Hammer Illegal? The Quest to find out :)

#1 I could've sworn people have tried to E-Mail them in the past and they don't respond. Good luck, though.

#2 Well ill keep emailing em if they dont...
Ill post at their site...
Ill call their support lines!...
Ill do anything to get them to tell us yes or no..

#3 I suggest just either use Constructor when it comes or use CartographyShop with the Torque Pipeline. Save yourself the hassle.

#4 I saw in some thread they replied to one guys email saying yes, it could be used. But others said that an email is not the most concrete agreement, and suggested staying away from it unless they made it official in their EULA.

I also think I remember Jeff Tunnell saying not to bombard them with emails about it :P

Thats only from memory though.

#5 How about this ???

#6 Whats the point of spending time trying to get permission to use software thats getting old and never updated. (People have been sending them emails for years)

Just dig deep in to your pockets and buy something like cshop, or wait for Torque Constructor to come out.

If you don't want to pay... just use quark.

#7 I had a response back in February 2004, so saying no one getting any emails back is simply not true.

#8 And the response was what stefan? :)

#9 Uh, yeah. The tech support guy said "It's OK" - and his signature, nothing more. But obviously someone told Yacketta that it is NOT okay so it probably ain't. :/

#10 Theoretically if you export a .map out of hammer and into quark and then export out of quark as a .dif they wouldnt be able to tell you used their editor correct?...Theoretically speaking of course ^_~

#11 Theoretically if you walk out of a store with a cd stuffed in your pants and no one notices then you didn't actually steal it, right?

Oh wait...no...whether or not you get caught has little bearing on whether or not something is theft.


The Hammer issue is a complicated one. While Valve did send GG an email giving permission for the Torque community to use Hammer, they never updated the EULA that you agree to when you install Hammer. However, in that very same EULA it does say that you can use Hammer for non-Half-Life games if you have written permission from Valve. The issue then becomes does an email constitute written permission to violate a EULA? Unfortunately, there isn't a clear legal precedent on this and from what I understand, most lawyers/judges would say no. So you are left with trying to get Valve to update their EULA, which costs them money in lawyer fees and is something they haven't been willing to do for the last 4 years or you need to get them to sign some legally binding "written permission" (which can also potentially cost them some lawyer fees). And this isn't even touching on the whole debate on the legality of EULA's in the first place (the courts seem to be upholding them as legal for the most part these days).

Ultimately, Valve seems to be cool with the GG community using Hammer (pre-HL2 version). There have been several emails directly from them indicating this to them. So, you seem to be in the clear on using it (the store owner seems to be letting you have the cd). However, if the next Counter-Strike were to arise out of Torque game and it had Hammer generated content in it, they might suddenly want a very big piece of it (ie: sue you). And at this point, legally, they would be the ones to win.

Because of the lack of clarity in the legal standing of this issue, GG can not officially support or recommend that you use Hammer.

#12 So theoretically speaking? Pre-HL2 hammer would be fine to make TGE Games with?

#13

Quote:So theoretically speaking? Pre-HL2 hammer would be fine to make TGE Games with?

No. It would theoretically be "okay", for the time being.
If valve eventually make up their minds you'll be in deep shit. So basically, no, don't use hammer. It's simply not worth it.

#14 And supposing they update the EULA we can leggaly use it in our games without being sued?

#15

Quote:And supposing they update the EULA we can leggaly use it in our games without being sued?

If the updated EULA would say it's okay, of course.

#16 But we must wait for that day in which they officially let us I guess.... Maybe with enough emails about the EULA they will change it.

#17 SO, lets begin the task of e-mailing them over and over and over again. I betcha if everyone in this community e-mailed them, theyd do something =) .

#18

Quote:I also think I remember Jeff Tunnell saying not to bombard them with emails about it :P

that is also true.

However I have emailed them, prior to this, and gotten a response:


Heres the email, with headers

Quote:Return-Path:
Received: from smtp3.valvesoftware.com ([207.173.176.199])
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(InterMail vM.6.01.03.03 201-2131-111-105-20040624) with ESMTP
id <20040817054657.MLMQ19314.priv-edtnes15.telusplanet.net@smtp3.valvesoftware.com>
for ; Mon, 16 Aug 2004 23:46:57 -0600
Received: from [207.173.178.188] (helo=exchange.valvesoftware.com)
by smtp3.valvesoftware.com with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian))
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for ; Mon, 16 Aug 2004 22:44:50 -0700
X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5.6944.0
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MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C4841D.9B1D6C32"
Subject: RE: Hammer Liscence question
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 22:46:56 -0700
Message-ID:
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Thread-Topic: Hammer Liscence question
thread-index: AcSEG8lC8iLD4lvYQfiWWCPdRtFShwAAc64Q
From: "Rick Ellis"
To:
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It's ok to do this.

Rick
Valve



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jevans83@telus.net [mailto:jevans83@telus.net]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 10:30 PM
To: SDk
Subject: Hammer Liscence question


Is there any problems with using Hammer to make maps for Torque, does Valve condone this, or are they against it, etc, thanks for any info.

But then again that doesn't look like much legal mumbo jumbo as compared to the eula now does it?

#19 Its info like this that at least helps somewhat :)

#20 But in your mail u didnt specified that the maps are for commercial games :/