2) then you can't use their work. Get it out of the project.
Even in a modding/hobby situation, you're actually committing copyright infringement by distributing people's work without a licence to do so -- it's just that no one will ever sue in that situation

BTW, you will need a business (LLC, etc) if you don't already. You can also try and pay people with shares in that company instead of cash...

hmmm

Guess I better just talk to a lawyer, if that was the case, then that would mean all the effort we did without those former members who left, would be a complete waste of time.

For example, if a person did a piece of concept art, then we made a model from it, running it through the rest of the art pipeline, that might make that model useless?, if the original concept artist left?

or

if a coder scripted some code, broke it, and left, then a new coder adjusts that same code to get it working again.

That can't be right?

Under pure application of #2, that would mean, every time a person left, we'd have to purge the entire project of all their work, which would not be feasible, nore logical.

I've been operating under the assumption that if a person leaves, they primarily surrender their work to the project, meaning they joint own it, but it still remains within the project, since others will likely have built on those foundations. (There's a document in our files, which they have access to which lays out expectations and how credit will be assigned, but it's not a "contract".

Most of the time, they leave and give no specific communication as to how they want their work to be handled, none have explicitly asked that their work be removed, and my point is, even if they did, in some cases, we'd not be able to feasibly oblige.

The best I can do, is not publicly release the work, keeping it all in house.

If someone really asked all their work to be removed, the only way that could be honored, is we remove all the files they did, and then also remove them from the credits fully, as if they were never part of the project. (still not practical, but if they were malicious enough to sue, for it, we'd need to evaluate the options.)

In the past, I actually have versions of our GDD, that document exactly from whom each "concept/ idea" came from, which was signed off by each core team member at the time. Guess, that would be the closest thing to a contract that we have.

Our GDD is no longer like that anymore, since we didn't feel it necessary.

In my mind, if a person leaves, in a bad way or not, and the rest of the volunteer team decide to still consider their work as critical, and Cary out the original intentions of that author, that's an honor.

It's like if a CEO steps down and the VP is promoted, and out of respect for the former CEO, keeps the company mainly the same, honoring all the past work, growing the company, and trying to do right by that person, it would be ridiculous of the CEO to come back, and say "how dare you continue my life's work, and try to respect my assumed wishes, I'm going to sue you for defamation of character, (or whatever), because I actually intended the company to fold without me."

I plan to do the same thing, but it's a spin-off of a mod and not a remake. Something to consider, from someone in a similar boat to you:

My mod has ties to the TES universe, but I am doing what even Obsidian does and make a spiritual successor. Think 50 Shades of Grey. It was a Twilight fanfiction but some details were changed.

I'd suggest to change the name and if there are any ties to the base game, change them as soon as possible. Trust me, it will prevent headaches later on (in the case of you making money on the mod).

For example, if a person did a piece of concept art, then we made a model from it, running it through the rest of the art pipeline, that might make that model useless?, if the original concept artist left? Or if a coder scripted some code, broke it, and left, then a new coder adjusts that same code to get it working again.

That can't be right?

You may not like it, but it is correct. Copyright and other IP law still applies. Those rights are retained by the person who created the work, not with your team.

The author of the code or art still owns the copyright and other creative rights. You and your team have no legal rights to derive from those works or to modify those works or to sell those works unless you get a proper assignment of rights.

Many projects have died or become legally tainted when someone left without proper rights assignments. There have been businesses who tried to get acquired only to learn they are un-purchasable because they failed to get proper agreements from all workers.

Under pure application of #2, that would mean, every time a person left, we'd have to purge the entire project of all their work, which would not be feasible, nore logical.

I've been operating under the assumption that if a person leaves, they primarily surrender their work to the project, meaning they joint own it, but it still remains within the project, since others will likely have built on those foundations. (There's a document in our files, which they have access to which lays out expectations and how credit will be assigned, but it's not a "contract".

Your assumption is wrong.

Without a proper written agreement assigning the rights, your team has no rights to the work. You need a collaboration agreement, an employment contract, or some other properly-crafted legal document that transfers those rights.

Without those documents in place you have no rights to their work and you would need to not only purge the project of their work, but also purge the project of anything derived from their work.

That is why experienced people and lawyers recommend you ALWAYS get written contracts up front.

none have explicitly asked that their work be removed, and my point is, even if they did, in some cases, we'd not be able to feasibly oblige.

If any have asked that of you, your project is probably legally tainted to the point it is no longer commercially viable. If any of them decide to sue and have evidence that they contributed something you are still using, then your group would probably lose in court.

In my mind, if a person leaves, in a bad way or not, and the rest of the volunteer team decide to still consider their work as critical, and Cary out the original intentions of that author, that's an honor.

It's like if a CEO steps down and the VP is promoted, ...

Companies have employment contracts in place. Those employment contracts transfer and assign various rights from the employee to the employer.

Guess I better just talk to a lawyer

Yes.

They will probably help you draft some legal agreements. Then they will have you track down everyone who ever contributed anything to your project and get them to sign the agreements.

For some weird reason, I'm not phased.

Thanks, now I have more work to do.

I'm serious, this actually sounds like the issue that will motivate us to square a lot of things away. (that we've been assuming were taken care of)

The art i can see how that would follow.

1. As for the code, in our case, the coder was scripting (piecing together existing code from the game engine), not writing code from scratch. Not sure if or how that changes things?

2. So to be clear, if there is no official legal contract, the author retains the rights, even if their a former member, and even if they’re are documented communications that explicitly state, in their own words, without prompting, that they're not interested, they don't care what happens to their work, and they have moved on?

(can that be treated as a surrendering of rights?)

Like if a parent has a child, then abandons the child, and then comes back when it's grown up and somewhat successful to try and claim anything. (in this analogy the parent even tried to kill the child before abandoning it)

Ya, years old dirty laundry, but that's what I'm mainly concerned about.

Short timeline:

A. project started by individual 9/2010,

B. Team formation 6/2011(me + current creative director join, rest of that original team all former)

C. Individual works on daily basis with CD on art, CD teaches him art, they collaborate.

D. individual leaves summer 2012 due to personal reasons, tries to delete the entire project, including source code, which he primarily scripted.

E. I talked individual out of it, but still leaves, leaving no documentation for any of his work.

F. Me & CD rebuild, relearn everything.

G. We tried asking individual for just a little help, piecing things together, individual refuses, and says he doesn’t care what we do (a few times)

H. New team formation 11/2014 (new core members)

I. Early January 2015, Individual contacts me about potentially rejoining the project, I respond by sending him to the current job ad (posted under gamedev classifieds), telling him to follow the application instructions. He doesn't respond.

J. I find out we're missing files during our asset inventory, contacted individual, end of January, he turns over what he has, (lots of files he did still missing, since he didn't keep them) Individual made it clear that this would be the last time we would likely talk, and to not contact him about the project again.

K. CD is suspicious if individual got help from other sources/ people he hasn't told us about. (given the type and amount of work he did in such a short turn around time.)

L. new team moves forward with asset reconstruction, and new asset creation.

M. now, at the threshold of 1st release.

So ya, that’s pretty much it.

Of course we have documentation collaborating all of these points, communications, and events.

K .is what worries me the most, is if this was the case, we have no idea who they are, or what they specifically did, I already tracked down one of these individuals, and sent him an email and pm on moddb, with no response.

It's been a long long journey, and although we never had any contracts at this time, I'd think under the circumstances, this individual has proved himself not a competent rights holder, nor entitled to any kind of reparations after such disgraceful conduct.

If, he was to one day come back and honestly apologize, and show documented efforts to make up, then I'd be willing to consider his status.

3. Would any of these details carry any legal ground in dismissing his intellectual property claims?

4. if there is no response to a formal request to sign these kind of contracts, is there any kind of statute of limitations? Or expiration date? (that would waive any potential claims of his?)

Ya, sorry, didn't mean to put all our old laundry out there, but it's been so long, and we're still paying for some of the mistakes made back then.

1. As for the code, in our case, the coder was scripting (piecing together existing code from the game engine), not writing code from scratch. Not sure if or how that changes things?

Copyright, moral rights, related rights, and assorted other things all apply. These need to be addressed. Your lawyer will advise.

As far as rights transfers and assignments go, they run the full range from "work for hire", which basically means the person loses all rights to it forever and rights are transferred to the company, to collaboration agreements that allow you to specify many different options including fun things like reserving a copy of nearly all the rights to the author and granting effectively a copy of the rights to the group, all the way through to limited licenses for a specific scope.

Again, getting rights wrong ( )can legally taint your group's project. If you later want to be acquired or work with a major publisher you will need documentation that you actually own your stuff. If you get those documents wrong then you don't actually own it, and you cannot legally sell or license what you don't own.

2. So to be clear, if there is no official legal contract, the author retains the rights, even if their former member, and even if there are documented communications that explicitly state, in their own words, without prompting, that they're not interested, they don't care what happens to their work, and they have moved on?
(can that be treated as a surrendering of rights?)

It gets tricky, the answer is "maybe".

Some rights could be assigned or transferred through email. You made the request in plain language, he replied in plain language, the deal was accepted by both parties. That is a fully binding agreement.

Other rights (details depending on location) require specific wording to be transferred, or must be called out specifically and individually, or have additional requirements such as a signature.

Your timeline steps D, G, and J complicate matters. The specific things that were communicated in writing are important.

What you have might be enough, or it might not. Your lawyer will need to read it and decide.

3. Would any of these details carry any legal ground in dismissing his intellectual property claims?

Maybe, your lawyer will advise.

The things that I note are that against you are at one point he tried to delete everything he contributed, and he asked not to be contacted again. If he communicated that he refused or rejected your use that could come back to bite you badly. Something that may help you is that he said "a few times" that he did not care what you did. What he wrote might be enough to give you all the rights you need. When you talk it over with your lawyer, bring copies of all the messages.

The exact wording will be important. The general feeling of the communications will be important. This will mostly be a matter of risk assessment, potential damages and consequences if something goes wrong, and determining your level of risk tolerance.

4. if there is no response to a formal request to sign these kinds of contacts, is there any kind of statute of limitations? (that would wave his claim?)

Depends on location, but in the US it is 70 years plus the life of the author for the copyright.

Copyright covers the right to reproduce the material; to prepare derivative works based on it; to distribute it to the public; to perform the work; or to display the work publicly.

That is one reason this gets complicated. Even if the exact material was removed, if you have done things that are derivative on his work then he could make a claim against that derivative work.

Overall this is a lesson learned: Always get agreements in place before the work begins.

Your lawyer might tell you what you have documented from the disgruntled person is enough. Or your lawyer might advise you that it is questionable but low risk. Or your lawyer might advise you that it is high risk and you really need to take some specific action. Or your lawyer might tell you something else entirely.

Right^XD.

I've revised the post, since your quoting the one with typos, Added M, revised K.

Maybe this wasn't clear in D, but that refers to threatening to delete the entire source SDK (meaning, not just his work, but the culmination of all our work, up until that point, everything)Since he was the only coder, he was the only one putting stuff together.(as far as we knew)

The assets were commissioned by the team, during our meetings, meaning, we discussed and came up with most of the concepts together.

We have clear public records of the quality of his work before we were part of the project, and there's a drastic comparison., across the board. (between A and B, which I had to get restored, after he took it down, (without consulting the team)

sigh,

Oh, and not to mention that time we had a team meeting brainstorming the next faction's structures, and a week later, they were all modeled & textures, back then most of us had no idea how long things took, the CD had suspicions, which were right, that the assets were already in progress before the meeting took place, meaning, he led us to the conclusion he already had, letting us believe it was a collaboration.

ugg

There's so many weird turns and complications (all documented), that even if I took this to a lawyer, or if he tried to sue us later, it would become quite the scene, and I get the sense he wouldn't want his name tied to this legally. I don't mind, I'll take this as far as I need to, for the good of the project, but I guess it comes down to, how much money would I pay to make sure none of this bites us later, and so we can start our own IP eventually....

Shop around and find a good, reasonably priced lawyer comfortable with this area of business law. Prices vary by location, around here it would be $150-$200 per billable hour.

Think of it like insurance. You are paying a few hundred dollars up front to hopefully save a fortune in the event something goes terribly wrong.

Also note how it would have been cheaper and fewer headaches if you had talked with a lawyer back in 2010 or 2011. If you let it fester it will be even more expensive and more work later.

Under pure application of #2, that would mean, every time a person left, we'd have to purge the entire project of all their work, which would not be feasible, nore logical.

Whether the "leave" or not is completely irrelevant. You need a license to use their work.

Generally open source projects require all contributors to agree to license their work under MIT/GPL/CreativeCommons/etc, which gives everyone the right to distribute their work as long as the license conditions are adhered to.

If no one in your team has explicitly given people permission to distribute it under license... Then you dont have permission to distribute it. That goes for people who are currently creating work too.

The only exception is if they are employees of a company, where it's generally assumed that they automatically transfer ownership of their work to the company, without a need for a written contract (that particular contract will be written into common law).

Also note how it would have been cheaper and fewer headaches if you had talked with a lawyer back in 2010 or 2011. If you let it fester it will be even more expensive and more work later.

ya....

sigh,

if only...

We were less experienced when we started back then, I was in the middle of college, and we had no idea.

Guess I have my marching orders.

On a similar but separate note, I had a discussion on another thread about learning from other "games", that started as "mods", seems my specific case has run it's course, and I'd be interested in getting into that discussion again, regarding games such as Dota 2, Counter strike, Natural selection ,and also the case of DayZ?

@ Hodgman,

if you wouldn't mind continuing and reposting your points here, the other thread got locked, since Tom thought the cross over would make things overlly complicated.

if you wouldn't mind continuing and reposting your points here, the other thread got locked, since Tom thought the cross over would make things overlly complicated.

He doesn't need to repost his words here. If you want, I can lock this one and reopen that one.