Would this be illegal?
 

I am thinking about editing the Jazz 2 levels to make them more difficult.
I am going to throw in many more enemies and obstacles in the environment.
Would this be illegal seeing as I am modifying the original levels?

And I do not want to create new ones yet, I want to fix Jazz 2 as in my eyes the VERY low difficulty level kinda breaks it.
I'm not going to drastically change the levels, they will be almost identical - only more difficult.

If this is legal, could perhaps someone else do this as well? We could divide the levels between us perhaps? It's a lot of work :p

no its not illegal

Editing any JJ2 level isn't illegal, though you probably wouldn't be liked too much for doing it.

And remember, if any level was not meant to be edited, it'd have a password, more than likely.

also don't edit levels that has been made by other users or get the're promission for editing

It's legal as long as you don't claim you're the author.

It's illegal if you upload them. People that only own TSF or Christmas Chronicles without the original version could download all the levels without buying them.

Besides, I think you're playing these levels in the wrong way. Do what I told you and activate capslock, and play at the slowest resolution.

If you walk through all levels slowly you can easily finish them, that's true, but if you're playing it in a fast way it's a lot more fun.

I see you understand what I meant Littlefreak, but to all those who misunderstood - I am not talking about editing user levels. I want to edit the levels that are in the commercial version of Jazz 2 in order to make the game harder. But it seems it would be illegal to upload those. Oh well, perhaps I'll just do it for my own enjoyment :)

Ok, look, be careful if you're going to upload them to J2O, like post a warning that their modified, set all reviews to N/A, that type of thing. I don't even know if this kind of thing is ok to upload to J2O.

In a way, I can see why you would think this was illegal to do. Because the level were made the creator of the game?

Anyway, it's not illegal or else the levels wouldn't have been unlocked. It is illegal; however, to use a program to crack at passworded levels, and if the levels were locked, and used a program like this, then that would probably be illegal. But who really cares? I have this program I talk about on the computer, very useful for getting into these annoying passworded levels.

The JJ2 levels were created before .j2l files could be passworded. Technically the patch could have been altered to overwrite all of the levels, but people could easily have avoided that by backing up the non-passworded levels and then putting them back in. In any case, I think there's some stuff in license.txt about this.

Yes, it is illegal, probably, but no one really cares.

That means, we are not allowed to upload any custom levels we make?

We are, but not for 'any compensation or remuneration whatsoever', so our levels have to be free.

Oh, missed that part.

Basically, don't make money out of it and you're fine. It would probably be fine for me to (if I distributed levels on CD) charge for the cost of a CD-R and postage, but it would not be fine for me to make a profit out of it.

They would have to pay less than the cost of the CD and the postage, in other words? ;)

Put a simple text file on the CDR, and tell the judge you were charging money for that text file, not for the levels that were also on it. Problem solved!

Wow, no that wouldn't work BoggyB. You're still making a profit, your're getting basically your money back through the buyer for the compensation of the costs it took you to ship it out and buy the CD-R, still a profit nonetheless.

Fine, they can send a CD-R in a stamped addressed envelope instead if they prefer.

This is all hypothetical anyway - I don't have any JJ2 levels that I made anymore.

I'm rather curious about Sers' idea. If you actually included some other file on the CD and stated the levels just "came with it", would it be legal to sell?

Wow, tell it the judge. How many people would believe that, its funny though, especially if someone would believe it. Yeah im going to pay $10 for a text file, and as added bonus I get levels, interesting.

That would work, B.B.

I'm not sure if that would work. Even if you didn't make money out of it, selling CDs with Jazz Jackrabbit stuff on it is probably still illegal, even if the money is for a text file or whatever.

Actually, it could be possible that, even though officially only the text file is paid, someone buys your CD for the Jazz levels. You still made money using Jazz Jackrabbit. So, no, Sers' idea wouldn't work.

its kind of handy jj2 does't use's a Serial Code for online play =D

This brings to mind the complexities of copyright laws.

I've been changing some levels now, mostly all I've done is to add a lot more enemies and some extra spikes here and there. It's still not difficult (I almost think that's not possible) but it's a lot more fun. At least there is more to shoot now :)
I also removed all the carrots of course.

Solution:

Place your enemies strategically. If you put your enemies on places where they have an advantage, it's more difficult to beat. For example, flying enemies can get through walls while Jazz can't.

I'm on it :)
I've already placed a lot of bats and flying lizards behind stuff and in places Jazz can't go or shoot them.

I also add some very annoying spikes here and there :D

It would be nice if someone else could help me with this as well, we could do some levels each and then playtest eachothers changes?

It wouldn't be very illegal since both would have the full version of the game.

I don't have JJ2 installed currently, sorry. :(

It isn't illegal to edit the levels for personal use I believe, but uploading them would be.

I know that uploading them would be, but if you had edited some levels and send them to me only using email or something. It would perhaps still be illegal, but I wouldn't mind that. We both have the original copies anyway.