Authorization to use sprites for a non commercial game

[ChrisProject]

Hello ZDoom Community,

I've been working on a retro FPS, and I'm concerned about the intellectual property of the sprites I plan to utilize.
It's a NON-commercial project, but will be publicly available, my project is being developed as a showcase of my professional abilities to draw recruiter's attention.

I discovered Vostyok's Firearms Amnesty sprites (update 25/02/22), but I'm not sure how to approach him to obtain his authorization. Has he left the forum?

viewtopic.php?t=69152

I would also like to use Bethesda sprites and Project Brutality or others Doom mods but would prefer to avoid legal issues with them.

I am totally inclined to make a donation to the "Sprite makers", otherwise I am open to discussion about hiring a professional game sprites designer for five weapons, and one or two enemies.

How should I manage the legal aspect?

I would greatly appreciate any assistance on the matter.

Best regards,

Chris

[Caligari87]

I would also like to use Bethesda sprites and Project Brutality or others Doom mods but would prefer to avoid legal issues with them.

So the very short answer to your overall question is that any resources (sound graphics etc) based on the commercial ID games are considered very much copyrighted, full stop. The mitigating factor is that id Software (and by extension Bethesda) have carved out a little niche or blind spot where you're allowed to use them as long as it's for a mod that still requires the commercial IWADs. So as far as a "standalone" project, it's technically not allowed. Practically speaking you probably wouldn't get in trouble, but mostly because it's not worth their time and money to take action on it.

For work by community authors then obviously the author's copyright terms also apply. In this case, Vostyok said "And please do help yourself" so the implication here by my reading is that you're free to use these, presumably with credit to the author. Vostyok is also active on some other platforms like ModDb I think, so you could try contacting them there if you're worried about it.

[Gez]

I discovered Vostyok's Firearms Amnesty sprites (update 25/02/22), but I'm not sure how to approach him to obtain his authorization. Has he left the forum?

Vostyok is active on Doomworld and on ModDB.