To me it is the ability to use a medium (or pallet) do make something new, and share it with the world.
As such, I very much see NWN1 as a medium, and community content (in it's multiple forms, from single player campaigns, to PWs, to vault contributions for either) as Art.
Unlike Sculpture, or Painting, or Drawing, or Dance, or Theater, or any of the other myriad of accepted forms of "Art", I think this digital form (amongst others) is truly art.
And the fact that, it is dynamic art, and by that I mean has the capacity to evolve based off those that "view" it, makes it a pretty unique art form.
I like the aspect of dynamic art you mentioned. I never heard it before but i´m sure it´s exactly what you describe or more what a freeshare mod community truly does where everyone can base a new shape or meaning on an already existing art someone else did. Heh, that is cool 
I was actually thinking about this recently - not directly with nwn in mind.
On the news here in the UK, there was a dispute on the news regarding who owns the rights to a photo selfie taken by a Monkey.
Legally - Photography is considered an Art
Photographers are considered Artists
Someone was claiming that the photo belongs to him, because it was his camera.
I do not know how the issue was eventually resolved or if it is in dispute still
But my interpretation of Art is that Art belongs to the Artists unless a release is signed to transfer rights.
If a monkey makes a photo - it obviously wont belong to him, therefore the photo as property may be considered the camera owners, but the creative rights of the photo are not necessarily transferred with ownership of that single photo instance.
Art is basically anything that you can be creative with. It can really be anything -
I've heard people refer to coding / programming as an Art-Form.
Its highly logical, but some people do excel at it and implement code in ways that are creative and artistic.
NWN Being a highly mod-able game is a form of art. I think it may actually legally be considered a 'creative art' - if you were to get into the legalities of it.
Mod-able games are kinda like those paintings that we all do in school when we are kids - where we get a dollop of paint, and use a straw and blow to make a random spider/tree-like image.
Everyone is working on something individual, but when you stand back and look at it - yes, it can look like a mess, but it can also look very impressive and artistic
Someone was claiming that the photo belongs to him, because it was his camera.
I do not know how the issue was eventually resolved or if it is in dispute still
But my interpretation of Art is that Art belongs to the Artists unless a release is signed to transfer rights.
I believed 'the photographed' have the rights before 'the photographer'. Most professional photographers will have written agreements that 'the photographed' would cede rights to 'the photographer'. But if a person does not wish to be photographed, that must be respected, even by the media.
Actually I believe that the rule is that whoever (or in this case whatever) pushed the button to take the photograph has the intellectual property rights. It was reported that the human photographer lost his case.
TR
I don't think "push the button" is part of the legal definition. There are so many times that a family gives their camera to a stranger for a family shot. Ownership of the camera would definitely have more weight than "pushing the button."
Realy uninspiring these IP issues. I understand that there must be a law that makes sense and protects YOUR work but the more I think about photographs the less I understand how a picture of lets say the nature can be copyrighted. How can an image of the nature be copyrighted if it is just a bunch of millions of little organic lifeforms who has no say whatsoever because they cant speak...
I know that sounds weird but taking a picture of a dog who cant say "hey f*** that i dont like to be photographed while doing my business" and then throw a copyright on it is just silly and unfair. Maybe it´s just that i think no one has the right to copyright nature (all of it) + i hate overregulated bureaucrazy.
Whatever I still think people especialy photographers take it sometimes to far... taking a picture of something else is not realy art to me. It has nothing to do with creativity because you are only a spectator pushing a button and thats it. Even if it is a beautifull picture of a sunset the sunset itself is the beauty not the image. It´s just a medium and all is created by a machine. Totaly different to what we do or a painter imo who has to use skills, imagination and actually do something....
Whatever I still think people especialy photographers take it sometimes to far... taking a picture of something else is not realy art to me. It has nothing to do with creativity because you are only a spectator pushing a button and thats it. Even if it is a beautifull picture of a sunset the sunset itself is the beauty not the image. It´s just a medium and all is created by a machine. Totaly different to what we do or a painter imo who has to use skills, imagination and actually do something....
So we have a British photographer whose claims his IP is being misused by an American company. There is a lot more at play here and I am not sure the courts really want to get involved in this case that much anyway. The copyright law wikipedia cites is irrelevant (as it is US). But the story the photographer produced is that the monkeys did not cooperate with him to take pictures (as an assistant role). Rather they stole the camera, and he took it back later. That is the issue under contention, not that the monkeys "pushed the button", but they took possession of the camera.
In this occasion, I think Wikipedia has it spot on.
Spot on for its conclusion that the photos had no copyright. Their reasoning, however, is quite off base.
I do however see a possible loop hole - and I am in no way saying it 'would' work in a court of law, but it would be something to consider..
From watching a lot of 'Peoples Court' - Animals (specifically Pets), are property of the Pet owner.
If a 'pet' Monkey took the photo, the owner of the pet could argue that the ownership of the photo would default to them because their property (the pet) was the author/owner of the photograph.
Think of it this way. If the British photographer trained the monkeys to take quality photos and used them for this function, then his argument that they were assistants would stand. In scientific labs, the works of animals are owned by the companies that take care of them; there is no difference here. But let say the photographer trained 100 monkeys with this skill and later the monkeys caused problems to tourists by stealing cameras and taking unwanted pictures. The British photographer could then be legally culpable for this disaster. By denying any role in training the monkeys, the British photographer lost all claim that these photographs were taken as part of his photography business.
Those scientific labs 'own' the animals as property, and therefore any works created by them would be derived from property already belonging to the companies. I know we like to think of animal companions as members of the family and such - But in the eyes of the law - Animals are usually considered property if at all.In scientific labs, the works of animals are owned by the companies that take care of them; there is no difference here
If the British photographer had trained AND OWNED 100 monkeys, his case may have turned out differently.
But in the end, its simple a case of property ownership.
Where are you coming up with ownership of animals? That has little to do with the issue present. Let's remove the 'animal part' and say I positioned my camera underneath a branch that was swaying in the wind. I posed in front of the camera, and when the branch hit the button, my picture was taken. Who has the IP rights for that picture? According to wikipedia's logic, I wouldn't because the picture was taken by natural phenomena (by which categorization they are including animals). However, the law would rule differently. "Pressing the button" is not a legally defined term to describe the process of attributing ownership of a photograph. The only thing that is being considered legally in this situation is that the photographer said his camera was "stolen". In other words, the photographer was not simply using animals as a natural gimmick to get his photographs creatively taken. Instead, these photographs were taken out of his control using an unforeseen methodology.
Furthermore, one does not have to own an animal to be culpable of its misbehavior. If you train a creature to misbehave or perform undisciplined functions you may still be accountable for whatever mayhem becomes of the training (provided the mayhem can be easily traced to a particular instance of training).
Hmmm, a cat may have been a bad example. Under British law (at least certain parts of it) the domestic cat is considered a wild animal and therefore cannot be owned by anyone (except the cat itself). That is why there is a legal requirement to report a road traffic collision with a dog. Whereas there is no such requirement when a cat is involved.
It's just a thought but as this thread has strayed away from NwN, shouldn't this discussion move to the off-topic area of these boards?
TR
Hmm.. I am not sure how this became a debate about the legalities of Art...
I think you all missed my point... I was hoping to see some discussion on this modern art form.
If you want to get into technical legalities I think it is pretty clear. It doesn't make much sense, but the TOS makes it clear. Anything you make in NWN is Biowares. Unlike clay, or paint, whom the makers of those products claim no right to anything produced with it, that's not the case with videogames.
It's the same with Fallout, or Oblivion, or what have you. Just look at how FONV co-opted a ton of community content from Fo3 into it. And as far as I know, those contributors got no credit.
But regardless, even within that constrained (in the sense that the artists using this medium could never truly be recognized, because it is inevitably biowares...) I don't really care... It's still art to me.
If the east German government owned spray-paint companies in east Germany, do you really think graffiti artists cared that they didn't technically own the art they created on the Berlin wall? Hell no!
Not to say NWN is a political statement (although I think it could be used as such) or bioware is the videogame equalivelent of east Germany, and bless bioware for not censoring content to that extent (just look at all the adult PWs for example... if that aren't censoring that, I highly doubt they would censor some political mod, or just folks trying to have some fun and express themselves.)
And in that sense this medium is also art. It allows freedom of expression.
A lot of you all are talking about the legalities of ownership, and profit ( who took the picture here??? I screen shotted it. Does that make me the owner?). Don't get me wrong, I fully support, and think artists should be able to make a living off their work (e.g. doing art), and it is a sad state of our current society that we don't value that as a viable and sustainable profession. But, in this instance, it's a rather unique situation. Perhaps one that will set precedent for the future.
It to me is clearly an artistic medium, but unlike clay or paint (or other traditional mediums) also claims ownership to anything created with it. I didn't really want to spur that debate with this post, but it is what it is. What I wanted to do was celibrate the fact that it is an artistic medium. And I thank bioware for that. I truly think, with enough vision, someone somewhere might recognize the potential in this dream, and provide it to the masses to truly create art.
At least that is my hope... I think bioware took a step in the right direction, and in fact a bold and to this day unprecedented direction. But it is far from an ideal situation as an artist. Nonetheless I am grateful to them for at least providing this step.
Writing is despotism but reading is democracy. - @PhilipPullman #WHC2014
Modifié par Proleric, 10 août 2014 - 09:58 .
Back to the modding... i think that with the todays hardware and the engines that supports realistic environments and extreme high poly models modding will be less attractive to many people just because the creation of said stuff is getting more and more complex. Where we use 3000 polys in a complete tile with a rural building they use 75000 for just a simple small cabin with walls, windows, a roof and some details. Then the texture resolution is abnormal. TO create a 2048 texture is very difficult when you have a desktop resolution of lets say... 1280*720 (that is mine)... it´s impossible for me to do and i dont realy need that stuff.
But they push the engines further and further and so it´s just to diffcult for a hobbiest to do some maps, buildings or creatures for very new games.
When i´m honest to myself i havent much evolved "technically" since i worked with nwn but what has changed is that i can create what i want and i always can overcome the limiatitions and that made me evolved in something i would call... a creative creator of game art. I dont know many more stuff from 3dsmax then back in the days... but designing things you learn and how you create things you imagine.
Maybe we have left the top of the modding mountain in general and are going downwards but the people who stay with the "older" games they know and appreciate will be some sort of a dying generation of gamers. Or we have a real flashback and people come back to games that are less highend but open source and much easier to access. Like minecraft, NWN, the 2d adventure game creators (must add the edler scrolls games because bethesda realy is cool in that regard!) etc. Because in the end it doesnt makes much sense to learn all the complex tools when you can just create a fun game or mod for something that already has an established modding community, tools and templates etc. So we could see a split between developers and modders and modders realize that they should try to make themself more free and independant from the gaming entertainment business because we do it for fun or fame (at times) but defintaley not to sell a product that has to follow the modern hardware setups.
My prediction (which is stupid to do but anyway) would be that most modding will happen on older games or games that are "old school" like and easy to use but less EPIC looking and developers will not focus to much on it at all because they know their stuff is always high end and so not doable for ordinary people who wants to be creative. I also dont think it is important that one uses the latest games to mod but that he finds something that is perfect for his/ her needs. A writer only needs some paper and a pencil 
And you can see that modding morphs into something different already and that is "i want that stuff here in the game and my ideas are very good so please consider them serious"... so you will have a lot of complainers and brainstormers in the dev. forums before the games are even released. Lots of theoretical nonsense from people with no clue that they are just customers and they could do it (trough modding other games) but no they want THAT game has that because it is NEW and COOL...
Wow. so the new type of "modders" are theoretical lazy hipsters who complain and brainstorm about game ideas for a game that is soon to be released and the other people stay away from the idea of modding up-to-date games and keep doing their thing with the good ole dusty classics!
... i felt guilty to even mention that thing!
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