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Why are WoW models not allowed?

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Level 14
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As my very first post implied, I came here to debate the legitimacy behind the reasoning of the restriction of wow models when morality and legality were not factors because of its website advertisement and not whether gold selling is legal or not in your country.

When morality and legality are not factors? And yet all your posts keep talking about morality and legality? Really, try making sense. Or at least coherency.
 
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When morality and legality are not factors? And yet all your posts keep talking about morality and legality? Really, try making sense. Or at least coherency.
i believe you misunderstood, i stated the reasoning for hive restricting the use of wow models was not due to any moral or legality issues. if it was, they would not be promoting gold/account selling ads which (in your case, you say might or might not be legal). my original argument was examining hive not allowing something blizzard might or might not support (wow model ripping for wc3), while promoting ads of something blizzard most definitely does not support (gold/account selling). Your reply to my first original statement emphasized that it was ok because it was not illegal, which to say the least can not be proven either way on this forum. the same goes for copyright infringement since there are many exceptions to consider. justifying there was nothing wrong with gold selling because it wasn't illegal or enforceable in some countries, and saying it was immoral to rip wow models for wc3 because they are stolen is an idiotic hypocrisy. after someone stating the use of copyrighted wow models is stealing, i added that selling gold for profit that you do not own and do not have permission to sell which is property of blizzard is just as well stolen propery too. you griffen, brought it to yourself to argue a license agreement has no enforceability rather than justify the logic Hive has displayed that i was talking about. we can debate the legality of both all you want. but neither of us are going to produce any perfect evidence that is going to change ones mind over the matter.
 
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justifying there was nothing wrong with gold selling because it wasn't illegal or enforceable in some countries, and saying it was immoral to rip wow models for wc3 because they are stolen is an idiotic hypocrisy.

You've yet to establish that gold selling is immoral at all. WoW model ripping though has been established as immoral. Hence your argument fails.
 
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When did I equate morality and legality? The two are distinct, but tend to overlap.
you have yet to explain how model ripping has been established as immoral. your comment was emphasizing model ripping was immoral because you say it is illegal. my response to that was copyright infringement in your country may not be considered an infringement in my country, so does that make it morally right? no. legality does not in turn define morality. You say they are both distinct but you just said model ripping has been established as immoral because it could be an infringement which is exactly the opposite of you just said before. in fact, i have yet to see any statement by blizzard giving permission to modify and redistribute their copyrighted models for warcraft 3 either so according to your definition of copyright infringement, this is illegal and immoral as well. permission has been granted to use their editor and nothing more. however, with most games with modification communities, it is assumed you have the right of fair use.
 
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Right of fair use for the game. Not right of fair use for every other game. So well done on making the point you're arguing against.
wrong, right of fair use is not limited to the game itself... there are many exceptions to be determined with how a copyrighted entity is being used and to what degree. again, law does not consider trivial matters an infringement.
 
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wrong, right of fair use is not limited to the game itself... there are many exceptions to be determined with how a copyrighted entity is being used and to what degree. again, law does not consider trivial matters an infringement.

Ripping and then distributing art files for use in a different game is not fair use of the product, as it goes beyond the realms of the product. The law does not let things go just because they are 'trivial'. Whether you believe it is 'trivial' or not does not change liability or criminality at all, although it will affect the odds of someone sueing you or pressing charges.
 
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Ripping and then distributing art files for use in a different game is not fair use of the product, as it goes beyond the realms of the product. The law does not let things go just because they are 'trivial'. Whether you believe it is 'trivial' or not does not change liability or criminality at all, although it will affect the odds of someone sueing you or pressing charges.
No, there are many factors of fair use not limited to only educational purposes. The transformative or derivative use of the material such as how the copyrighted material is going to be used differently by the recipient as well as the nature of the work and the quantity of copyrighted work used as a whole (game of WoW for example). it also depends on the intended use of the work such as commercial or personal purposes. for this reason, music sampling, use of copyrighted images for trivial uses such as buttons or thumbnails, parodies, and tv commercial ads are generally protected by the fair use policy.

This has nothing to do with if I believe it is trivial or not, the law does not deal with trivial matters such as examples I have listed above in most cases as well as many other situations i have not listed. if law does not consider the case at hand an infringement then, it is not illegal. now, as anyone should know, every case in the court of law is treated differently no matter how similar they might be and fair use has a lot of leeway that all comes down to the courts decision whether or not the case at hand is portraying a fair use of copyrighted material. there is no standard yes or no to any laws in any situation, else we would not need attorneys now would we.

the use of copyrighted material such as the use of wow models for wc3 clearly fits into the fair use exception. however, to put it bluntly, you can just as much prove it is illegal as I can prove its not. it can be debated endlessly but nothing will come of it.
 
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Using it in a commercial, competing product most definately does fall outside of fair use. So massively outside of fair use that it's not even funny, particularly since you are distributing it (and cannot avoid distributing it). You can't claim it's transformative or derivative either, as edited models are accepted by the Hive I do believe.

The law deals with every and all cases where it has been broken, trivial or not. Everytime. That's why it's a law. The prosecutors / plaintiffs may ignore trivial offences, but they are still offences in the eyes of the law.

TV commercial ads and parodies and stuff aren't allowed because they are trivial, but because they are important for free expression and discussion.

The fact you use 'clearly' in terms of copyright law really, really makes you look totally stupid and/or biased.
 
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You know what, to put it bluntly:

"WoW rips are not allowed because we said so, if you don't like it, gtfo."
Finally a good reason. This reason is valid, and non-hypocritical. If everyone would just admit that the above is the reason for the rule, and drop all their imaginary moral and legal pretenses, all of these arguments would cease.

You've yet to establish that gold selling is immoral at all. WoW model ripping though has been established as immoral. Hence your argument fails.
You've yet to establish why model ripping is any more immoral than gold selling. Hence your arguments have been failing for a while.

The WoW people have made it clear that while they do not specifically endorse WoW model rips, they're definitely okay with it, and are interested in seeing what is done with them, because they think it is cool. If the owner is okay with you using his property in some way, then there is nothing immoral about using it in that particular way.

Gold Selling both breaks a contract, and is exploiting someone else's property for profit - when you explicitly don't have the right to do so. It's kindof like if someone goes and borrows your lawnmower then rents it to their friends for money. They have no right to do so, even if they have the right to use the lawnmower due to your permission.

I whole heartedly agree with elenai and ht, and there are lots of good reasons to keep wow model rips off the site, plus they have the right to do so (keep WoW models off the site) - but your morality argument is fail, and the force of it's fail has been the driving force of this thread for months.

If everyone had taken the stance Elenai and HT just backed from the beginning, this thread would not have needed to pass one page. On the plus side though, checking this and seeing the funny crap people have posted has brightened my day many times.
 
Level 14
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The WoW people have made it clear that while they do not specifically endorse WoW model rips, they're definitely okay with it, and are interested in seeing what is done with them, because they think it is cool. If the owner is okay with you using his property in some way, then there is nothing immoral about using it in that particular way.

PR people don't know shit and can't authorise anything.

Gold Selling both breaks a contract, and is exploiting someone else's property for profit - when you explicitly don't have the right to do so. It's kindof like if someone goes and borrows your lawnmower then rents it to their friends for money. They have no right to do so, even if they have the right to use the lawnmower due to your permission.

The situation is consierably different because we're talking about bits and things which Blizzard could create an infinite amount of, which cannot be damaged, and which you have sole use of after you gain in game, under the basic implied contract of playing the game. Whether or not it breaks a EULA is pretty irrelevant most of the time for morality (most stuff does), and legality it's still a thorny issue as to whether it's legally binding or not.
 
@Void.... dude, get a life

for the rest, basing you models on exported models from any game gives you good practice for later doing your models completely yourself, there is no harm in learning. ( even if the models are ugly, that is probably why more then 10 milj ppl play this game, because the models are soooo ugly )

T.
 
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Why are you all continuing this discussion, this site does not allow WoW model and it is their problem and not ours. If this site decides not to allow WoW models because of whatever reason, then we can't help it.

It is seriously pointless to continue this and let's face it, THW does not like WoW models and this is the end of sentence.
 
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