Would you be willing to pay for the Medpack II ?

[XMon]

I meant if I were Wes I would request having this deleted so no one at Activision could stumble upon it.

[Immortal Wombat]

Activision woudn't be seen dead in a Civ forum, they'd get flamed so much that any thread they posted in woudn't need sticking to the top of the forum, it'd stay there of its own accord

I don't think that any voluntary contribution actually goes against the rules of the Program Utilities, or the CDA ( http://apolyton.net/misc/cda.shtml ), but its cutting close

EDIT: I just realised that the CDA says nothing about selling Mods or Scenarios, but I'm sure I read it somewhere in the Apolyton "About" section, that a Civ2 site sold rights to sell a CD of fan-created scenarios to someone, and got a complete slating. Anyway... right decision Wes I think.
[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 09, 2001).]

[Fuzzball]

If the money provided to Wes was in the form of a donation, for gratitude towards the amount of labour required, and not actually payment for distribution of an add-on to an Activision product. Then I don't think there would be any legal issues. And this is all Wes has suggested I think. Recognition for the huge amount of individual labour he has put in to making our gameplay more enjoyable. But I'm no lawyer, so don't be quotin' me on that. Apart from all that anyways....how's a corporation going to get $$ out of a student? hehe. Students have no money.

[Immortal Wombat]

...but Wes is 35

[XMon]

Hey. I've got plenty of stories I could tell. I've been running a web site for a couple of years and have learned a few things from the misfortunes of others. Several guys I know in Germany got their sites shut down by court order for having images captured from German TV stations on their sites. I know a guy in the Netherlands who had the police actually seize all his computer equipment and all media (CDs and floppies) because he had pics from a certain magazine on his site. The mag sued him. My host server had some images from a different mag on his site here in the US. Lawyers for the mag threatened him with everything short of hanging and said that even if he removed the offending images they still retained the right to sue him...unless he agreed to remove the images AND put a banner ad on his site advertising their mag for something like five years. And they have to approve the ad placement and will monitor all of his sites for the next five years to make sure he complies.

It's easy to stay under the radar but the big numero uno thing that will make you a blip is to be selling something. Whether that be a membership or access or an actual physical product (the guy in the Netherlands was selling CDs), that's the quickest way to get unwanted attention. If you're not selling something then you usually, but not always, get left alone. The German guys I mentioned were not selling and neither (as far as I know) were all the Belgian Napster users who's homes were raided and computers seized. On another thread someone asked about copyright violation problems making sprites from images from other games. As long as you're not selling the mod then there wouldn't (shouldn't) be a prob, but if you sell the mod and the wrong people find out...

If you solicit donations then you'd be pushing it IMHO. I'd also omit any mention of "thanks to _______ for the PSP crack!" Make it a little more vague. Remember, you're putting your name on this thing and it could be floating all over the internet for a long time. But if you like living on the edge then put a clip of Alyssa Milano in your intro vid and see how long it takes for mama Lin to give you a call!

The big bad magazine dropped the lawsuit against the Dutch guy when they found out he wasn't even breaking even on the CDs. But they did seize all the CDs and had his entire web site and all of their images WIPED OFF HIS HARD DRIVE before returning his equipment to him. I know guys this stuff has happened to so I wouldn't take the legal stuff too lightly.

[MarkG]

1) i would gladly donate/whatever you want to call it. these guys are already in the who-to-sent-free-apolyton-t-shirts-whenever-we-get-to-make-them list

2) i would like only to see files being in the "it's free, send 10$ if you feel like supporting the creators" model

3) the CDA has nothing to do with the creators charging for files.

4) even if it's "donationware", you might have issues with activision. check the legal text that appaears before the scenario editor

[Dale]

Markos, make mine an XL.

------------------
Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Jen Dragon]

I wouldn't mind paying, If its distributed as freeware and
you have the option to pay or not, I think I would send
something, If I played with the mod. It would be honorable
to do so if thats what the Mod makers wanted. I think the old turn based strategy players have inhearant honor. It would be interesting for you to post the number of downloads vs the number of payments.

[Jen Dragon]

P.S. BTW I'm only still hanging around occasionally just for this MOD
to try and give CTP II a second chance, I really wanted to like this
game.