iSource Textures - great stuff - usable in freebies?

Silent Winter

I bought some of the isource textures - impressed for the most part (except some large highlights on one of the roof-tiles - I know it's hard to get good roof shots in even lighting but this makes it unusable as a texture set for DS, though I have one idea that might work - the rest are great though, walls, wood and concrete too).

 

I intend to use them both for my own artwork and possibly in future commercial endeavours.  But my question today is about freebie models.  The readme mentions 'personal or commercial use'  - has anyone asked before if this includes or excludes freebie models?  (I'm talking here of tiling and cutting out pieces to apply to islands on a uv-map of a building I'm making and then packing it up to offer - not distributing flat tiled images of the textures).

 

Thanks in advance :)

MarkIsSleepy

This page: (EDIT: I removed the link because the main site might possibly be in competition with DAZ and I didn't want to risk the whole post getting deleted... just go to their site and find the "/user-license" page) breaks down how you can use them and gives some examples of the minimum modificaiton needed to be able to distribute them, including some examples.

If you don't meet their standard for minimum distribution then you could use them in renders and animations, even if you were charging for those renders or animations, but could not distribute the textures themselves. This applies only to textures you buy from them - it specifically says that you cannot distribute their free textures, no matter how much you alter them or cut them up. 

So don't accidentally mix up any of their free ones with ones you bought. 

EDIT TO ADD: At the very bottom of that link there is a contact link and they say several times in the text that if you're not sure, please ask them. So you could always create a quick mockup of what you want to do, send it to them and ask.

Richard Haseltine

Try closing the toolbar and the reenabling it.

Pack58

I can't see why the license terms from another sales site are applicable here.

lf you purchase them here then the terms should be those given here.

The only restrictions given anywhere in the documentation for the two I have purchased are from the shop pages:

"Can (also) be used as (derivatives or) a merchant resource in personal and commercial creation/distribution, providing the end result does not allow for easy extraction of the original texture"

A bit vague, personlly I'd steer away from freebies without legal advice and am way too frugal to pay to discover if giving stuff away is OK.

Edit: Actually the terms are repeated in the readmes and l don't think I need legal advice to work out freebies are a no go (except possibly as a promotional giveaway which in some jurisdictions may count as commercial use)

Silent Winter

MDO2010 said:

This page: (EDIT: I removed the link because the main site might possibly be in competition with DAZ and I didn't want to risk the whole post getting deleted... just go to their site and find the "/user-license" page) breaks down how you can use them and gives some examples of the minimum modificaiton needed to be able to distribute them, including some examples.

EDIT TO ADD: At the very bottom of that link there is a contact link and they say several times in the text that if you're not sure, please ask them. So you could always create a quick mockup of what you want to do, send it to them and ask.

Thanks - I didn't realise they had their own site too.  The license there seems a bit different though - especially:

2) Personal and commercial use for 3D props, scenes and models were the textures are not packaged separately as part of the end product.
    (Your customers must not have direct access to the texture files created using isourcetextures.com Game Textures)

The part about customers not having direct access to texture files - but in DS we would have that.  (Though I'm certain to meet the minimum alteration requirement).

Pack58 said:

 

Edit: Actually the terms are repeated in the readmes and l don't think I need legal advice to work out freebies are a no go (except possibly as a promotional giveaway which in some jurisdictions may count as commercial use)

That's the way I'm leaning unless/until I hear otherwise.  Might contact Daz/iSource just to be sure.  Thanks.

 

Richard Haseltine said:

Try closing the toolbar and the reenabling it.

Huh?  Try not having so many tabs open at once

Richard Haseltine

Silent Winter said:

 

Richard Haseltine said:

Try closing the toolbar and the reenabling it.

Huh?  Try not having so many tabs open at once

or paying attention, I'm sure someone mumbled something about that in the background once or twice

MarkIsSleepy

Pack58 said:

I can't see why the license terms from another sales site are applicable here.

lf you purchase them here then the terms should be those given here.

Sorry - that was my mistake. I knew of iSource textures from outside DAZ and had no idea they were also sold here so I just assumed the OP had bought them directly from iSource. 

Silent Winter

MDO2010 said:

Pack58 said:

I can't see why the license terms from another sales site are applicable here.

lf you purchase them here then the terms should be those given here.

Sorry - that was my mistake. I knew of iSource textures from outside DAZ and had no idea they were also sold here so I just assumed the OP had bought them directly from iSource. 

whereas I had no idea they were sold outside of Daz LOL - guess we both learned something today

Silent Winter

Update in case anyone else is interested / finds this thread in the future.

I got the following reply from Daz Support:

I spoke to our QA Team about this question and here is what they said:

"The rules of a merchant resource would allow him to distribute the finished product "commercially" which would include free or for sale items."

So it seems that free items are okay as long as it can be considered 'commercial' in some way (so shameless self-promotion to build up a following for future business would be counted I guess).

Pack58

Hmmm . . .  Interesting, but at the end of the day, no more precise then the wording in the shop pages/readmes realy.

Cheers for passing on the info.

 

Edit: Spelt stuff rong again.