The Still New What Did You Last Do Thread

[SouthernLion]

You can't put double quotes inside double quotes.

While it is indeed annoying, in all honesty that seems kinda petty and not really warranting a "nasty message." It was probably a copy-paste job by an underpaid copyeditor who needed to get fifteen more stub articles on the site before the end of the hour and they didn't have time to worry about a minor nitpick like that.

That wasn't the only mistake, just the one that stood out to me. lol

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i forgot to post this here, but i put my songs i contributed to the TNT: Revilution soundtrack up on my Bandcamp a few days ago.

[Gez]

Anyone read through Mark Laidlaw's HL3/HL2:Ep.3 story?

Yeah. Pretty standard Half-Life fare: "we chase after a McGuffin, then it gets destroyed in a spectacularly pointless fashion, and the plot hasn't actually advanced one inch during the whole ordeal so we could as well just have not bothered".

[leileilol]

Here's hoping that shuts down a lot of that annoying "hl3" hype "meme". I was never looking forward to h2ep3 or "hl3" at any point.

[SouthernLion]

Wtf. I didn't even know people that didn't like Half-Life existed. Please don't touch me. I dont want halflife hater cooties. Lol. Jk

[phantombeta]

Wait, what the hell. Sgt. Mark IV has a Patreon now, where he posts Brutal Doom stuff as patron-exclusive content.
Doesn't that count as commercial use? (and, by extension, make it not fair use anymore, turning it into copyright infringement)
How the hell have Zenimax's vampi- lawyers not C&D'ed him yet???
(Something to mention is that Patreon allows you to specify what you're creating. He set that to "Doom mods". Definitely sounds like at least trademark infringement.)

By the way, I'm not trying to stir up shit, I'm just legitimately wondering how Zenimax has not noticed this yet. I remember DoomRL's website got a takedown request for having "Doom" in its name and search engine keywords list.
And I think Brutal Doom is more famous than that fangame is/was. And BD actually uses assets directly taken from the game, along with assets and sounds from other games. (last time I checked it did)

[Shadelight]

It's Brutal Doom, it can get away with anything because its fanbase simply does not care. To the vast majority of newer players, that's "Doom" to them.

[phantombeta]

How does its fanbase not caring stop Zenimax from issuing a C&D, specially when they have every right to do so? (and in this case, IIRC they could get in trouble with taking down rip offs and such later because it's using the Doom trademark. If they don't do anything about this now, one could later point out how they didn't take Brutal Doom down when it was infringing on ZeniMax's trademarks and copyright)
Another problem is that it uses sounds and assets from other games. The companies who own those games' copyrights and trademarks can also C&D BD.

[Rachael]

If you want, you can report it. Make sure to include the Patreon link. Just look for legal contacts on Bathesda's web site.

If you don't, someone eventually will.

[DoomKrakken]

I don't see how it's not legal, though... I mean, all Sarge is doing is letting you in on some of his Doom projects before they're released... and the highest tier lets you get custom versions of Brutal Doom with other weapons. It's the same concept as commissions others for artwork on deviantART or Patreon, even for fanart for copyrighted characters (there are many, MANY places on deviantART that do this... they're some of the more elite artist on deviantART). But it's not even like you're paying him. You're donating to him. All he's doing then is giving you access to stuff he's making.

People often seem to forget that Patreon is an exchange of support and donations for optional rewards.

I'm being commissioned to make Project Brutality compatible with Guncaster. That's basically the same thing. It's exchanging a donation (not a payment, mind you), for a service. In Sarge's case, you can have the original mod author modify his mod for you, rather than you doing it yourself.

To add, Brutal Doom is still free. Now, if Brutal Doom was only available via donation via Patreon, then I'd see a problem with it.

[Rachael]

It's a legal gray area, and it's actually very easy to see where potential problems lie.

Just because you are doing it and not getting in trouble for it doesn't make it legal.

But of course just because someone tells you it's illegal doesn't mean it is. I am no lawyer but I would not be too sure about your position on that, DoomKrakken - either way, it's better to err on the side of caution (and fully research it, and discuss it with lawyers if possible) than find out the hard way.

[SouthernLion]

He's making profit on copyrighted work. The literal word copyright means by definition that you cannot do that, and it is illegal.

[SouthernLion]

Wow, I went to check on an old account of mine on YouTube. My Mega Man 3 DOS video has 46,000 views. That doesn't sound like a big number to you guys, but the fact that forty-six THOUSAND people watched me play a terrible DOS port at 4AM in my underwear is a little strange to my mind.

Now if only I can get that many views on upcoming videos I want to do. lol

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[Viscra Maelstrom]

i'd assume that viewings for your video might have spiked when the Mega Man AVGN video was released last year, and people looked up gameplay footage of Mega Man on DOS and came across your video. i could be wrong though.

it reminds me of when one of my MIDI tracks got reblogged on my tumblr page a few years ago, which led to a slew of unexpected likes, reblogs and plays of that song to various other tumblrs, or how a remix of a meme song on my Soundcloud gave it over a thousand total plays, almost 2k even. of course, none of my other songs on either platforms ever spiked this high.

[phantombeta]

I don't see how it's not legal, though... I mean, all Sarge is doing is letting you in on some of his Doom projects before they're released... and the highest tier lets you get custom versions of Brutal Doom with other weapons. It's the same concept as commissions others for artwork on deviantART or Patreon, even for fanart for copyrighted characters (there are many, MANY places on deviantART that do this... they're some of the more elite artist on deviantART). But it's not even like you're paying him. You're donating to him. All he's doing then is giving you access to stuff he's making.

People often seem to forget that Patreon is an exchange of support and donations for optional rewards.

I'm being commissioned to make Project Brutality compatible with Guncaster. That's basically the same thing. It's exchanging a donation (not a payment, mind you), for a service. In Sarge's case, you can have the original mod author modify his mod for you, rather than you doing it yourself.

To add, Brutal Doom is still free. Now, if Brutal Doom was only available via donation via Patreon, then I'd see a problem with it.

The tiiiiiny problem with that is that, as far as I know, in US law* "commercial use" means basically "absolutely any way to earn money with something at all". Including donations. (And yes, people actually can't make commissions of fan art. I remember some person who made MLP plushies who got C&D'd by Hasbro)

I'd also like to point out how ZeniMax demanded for DoomRL's creator to remove all references to the Doom trademark (the name and logo specifically, IIRC) from his fangame and the game's website, even though it was 100% free and IIRC there wasn't even any donation button.
And why did they do that? From what I remember, it was simply because the author's other game, Jupiter Hell, had a kickstarter. Said Kickstarter called the game a spiritual successor to DoomRL.
And keep in mind that DoomRL is 100% new content. The creator didn't even earn donations from it AFAIK.
Meanwhile, Mark is earning money from this. And he's using resources from the game itself. Keep in mind that ZeniMax only allows us to use Doom's resources because we aren't charging for it, and only in the specific IWAD it came from.
(We do ignore that last part, but AFAIK if some mod that puts the SSG in Ultimate Doom got famous and ZeniMax found out about it, they'd be legally required to C&D it or make a takedown request. We also use resources from other games and stuff where this doesn't apply at all, so, uh. This entire modding community is a huge gray area)

Honestly, I don't fucking care he's getting money because people like his stuff. If he wasn't mentioning or distributing BD anywhere in his Patreon and just using it as a tip jar/donation box I'd be okay with it. If he were making his own game with brand new content in GZDoom I'd be fine with it. My issue with this is how he's getting away with copyright and trademark infringement.

* US law is used here. ZeniMax is an US company, and so is Patreon, (You can even see it in the address bar of your browser. It's SSL certificate is literally registered to "Patreon, Inc (US)". It's servers are also likely in the US) so the law used here is literally US law.

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People often seem to forget that Patreon is an exchange of support and donations for optional rewards.

As something somewhat unrelated, some artists* don't use Patreon like that. They put their art behind a paywall at Patreon, and they never post this art anywhere else ever, even long after they made and posted it on Patreon. Non-patrons only get a few (usually less than 5) pictures per month, if at all.
This kind of bullshit shows how badly designed Patreon's system is, considering it allows this kind of bullshit.

I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to be more common with furry artists, I think.

@Rachael

I couldn't find the right place to report this, unfortunately. I'm probably just dumb and missed it or didn't look hard enough, though.