...20 year old games??

FFS. Original link edited. Go download if you haven't already. 

still need an updated URL for "official patch 2" in the thread topic 

and the patch 2 readme URL is broken 

and the screenshot links! 

Hosted plenty mods, maps, etc. of the user created variety. Many Quake deathmatch levels had Q3 textures, many single player releases had Q2 textures or Hexen 2 textures.

Even mods like QMatrix which was a defacto trademark violating mod just by the name.

And if you want to get "strict" Quakespasm, FitzQuake, ezQuake, ProQuake are trademark violating engine names for an open source project -- which is why DarkPlaces, for instances, doesn't have the word "Quake" in the name. Which, of course the strict interpretation would be absurd.

However, Moddb being a general purpose site no doubt has plenty of 12 year olds that would use content from other games wholesale to make a "new game".

Unfortunately, with mature game platforms the participants tend to know where gray turns into black -- but immature modders tend to not know when the gray area hits black.

Moddb has to address that concern with lowest common denominator thinking.

Which is just how the binary corporate world works, where no gray area exists. 

IMO it doesn't matter that it's on moddb. As long as it's hosted and available to download. I highly doubt anyone is getting in trouble for reused assets from hexen etc. 

I understand the moddb thing, but why would oyu take it off sites 'personally connected to you'? 

So he doesn't get sued, seems obvious to me! 

So it's more another case of sock overreacting than an actual problem found or caused by ModDB? The mod is on Quaddicted, so nothing is lost fortunately. What nitin said, though.
Does this mean the AD mapping doc isn't going to happen now? 

No idea, you'll have to ask him. I'd do it myself if I had time, but I'd rather spend time in the editor.

I think sock is trying to play it safe in all honesty. Not all modders care about litigious game companies but they probably should. I think if someone like Skiffy had come along at the beginning of the mod then Sock would have been able to create all new content without any concerns. Sadly we didn't have a dedicated modeller, we just made do with the best we could. 

Hope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster

Fair use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Derivative work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

Transformativeness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformativeness 

Letter of the law is one thing ... Not wanting to even chance having to deal with it is another. I can totally understand the latter. 

Moddb would get a DMCA takedown notice, there is practically zero danger. Copyright infringement is a basic part of modding. 

You know when lawyers get involved? If there is real money to make. Otherwise they have better things to do like troll companies making millions a day. Us guys tinkering away in the dark is just not on their todo list. 

Until it is. I can see the risk aversion. It only takes once... 

in the unlikely event someone cares, you'll get a C&D before anything resembling a lawsuit happens. 

I hereby order a Cease and Desist of premature, unnecessary Cease and Desisting. 

Would this mean no fancy document for the readme?
Probably not, the readme file does contain a ton of stuff about the new features and the special fgd/def files have full details of all new parameters. There is also all the test maps (source included) that can be loaded in any Quake editor.

So it's more another case of sock overreacting than an actual problem found or caused by ModDB?
There are plenty of trolls on ModDB that love to stir up trouble and I did not want to argue over "other" content when in theory its wrong. I would prefer to move on and concentrate my energy on new projects!

I understand the moddb thing, but why would you take it off sites 'personally connected to you'?
I don't need to host it anymore, its available on Quaddicted (main file+patches). I don't always host all my work on my site; speedmaps, jams and retrojams are not on my site either! 

Congrats on taking control! That's awesome. 

fair enough.

As long as there will be new projects and you are not put off the whole idea because of ModDB trolls :) 

I've always been a pretty strict copyrightarian in my other endeavours (Doom, Debian) but AD has made me reconsider things a little bit. I mean I own the other games anyway, and having the assets reused and remixed with the incredible original content is basically giving a new breath of life to these old games gathering dust on my shelf. (or shoebox in the attic, more realistically). At the end of the day I guess AD would not exist and I would not be enjoying it if it hadn't lifted some models from hexen2, etc., and I'm glad it does exist, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and those old assets are honoured by their inclusion IMHO. 

-AD and the other mods, the alleged infringers, are in reality the only reason why people still buy quake today.

- the fact that AD contains some assets from hexen2, etc, but only need a purchased version of Quake to run, might be consider a copyright violation, but on the other hand, the copyright owner still benefits from the infringer.

- even if purchased, these games do not run on a modern machine, they need modern engines, developed by the same infringer community.

a very nice case 

People complaining about copyright infringement can fuck off.

Copyright is supposed to protect entire products from being stolen and resold at another's benefit.

Modding is by definition based on others work, for a non profit end. 

the right of the copyright owners should be protected. Especially if money are involved.

but alleging copyright infringements on a 20 year old game(s), after that the source code was licensed under the GPL on 1999, is something different. Especially a case like this one, in which the owner can only benefits from the situation; even more, these benefits seem to be the real intent behind the decision of the GPL licensing. 

You guys are arguing from an emotional and logical point of view. The legal view is the one that matters.