[Edi]

Muse, Soyweiser is absolutely right in his comment about what public domain means. Just accept that you are using the word wrongly in this instance and move on.


On the subject of the opening post:

If somebody wants to retain the options to do what they wish with any mods, maps or other work they may produce, even in the event of being banned, or due to dislike of certain forum policies (such as Shrapnel being granted certain rights to anything posted on the forums), then host them elsewhere under your own control and use external links.

I use that approach myself, not because I live in expectation of being banned or the like, but because I like to retain full control over what I do. It also makes cleaning up after obsolete versions much, much easier.

All the stuff I've posted here on the forums, such as the various analysis about site frequencies, the FAQ and such, I still own the copyright to those posts. Just that by posting on the forums, I've agreed to let Shrapnel use them as they see fit and they do. At the same time, by posting them in a public venue (publicly viewable by others), that's used up the first publication rights right there.

That's why even if I wanted e.g. the FAQ removed, which I don't, it would stay there. It's too useful for everyone and I've granted permission to Shrapnel to do what they will with it.

On the other hand, if I wanted to yank the Dom3 DB, the Faerun map, the event list or otehr stuff in my Dom3 hosting folder, there's nothing anyone can do to prevent me. Not that it's going to happen, but I have the option. I put too much work into a lot of that stuff to just hand control over it to anyone else. Anyone can download the fruits of my work and use them, but they can assert no control over what I do with them. They could even repost them should I remove my work. And since I've posted that stuff in a publicly accessible place (even though it is under my control), it pretty much follows that they are not important enough to me to put them under lock and key.

If I do consider something so important that I want to keep full control of it all the time, it's never going to get posted anywhere online in the first place.

Once you let the genie out of the bottle, you won't be able to stuff it back in. It pretty much applies to everything posted on the net, including mods and other things posted on this forum.

As far as making mods using 3rd party IPs (such as Warhammer, LotR, The Witcher or whatever else), that's more or less covered by fair use and the non-commercial nature of the mods. The mileage may vary according to what the law says in a given jurisdiction, but more or less it's not going to ruffle feathers.

But the second anyone tries to actively make a buck by charging for such derivative work (unless it is the original copyright holder), you can bet that the knives will come out so fast you won't even see the first blows.