Spring RTS Engine

How sure are you of the PD status of all Nanoblobs sounds and GLPness of Merc Squad?

I swear beep4.wav and beep6.wav from nanoblobs are used in TA:K, although with generic sounds like that it is hard to be sure.

I think a lot of the weapon sounds from both are also in Liero.

Trooper in Merc Squad is used in the defiantly not GPL Pure, how does that work? I won't use those sounds anyway so I'm just curious.

Google_Frog wrote:I won't use those sounds anyway so I'm just curious.

That sentence might merit you a "no answer/ignore" if you were asking me...

Anyhows, I can answer

Google_Frog wrote:Trooper in Merc Squad is used in the defiantly not GPL Pure, how does that work?

If you I, or anyone creates art resources, these will usually fall under copyright protection. That means I have a number of rights to that art - rights I have the ability to waive if I want (but the common case is "all rights reserved"). Now typically, licence agreements allow certain uses of the resource that are under licence - with a variety of possible, greater or lesser, restrictions and terms.

Now I as a copyright holder can potentially licence my art (or whatever) under multiple, even many different licences. So Argh licencing his trooper once under the GNU GPL, and a second time within PURE under a more restrictive licence, is not a problem. (Due to the terms of the GNU GPL, what he can't do is "withdraw" the Trooper included in MercSquad - but people would need to actually take it from MercSquad if they wanted the GPL licenced version).

Hope that clarifies on that issue.

Google_Frog question was more: Did Argh really create those sounds from scratch?

Hope that clarifies the question.

I won't use those sounds anyway so I'm just curious.

That sentence might merit you a "no answer/ignore" if you were asking me...

The qualifier is just for the trooper sounds. With them I don't need an answer.

Ah, apologies Google, I'd misunderstood that. I guess on top, I was a bit surprised you didn't just PM to ask, which added up to my negative take. I'll intervene no more.

The beep4 and beep6 are a tone generator I messed with and the clack of a keyboard key that I beefed up, respectively. Their superficial resemblance to other stuff is just that. I admit modeling the tone generator on an old Mac beep, though.

Er... we're talking LieroX, correct? If so, you might want to listen to the attached, which is in their source... lol.

And no, I don't give a hoot if they have some gun sample that sounds vaguely like one of mine. Gun sounds, especially the shorter ones, are pretty generic.

Anyhow, if you have any other concerns, PM me about it, I'll be happy to answer questions. This really should have been handled via PM from the beginning, tbh, but whatever.

Good to know. I figured I would post openly as BA is also looking for sounds.

SeanHeron wrote:actually take it from MercSquad

Are you sure? Assuming it's exactly the same file.

In short:
No, I'm not sure - I'm not a lawyer.

But the opposite case (ie you can take it from the PURE install, and then use it as "GPL licenced" - just because you know the exact same file is licenced that way) would seem pretty weird to me.

----------
In long:
Ah, I've thought of something to explain it (my gut feeling) by - the licence agreement (eg the GNU General public licence) is, from what I understand, basicly a contract that parties engage in (the licence itself describing the contract terms).

In the most simple case - the copyright holder passing on his work under a certain licence - that is still pretty clear. Where I start losing track is: eg when I pass on GPL software (that itself had been given to me). This is way beyond what I'm firm on, but I think in that case, each time it's handed to the next person, the licence is "silently" being endorsed by both - the one passing on turning into the new licensor, the new owner being licencee - who can then again licence it to the next (if you think of the usual proprietary EULAs, they almost always include a clause stating "sublicencing of the Software/media/game/whatever is not allowed" - which implies that in general it's a possiblity).

Anyway, to get back full circle to where we started, the licence/contract, (I would assume), has a defined subject matter - that software/media that is being passed on from one user to the next. Given all these assumptions, I don't believe the licence could additionally have influence over any media "outside" it's scope - even if that media is the exact same file.

Of course, actually proving where the file was taken from will usually be absolutely impossible in practice. So I guess in that regard, even it is the way I've described, the matter is perhaps moot .

If you look at the license as being applied to the work, rather than the particular copy, then it's probably permitted, otherwise maybe not. I wonder if a legal opinion is available, I'll search later.

1. The Merc Squad meshes actually aren't the same. They have a completely different uvmap and different meshes were part of the original exports.

2. The license in the release follows the work around, no matter what changes were made, unless the license explicitly allows you to re-license the work. If you "forget" a GPL license notice, for example, you're both violating the license terms (which require it to be physically present) and you're not magically immune to its terms, either.

However, the owner of the copyrighted IP can re-license anything he / she feels like, at least under U.S. law. What they can't do is to take work away from others, if it was previously released under license terms that allowed for different use.

In the specific case of binary-identical stuff, if I want to release a bitmap PD, GPL and (C), there's no issue with that; the issue is what people do with the resulting distributions. The fact they're all binary-identical is irrelevant.

Now, how would the original creator be able to prove that a copyright violation of the (C) version occurred, should that happen? Practical answer is, they could not, so enforcement of such a thing is unlikely to say the least.