so I believe, in good faith, that LEC does not mind the sound or music files being made freely available outside of the Dark Forces game proper. For an example, look on df-21.net for the page FULL of ripped sounds of Kyle and Jan all rearranged to make new cutscene dialogs. This is blatant distribution of copyrighted materials but LEC has not in 6 years foxed that page or ones similar to it.

 

We did email LEC numerous times before beginning this project asking for permission, and did not receive a reply. I believe that this amounts to tacet agreement for us to release this mod as we described it to them, which we have done (in demo form).

 

We've gotten over 40,000 hits to our site since we launched in August, so that is 40,000 pairs of eyeballs all looking at a mod which will gross LEC $50 a pop if they want to play the mod. That's $2,000,000 additional revenue if every visitor bought the game to play our mod. LEC would be pretty silly, IMO, to FOX this mod with that kind of potential extra revenue.

 

So again, I believe I and my team have acted in good faith in following the MOD License Agreement included with Jedi Outcast and we are making a completely legitimate add on MOD.

 

thanks for listening.

[michael_collins]

I love the "my team" bit Darth, its like something you would hear in an X-Wing book, Wedge looking out for his pilots. Thats the kinda loyalty that will finnish this project. Im not up on legal issues but that kinda loyalty is A) commendable and B) admirable.

[Darth_Linux]

Thanks Michael!