Illegal Mods - How would I know?

[Kevin Jay]

This question was asked in the Porsche Payware thread but never answered.
How would the average simmer without any inside info know what is "legal' or 'illegal'?
When I download a mod, I have know idea where the objects came from or if permission was given by the original producer of the objects, or even who the original person is.

 

[PiotrGT]

While some of those mods are good, I nowadays only use the mods that I know are scratch made or converted with a permission.

Anyways, to keep things on topic, how can you recognize ripped mods?

-If mod is paid and uses real car names and logos it's most likely stolen from another game, please avoid them, paying people who use stolen models is very wrong
-if it's free and not on RaceDepartment then it's very likely a rip, though there could be exceptions
-if the car uses fake name and logos and is paid it's propably legit

I would personally stick to trusted RD modders and only buy mods from highly regarded, trusted modding teams like RSS and VRC.

 

[Gevatter]

I still want to bump this but to my opinion where is the line in the sand.

Regarding the original question by OP, the line in the sand is where a modder takes somebody elses intellectual property (models, physics, textures, ...) and either reuploads it, either modified or unmodified, or uses it in his own creation without the expressed permission of the original creator. Just like this:

I have a cool own made recreation from Spa-Francorchamps 2020 like it is in real life (huge upgrade on the Kunos AC model + many new 3D work and upgrades on original model) for RF2/AC soon

If you made this Spa 2020 mod completely from scratch, there would be no discussion. If you're building it on the Kunos Spa Model by using that as a basis and modifying it, it's illegal in regards to the OP and for example would not be tolerated here.