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Legal FAQ
The contract permits me, Dávid Karnok, the right to use, rework, derive and publish resources from the original game as part of the Open Imperium Galactica project, which must remain free and open-source. This right is not transferable and not exclusive.
Going commercial, selling it, earning money or creating new, independent software with any of the resources provided.
This also means that no donations can be asked for or accepted, which I have never ever done during the life of the project, as I was anticipating this no-money criteria.
Of course there is. Any know-how, method, algorithm, idea, business information I might come across I must keep as secret, but since Open-IG is open-source, some know-how, method, algorithm, idea is allowed to become public so long as it is used for ensuring similarities between the original and Open-IG.
For example, if I find the equation behind planetary morale, the algorithm can go into Open-IG. However, if I (ever) receive the source code of the original, I can't reveal it at all.
The maintenance and support of Open-IG is solely my responsibility, and never of Digital Reality. In addition, any potential copyright violation with third parties is again solely my responsibility, and must not involve DR in any way.
Technically, they are not involved in Open-IG any way beyond the fact of the permission detailed above.
No. Resources from IG2 can't be published. This affects the planned IG2 DLC in the sense that neither the videos, nor (ship-) graphics can be derived and used in Open-IG at the moment.
This basically means, that beyond adding spying and trading screens, I won't be able to show you the secret of the Brotherhood of Tear with 8-bit graphics.
Since IG2 was resurrected recently for iPads, I don't see any possibility to move into this direction in the foreseeable future.
No. The original was not put into public domain at all. Downloading the images from torrent still counts as copyright violation.
I have no definite information on this, but I have doubts due technical reasons. We saw a few old games sold on GOG and similar sites which use DosBox or emulation. This could give some hope, but my own experience - and the fact Open-IG exists - is that it is quite hard to get the original working properly and consistently.
Yes, both IG1 and IG2 was released on both Steam and GOG by the current owner, THQ Nordic:
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/573790/Imperium_Galactica/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/490370/Imperium_Galactica_II/
- https://www.gog.com/game/imperium_galactica
- https://www.gog.com/game/imperium_galactica_ii_alliances
In addition, IG2 got a mobile release:
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalreality.ig2
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/imperium-galactica-ii/id1127374854?mt=12
The project has now a split license:
The source code, the campaign XML data files are still under LGPL. The graphics, audio, video, text labels, subtitles and some planet-surface binary data files are original, converted, modified or derived work with permission from DR to be used and published by me on this site.
Yes, under the terms of LGPL.
No. The permissions go only to this project. If you want to use them elsewhere, whether commercially or freely, you have to negotiate a contract with DR separately.
Yes, so long as your DLC contains your own-created resources or references the resources of Open-IG. You can then publish (or sell) the DLC as you like.
However, if you take any original or Open-IG reworked resource and create a derived work, you can't legally publish it nor sell it.
I.e., if you take the Thorin and you paint it pink, you may not publish that unless you get the necessary permissions.
Working on the code/XML is still the same, project committers can upload changes as before.
Strictly speaking, the publishing is only permitted to me. However, the work with the resources may be outsourced to project members, who then send the results back to me on private channels. Then, I can publish them. Technically, the process remains the same as it always was.
It's hard to say. Strictly speaking, my permission for arbitrary distribution channel might not cover your pendrive. It is safe for him/her to download it directly from this site or if you use his/her own pendrive.
Same applies as above, but why would you do that anyway? Since other peers have internet access, they could just download it from this side, and of course, always have the up-to-date version.
Nothing comes to my mind at the moment.