This is probably all particularly relevant if Warsmash gains more traction. I already have videos on my YouTube channel of playing maps that included @UjimasaHojo models downloaded from Hive, among others - but where the map was played on Warsmash, which is more derived from LibGDX, Ghostolf mdx viewer, and Retera Model Studio than it is from the Warcraft III game.
I have had at least one goober on Discord make claims to me that he was going to edit Warsmash to put new/different art, and then publish the result as an RTS on Steam for profit. (This was probably back when Warsmash was listed as MIT licensed, although it is now listed as AGPL.)
I am doubtful whether the fellow followed through with his plan, but I didn't really pay attention.What if he did? Would Hive artists be incensed if their MDX files show up in a Steam game? I would sort of assume so, but only for some of them. How do you know which ones?
Free Libre Open Source Software is a matter of principle: is it mine, can i sleep at night, or is my effort subject to legal claim by others? knowing licensing leaves no room for vague speculation. good sleep with a good license, i say.
We want that principle. But how do you get it? What if it is a lie?
I am going to write something here which I hope will keep you well-informed and thoughtful, even though the act of me writing this betrays the trust of a past associate and indicates to the world that
you should not trust Retera with your secrets anymore:
In 2022, I made a very stupid parody of myself on my YouTube channel. I had lost my job, been rehired, and was about to leave on a long, strange vacation. So I pretended to disappear like Bilbo Baggins putting on his magic ring, and I put a bad photoshop of a cease and desist letter (as if from Activision Blizzard) in the background.
Before I deleted the video 2 days later, it received more attention than all the creative modding content I had previously published, combined. Then when I deleted the video, the YouTube metrics indicated that 80+% of viewers were clicking a link from Reddit, watching 15 seconds of the video despite it being several minutes long, and then leaving.
So, none of these people were interested in me or my life story or the truth of what was happening. They were there because
some force other than me online wanted to further damage Activision's reputation. And I had accidentally become useful to
that force for this purpose - because it knew people aren't interested in details.
But this is where the story took another interesting turn that not very many people know about, and that I'm "not supposed to tell you" for some reason. Someone online purporting to be a former Activision employee or contractor reached out to me to express their condolences, and indicated that
Activision had also taken legal action against Loria RTS and Purple War RTS, forcing these to become free to play or to be taken down, based upon the premise
that these games look vaguely similar to Warcraft III RTS. (Of course, this person probably later realized that my project had not been issued a take-down notice, and so I was not under any pressure from Activision to do anything, really, nor to be silent, about anything.)
I made a YouTube video making fun of this called, "Retera Finds the Evil Plans," expressed as a Warcraft 3/Warsmash cinematic (
), but when people asked me about it I told them that it was totally made up because I figured it was better for the poor sod who confided in me about Activision's past activities on this topic if folks thought it was a joke I dreamed up.
I am under no NDA, and no agreement, pertaining to Warcraft or Activision/Microsoft. I can say that you should watch "Microsoft Sucks," an excellent YouTube video by the creator Dunkey. I can say that Microsoft and Activision are poo poo/pee pee heads, or that they sent a Cease and Desist letter to Osama bin Laden to stop him from doing terrorism in Loap maps, and yet he kept doing it. I can say any silly thing, but a question you might ask yourself is: what do you believe? Do you really believe that you would sleep well at night if you made your own RTS? Why? The legal system in most countries is not based on what is true versus what is false. Rather it is based on who has the most money. Do you have the most money? If not, why would you sleep well at night?
Look up Uzi Nissan. This man bought "nissan.com" and was its rightful owner, because he ran his own store named after himself. But Nissan cars bullied him for a dozen years and cost him millions of dollars so that he could keep his rightfully purchased domain. They got courts to file official rulings that he could not speak bad of Nissan cars, which he then overturned and filled his website with notes about how "NISSAN CARS SUCKS" for a few years, etc. Then when it seemed he had finally won, he died of COVID19.
There are people whose entire job is to make the law service the needs of wealth, and the law is written to be so nonsensically complicated that it can always be bent to their will. I have even had Hive posts of mine deleted mysteriously for speaking bad of Microsoft in the last 6-12 months. Evil walks among us, why the heck would you think you could "sleep well at night" if not but for your own willingness to demand it to be so until death?
We all want the right to sleep comfortably, but some of us want it a little bit more than most people. I'm going to take a nap.
