86 replies to this topic

[Luscious Dan]

Heffay, on 04 November 2016 - 08:49 AM, said:

As has been said many times, PGI does not have the rights to sell models.

PGI has been INCREDIBLY supportive of the fan art community. They even call out particularly good print and paint jobs done by the community. Nobody else who has printed them has ever run into any troubles. However, there is a very clear line that can't be crossed, and that's what happened here.



Nobody else has been banned. PGI hasn't locked down the models.

Agreed, they have been more supportive / less litigious than many other companies in the gaming industry would have been. But linking to the commercial sites instead of just promoting "personal use" was obviously a no-no.

[Alexander Garden]

We completely understand the enthusiasm and desire for 3D printed 'Mech models; we feel the same way. However, the reality is that we do not own merchandising rights for the MechWarrior franchise and we are not legally permitted to meet the demand for official MWO merchandise.

For anyone interested in 3D printing MechWarrior Online models for personal use and enjoyment, we ask that you please do not support any services which attempt to exploit and profit from the work of others by providing models created by or derived from the work of the PGI art team.

Any loss or moderation of a player account related to this has been and will only be incurred as a result of posting links to or explicit discussions of such services, despite previous warnings and agreements not to.

[Elrik Stormbringer]

Just wanted to throw in some support for PGI on this issue. As stated by Alex and others, they have been incredibly supportive of the fan-created prints and that is really something we need to acknowledge here. Does it suck that Alexi got banned? Yes. Is it entirely 100% his own fault for blatantly breaking the forum rules as well as licensing laws? Yup.

[Pariah Devalis]

Alexander Garden, on 04 November 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

We completely understand the enthusiasm and desire for 3D printed 'Mech models; we feel the same way. However, the reality is that we do not own merchandising rights for the MechWarrior franchise and we are not legally permitted to meet the demand for official MWO merchandise.

For anyone interested in 3D printing MechWarrior Online models for personal use and enjoyment, we ask that you please do not support any services which attempt to exploit and profit from the work of others by providing models created by or derived from the work of the PGI art team.

Any loss or moderation of a player account related to this has been and will only be incurred as a result of posting links to or explicit discussions of such services, despite previous warnings and agreements not to.

100% behind this. Making models for your own use, or at no profit to yourself or anyone else, is one thing. Linking to, and being potentially associated with, a group that does profit off of other people's art is just wrong.

I don't suppose you know if IWM is going to utilize PGI designs on updated models, per chance? I mean, if there's interest on homogenizing the designs across multiple games and art sources, it makes sense, right?

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 04 November 2016 - 11:49 AM.

[Juodas Varnas]

Wait, was Alexi perma-banned?
Because it seems pretty harsh for something without any malevolent intentions.

I get the whole need for punishment for breaking rules and not listening to warnings, etc, but i do think that banning him for like a week or so would've been more than enough of a slap on the wrist for him to learn his lesson.

[Luscious Dan]

Alexander Garden, on 04 November 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

Any loss or moderation of a player account related to this has been and will only be incurred as a result of posting links to or explicit discussions of such services, despite previous warnings and agreements not to.

(emphasis added by me)

Sounds like it wasn't a "one strike you're out" situation. I don't think we're going to get any more info, but it's a lesson for anyone else posting on here.