I plan on creating full size maps to sell on the market, however, the landscapes were sculpted using a auto material landscape tool that I purchased from the market, and some of the houses on the maps were made by a modular house building kit that I also purchased from the market, am I allowed to sell my maps with these assets?
long answer: of course not.
Short answer: nee
longer answer: would need to remove all content you didnt make, purchased from mp, and anything else that has copyright or was not made by you unless you have a signed agreement with the person or company you got that content from.
are you completely sure? I been reading over the market guidelines and it says.
" Each such product built using content purchased from the Marketplace must be a standalone creative work (such a game, simulation, or video) in which the Marketplace product is merely a component and not the primary focus."
in my case, the modular parts of the houses are not the primary focus, the primary focus would be the map, trees, roads, landscape ectā¦ if selling the map is is not allowed then I could just make a simple game that uses the map and assets, thus, it would be a stand alone creative work, right?
the way I see it, say you purchased a hammer, some nails and some wood, you then create something using those tools, you should have the right to sell your creation right? this is the same exact thing, im not selling the actual tools used to make the map, im just selling the content that the tools helped to make.
I completely understand how selling the āraw ingredientsā of some ones elseās work is wrong, however, I do not intend to sell the raw ingredients whats so ever, I simply wish to sell content that the tools I purchased helped to create. imma go into the exact details of what I want to doā¦
so, I first purchased a auto landscape pack from the market, it contained only some materials and some blending functions, the pack I bought was being sold as a standalone landscape material pack, I then replaced its materials with my own but I still used its blending and auto-sculpting functions to sculpt my terrain. I then purchased a asset pack from the market that contained a small variety of modular house parts, the pack did not sell with pre-made houses or anything, it only came with the individual building parts like walls, doors, roofs, floors ectā¦ I then created a entire town by combining those parts together piece by piece, I even added my own modular parts that I created myself, so what I end up with is a huge and well designed map that contains a ton of different houses, trees, grass, rocks, a few neighborhoods and stuff. Now I wish to sell that map along with the neighborhoods that I designed, all the houses will of course be only static meshes and of course not contain any of the functions that the original tool provided, the pack will not contain any type of modular building parts, only single static meshesā¦so its not like im selling someones elseās work, like, if you wanna build your own houses, you will have to purchase the other persons pack because my pack only contains solid static meshes and have no modular building functions what so everā¦heres another example, if you build a pc with parts you purchased from amazon, then its legit if you wish to sell that pc right? this is the same thingā¦I think.
indeed, ill send a email and report back. and yeah, It would be a shame to have to remove all the towns I made, I put alot of work and effort into this thing, had plans to offer good quality map design and hundreds of unique houses and props for around 10 bucksā¦ I mean, I dont see the point of buying modular assets if you cant sell the content you create with themā¦kinda defeats the purpose from my perspectiveā¦can you imagine trying to sell a painting you made and then walmart be all like " hey, you cant sell that because you painted it with the brushes you bought from us" @.@
no doubt, my map is simply intended to be a massive open world for a survival game, using modular assets is perfect for me because im doing it all solo, it saves a lot of time while still allowing me the creative freedom of making something from pretty much nothing ( almost nothing) that isā¦I think I should just email the original creator of the modular parts and see what he thinks about it.
The walls doors and so on from the pack you bought, are these 3d fbx models the seller made himself in a modeling program? and are they in the pack you intend to sell? If they are then you canāt sell them.
When a product is for sale on the marketplace, all assets within it are also being sold, and you are making money from them all, regardless of their use. You cannot sell other peoples work without explicit permission. The guideline you quoted was for Epics own work, which they allow to be used (anything from the content examples for instance), but that does not apply to other third party assets.
I think you are mistaken, the quote came straight from the FAQ in the section of " what can a customer do with my work" key word is costumer , here is the exact copy.
"What can a customer do with my product?
All products sold on the Marketplace are licensed to the customer (who may be either an individual or company) for the lifetime right to use the content in developing an unlimited number of products and in shipping those products. The customer is also licensed to make the content available to employees and contractors for the sole purpose of contributing to products controlled by the customer.
Each such product built using content purchased from the Marketplace must be a standalone creative work (such a game, simulation, or video) in which the Marketplace product is merely a component and not the primary focus."
the meshes are individual pieces of a house, but the seller sells this product as a tool for quickly putting together houses, its simply a tool, that is his packs main focus. what im doing is building a map for a game, this map contains houses that were built with the help of his tool. who ever buys my pack does not get access to his tool, they only get access to the stuff that I created myself while using his toolā¦
That basically says no asset flipping without originality, and use is licensed for your product being commercialized ie game, film, etc. why not talk to the seller about selling a texture pack for an item. You cannot clone advanced fur shader with your own different textures and expect to sell the shader in mp. Why not just use epics landscape example material with your textures? Thinking you can re sell a mp asset in your pack is ridiculous. There are tons of free auto landscape materials. Its not like theyāll let you re sell advanced locomotion with your own animations and character.
thats completely different. I think some of you are greatly misunderstanding what im asking about, but it does not matter now because the creator of the tool says its fine to sell packs in which I used his tool to help create. see, there is a huge difference between selling someones raw content and selling a pack that contains content that the tool help create. Im not sure how much more clear I can be about my intent can beā¦and no, its saying no reselling assets without having them integrated into your pack, see, the pack I bought is only a tool used for creating stuff, my pack contains only the stuff that I created using the tool, the tool itself is not being sold nor is its functions being sold. when someone buys my map pack, they get a full sized map, this map has stuff that is integrated into it that was made by using a tool I purchased from the market. its the same exact thing as selling a video game that contains assets that were purchased from the market. whats the point of buying tools to build stuff if you can not market the content you create with it?
Dutchie, everyone is telling you no, even pointing out flaws in your logic, and explaining you why.
You are only defending this because there is a small realization that all your hard work might be for naught.
Not all is lost though, you learned a lot while making this and if you go at it againā¦ Really making everything from scratch so nothing from those packages is still present you can submit it, and be proud about it.
now, in the case that you are a poor explainer and we poor at understanding you and you actually did exactly that, then there is nothing to worry about.
If content from those packages are still present though, you might end up with problems and is that worth the risk?
Many sellers make packs that have modular doors walls etc and when you put them in a game and sell that game the people who buy your game DO NOT have access to those modular pieces. There is a difference where you sell a game you donāt have access to the assets and when you sell a project where you do. Its as simple as this. The pack you sell will have folders in it. regardless of the map you put together the folders will have assets in it that buyers can export and put those assets into their UE4 projects. Walls, doors etc are fbx models. If one of those fbx files was created by someone else and unless you have express permission from that creator to sell their work then you canāt put those fbx files in your pack. End of story.
all is not lost, the maker of the pack says its fine if I sell my map as is.
when someone purchases my map, they do not get access to any of the modular parts, all of the houses built from those parts are merged together into one single static mesh, as a whole.
Doesnāt matter if they are separate, together or put into a million pieces like a jigsaw you still need their permission to sell them but if that is the maker you are talking about then you have that permission. If itās not epic wonāt let you sell it.
Like tcla75 said, it doesnt matter how the final product was assembled if it uses other peoples work. You did not make the house or its content, you just assembled it. If you have permission from the author of the pack you are using (which I feel they are probably confused about your intentions as well) then thats fine.
@dutchiexx No need to extend this discussion, in the same FAQ you have the marketplace support e-mail where you can address your question and have it answered in a 24-48 time frame. I am the one aswell that also sees your question with a NO as answer. Your quote disregard some points that I will place in bold characters for your attention:
"What can a customer do with my product?
All products sold on the Marketplace are licensed to the customer (who may be either an individual or company) for the lifetime right to use the content in developing an unlimited number of products and in shipping those products. The customer is also licensed to make the content available to employees and contractors for the sole purpose of contributing to products controlled by the customer.
Each such product built using content purchased from the Marketplace must be a standalone creative work (such a game, simulation, or video) in which the Marketplace product is merely a component and not the primary focus."
So if you create a map you are not creating a standalone creative work, but a component to be used in a source form, so you cannot add other peopleās components as source form into yours without their consent.
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^This guy knows his licencing, i would listen to him.
Always try to be safe first than sorry later, so do send an email and donāt try to sell anything unless youāre 100% sure there are no issues when doing so, copyright disputes are not nice things.
Be safe!