Guild of Writers

Posted: **Thu Apr 03, 2008 5:58 pm**

I sent the following letter to Cyan's legal department last week:

Robert The Rebuilder wrote:To members of the Cyan Worlds legal team:

As you may already know, the Guild of Writers have recently released a new Blender plugin with the ability to incorporate sounds into fan created ages. This adds a whole new dimension of realism to the formerly silent ages, and the age creation community is eagerly taking advantage of this new capability.

One question has come up regarding the use of the vast library of sounds that is part of the URU: Complete Chronicles release. Is it alright to release a fan-created age that references an URU:CC sound?

To be clear: I use the term "reference" because that most accurately describes the data element within the fan-created age which links the URU:CC sound to the age. Specifically, it is a plSoundBuffer class that has a filename attribute; it does not contain the actual sound data.

The data files comprising the age would not include the URU:CC sound file; other explorers that wish to hear the sound in that age must have that file as part of their URU:CC installation. To reiterate: there would not be any Cyan content distributed with the age files.

Your guidance in this matter would be much appreciated. If at all possible, I would like to share your reply with the Guild of Writers community so that others are clear about Cyan's position on this. Or, if you prefer, feel free to post the reply on the Guild of Writers forums: http://forum.guildofwriters.com

Thank you for your time.

Here's Tony's reply:

Tony Fryman wrote:Robert - your quiry prompted us to put up a post. We just don't know what will become of the game in the short or long term and would hate to send you guys down the wrong path. With that said I have no issue with you using the Blender plugin for audio as you have described below.

Best regards,

Tony

Posted: **Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:00 pm**

So to clarify completely (without any legal language):

You can use any existing sound from Uru CC or Uru PotS in your fan-Age. You cannot redistribute the sound file, but as long as the other person has PotS or CC installed, they will hear the sound playing.

Great news Robert!

Posted: **Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:22 pm**

This is great news, and it is hard to see why this would not become true for textures too, unless for technical reasons they would have to be distributed with the Age.

Posted: **Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:17 am**

Thanks for the non-legal paraphrasing, Paradox!

Chacal: textures have to be embedded in the age PRP files, whereas sound does not. So, it is a re-distribution issue with textures.

*me now resumes plans to add Kadish pillar sound effects to Shell 111*

Posted: **Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:27 am**

Robert The Rebuilder wrote:Chacal: textures have to be embedded in the age PRP files, whereas sound does not. So, it is a re-distribution issue with textures.

Not necessarily. And we are already referencing the global textures for linking panels in our books.

Guild of Writers

Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages

Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages

Re: Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages

Re: Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages

Re: Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages

Re: Permission Granted To Reference URU:CC Sounds In Our Ages