The rule about map protection

[Retera]

Map protection CAN stop something. Something is better then nothing. Breaking news.

But the way you quickly make a claim like this is the reason for this discussion, is it not?

I am now really curious to review when I have some time what was the original point of this thread. Because we seem to be jumping between two topics as though they were the same. And I would argue the following are not the same -- are we debating:
1.) Whether to allow technology discussions regarding how to modify a map file (as a technology, removed from some map specific politics)
2.) Whether to dishonor ownership rights of a map/model author years later and override their copyright/IP claims to their work and declare it as public domain

In my opinion these two are broad and different topics. It seems like I am seeing myself reading people offended because I am in favor of #1, whereas they think I am saying I am in favor of #2, which is not what I meant to say. I would have to think a lot harder if I was going to vote in a poll for example about whether I support #2, since it is an important topic. But #1 in my opinion is separate. More separate than some people think it is.

And that gets back to the original claim being made -- "map protection can stop something." Can having a common understanding of honoring the rights of authorship stop something? What if you trust others instead of focusing on limited scope technological file corruption/ damage?

 

[Ralle]

1.) Whether to allow technology discussions regarding how to modify a map file (as a technology, removed from some map specific politics)

I guess that's mostly what this thread would be about. And everyone seems to be for allowing the talks about how this technology works and so on.

2.) Whether to dishonor ownership rights of a map/model author years later and override their copyright/IP claims to their work and declare it as public domain

We do that already after thorough attempts at contacting the creator.

---

I guess we can remove the rule about map protection entirely, but emphasize elsewhere that the act of publicly (pastebin, map section, off-site linking) sharing someone else's altered map (e.g. deprotected) without direct/implied permission and without significant attempts at contacting him/her with assistance from the staff is not allowed.

 

[Retera]

I suppose it worries me a bit that a post I made from my phone on my way to go move some tree limbs around the yard is immediately picked up by the site owner and taken as being good policy. Am I that important? Probably not. [Yet? cough cough if Warsmash were finished.... cough cough]

I guess we can remove the rule about map protection entirely, but emphasize elsewhere that the act of publicly (pastebin, map section, off-site linking) sharing someone else's altered map (e.g. deprotected) without direct/implied permission and without significant attempts at contacting him/her with assistance from the staff is not allowed.

Specifically, I think that we should have this rule in a way that is based on author's copyright intention even if the map file is not damaged or corrupted. If I upload a stupid simple map called "Retera's Idyllic Paradise" with a lot of sheep, it seems like it would be good to have a way that I can tag the upload with a copyright designation that declares probably one of:

1.) Never modify Retera's Idyllic Paradise without permission from Retera.
2.) Modify Retera's Idyllic Paradise in limited ways that keep the original name but improve it
3.) Make literally whatever you want by using any portion of the data from Retera's Idyllic Paradise however you want

Ideally the copyright annotation would be a part of the map file itself that was not specific to this site, but (just a brainstorm here) it seems to me that it would be a possible step in the right direction to have the Hive site allow a copyright designation like this along with the map upload. Maybe in some sense this designation already exists with the "Open Source" tag, so maybe I am just imagining a world where the site database contents are more specific. Whether that's necessary or not, I am not sure.
But I would certainly enjoy it if some day Retera Model Studio had a button to browse Hive models. And when that happens, this topic will be really important to me. If I could perhaps enforce that users in an "edit" mode of sorts only see the models tagged as Open Source, this would save me a lot of headache regarding pinging people on Hive who might no longer be active begging for edit permissions. I have lived for a long time where I would shamelessly use in-game Blizzard models while making new ones (including dissecting them into their animations, and parts, etc). In some sense, I have almost never "added new models to that repertoire" because I did not want to deal with the problem of copyright and simply already accepted that for the purposes of making Warcraft III content, modifying Blizzard Warcraft III assets is always okay.
If I ever become a more serious contributor to HiveWE, what if I wanted to think and operate in the same way, but for maps?

But the next question is, does the Hive have the gumption to start blanket tagging maps older than a certain age with the "Open Source" tag even if that tag was not added by their original author, for example? I am not certain whether I would be in favor of that. It could potentially cause some serious drama or something. But I am asking, is that the kind of thing that anyone is actually planning to do?

 

[Drake53]

PS 3: If anyone ever asks for a map protector, link them to this tool (but it requires publishing to your users a modified Game.DLL that includes your RSA public key so that the game can identify the maps cryptographically signed by you): shawwwn/MapSigningTool

Any idea where blizzard's public key can be found? The repo doesn't seem to include it.

 

[Ralle]

I would be putting rules in place that can be uphold regardless of the existence of map protection. It is protection by policy on the site without paying attention to whether someone has corrupted a map. It seems to be more clean to me anyway.

I suppose it worries me a bit that a post I made from my phone on my way to go move some tree limbs around the yard is immediately picked up by the site owner and taken as being good policy. Am I that important? Probably not. [Yet? cough cough if Warsmash were finished.... cough cough]

You disregard the fact that I don't think myself as very important. And you're giving your own post too much credit. I do like the pretense that protection does not exist and write the rules to protect instead of relying on map protection.

 

[Wrda]

So, it's official now, or there's more to discuss?

 

[Ralle]

I've been busy with other things on the site and have yet to actually alter the rules. But yes, I feel like you can refer to this post as a start if you:

- Want to share information or ask for information on map protection.

But right now I'd advise against:

- Publicly sharing a map that's been repaired.

Until the rules are in place.

 

[Ralle]

I have not forgotten this yet. I just want to shed some light on how I handled this thread:

Open files in w3 maps

hello im new here i have try to open a warcraft 3 map but its protected i have try to remove protection of shopping maul 9.21 but i failed if anyone the knowledge he can chane settings in this map -xp x3 in all difficulties i have try to unpack this map to try open some single files but i...

www.hiveworkshop.com

By going via Retera's principle of "deprotection does not exist", submitting an edited version of someone else's map without their permission (whether it was deprotection or not) is what protects the map here.

If you want to deprotect and thus continue development of a map made by someone else, you ask us to help reach the author and ultimately give you a green light to continue development of it.