Hello, everyone! Been too many years since I've posted here. I've got a quick question that I can't seem to find the answer to anywhere online. A little background: Four years ago, I made several sets of new textures for Aleph One. To this day, I've been under the impression that it is illegal (Frowned upon?) to distribute an edited Marathon Infinity shapes file. So, to make the textures available on my website, I left the textures as separate .png files within a "Texture" directory along with an MML script and instructions on how the end user should put the files in the Aleph One folder to get it all working. Not perfect or user friendly, as I'm sure some of you know, but I believed it to be the only completely legal and Bungie-approved multi-platform way to distribute textures without using those hit-or-miss texture shuttle apps. Even though this process forced people to set things up the hard (Legal) way, I've never had a complaint...
... Until this morning. Someone sent me an email saying they couldn't figure out how to get the textures working in Aleph One. To answer his question, I myself had to relearn how to do it. Bottom line, it sucks to have to do it that way. I'd be mad too. It's overly complicated and messy. I did some looking into how Aleph does things these days. To my great interest, my research led me to discovering that a recently released total conversion (Specifically, Eternal X) included the entire singular shapes file in their self-hosted distribution. I rummaged through their shapes file and immediately discovered dozens of original Bungie textures from Marathon Infinity.
So my question is: Has it recently become okay/legal to do this? Is this now an approved or acceptable way of conveniently distributing texture sets? Has Bungie relinquished their stand on their copyright ownership of their shapes file (And textures within) or is there some legal language that lets Eternal X off the hook (That I can mimic and do myself)?
If there's an obvious answer to this or if this was answered or made clear years ago, you'll have to forgive me. I haven't been active in the Marathon community in almost five years. Although it's good to know that it only takes one random email from a total stranger for me to reinstall everything and jump back on the bandwagon. Thanks for any responses!
-Adam "Rabbit" Rose, Beyond Aurora & Marathon Atlantis
