I am wondering if you guys are legitimate or not...did you pay royalties/licensing charges for the weapon names?

Did you have to pay royalties to MPEG in order to use MP3s like most developers supposedly have to?

You may want to look into the license agreement on fmod.dll to see if it's even legal to use it in commercial applications. (Soldat can be considered to be commercial due to it's shareware status.)

Quote from the FMOD site :
FMOD has a free non-commercial use license, and also a commercial license with no royalties required. This also includes ongoing technical support. See the included license agreement for details.

You can check this out yourself. The shareware license is only $100.

Oh, and real funny about the weapon names. Common words are legal to use freely FYI.

Moreover, who cares? I don't like 'concerned citizens', and if you're going to be bitchy about stuff, at least be informed. Thanks...bit of a pet peeve, my apologies.

Good job Hunter, by the way.

klichka... get your flame suit on or run.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, LEGAL! IT IS A PERFECTLY FINE GAME WITH NO SYSTEM EDITORS! IT HAS NOT BROKEN ANY LAWS! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ROYALTIES? you dont have to pay for naming weapons! sheesh!

klichka... get your flame suit on or run.

*chuckles*

I didn't think the songs in Soldat were mp3s. The weapon names have probably come to the point where they're common enough to be used without having to pay royalties.

The MP3 player, f00l. :P

quote:Originally posted by Unlucky 13
klichka... get your flame suit on or run.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, LEGAL! IT IS A PERFECTLY FINE GAME WITH NO SYSTEM EDITORS! IT HAS NOT BROKEN ANY LAWS! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ROYALTIES? you dont have to pay for naming weapons! sheesh!


First i would like to tell you to grow up and learn the law.

I perfectly understand what the guy said. For everything you must pay. Nothing comes free in thins world. If Michal really did get something for soldat ilegal anyone, yes anyone, can sue him.

typical... does it even matter if its illegal? Christ!

"Nothing comes free in this world" is bull. There are plenty of things that come free in this world (like, for instance, a certain 2-dimensional multiplayer shooter game...)

quote:Originally posted by DannyLB
For everything you must pay. Nothing comes free in thins world. If Michal really did get something for soldat ilegal anyone, yes anyone, can sue him.
Man, he lives in Poland... Here NOBODY cares, even the police [;)] Come to Poland and try to sue him if you don't believe [;)]

You most definitely to not have to pay jack to put the name of a weapon in a shareware game.

I don't know about the mp3 thing, the music that comes with soldat comes in some weirdass format that i cant remember the name of. It is able to play mp3's if you register, but it doesn't come with any mp3 music.

Even if it is illegal, noone who would care knows this game even exists most likely.

quote:Originally posted by Aquarius
quote:Originally posted by DannyLB
For everything you must pay. Nothing comes free in thins world. If Michal really did get something for soldat ilegal anyone, yes anyone, can sue him.
Man, he lives in Poland... Here NOBODY cares, even the police [;)] Come to Poland and try to sue him if you don't believe [;)]


Yes i understand, LOl but this topic is not made for someone to arrest Michal. Its about the fact that soldat is clean or not. I dont care either way really. I just saw a noob posting and someone had to tell him a few things about real life.

I am very curious klichka, why are you questioning the legitimacy of Soldat? Are you a disgruntled programmer with ties to Thomson (the current copyright holder of MPEG rights) or did this topic just happen to be on your mind? Please tell us.

1) The topic just happened to be on my mind
2) Counter-strike's weapons were renamed when it went commercial (And Soldat is considered to be commercial by the way)

3) Most companies which use real world weapons in their game have to get appropriate licensing.

Remember SOF 1 and how they never used real names for weapons, and that they went out and got licensing for the sequal?
Do you recall that most games that include real world weapons have licensing rights from the manufacturers?

Interestingly enough, H&K may have a case for the use of their trademarked names.

wtf is your problem man

who cares, seriously


[IMAGE]

Here's a thought: is soldat even technically commercial? Obviously, you first assume its shareware, but WAIT! Where's the part of the game that you recieve for registering? Colored jets and a little star graphic? Yeah right. If you want to see a shareware game, go to spiderwebsoftware.com. Those games you must register if you want to get even half of the full game. Here, its a freeware game where they accept donations.
Speaking of which, mabey that $10 should be tax-deductible. Or not.

This game has been out for more than 2 years...I think Michal/the Industry would know by now...

Yes, the names of H&K military weapons are trademarked. That means that no one else can make a product claiming to be these weapons. I can still write a book about me drinking Mountain Dew, or calling someone with an AT&T phone, but unless the companies take the time to sew me and can prove people are stupid enough to confuse my publication with the products, I'm fine.

Anyways, these laws are not policed. They are enforced solely through court cases. If you went to the FBI and told them someone was violating trademark law, they wouldn't do jack.

BTW I have never played Soldier of Fortune or Counter Strike, nor heard of these problems you claim game developers run into. Maybe you can give some backup evidence instead of pulling stuff out of your arse.

I dont see any reason why the mp3 player would be illegal... however, where you get the mp3's, that of course is a seperate issue. (or court case)

i wonder why barrett is spelled wrong then. has been for some years, so why hasnt it been caught? must be a reason? (just keeping topic alive)

At the risk of giving too much information that nobody wants to read:

I don't see any problem with the mp3 issue since Soldat contains no mp3s (only an mp3-compatible player if you register). So I guess what it comes down to is whether those weapons companies are willing to put the money into suing Michal for using their copyrighted names. That will never happen because Michal is in Poland which creates international law issues and Michal probably hasn't made enough money from Soldat to make it worthwhile. Also there is the possibility that the names have become too common. Once a brand name becomes too common, a company can lose the copyright (e.g., Kleenex, Aspirin, etc.)

So, any company suing Michal about weapon names would lose a LOT of money because there is no way their legal fees could be covered by what they could get from Michal... and like EH kind of said above: It's not technically illegal unless somebody sues you.

It's kind of funny how angry some people became over this topic ;)

even if the manufacturers complained to Michal ("action for injunction"?), he could just rename all the weapons to some bogus like "Degert Easles" (like some football video games) and KEEP the weapons.txt so you can use the classic weapon names.

Afaik Michal isn't allowed to use MP3s by default, so the real game sounds are .wav PCM files or .it/.xm tracker songs. Basically he could just convert all the game sounds to OGG vorbis sound (smaller than WAV PCM and MP3, but better quality, free for commercial use afaik) without any problems.

..meh..

I think something much more serious wasn't mentioned here - he distributes commercial font with Soldat (Bitstream Bank Gothic).

Soldat is doomed.

Darn. Oh well... I guess I can move on with my life peacefully. (GOD [:-censored]ING DAMN IT **@*$#^*&!^)

Rofl!

Good work. You've made a topic that they pretty much can't lock without drawing susicion. So, as long as its here, nerf the barret!
(I'm kidding, don't lock the topic. I'm fine with it)

Haha I have to laugh at this.. so i will.. hahaha