Please stop.

Just because you find nothing wrong with ripping tags, does not mean that everyone should agree with you. I think ripping is stupid because people worked hard to make their stuff. If they wanted people have it they would release it.

The only reason I don't like ripping is because if you just rip from maps you never learn to make your own tags. Anyways if someone ripped a tag from my map it would be a complement to me because really you only rip tags that you think are good right? Besides once your tags are in game they legally don't belong to you in the first place so I think protecting your map should be up tho the maker of the map and if you rip just give credit to the maker of the tag.
Edited by SegwayMaster1324 on Jun 2, 2009 at 06:09 PM
Edited by SegwayMaster1324 on Jun 2, 2009 at 06:09 PM

Well no one cares because your point is moot. I'll outline my arguments in a nice, easy to read fashion.

1) It is not illegal to modify the map just so others cannot extract from it.

2) As many of my former teachers say, it's the thought that counts. The thought, in this case, is the wish that you don't want your tags to be ripped, and used by random noobs. Most people who can unprotect maps, aren't noobs, and fit within the wish.

3) Your arguments are based on assumptions of this community. Most people of the people who are against map unprotection, are those who've been taught by their parents to respect the wishes of others. We can express our opinions, and you yours, but you should respect our wishes, and not march in and say that we're all breaking the law. Just because you haven't contributed anything, doesn't mean that you should speak for those who have.

Now please, let this topic die. But I know that your spirit refuses to allow you to take in these arguments, and you're probably going to refute my arguments. You should respect my wishes though, and my wish is that this topic dies.

geez - this thread has more drama than a hospital scene in a mexican soap opera.

- Your "right" to express your opinion here, is not a "right" it is a privilege afforded by Dennis.

- Locking a map gives the author the ability to choose to share or not share methods and processes (tags) if they so choose, which is not a "right", it is a privilege, as is being a jerk, or a nice guy. Choice is always a good thing.

- "Ripping" content is the most effective way to learn by reverse engineering how an affect or process was achieved, including mistakes or unwanted attributes. I have learned more from this process, than ANYONE of you posters in this forum. Those who claim rippers are just lazy, should get off their lazy butts, stop posting in forums, and get to making tutorials that are well prepared, well made and easy to duplicate.

Be nice, its an easy choice. Lock or to not lock, also an easy choice. Rip or not rip, I am glad I can choose. All three of these allow me to continue the learning process of something I "choose" to do.

There are upsides and downsides to ripping. For example, it can be used to reverse-engineer the tags and learn how to make yours better or how to make them perform a certain new function. It also allows you to easily take the tags and use them if you lack the time/resources to make your own. It shouldn't be used as an alternative to work.

It's much more helpful to make your own stuff than just rip other people's. For example, when I was new, I ripped everything I came into contact with, but I never used any of it for anything besides learning, and then I figured out how to make my tags a lot better.

The downside to ripping, especially from protected maps is that lots of "new" people don't care about credit. They don't care how long you spent sweating over modelling, animating and tagging your stuff. They just figure they can put it into their map and be done, or worse, try to pass it off as their own. Personally, It's these people that make me support protection. People don't learn anything from using ripping as an alternative to work. It's much more beneficial in the long run to make your own stuff the hard way.
Sorry for the longish read.

Sabre, quoting posts is against the rules. If I were you I'd stop before Dennis steps in and says something.

Also, to sum up what I've said on the second page...

Keep in mind this is fact. This is what the law says. This is not opinion, this is the way things legally are, to the best of my knowledge at least. Ripping is not against the law. If you put your stuff into Halo and someone rips it, you can't do anything about it. Someone stole your tags? Tough luck. They're within the law, and what they're doing is 100% legal.

Putting assets you've made into Halo voids your ownership, and acting like you've got full ownership would be more against the law than someone ripping the content. The content is then owned by Microsoft. You make something, you own it. If it resembles a Halo asset, you cannot own it. You port it into the Engine, you no longer own it. Microsoft does. Someone steals it, after you've ported it, tough luck. What they've done is 100% legal.

Law is law, and nobody in here is above the law.

While you're complaining about stealing from developers, you can go ahead and complain about people pirating 3D Studio Max and Photoshop which they use to make their beloved protected assets, because that's FAR more illegal.

Now, FOR MY OPINIONS:

Protecting a map is like saying, "I worked too damn hard to let these noobs take credit for my work. I want credit, I made it, I want to shine." To me, that seems along the lines of "I'm better than these guys. They can't have what I've worked on because they don't deserve it. My modding prowess is far superior."

However, open sourcing your work says something along the lines of "I worked on this, and I want people to enjoy and benefit from it as much as they possibly can. They can do what they want with it." Wanting or expecting credit or recognition seems selfish. If you make something, and other people enjoy it, you should be satisfied knowing other people are enjoying what you've made.

You all bring MORALITY into it, of all things. You talk about how stealing is wrong, and how ripping is stealing the author's work. Well, to me, it seems more moral to be selfless and not do things for recognition, but for the enjoyment of others.

Protecting vs Open-Sourcing = "Make it for yourself" vs "Make it for everyone"
Edited by Marka Haiyana on Jun 2, 2009 at 10:21 PM

The main reason people hate these threads is likely because every argument has the same opinions. Supporters say things revolving around people without skill taking the tags, and not giving credit. The people against protection.. which is surprisingly made up of mostly inexperienced mappers.. talk about learning from tags, how they are not anyone's property, and legal issues. I actually liked these threads back when I was new, because I never knew that these opinions were overused.

In addition, several times in the protection debates, people who rip and lack skill are usually considered under 14 years old.. I don't really understand that. Most people I've met who hate protection, etc are 13-16, and there are only a handful of people younger than 13.

I am a little worried that there will be even more mods cluttering up the map list when an unprotector gets released. There's too many already, and there are only a few maps with unprotected custom content.

For people worried about unprotection ripping apart the community and making everyone mad, take a look at games like garry's mod. There is no method of protection in that community, but it is still very strong. There are not much immature people who claim things as their own.

you contracted yourself in that massive quote a couple of times, but this part caught my eye, mainly because this is what iv been doing. frankly im sick of the limitations of the halo engine and all of the legal jargon behind the editing.

you made some good points though. you should go attack cmt and see what happens.

I'm interested in seeing what you've accomplished so far, Donut. If it's one thing the Halo Editing Kit doesn't teach people, it's programming skills.

I'm suprised that this topic is still going and has'nt even died yet.....

Maybe it has something to do with all the people posting in it....

What I have noticed is that all the people who don't support protection are new to map making. When I was new I wished people would give me all their tags too.
I don't really care about how Microsoft says I don't own the tags. Just because I don't own them doesn't mean I can't protect them.
Vampire girl, the whole point of "hEK" is to create Halo content, which has nothing to do with sharing.
I actually think that people should atleast let some of their content go unprotected. I would protect certain tags instead of the whole map. People should be making their own tags anyway, but new-people tend to want to get a box and put CMT content in it and then think it's going to be as popular as hugeass. I think that it is OK to have some tags unprotected. I don't think the BSP should ever be unprotected. If someone takes your BSP and makes a mod on it, then they are basically stealing (I know its not technically stealing, but it sounds better) the most important part of your map. If they take a vehicle, then it's not like someone re-released your map and is getting all the credit. it's not like Microsoft is going to hunt down everyone who has protected map content and sue them, just like how Rick Astly wont hunt down everyone who has his song on their hard drive and make them pay 99 cents for it.
Oh, and the reason this topic hasn't died yet is because people keep on saying, "LET IT DAI FGTS" which bumps it up to the top of the page. If people didn't do that, then I wouldn't know about this topic.
Oh, and google "dzmt_unprotector.zip filefront" for lulz (don't worry, you can't download DZ's map unprotector).
Edited by gruntfromhalo on Jun 3, 2009 at 10:16 AM

The reason there is map protection, is because when HEK+ was made, people complained about having random strangers rip open their maps, and steal all their hard work. Because of all these complaints, SteelIXB added the map protection feature.

At least, that's what I think happened. I'm not that old.

There would be no need for map protection if there was no such thing as HEK+.

You can always make your own HEK+ or some other tag extractor :\

This is where you are wrong. What I "believe" is open to discussion and a possible change of opinion. What is legal or the law is what is and is not open for belief or opinion. For example: I believe that no child under the age of 16 should have unsupervised access to the internet, however the law says it is up to their parents to decide. In the case of ownership of maps and game assets the Law is very clear and concise on the issue. The problem is that the law is not what you want to believe. But it is the law.

Maybe, but in this case, the law isn't being enforced as though it was a real law. The law really is just stating that Microsoft better not lose any money or they will come after you. And really, Microsoft is too busy trying to make every penny in the real world, then coming after one of us (Which is mostly a bunch of kids who cant even afford Halo 1, so they go and pirate it). So in-turn, it falls upon the user to decide if he should release or unprotected a map that isn't even his/hers and he/she hasn't even worked on it.

If you believe in something called morals, you wont be going around unprotecting maps and then showing them off or releasing them.
Edited by Joshflighter on Jun 3, 2009 at 04:10 PM

uhh... what did i claim? i made a suggestion that you present that argument to cmt over on modacity and see what happens. mainly for "the lols".

so last time you posted, none of us "understood just how illegal map protection is", but now its ok? i respect your argument and it is valid, but if you are going to make an argument, at least stick to it

Your thinking is skewed. The law exists, it has real consequences and it sets the standard of behavior regardless of enforcement. According to your reasoning it is ok to break the speed limit as long as you don’t get caught or to take the example to the extreme is it OK kill someone as long as the law is not enforced.

No that is not what is says. The law states that Microsoft holds all rights to anything Halo and you do not by definition own any rights to anything made from or for the Halo game regardless of who makes it. The law is very specific on that point.

This is the same invalid reasoning you were trying to use above. Just because the law is not enforced does not make the law invalid.
If you actually believed in morals then you would have thought through your argument and not advocated breaking the law because it doesn’t suit you.

The law is very clear. You cannot own or retain any irrevocable rights to anything made for or from the Halo game regardless of who made it. Therefore you have no legal rights to control its use or disposition. Because of that you have no legal rights to determine what anyone does with it. All you can do is possess it. This may not be to your liking, you may not want it to be so, but it is and you just have to deal with it until you reach the age of majority and try to get the law changed.

You are bringing different examples that don't match. I clearly am stating this for unprotecting.

If you want a real life example it would be like:

Someone goes and builds a motor but he cant sell it because it uses some copyrighted parts from another company. Now he doesn't want his own things be disclosed.. example blueprints... but he cant copyright his thing because it would infringe the other copyrights, so he shares the motor and states that he doesn't want anyone going around opening it and telling others how to build it. Now its up to the new owner or other companies to decide if there going to go and see what new things he came up and use them or not. Against his own will.

That would be an example. When I say the law isn't enforced, I mean that if you go tell Microsoft, they wont come after you. Even though they might know. They just don't care. The argument is not about who owns what, its about people using other peoples work that clearly wasn't made for them to be used. Hth.

He authorized the company to see his motor and gave them "rights to use the motor" hopefully he would have sold it to the company and not just give it to them :\. Also you can copyright specific components of an engine like a piston even though it is in another company's engine block.

Also don't flame me for this post I am just trying to correct you statement or maybe I misunderstood it.
Edited by new101 on Jun 3, 2009 at 05:25 PM

I was just trying to give an easy example to understand... :|

The examples are valid. In the United States the law is defining the rule of the land and should set the precedent for behavior.
Not a valid real world example because you can actually own hardware you purchase and have rights to it unlike software.

So let me refined it for you to make it applicable in this situation: A man leases or rents a car from a dealership and decides to make changes to the motor so he adds a new carburetor changes the block and pistons and basically rebuilds the engine. According to the lease he doesn’t own or have rights to make any changes so when his lease is up he doesn’t want the dealer to see or use is changes on their other cars. He legally can’t stop the dealer because he made changes to a car he didn’t own or have any rights too therefore the rigths to any changes he made reverts to the dealship.

You don’t OWN software. You do not have the rights to it. You actually just lease it and the software company can revoke your rights to its use at any time for any reason.
No the argument IS about who owns what. Because if you don’t own it or have rights to it you can only possess it and cannot dictate how people can use it once it is given away.

No, it would be more like the guy creates a new car. Not just changing whats under the hood then.

This argument is about unprotecting maps and if they should. So again, its not about who owns what. Because it doesn't matter, if you can unprotect a map, there is no one stopping you. Microsoft's or the normal users map.

On the other hand, morals and ethics can. Or just plain respect to other users content that is protected.

You keep saying that "map protection is against the law", when the only evidence to back you up, is that everything belongs to Bungie. But we have physical ownership of the tags, no? Whether we physically hand it out or not, is our choice. If we don't want to hand it out, then we protect our maps.

From what I've read, map protection was created around the same time as HEK+. People didn't want random strangers to extract their tags, so they complained. Those complaints drove SteelIXB to create map protection. If protection is "illegal", then why did most of the community speak out against being forced to open source?

This thread has a lot of tl;dr posts.
I support it when people rip maps to study the tags or use them as templates (like replace all the textures and models with their own, but keep the same settings, like taking a CMT AR and replacing all the content with yours, but keeping the same RoF, accuracy, and things like that. I am O.K. with people taking maps and using the tags when the creator of the tags is alright with it. What I do not support are people making collaborations of other peoples stuff, or when they use something without credit. It is OK if you use a minuscule bitmap without credit, but if you use a vehicle, weapon, or BSP, credit should be given. Ripping a BSP and making a mod I do not support at all unless the map's creator says you can rip the BSP.
Edited by gruntfromhalo on Jun 3, 2009 at 07:39 PM

And that is your big blunder. Read the HEK EULA before you post again.

If you've read it, you would know that it isn't illegal to use Bungie's tags. But as you're lying about reading it, and pretending to be a know-it-all, you're going to keep up this charade.

Bungie made it so we can build maps the way we want, and if we want to build them protected, that is our choice.

If you want the thread to die , then dont post. >.> I love the irony in here.
No one except those who are all about upholding it gives a flying crap about the law , they were made to be broken.
Im entitled to my opinion , and im speaking for myself , you can disagree or agree.
Why bother protecting maps even if it'll be ripped sooner or later?
Yes , there is a way to unprotect protected maps , but it is RUDE. M'kay?
Edited by Cocaine on Jun 3, 2009 at 09:06 PM

And I'm waiting for YOU to respond to my post on the second page. Seems like you flat-out avoided it.

Applied to this discussion that means if you make a new game from the ground up then own the rights to it and that is correct you would. However that is not what this discussion is about. This discussion is about the Halo game and the fact remains that you don't own the rights to it so anything you create for or from it you have no legal right too.

Once again you are missing the crucial point of the discussion. It is 100% about who owns what. No other arguments can be entertained until that issue is resolved. And it is. You do not own anything you create for or from the Halo game. If you don't own it they you can’t dictate how people use it once you give it away. This is not a moral issue it is a practical one. No matter what you may want people can do anything they wish to your “protected” map because you have no legal claim on the content. If that reality is not satisfying to you then your options are to a) not create content for the Halo game b) create a new game from the ground up that you do have rights too or c) create your Halo content but never give it away.