Table of Contents
1. Analogy Criticism
2. My Personal, and not so humble opinion
3. Political Comment
4. Amusing Information
5. Side note: It's still not theft
6. Conclusatory Statement
==1. Analogy Criticism==
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This iPod is made by Apple. Therefore, I think I'm entitled to an iPhone as well.
Look, you bought WARCRAFT III. Not BLIZZARD.
Your analogy isn't too good. a more accurate one would be more like "This iMac has some nifty software that came with it. My Macbook didnt come with the same software, but since I own both I'm going to transfer the files from one to the other and then mess with them until I make it work."
Your analogy basically says instead of ripping models from WoW, they are playing a pirated copy of WoW and using the fact that they paid for Wc3 as validation.
==2. My personal, and not quite humble Opinion==
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I get why the site doesn't use WoW models. I support the decision to be careful legally. But I also won't condemn anyone who does rip wow models and then use them. Yes it's definitely more creative to make your own, and its pathetic if you actually claim the models.
But at the same time they make more than decent placeholders for the hero you dont have a model for yet, or something thats ok to have a high(ish) polycount. - an optimized wow model is like 1500 polys. I think I've seen wc3 Heroes (a couple anyways) with about 1200. so the lag is a non issue unless youre filling the screen with them or they arent optimized.
And if the thing exists in WoW and has no model in WC3 and you are trying to make the exact thing from WoW, I don't really give a damn if you use it or not, as long as it doesn't look out of place, and the tweaks are made to give it all the things wc3 models have (portraits, hero glow if necessary, properly named bones, functional clicky sphere) for functionality.
But that's just me, once again. Course, I also think if you do that it's perfectly fair to not allow it to be hosted on a site you don't own, because if you do in fact get in trouble for it (doubtful as that may be) the site shouldn't suffer.
I should note that although I may rip wow models for messing around in a personal map here on campus with my friends "Hey I want to play as a X(WoW Creature) hero", I would use an original model if I actually released anything.
I will note that it's wrong to rip models out of WoW if you never paid for WoW, however, buying one of those 1.99 DVD trials would suffice for making it - not wrong.
==3. Political Comment==
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And to finish my post with a political comment,
American Copyright laws are absolutely absurd. And their absurdity cause people to get sued/charged over the most ridiculous things. I don't actually expect anyone to agree with that last line, but I felt my opinion was necessary to explain my position ~Darkholme
==4. Amusing Information==
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Funny fact #1: In Canada, you can download anything you want that is copyrighted, because it's perfectly legitimate to make copies for yourself of things you own
(like if you own a DVD you can legally download a rip of it, and they can't legally search your place to check if you really own it because of invasion of privacy rules). You can only get in trouble for uploading things, and the penalty is a fine based on the price of the thing and the amount they can prove you uploaded. - however,
4/5 of the major internet companies won't disclose any confidential information, save for if it's verified as downloaded child pornography (in which case the company checks to see if it really is child pornography before giving out all the personal info such as data transfer addresses etc).
Funny Fact #2: Due to a loophole in our laws which has not yet been corrected, you can pirate satellite TV as long as it's not Canadian satellite TV.
Edit: This was ranty. So I reorganized my rantiness to make it more legible.
==5. Sidenote: It's still not theft==
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While editing this I had an additional thought. Using a model from WoW (or any game for that matter) is not like theft, it's like a citation in an essay. If you give due credit, since you're only using part of the work, an 'idea' and not claiming the idea as your own, it's not theft. And if you don't give credit, still not theft ~ Plagiarism.
None of the definitions of theft I've ever seen would apply to the model example.
1. The owner of the concept isn't deprived of the model.
2. The model isn't a hole product being used it's a portion, and a certain portion of work is legally allowed to be copied as long as credit is given
3. The owner will not lose profit from this - it theoretically actually increases profit, as there is the small but real possibility that someone will buy Warcraft III after playing this custom map - not because of the single player. (I bought WcIII after playing the old Advent of the Zenith with the ripped imp model for example - and scamp was in fact my favorite hero - without his own 'original model' at the time) - before that I used to play with my best friend's cd and key on my PC, as we never played at the same time, and I have 0 interest in battle net cause I can't stand the immature idiots I run into there constantly. (People who say "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO" before I start the map instantly get booted and I boot them from then on, because theyre useless.)
== 6. Conculsatory statement==
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WOW! What a rant! I feel infinitely better about all my frustrations now, even though this has nothing to do with my personal frustrations which are in fact all university and scheduling related.
And--I'm done. Also, to reiterate, that I support the Hive not having them up here. They just want to cover their asses by being especially (if excessivly) careful. Use WoW models if you wish, but don't do it here.
