ai wrote:And on other notes. If you create works with non-commercial software you CANNOT do as you please with that work. You CANNOT sell it, you CANNOT make money of it. You STILL own that work, you STILL have copyright on that work NOT the vendor or any other party. I do know what I'm talking about.
And exactly that is wrong.
You sure CAN sell it, and the act of selling constitutes nothing illegal. However, your USE of the software then was illegal, and you can be sued for that.
In other words: YOU have the sole copyright, the EULA of the software cannot lead to the company who made the software having a copyright on the works YOU made with that software (any such terms are void). And you can use your works in any way you wish. The only thing that can happen is that you violate the license of the software which you have used, which is between you and the copyright holders of the software, and does not affect anyone else (especially not people you have given the content to).
Three examples:
- You download the "free for non-commercial use" version of Terragen.
- You make some skyboxes for a game that is under the GPL, like Nexuiz.
This sure is commercial use, and gets you a lawsuit by the authors of Terragen. However, as YOU own the copyright on the skybox and not THEM, they can only sue YOU, but not US (or anyone who distributes Nexuiz).
- You download the "free for non-commercial use" version of Terragen.
- You make some skyboxes for your own maps, which are distributed as PD or using a noncommercial license.
- We later(!) ask you if we can use your skyboxes.
- You agree. We put the skyboxes under the GPL.
Here, the software was NOT used for commercial purposes. The key part is that you did NOT make the skyboxes with the intention of getting them into Nexuiz, but just for your own map (noncommercial and PD clearly both negate any commercial interest). Everything is legal here, neither you nor us can get sued successfully.
- You download the "free for non-commercial use" version of Terragen.
- You make some skyboxes.
- You give the skyboxes to us and say "they're PD, do what you want with them".
You can get sued again, as you obviously made the skyboxes with the intention of getting in the game, and that IS commercial use.
Distinguishing between the latter two cases would be up to a court, of course, so even the "legal" variant can get you into trouble, especially if you cannot prove that you did make the skybox with non-commercial interests in mind. If you published them the day before they got committed in Nexuiz, it is quite likely that the court will see that you were trying to "mask" this as noncommercial... but with a large timely distance it would be safe.
BTW: I do not recommend ANY artist to actually go that route and publish skyboxes made with terragen with a license without the non-commercial term, even as PD. Even though it is legal, it can easily get you into trouble, and a court may rule that it was commercial use even if it was not. Courts are not perfect, and wrong decisions happen, so do not try to mess with them. Even winning such a case can cost you quite much money, for example you may still have to pay your lawyers.
1. Open Notepad
2. Paste: ÿþMSMSMS
3. Save
4. Open the file in Notepad again
You can vary the number of "MS", so you can clearly see it's MS which is causing it.