[Question] Adapting Tilesets for Personal Use

[AvalancheMaster]

Hey, there!

A quick question to the community: would adapting tilesets for personal use be deemed OK? I want to use Mez03a but it really lacks some tiles, both functional and eyecandy. I don't plan to steal credits from Mez -- all credits will go to him.

Still, I'd like to know what the opinion of the community would be.

[Stijn]

Well, the opinion of the community doesn't really matter here. You'd need to ask the tileset creator for permission, not us.

That said though, there's definitely a few tilesets on J2O that were based on others' tilesets without permission. Which is not the result of a conscious decision on the part of the J2O staff - I'm not a big fan of it myself. However, you should really try to get permission from Mez personally first.

[Seren]

My policy is modify tilesets always, ask for permission never. Judging by previous discussions however, most of the rest of the community finds this approach immoral. One can only wonder how many asked Nick Stadler before modifying his art.

[AvalancheMaster]

Well, the opinion of the community doesn't really matter here. You'd need to ask the tileset creator for permission, not us.

That said though, there's definitely a few tilesets on J2O that were based on others' tilesets without permission. Which is not the result of a conscious decision on the part of the J2O staff - I'm not a big fan of it myself. However, you should really try to get permission from Mez personally first.

I would, if there was a way to contact him. Sadly, I've never encountered him here, neither have I seen him elsewhere (not to mention "Mez" is not the most SERP-friendly name, and even googling MEZ03a, for example, returns me Bollywood studio addresses).

[Treylina]

I don't see a big deal in modifying others tilesets, as long you give credit to the original creators. The original version is always there. And no, I wouldn't care if others edited my work/edits, as long there's no plagiarism. There's a difference in modifying a physical piece of work and a digital one.

People often don't ask for permission because there is no way to get in contact with the original creators anymore. Or in Nicks case, since he made the sets for JJ2, we tend to think that it's okay to make conversions/extracts out of them. Honestly he'd probably be happy that we fixed the masking and tile arrangement.

[AvalancheMaster]

I don't see a big deal in modifying others tilesets, as long you give credit to the original creators. The original version is always there. And no, I wouldn't care if others edited my work/edits, as long there's no plagiarism. There's a difference in modifying a physical piece of work and a digital one.

People often don't ask for permission because there is no way to get in contact with the original creators anymore. Or in Nicks case, since he made the sets for JJ2, we tend to think that it's okay to make conversions/extracts out of them. Honestly he'd probably be happy that we fixed the masking and tile arrangement.

Not to mention there are tilesets, like MEZ01, 02 and 03, which can be found only as parts of mappacks. The original upload is long lost.

I agree with Treylina on this. Still, anybody got contact details of MEZ?

[Slaz]

The original upload is long lost.
Well, All of Mez's uploads are archived by J2O (http://www.jazz2online.com/j2c/tilesets.htm). Not that any of them appear to include contact details though.

And I'm with SE on this matter. It's best practice to be kind and give credit to the original author somewhere. But otherwise I believe it's fine to edit someone elses work as long as you don't directly make money out of it (which isn't the case here on J2O).