Ethicalness

[OzziGuy]

Something thats been on my mind a bit. You see sites like Turbosquid or any other site selling royalty free 3D models right? Often brandishing some sort of "Got a deadline? Dont worry! Use our quality royalty free models to make your project special!" blah blah etc. I was wondering if anyone could give any insight into whether or not it is considered ethical to use royalty free models or any other models/textures for that matter that you have downloaded from the net, within a commercial project.

With my major project i did for example, I used only my own models and textures thinking that it would be considered "cheating" or wrong to use models or textures from say, an evermotion pack. I've always held this view for some reason and feel that in a project everything should be made by the creator but I'm starting to think that in certain instances this may not hold true.

For example, I'm being hired to create visualisations of a bunch of apartment buildings with freedom to use any sort of furniture that I wish. Would it be wrong and unethical to use a turbosquid model for example somewhere within the project?
I'm finding it hard to define my question but hopefully someone will be able to make sense of my ramblings.

[MrTom]

Good question.

Like you, I'd rather do everything myself, but if I absolutely had to use somebody's elses work, royalty free, then to keep my mind at rest I'd at least give credit to the originator of the work.

I've found though that anything labeled 'royalty free' is usually done so for a good reason.....it's not of a standard that you would want to pass off as your own, especially for a commercial project. I see these models as more 'practice' pieces, something you can 'use' to learn a particular technique with, eg a human head for learning unwrapping.

When all said and done it's the originators decision to effectively 'give away' their work, and release any copyright notice associated with it. In my eyes that makes it 'fair game' for use by anyone, for any reason, commercial or not.

Whether you take advantage of that is down to you, nobody is forcing you to use someone elses work, even if it is 'free'. If you feel strongly about it then why not 'exchange' models instead, do one yourself and offer it up as 'royalty free'. That way you'll be redressing the balance of downloading, and maybe put your mind at rest.

Personally I doubt that you'd find anything suitable to use, and if you did it probably wouldn't be free anyway, not entirely, it may be free to download but still not useable for a commercial project....which is fair.

To be honest the time spent searching for something you won't have to 'edit', which is 'royalty free', can be used in a profit making commercial project, AND is for the version of Max you are using......you may as well take an hour out and make your own.....and that's nothing to do with ethics....more economics.

My 2¢.

Regards.

[Fisher]

WTF! I just lost a whole page of response! n I had some good gouge in there, too!

well to summarize...

nah i dont think its unethical.

use your own work for your personal projects otherwise youll have a tough time sleeping.

if its for a company, use as many royalty-free models as possible because the company still pays you, regardless if you're the modeler or not.




....stupid page loading error.... *grumble grumble*...