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Xorax's large free texture collection


Moonbo

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Hey all,

I just noticed on the TTLG forums that Xorax released a large (1600+) set of textures for public use. I browsed through them and they match well with TDM. While they don't have normal maps, I'd still recommend giving them a once-over. Here's the TTLG thread:

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151606

 

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But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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Oh perfect timing, I was just looking for some new textures for an area i'm building.

 

Thanks!

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Lots of good stuff in here - but I would caution there are clearly quite a few images in here which are licensed from "www.textures.com" - I recognize them as I have used them to make my own TDM materials.

This is acknowledged in the forum thread - where it stated that since it was from a free site there must not be a license associated with it - not quite!

While he has given written permission for his textures to be used in TDM missions in the past (including to me when I asked him) and there is free licensing available, the license strictly prohibits distributing his work, modified or not, as a texture pack which I think this probably qualifies.

https://www.textures.com/support/faq-license

While you could rationalize that using derivative images that are almost half the resolution of the free ones in a small community is pretty low risk, and the nature of licensing agreements change over time so the terms of use could have been different at the time the images were sourced, I would probably not assume what the creator is comfortable with outside of their own licensing agreement or at least attempt to correctly attribute the creators work.

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I honestly wouldn't be too worried about that. While it is technically a 'redistributed texture pack', that license term is meant to stop people from repackaging and *selling* the textures, which isn't the case here.

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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Can I use your images to create and sell my own textures, texture packs, materials or shaders?

No, you are not allowed to resell (or give away for free) our images as a competing product, even when you modify the images. Competing products are for example textures, texture packs, materials, shaders, clipart or scrapbooking elements.

 

Edited by datiswous
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Well I am no big city lawyer. If you’d argue after reading the clause “Competing products are for example textures, texture packs …” that literally distributing a given image as a texture within a texture pack is not a competing product you’d certainly be running circles around me.

Have actually corresponded with the gentleman it was kind of borderline enough to get him to expressly ok his images being bundled in a TDM mission in .pk4 - perhaps it’s my timid nature but it was iffy enough that I certainly stopped using his images for my materials from that point. I honestly don’t think he’d go for a pitch to download large portions of his library and redistribute them, but I am not the one doing that so I am not about to ask.

I do know when I pointed out some his assets were available on other free websites when I was asking him if he was the original license holder he DMCA’d them.

I am not here trying to tell anyone what they should do - I just know I made some of the same assumptions I see in the thread about “free” textures when I started out and making all those normal and specular maps ain’t easy, so better to know what you’re working with and decide to accept the risk than advertise it as risk free and then sweat it later in my opinion. 

Edited by Wellingtoncrab

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Yep, those definitions are clear.

The license holder himself defines "competing product" to include "texture packs" and specifically mentions that the license terms make no distinction between selling the textures or giving them away for free.

The only way this texture pack could be legally safe is if (1) it does not in fact include any textures from www.textures.com or other sites with restrictive licenses, or (2) it only includes textures from before those licensing terms were imposed (but proving that is difficult).

As tempting as it may be, I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.

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Oh you're absolutely right that Xorax is technically violating the terms of the license by sharing derivative textures, but these clauses are there to stop people from downloading and redistributing as a competitor (thus the 'competing product' language), which isn't Xorax's intention. It does depend on how prickly the rights holder is, so if there is a concern I would reach out just to make sure. 

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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26 minutes ago, Moonbo said:

Oh you're absolutely right that Xorax is technically violating the terms of the license

Right. And legally speaking, there is no distinction between "technically violating the terms of the license" and "violating the terms of the license". Once you do that, you are at risk of being sued, or at least sent a bossy letter from a lawyer which will require you to retrospectively delete material from your already-released content pack in order to avoid being sued.

Of course it's up to individuals to decide if they want to take that risk, but I would recommend not doing so to avoid potential headaches down the line.

26 minutes ago, Moonbo said:

but these clauses are there to stop people from downloading and redistributing as a competitor (thus the 'competing product' language),

How can you be sure of this? Copyright does not depend on what the rest of us think the author really meant, it depends on what the license actually says. What it says in this case is "You may not redistribute these textures as part of another texture pack, even if you give it away for free". I don't see any obvious room for manoeuvre on this point, although perhaps a lawyer will correct me.

26 minutes ago, Moonbo said:

so if there is a concern I would reach out just to make sure. 

Sure, somebody could certainly contact him and ask "Is it OK to redistribute some of your textures in a free texture pack, even though your license quite literally says that nobody can redistribute your textures in a free texture pack?", but I wouldn't hold out hope for a positive response.

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Technically what I would ask is: "someone modified several of your textures and shared them on a forum. Is it okay if I use them, or do I need to download and modify those textures from your website myself?" And honestly, given the website owner has responded positively in the past he might just respond positively here.

Edited by Moonbo
grammar tweak

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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I wouldn't focus the lidless eye on our comrades over in the thief community for really no reason - Xorax should do this if he wants to derive and distribute textures from the site. If you like the images you see in the pack I would just get them straight from the source where they are available for free at twice the resolution. The owner of site took most of the images himself, so you may even want to consider paying for some. If you like the color grading and grunge filters that have been added it's not difficult to replicate - but the higher resolution image will in my experience at a minimum be a help when making the derived normal and specular maps.

I would still ask his permission directly when it comes to using them in a tdm mission given the core mod is open source and images are freely accessible from the .pk4 - this is also iffy with his license agreement. He remembers us and has been ok with his textures being used in people's missions, but he will often simultaneously reiterate things which are in his license agreement which gave me the overall impression it was not worth the risk going forward. He asked me to include this information in my readme "One or more textures bundled with this project have been created with images from Textures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit www.textures.com for more information."

At a minimum you could perhaps include that if you want to use Xorax's modified textures, but I can only speak personally it's very hard for me to know or even suspect someone does not want something done with their creative work and then consciously continue doing it or benefiting from it, so everyone has to make their own call there. You should look at the license agreements from the other sites that he mentions in the thread as most "free" sites have these clauses.

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2 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

I would still ask his permission directly when it comes to using them in a tdm mission given the core mod is open source and images are freely accessible from the .pk4 - this is also iffy with his license agreement. He remembers us and has been ok with his textures being used in people's missions, but he will often simultaneously reiterate things which are in his license agreement which gave me the overall impression it was not worth the risk going forward. He asked me to include this information in my readme "One or more textures bundled with this project have been created with images from Textures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit www.textures.com for more information."

I would say this is pretty important because if I understand it correctly all the content in TDM is licensed by a Creative Commons license by default and CC licenses are in direct conflict with the textures.com license because they explicitly allow redistribution. So maybe the textures.com guy gave permission to use his assets, but using them in TDM without declaring a compatible license means explicitly saying "you are allowed to redistribute them" to anybody who extracts them from TDM. 

The same applies to other "asset licenses" which are essentially "do anything you want except redistribution and resale".

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Can I just point out how funny it is that we're being so careful about taking things without permission... in a game about thieving

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