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silentsnack posted:Thing is, a lawyer saying "nah don't do that" is an entirely different matter from the question of whether any of the IP-holders would actually take the case to court. Or whether they would win. DMCA and copyright laws make exceptions to allow copying/modification/conversion for private use without redistribution, so they would have a significant chance of losing (which also sets a precedent they might not want) Alright, yes what the lawyer actually said was almost certainly something more along the lines of "I don't see this ending well" rather than an opinion on what the specific legal decision was going to be. That wasn't really what I was trying to get at, and I can see I should have phrased that separately.
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Mar 14, 2018 20:59
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The legal advice probably boiled down to asking how much money a mod group wants to throw down in legal fees to combat a corporation that sued over trademarking the word Scrolls in a videogame title http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/bethesda-mojang-settle-trademark-dispute-over-scrolls-name.ars
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Mar 14, 2018 21:31
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Okay like here's the thing: The mod team can distribute the mod using silent sound files as placeholders for every single voice line in the game. When a user downloads the mod they extract the contents of the Fallout 3 voices.bsa archive, move them to the Fallout 4 folder, open whatever .ESP and save it to repackage them all as a .BA2 that would be read in Fallout 4. The game is now fully voiced. No copies of the original sound files of voice performances have been redistributed by the mod team during any step of this process. This creates a few problems for the rationale behind cancelling the project. If the voice actors just do not want their performances reused in a derivative or transformative work, but don't care about a Fallout 3 re-implementation, then allowing users to supply the original audio would be fine. If the issue is that the voice actors do not want editions of Fallout 3 without their voice acting distributed, but do not want to allow any derivative works, then the "we'll just do our own VA" or "we will not do VA" options wouldn't be a possibility. There just isn't a scenario where "we can't use the original voices, we don't want to use voice actors and we won't release the project without voices" actually makes sense. If you can't redistribute the original performances, but could use stand ins, then there is nothing stopping people from doing that themselves. This leaves me with my initial conclusion, that they are either too dumb to realize that they don't need to redistribute the original audio or they don't realize the actual legal issue they're facing.
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Mar 14, 2018 21:33
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turn off the TV posted:
Or they just don't want to do it that way out of personal preference. But yeah, that's mostly my read of the situation, too.
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Mar 14, 2018 21:44
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turn off the TV posted:You can't actually sue someone for distributing your copyrighted material as part of a derivative work if they are not, in fact, distributing your copyrighted material in a derivative work. You can absolutely sue them. Whether or not you'd win is another question, but as long as you've adequately stated a complaint the likelihood of prevailing isn't a bar to actually filing the suit.
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Mar 14, 2018 22:08
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Paracelsus posted:You can absolutely sue them. I don't think that "they haven't done anything, but it's possible that they could" would be an acceptable complaint.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:09
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Paracelsus posted:You can absolutely sue them. You'd sue them under the 'inciting piracy or providing services that facilitate piracy' section of the DMCA, the one they use on file sharing websites and stuff. You can also sue them for infringing on the original work too, fair use requires a number of hurdles to pass and a 100% faithful remake of a game in a new engine most likely doesn't meet those same hurdles. The entire project basically hinges on Bethesda not getting a hair up it's rear end and sending a C&D letter to them for any number of reasons, up to an including 'that's technically illegal and we can't say we're cool with it, even by omission', and any legal counsel they retain will know that.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:15
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:You'd sue them under the 'inciting piracy or providing services that facilitate piracy' section of the DMCA, the one they use on file sharing websites and stuff. No, you don't, because that's not how laws work. You, as a voice actor who has had their performances recorded as audio, cannot sue a mod author for releasing content for a game which can read audio files with the justification being a law that creates conditions determining the culpability of online service providers in hosting copyright infringing content on their servers. It's similar to the reason why a bartender can't be sued for medical malpractice under hunting provisions in National Parks.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:57
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Couldn't they sue the service providers to have their mod taken down from sites which host it? Which, for these major projects with teams behind them, is usually the mod author themselves? Also relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqwP6uuYOWo
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Mar 15, 2018 04:25
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Cup Runneth Over posted:Couldn't they sue the service providers to have their mod taken down from sites which host it? Which, for these major projects with teams behind them, is usually the mod author themselves? They wouldn't need to do that because these mods are easily outside of the realm of any legal copyright exceptions. Recreating assets like meshes, scripts and textures used in Fallout 3 and then redistributing them is not protected. Bethesda could simply send them a cease and desist and then litigate if they don't stop. Having the mod designed in such a way so as to utilize the original recording files if they are present on the end user's machine without distributing said files themselves would be less dicey than pretty much any other part of the project.
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Mar 15, 2018 04:46
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Using "one weird trick to avoid legal repercussions", in almost any art field, is both legally incorrect and ethically stupid. IP law is deliberately vague to allow the court room to interpret the intent behind the potential theft. EDIT: This is akin to when people think if they trace art and then put it on a t-shirt, technically, it isn't theft. No, it is. It's just that you haven't been sued yet. EDIT EDIT: Actually any time you use the word 'technically' when thinking about IP law you're probably already in a corner.
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Mar 15, 2018 04:50
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Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
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Mar 15, 2018 04:59
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Mendrian posted:Using "one weird trick to avoid legal repercussions", in almost any art field, is both legally incorrect and ethically stupid. In this context the "one weird trick" is making sure to wear your ear protection while dropping a match into a jerrycan of gasoline at your feet.
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Mar 15, 2018 04:59
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turn off the TV posted:No, you don't, because that's not how laws work. You, as a voice actor who has had their performances recorded as audio, cannot sue a mod author for releasing content for a game which can read audio files with the justification being a law that creates conditions determining the culpability of online service providers in hosting copyright infringing content on their servers. Point is if Bethesda catches any flak from anyone they have a prior contractual obligation to, they're gonna pivot and poo poo on the mod authors 100%. And since per the article Bethesda is aware of it, they can't claim ignorance, and the entire mod was already so deep into the "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" realm of 'well technically' for copyright law, just quitting was probably the best choice they could have made. Who knows, maybe we'll get a FO3 remastered as a halfassed cash-grab in a few years.
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Mar 15, 2018 07:41
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SUE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING FOREVER
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Mar 15, 2018 07:53
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I'd be OK if RPGs didn't have voice acting. I'd imagine this would improve the writing overall. Mass Effect is the only RPG that I've played (I haven't played them all, like I don't even know how Dragon Age Inquisitions does it) that didn't seem like it was being held back by having a voiced protagonist.
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Mar 15, 2018 08:43
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There were shittily written RPG before voice acting.
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Mar 15, 2018 09:40
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Coolguye posted:SUE EVERYONE INDICTMENTS MOTHERFUCKER
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Mar 15, 2018 09:50
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:I'd be OK if RPGs didn't have voice acting. I'd imagine this would improve the writing overall. Mass Effect is the only RPG that I've played (I haven't played them all, like I don't even know how Dragon Age Inquisitions does it) that didn't seem like it was being held back by having a voiced protagonist.
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Mar 15, 2018 10:14
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Ghostlight posted:Why would you imagine that? The writers are the ones producing the work that's being voice-acted. Final Fantasy 6 immediately comes to mind. I remember watching a video where they showed a scene from the game (introduction of Gau, specifically) with a fan voiceover reading the lines. Suddenly the writing seemed EXTREMELY cringey, whereas its only somewhat cringey if you're just reading it. I also wonder how the actors are paid. Is it based on number of lines? I'm wondering why Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson have such small roles in Oblivion and Fallout 3. Or why Snake in MGS5 barely says anything at all, compared to Ground Zeroes. I also can't help but feel that Fallout 4 suffers heavily from having a voiced protagonist.
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Mar 15, 2018 10:38
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Final Fantasy 6 immediately comes to mind. I remember watching a video where they showed a scene from the game (introduction of Gau, specifically) with a fan voiceover reading the lines. Suddenly the writing seemed EXTREMELY cringey, whereas its only somewhat cringey if you're just reading it. I understand it varies from actor to actor. Some of them apparently charge by the word
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Mar 15, 2018 10:45
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I remember reading that one of the issues the Duckman video game had was that Jason Alexander charged a mint for doing that voice because he realized it was doing a number on his vocal cords.
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Mar 15, 2018 10:49
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Furia posted:INDICTMENTS MOTHERFUCKER LAWPOCALYPSE NOW!
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Mar 15, 2018 11:02
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Or why Snake in MGS5 barely says anything at all, compared to Ground Zeroes. I'm told that this is because Kojima had watched Mad Max: Fury Road and really liked how Max was a man of few words in that movie, so he copied it for the game.
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Mar 15, 2018 11:37
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Coolguye posted:SUE EVERYONE Now you're thinking with patents!
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Mar 15, 2018 11:52
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Speaking of video game mods, I like the name of this one https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/64700 quote:This mod adds a new shop to Freeside specializing in Grunt Perk weaponry. Once you're supplied you can accept two new objective-oriented quests and pursue six bounty targets via a terminal located in the shop.
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Mar 15, 2018 16:15
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In the same category, just happened across this Max Payne mod.
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Mar 15, 2018 21:12
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Discendo Vox posted:In the same category, just happened across this Max Payne mod. The custom campaign for it is even more crazy/anime. Like, you go full DBZ at one point, for some reason. Planning to Replay Max Payne 1, 2 and Katana soon...
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Mar 15, 2018 21:18
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Don't forget the Kung Fu mod for one of the games, it's so good it's unreal.
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Mar 15, 2018 21:36
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Final Fantasy 6 immediately comes to mind. I remember watching a video where they showed a scene from the game (introduction of Gau, specifically) with a fan voiceover reading the lines. Suddenly the writing seemed EXTREMELY cringey, whereas its only somewhat cringey if you're just reading it. Yeah if you know lines are definitely going to be voice-acted, you have to write differently. Though Final Fantasy 6 always was going to have the additional clunkiness that it's a translation from another language that was never going to have the proper time and space to nail the English version the way later games or games produced originally in English can. A really really skilled voice actor could probably take pretty bad lines and make them work, but a lot of people just can't.. There's a lot of ways voice acting gets paid for. But one big factor for the big names is they're often only available to come into a proper studio for your game project for a day or even a few hours tops, because they've got so many commitments to big time movies and TV stuff, and anything else they also need to do. You can secure much more of their time by being willing to shell out a lot more money upfront so they prioritize you over some other minor role, but often the publisher doesn't want to do that.
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Mar 15, 2018 22:31
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Discendo Vox posted:In the same category, just happened across this Max Payne mod. Can't believe it took this long to make Max Payne into The Specialists E: I guess this has been been around since 2004, so less time than I thought!
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Mar 16, 2018 00:34
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Ghostlight posted:Why would you imagine that? The writers are the ones producing the work that's being voice-acted. It's harder to make changes after the fact. It's harder to make a lot of words in the game because then you need to voice a lot of words and that costs money and the sound files all take up space and aaaaaa etc.
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Mar 16, 2018 00:49
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Midnight Voyager posted:It's harder to make changes after the fact. It's harder to make a lot of words in the game because then you need to voice a lot of words and that costs money and the sound files all take up space and aaaaaa Yeah, one thing to remember is that in stuff like Baldur's Gate, they were still adding text and lines right up to the end of production. They could expand whatever dialog they wanted, because it was all just blocks of text. When you voice act stuff, suddenly that poo poo needs to be locked in real early, so you can set up sessions, schedule everything, sync the files, edit, etc. You can't just look through the story later and go "ok, this poo poo isn't working, we need to expand this and this, rework this, and trim this, go grab the voice actors and let's get this knocked out". That costs money, time, and effort, none of which are in high supply at crunch time. So you have to be committed to that poo poo in a way unvoiced-text-only stories don't necessarily have to be.
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Mar 16, 2018 04:22
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You have to be really disconnected from the actual process of making games to not understand how voice acting makes games more difficult to make.
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Mar 16, 2018 04:40
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just use text to speech and make everyone Will from Afar, problem solved
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Mar 16, 2018 05:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jvT5yeC0Zs Come get some!
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Mar 16, 2018 07:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cwhbe4adRo
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Mar 17, 2018 23:56
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Furia posted:I understand it varies from actor to actor. Some of them apparently charge by the word It depends on fame as well. Hiring Patrick Stewart for basically anything isn't going to be cheap. The top voice actors can probably command a pretty big chunk of money for their time, especially if they're a famous actor already.
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Mar 18, 2018 00:05
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My ultimate dream in life is that someday there will be more than one blank slate protagonist RPG in which the player controls the dialogue of their companions in addition to the protagonist. I really appreciated being able to hold conversations as the preexisting party members in Divinity 2.
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Mar 18, 2018 02:16
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turn off the TV posted:My ultimate dream in life is that someday there will be more than one blank slate protagonist RPG in which the player controls the dialogue of their companions in addition to the protagonist. I really appreciated being able to hold conversations as the preexisting party members in Divinity 2. Xenoblade 1 and 2 will let you pick what characters say during heart-to-heart conversations, even if they don't involve the protagonist.
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Mar 18, 2018 02:38
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