44RS, you keep assuming that this is what the work's author actually WANTS, though. You can't do that, and have to ask.
Haree:
Even if they have copyright on their work as long as you are not using it for profit or damaging any profit that the author is possibly making from it you are pretty safe.
This is incorrect. Several major not-for-profit mods have been closed down because they used other company's IP. Games Workshop routinely does this with people who attempt to build mods with Warhammer assets. Their extremely valid arguments for doing this have several points:
- users of the mod might confuse modmaker original customizations with actual endorsed originator content. An example is including light sabres in a Star Trek mod.
- the "brand" of the mod can be damaged. Example: a mod's maker includes a speculative sexual relationship between major characters that is told in an objectionable way.
- the mod maker combines unapproved assets from other mods (e.g. throwing a star trek model into a star wars mod) that IS legally improper to use, and the brand gets bad publicity as a result.
- to endorse and approve that any mod has suitability, the company would have to invest time and effort, and therefore money, and there is no profit in that exercise (much like when bounty runs out on an empire), and then they have to provide that service for every other modmaker out there.
I'm sure there are more good reasons, but it is
much cheaper for the company to just say "NO, you can't use my game's assets" than it is to try and recover from a black eye in the marketplace because some idiot built something that made them look bad.
-- Retro
