Can I legally publish a fan made game that uses the original’s assets, if it’s open source and free (ex. on Github)?
Ask a lawyer, Unity forums is not the place for legal questions.
NO.
The assets were not made by you and do not belong to you. You are not allowed to publish them, redistribute them.
Unless, of course, you obtain permission. In written form, preferably.
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Generally no as they’re protected under copyright, so unless you had explicit permission you wouldn’t be allowed to, or they explicitly had a creative commons license or something similar allowing for redistribution.
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Where do you have the original assets from?
If they weren’t acquired in a correct way with the rights for redistribution, but instead ripped out of the compiled game, it does not really matter whether you publish as source or sell access for money etc.
Already owning this data is possibly not quite rightful… (only in some countries you are allowed to “rip” content for the sake of private backups).
This one’s misleading and not quite correct.
The crux of the problem is not how the assets were acquired, but whether this was permitted. Depending on the license, even ripping may be allowed, although this is fairly rare, and the license would need to be very permissive.
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^ This is not only the correct answer, it is also default/starting point. People often suggest that if you can’t find the original owner, or don’t get a response, that it is ok, that a lack of rejection is somehow consent. The answer is always NO, until you have a document from the owner that clearly shows what rights they give you.
Definitely. No documentation == no contract. But, an email chain can be a contract as long as it is clear.
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I misread and thought they’re asking about their own original assets, not another game’s assets. People here are right, you can’t do this without a written permission from original devs.
To add to the constant echoes of “absolutely not,” there’s even precedent:
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