As I haved work professionaly with copyrights for many years, let's be clear. "Not being able to contact" does not mean that one has green light to modify and/or share models. It simple means you can't touch it if the copyright statement does not allow it. There are plenty of models out there, which I would have loved to include in my project, but where there is no way to get hold of the original copyright owner, so no chance... And in this specific case it, as mentioned above it, wouldn't have been difficult to locate Sylvain.
I have close to a thousand models out there... personally normally I do grant permission and have done so even for use in payware, but copyright is there for a reason.
I have close to a thousand models out there... personally normally I do grant permission and have done so even for use in payware, but copyright is there for a reason.