I have the feeling that a lot of the maps on here are taken from or maybe traced from copyrighted sources outside of fair use, permission, etc.. I'm a bit scrupulous when it comes to violating copyright, so I wanted to know if playing on maps that infringe copyright would be illegal.
Fairly certain that if there are copyrighted materials, then the provider would be at fault, as opposed to the user.. esp. since all but single player games are stored on the warlight servers.. I speak with no legal experience ofc'
Right now I've really been enjoying the U.S. map with all the counties. It seems unlikely that the map did not come from some copyrighted source. The creator no longer owns that map.
As to the fault going to the creator: would that mean that those who listen to pirated music are not breaking the law, rather, it's the one who posted that music?
I meant warlight.net as the provider, more then whoever made it..
and napster was taken down hard cause it provided pirated music.. individuals are rarely ever punished for having pirated music to my knowledge
I thought it was commonplace for people who illegally downloaded music, movies, etc. to be punished. Even if it is rare, it still would remain illegal though (if it even is).
Very interesting question in this age of borrow and re-post. Likely not a problem for such a niche use, but that is not the point. Would the original creators even recognize their maps? They are intellectual property, however. Google certainly thinks so. Citations everyone!
I don't think it would apply because even if the image from which a map was made was under copyright in the first place, the map itself has been hand crafted in lightscribe and the original was only used as a guide, not as an integral piece of the map's construction. Even if there were grounds for a lawsuit, it would be up to the copyright holder to send notification of infringement and a cease&desist, at which point Fizzer could just take the map down and call it good. The only maps here that might fall under copyright are ones taken from fictional books (like the middle earth map for instance) since you can't copyright a coastline :)
The only maps that might have a problem would be ones based on copyrighted fiction, such as LoTR or similar. Real life maps cannot be copyrighted, since they are maps of real places. I have no idea if the owners of LoTR or Warhammer care about us using maps based on their ideas.
You say that you really enjoy the Large USA Map, however you've only played 3 games and they've all been real-time. Are you to tell me that You've played 3 real time USA big maps? How in jesus' name can you sit at the computer for that long?
My girlfriend is a cartographer, and according to her public data like state, county and city lines can be recreated in mapping software. In other words, you can create a brand new map using existing data without stealing from anyone else. So it's not a given that the Large USA map was copied from an existing map. Also, county and state lines are public knowledge, and considering that the creator or the map had to redraw all of the lines by hand and didn't just copy/paste from an original source, I wouldn't be worried about copyright infringement. As others have said, the maps from works of fiction might be on more shaky legal ground. In the end, it's currently up to the owner of the website hosting the material to make a judgement call since they are the ones potentially profiting from the copyrighted material.
And as far as being worried about being prosecuted because you played the map: I have yet to hear about someone getting sued because they watched a youtube video that had unauthorized copyrighted material in it.
No, I'm not a troll. I seriously have an issue with violating copyright - punished or not. I've just recently become re-interested in this game (I had another account - forgot the information for it, so I created this new one). Haven't played many games and some maight've been as guest. I'm mid-way in a Big U.S. game, and haven't played since this question hit me.
Very useful information, Phanatic. Is your girlfriend sure about that?
The OP is either a very original (and not particularly annoying) troll, or the kind of person I would never ever EVER want to have a beer with. What a pointless and inane thread. Oh, sorry. TWO pointless and inane threads.
