selling custom tf2 animations - legal or illegal?

[ragdollbeast]

hello! i was wondering if i could sell tf2 custom animations (ex: all characters using engys rancho relaxo) and just exporting .dmx files, which you can import to your characters for use in your sfm movies. say $1 each animation on gumroad, is this ok?

i'm an animator and i just wanted to know if this was legal or not. if it is illegal, what if i made it free and just set it to donate or pay what you want only...would that be better? since {LINK REMOVED}gumroad.com allows this option as well. thanks!

[Zappy]

All I can say is it'd probably be illegal if you'd copy and paste anything at all from the Engineer's Rancho Relaxo sequences to some work you're trying to sell with other classes. And even if you'd customly animate everything, it'd still at least be very bad etiquette and such.

[ragdollbeast]

no copy pasting, i can animate and there are tf2 rigs provided that i can use in maya and export .dmx files which you can import in sfm. i can see it being a gray area tho but if people are allowed to profit from it on youtube i figured this would still be acceptable since it's all still within sfm. i just wanted to make sure.

[Zappy]

Originally posted by ragdollbeast:

- but if people are allowed to profit from it on youtube -

The thing with this is that it's not "pay to see this", it's "see this for free, but also see an advertisement that might give me money or might give someone whose music I used money".

As in, you (usually) don't have to directly pay someone who made a YouTube video in order to be able to see that video. Do you get what I mean by this?


Edit: Granted, it's of course different for usable animations than viewable videos, but this is what I had to say about that argument with YouTube videos and such.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by ragdollbeast:

i can see it being a gray area tho but if people are allowed to profit from it on youtube i figured this would still be acceptable since it's all still within sfm.

Monetisation is specifically permitted by the Valve Video Policy: http://store.steampowered.com/video_policy

All other commercial use of Valve's content is strictly forbidden (although commercial use of SFM itself is not, should you be using assets you have the necessary permissions for), and anyone who is getting away with it is only getting away with it because Valve hasn't noticed them yet.

That said, the idea of completely custom made animations? Those, even if they might happen to work with Valve models, would not be a Valve asset.

Still, bear in mind that if they're emulating (even if not directly based on) on Valve's own animations (e.g. a non-Engie Rancho Relaxo) you might have a hard time proving they're custom made if you're challenged.

[ragdollbeast]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

That said, the idea of completely custom made animations? Those, even if they might happen to work with Valve models, would not be a Valve asset.

Still, bear in mind that if they're emulating (even if not directly based on) on Valve's own animations (e.g. a non-Engie Rancho Relaxo) you might have a hard time proving they're custom made if you're challenged.

i can always show the maya files...? i can see it being an issue tho since i'm selling something using valves assets...tho i've seen creators sell their scene files as rewards on patreon...isn't that worse than what i'm proposing? and these guys are big time channels on youtube. i can't really tell anymore.

[ragdollbeast]

Originally posted by Zappy:

Originally posted by ragdollbeast:

- but if people are allowed to profit from it on youtube -

The thing with this is that it's not "pay to see this", it's "see this for free, but also see an advertisement that might give me money or might give someone whose music I used money".

As in, you (usually) don't have to directly pay someone who made a YouTube video in order to be able to see that video. Do you get what I mean by this?


Edit: Granted, it's of course different for usable animations than viewable videos, but this is what I had to say about that argument with YouTube videos and such.

yea i understand...maybe a different example would be better, like i mentioned on another reply...some use sfm files as rewards on their patreon page. isn't that a bigger issue if not the same as what i'm proposing?

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by ragdollbeast:

i can always show the maya files...?

The problem is that's not really proof that you haven't done something like import the original animation and then tweak it.

A completely new taunt is one thing . A remake of Rancho Relaxo or the like may not be easy to prove that it's new.

tho i've seen creators sell their scene files as rewards on patreon...

That may not necessarily be in the clear.