why don’t some of you whiners start making you own textures
I never used this, but i remember there was a commercial version (same company) “ProFX” , though i don’t see it anymore on the MapZone website to see if there was difference in regards to the licensing, maybe it has been replaced by that “Substance” program that is advertised on their webpage.
http://www.mapzoneeditor.com/
Apparently if you use one of the textures that come with MapZone to build your own, you will need to credit them to comply with their license.
Media Elements and Textures: The MaPZone software is provided with textures and/or other media elements. You may use, copy, reproduce and distribute the included textures in your projects either for personal, educational or commercial purpose. Allegorithmic shall retain all rights, including Copyrights of all Media elements provided with the Software. In any case, for any use of the Media elements provided by Allegorithmic and owned by Allegorithmic, Allegorithmic’s property and rights shall be clearly mentioned in your project. Any breach to this requirement shall terminate this agreement.
But i can’t see any mention of the result of your Mapzone work being falling under their own license, so i can only guess, what is the result of your work through Mapzone is all yours (unless you use one of the default Mapzone texture basis).
As far I know there are no real restrictions with this program when it comes to distribution or using it in commercial projects as seen here.
The MaPZone software is provided with textures and/or other media elements. You may use, copy, reproduce and distribute the included textures in your projects either for personal, educational or commercial purpose.
The program itself basically has a subset of features of the company’s ProFX software (for example, only ProFX allows you to export your textures in a procedural format while MapZone only has general image formats available, I also presume that ProFX uses all your CPU cores per-node while MapZone uses just one). It also isn’t really developed anymore due to it having a low priority when it comes to adding functionality (all the work from Allegorithmic is on their new Substance middleware), even though the feature set has remained relevant through the years.
So as I said before, not really much in the way of restrictions other than the very general points about not disassembling, hacking into, or selling the software, but at the cost there might not be anymore development on it, luckily the last version that was released more than two years ago introduced two features which makes it much more usable which are nodes to import an image and one to create a normal map.
First, thank you @Blendswap for dispelling what was, apparently, misinformation. I was under the impression that there had been legal threats against Blendswap.
I was wrong to call CGTextures pricks. I was frustrated. However, the other statement remains. We should avoid CGTextures if we have any plans of uploading files (whether to Blendswap or in a forum post in Blender Artists, anywhere it is not covered under a license). They have a right to their IP, and I support that. It does, however, make their textures unusable. And, since it is a “CGTextures License” they are free to modify at any time. Meaning what is legally licensed today may not be tomorrow.
Now – the remainder of this post is complete opinion, (and opinions are like assholes – we all got 'em, and they all stink) I think CGTextures would be wise to allow textures to be included in Blends, I would gladly include (in big BOLD letters) that the textures came from CGTextures. I would include links and even encourage them to click on the advertisers. And disable my hosts file so I could click on the advertisers too 
It does, however, make their textures unusable.
I think you just want to believe that for some reason. Why? I can’t say. Their textures are usable, you just can’t give them away. People use them in major games. How is this unusable? Just modify them a bit, and you are fine. What modify means is so loosely defined that it could be stretched to: size change, color tweak. Certainly if you make something tileable it’s significantly changed. The guy just doesn’t want you to give away unmodified textures with free models. Why? If that were the case, we could all just map the texture to a plane, call it a 3d model, and give the “model” away. The point of having to charge for your model defeats that. No one will buy a textured plane.
The main point is this: You can’t just give someone’s work away. That doesn’t mean the textures are not usable. Why are you so nuts to give stuff away anyway? It’s nice and all, but you seem all worked up because you can’t give something away. I sell models on TS made with CG textures, and I am well within my rights to do so. I include a statement, as requested. That’s it. Concerning open source movies, they seem to be on top of it. The way I see it, your main issue is that you want to use unmodified cgtextures and give them away with free models you post on Blendswap. And because you can’t do that, the textures are unusable. Just modify them, that’s all.
Just for clarification, you can’t give away modified versions of CGTextures either. If even you only create an alpha mask to overlay colors of another channel, you still can’t.
You are incorrect 3D Medievel:
CG Textures does not allow modified textures to be included with an model. That was the first question I asked. If I were selling it, that would be accepted – as you discuss.
As I said, they have right to their property, that is not an issue. But it does raise the issue, that I (and many) were guilty of, though their stuff is free, it must be used with caution.
Like I said, I apologize for my hot-headedness. I was wrong. It did raise an important issue though. So that’s at least good.
Thanks for the clarification. That’s fine by me. But really it still doesn’t make them unusable. The crux here is that people want to give things away. That’s great, but it wouldn’t keep me up at night.
Also for a clarification, I have a few free texture sites. I don’t care what you do with the textures, so long as you don’t just set up your own free texture site, batch download them and give them away. Free models? Sure, who cares. Click my ads and I’m happy. I see my textures all the time in free games and models on this site and others. Even on Turbosquid.
@daren
I think what 3dmedieval is trying to say is that is unfair to complain so loudly about not being allowed to give away what is in effect someone else’s property.
The onus is, and always has been, on you to read the licence before you download the material, especially if you plan to distribute. Whether it is cgtextures or someone else is really not the point, it is your responsibility to comply with the licence for any material you use.
The textures are still perfectly usable within the terms of the licence; nothing has changed there.
Thanks for your texture 3dmedieval. Strange as it sounds - I will be making some “3d” farm steads type of models for a personal comic at some stage, so I will browse by your site and see if I can get some textures like this.
An alternative is to simply download the ready made 3d models. We’ll see how it turns out.
It only make them or modified version of them unusable if you want to release a .blend with the texture packed with it on blendswap, that was the main point of the thread, they’re completely usable in other cases.
But fortunately, as mentionned through the thread, there are alternative to CGTextures for textures or textures basis/parts that are compatible with CC licenses used on models hosted by website similar to Blendswap.
No problem Kbot. The free models on my site are old, and not by best work, so don’t judge me man! 
Yes, browse the textures. Some are tileable, some are not. Also, if you want something specific, just ask and I’ll upload it. I don’t keep up with the sites much. But requests are welcome. I have thousands of textures and straight from the camera, unprocessed images.
I think what 3dmedieval is trying to say is that is unfair to complain so loudly about not being allowed to give away what is in effect someone else’s property.
Yes sir.
Like I said, I apologize. I’m sorry guys. I had literally spent dozens of hours on several blends and the textures were a small (but time consuming) part of the overall work, and now they need be redone. I was bummed. I wasn’t trying to give away free textures. I was trying to contribute decent models and scenes to the community.
It was one of those things – had I known from the beginning that it would have been an issue, I would have gone elsewhere, but I didn’t (and that was MY fault). so, like I said, this thread did do a little good, because many were in the same situation, and now we have alternatives (thanks to goodtextures, 3Dmedieval and others), and maybe more alternatives will yet come.
I’ve basically just started creating my own!I think its good exercise anyway…plus it forces me to use my camera more!
I’m using textures from www.openfootage.net - they are CC-BY and thus compliant with sites like Blendswap. Wikimedia Commons is also a good resource to find textures under CC-BY or even CC-0. I’ve also started to shoot my own textures.
A dedicated texture site for textures licensed CC-0 would be über-cool
I agree with you Gottfried… I’m not at liberty to say anything and hopefully Jonathan doesn’t see this but a CC-0 Texture site would be great. wink…wink…
Hello, please someone could be make a list of sites with free textures that can be use for add maps to models for upload to blendswap. thanks.
Silly thread.
Licensing issue makes perfect sense, if they allowed unedited textures to be uploaded to any other website then what would stop people from uploading the entire collection (from premium to) to a site like Blendswap.
Thread should be closed.
complety “shareable” and “derivate” textures is posible, is a choice of the autor, in software many licenses allow this (LGPL, MIT), Creative Commons have a copyleft license that make posible this, then my question is which texture sites with CC copyleft or similar license know you?