zanity

In response to post #24663854. #24664244, #24664334, #24664879, #24665094, #24665224, #24665344, #24665379, #24665404, #24665564, #24665614 are all replies on the same post. DIRTY PAID mods on Steam are ILLEGAL mods. A DIRTY mod is any mod that employs IP that hasn't been properly licensed, including bug finding and feature suggestions made by people when they were told the mod would be free. Google, for instance, pays a FORTUNE to people who find significant bugs in their products. Hollywood pays a fortune to the people who DESIGN their products. A clean mod (try finding an existing Skyrim mod that is 'clean') uses ONLY the author's own work, or content that has either been appropriately paid for or has licences allowing its use in derived COMMERCIAL products. Valve and Zenimax told the mod authors they approached and attempted to corrupt several months ago that they could STEAL the work of others and their paid mods would still be published. Piracy, apparently, is 'fine' when it benefits the pockets of Valve and Zenimax. But neither Zenimax nor Valve can change the REAL Law to suit. Once your Mod carries a price, it must be as legally correct as any other sold software program- and that also includes "fitness of purpose" ("as is" is NOT a lawful product definition). All dirty mods on Steam should be targeted for DMCA complaints. All clean mod authors should be wished the best of luck, if any ever appear.

In response to post #24663179. #24665119, #24665174, #24665184, #24665254 are all replies on the same post. What are you dribbling about? Valve and Zenimax can write anything they like into EULAs or other agreements, and those agreements hold no more weight in Law than this morning's flushed toilet paper if Valve and Zenimax seek to restrict your rights. Let me make this SIMPLE. say you release code under some open-source licence. Then you SELL your code under a different licence (which as the code owner you are most certainly entitled to do). The fact that you now sell your code (or someone sells it for you) CANNOT terminate the earlier open-source licence. Idiots that no NOTHING about the Law constantly claim that a new license can over-ride an old existing one. What about a mod that has never been published anywhere before it appears on Steam Store. Even here, the attempt by Valve to claim EXCLUSIVE distribution rights wouldn't stand up in court. For Valve to earn such a right, it would have to be providing a significant SERVICE to the mod creator, else it would count as RESTRAINT OF TRADE. Merely offering a shop front isn't good enough. Valve has always attempted to act beyond the Law, claiming (falsely) that its business model is not covered by existing consumer and fair trading Laws. Valve pays off complainants BEFORE they seek legal redress in court, to hide the fact that most of their terms and conditions are illegal- certainly throughout the EU. The fact that Valve actually told mod authors to freely pirate each others content should come as no surprise whatsoever. Anyway, it is Zenimax that has been most despicable- waiting until the modding community for Skyrim was ready for HARVEST, so an insanely immoral corporation (remember- it claims that Oculus Rift VR is theirs simply because they allowed Carmack to work there) could make a few extra dollars. Any decent company would have left Skyrim alone (after all this time) and kept the new 'feature' of paid mods for Fallout 4, where a fresh start could have at least attempted to address all the potential issues.

In response to post #24607884. #24609519, #24609764, #24609799, #24610159 are all replies on the same post. Fallout 4 is FULLY entitled to offer paywall only modding as an option if Zenimax properly deal with all the legal issues (unlike the situation with Skyrim). Indeed, as an experiment such a move will be welcome by more forward thinking people, since the Internet frequently discovers new business models that no-one previously realised were a good idea. The problem today is that many people are CONFUSED as to why paid Skyrim modding is an obscenity- and thus use an 'entitlement' argument to bemoan the coming paid modding for Fallout 4. Like it or not, Zenimax if fully entitled to choose what it does IN THE FUTURE. What Zenimax is NOT entitled to do is build a community for years under one set of rules, and suddenly HARVEST that community for commercial gain by changing the rules retrospectively. Wasn't that the dreadful intention of the 'bad guys' in Jupiter Ascending? It would be intriguing to see Zenimax properly handle fully legal paid modding for a future title. Zenimax would surely have to buy the rights of all emerging tools used as 'dependencies' by end-user mods, so mod authors would have a growing library of tools and resources at their disposal. Zenimax would also have to take legal responsibility for QUALITY CONTROL, and that would be a wonder to behold.

In response to post #24606579. #24606694, #24609814 are all replies on the same post. "Don't forget the refund period is only 24 hours. " NOT under EU Law. No matter how many times the owner of Valve states Steam operates "above the Law", the Law of the nation where the person buying the Steam product resides controls the rights of that customer. In the EU, mods must be "FIT FOR PURPOSE". There is NO responsibility on the purchaser to make this so- 100% of this liability lies with the seller and the manufacturer. The Mod author CAN say the mod is only guaranteed to work with an updated unmodded version of Skyrim, but that is about the only restriction allowed. Serious bugs in the mod would lead to victory for ANY customer pursuing a complaint in the small claims courts. Class action lawsuits against Valve, Bethesda and the mod authors will also be possible against any mods that fail to work as advertised. In truth, a paid mod is NOT a mod, but commercial DLC- and must meet the standards of all paid-for DLC.

In response to post #24608314. #24608419, #24608604, #24608679, #24608689, #24608739 are all replies on the same post. Formally working with Valve and Bethesda when Valve and Bethesda are involved in such despicable acts is the worst idea possible. At a time like this, clean hands are ESSENTIAL. Remember, anyone has the right to help distribute Skyrim mods provided for FREE, so no-one is forced to work with Bethesda. Sadly, as the owner of Valve knows, money corrupts- so one simply has to accumulate enough money to solve all business issues via financial corruption. Valve believes gamers are stupid enough to cheer mega-rich entities that attempt to keep gaming in the equivalent of the lawless 'wild west'- look how hard Valve fought to prevent Steam sales falling under EU laws on distance selling and consumer protection rights. Valve LOST, but the fact that Valve argued in court that digital game distribution companies are "ABOVE THE LAW" shows the mindset of these entities. Zenimax had the perfect opportunity to FRESH START paid modding with Fallout 4- ensuring that from the beginning every correct legal mechanism was in place, and that would be commercial modders were completely educated in their legal responsibilities. Many would have been saddened at Fallout 4 modding going commercial, BUT it would be a completely reasonable experiment for Zenimax with ZERO impact on pre-existing situations. Introducing paid modding for Skyrim is, by contrast, unforgivable. It is Valve attempting to increase the current lawless wild-west of modding to the power infinity, so it can leech off the commercial chaos like a money vampire. It is like an old 'gold rush' where tens of thousands of young men are 'invited' to waste their lives rainbow chasing while the mining giants wait in the wings to pick up the pieces for certain profit. Charging for Skyrim mods is like a host charging dinner guests because "people deserve to make money from their time in the kitchen'. You want to make money from cooking? Go work in a restaurant. It is the same with software. The 'rules' of modding arose precisely because the work was intended to be offered for 'free'. When payment is involved, the Law states that the rules MUST change. Nexus should explicitly join with everyone else to put pressure on Zenimax to reverse the decision over paid Skyrim mods. Zenimax should be informed, in the clearest terms, that paid software of ANY type comes with strict legal requirements, and if Zenimax takes the bigger part of the mod cost, zenimax carries full legal responsibility to ensure all necessary laws are met. Such actions would assist Zenimax's project for paid Fallout 4 mods to meet required legal standards from the very beginning, and thus maybe help create a whole new type of modding community. Indeed, Zenimax could take responsibility for PURCHASING emerging fundamental Fallout 4 mod resources, and offer those resources for free (legally) to Fallout 4 paid end-user mod authors.

For the sake of nothing but pure GREED (who do you think gets the lion#s share of that 75$- clue: it ain't Valve), Zenimax (one of the most loathed entities in 'entertainment) has ruined the biggest and most remarkable modding community for ever. This is the same Zenimax, for instance, that claims Occulus Rift VR belongs to them, because Carmack (with Zenimax's explicit permission) spent some time there achieving absolutely nothing. Zenimax cynically uses industry psychologists to PLAY us with the old chestnut that "modders deserve a reward for their efforts". It is a carefully crafted PR stunt that uses paid 'reputation managers' to blitz every forum with 'arguments' 'explaining' why Zenimax is 'right'. 1) modders already received a 'reward'- as any real psychologist would point out. Gratification from 'hero worship' or being the head of a 'tribe of followers' is a more powerful incentive than money for most modders- and is the whole reason the free modding community grew so large in the first place. 2) no-one is arguing that mod authors shouldn't have the option to make money. They do- it is called becoming a PROFESSIONAL coder/designer/artist/software developer. However, professionals have to follow RULES and standards of conduct. The laissez faire world of modding does NOT reach the standard of legal rigour for paid work. 3) the costs of policing of paid mods for Skyrim, as required by the Law in most nations, will overwhelm potential profits- and Valve and Zenimax know this. There for, Valve and Zenimax wish to encourage an OUTLAW wild-west for Skyrim mods where the law is ignored for as long as possible while Zenimax reels in their profits. The model for Zenimax approved and monetised mods is PURE PIRACY where 'dirty' mods that use the unpaid IP of others (including unpaid quality assurance testing and unpaid feature suggestions- let alone all the stolen code, graphics, animation and other assets) is ignored, while paid Zenimax shills blitz forums telling the gullible that the laws on IP don't apply to mods for Zenimax games. 4) Zenimax already had the means and financial incentive to approach the authors of the most interesting mods, buy the rights to the mods, and use them to craft PROPERLY SUPPORTED, LEGAL DLC for Skyrim. So why didn't Zenimax go down this route? Because Zenimax can't even get their own code from their own internal software team working bug-free to any reasonable degree. For them to assure (as the law requires) that paid mods work would be beyond Zenimax's ability- and yet trading standards Laws in the USA, UK, EU, Canada etc require exactly this from paid for software. 5) Moding is (was) a COMMUNITY. Now it is a bunch of people out for themselves, who now see their fellow modders as 'the enemy'. The DODGY practises so common-place on free modding, that everyone could overlook for the 'greater good' now all rise to the top. The ONLY modding that survives this apocalypse is: - lone talented modder strangely determined to make money in the worst market for paying software. Such a person can ensure everything is his own legal possession. - outright crook happy to steal the work of others while screaming about the 'right' of modders to be paid for their 'work'. Such a person has ZERO respect for the IP and work of others. He will form the majority of paid modding 'authors'. -hyper rare small collaboration where the team agrees to split the profits amongst themselves. For obvious reasons, a team suffers the 'can of worms' of who actually 'owns' the mod, and how each member of the team gets paid. 6) people using Skyrim mods fall into two camps. Those that treat mods as DLC, and maybe install one or two mods (and thus would make ideal customers for paid mods). Those that completely change the experience of Skyrim by using as many mods together as the game and their computer can sustain. This second group is by far the most important user community of the Skyrim modding community- and obviously could NEVER afford to do this with paid mods (that would add 100 dollars plus to the cost of their gaming). All smart observers KNOW Zenimax chose to ruin modding for a game they consider ANCIENT and irrelevant as a test-bed for future paid modding for Fallout 4. The IRONY is that almost everyone here would have ZERO issue with Zenimax trying something new with Fallout 4 modding - new game, new ideas, new start. But Skyrim already has a modding community defined by the rules Zenimax chose to put in place when Skyrim was first released, and again when all the modding tools were made available. And the no.1 rule was "mods must be FREE is they use our assets in any way". This rule DEFINES modding on Skyrim soul and bone deep. It is not too late for the (slightly) better people at Bethesda to tell Zenimax the whole thing has proven a disaster, and that they had better grow-up, reinstate free mods only for Skyrim, and keep the paid mod project for future titles only, starting with Fallout 4. That way all the modders (foolishly) salivating to make paid mods get start to research the LEGAL requirements they must meet in order to sell software products to the general public. They can start to put pressure on Zenimax to offer correct legal support to Fallout 4 mods on Steam Store. They can act to end the 'wild west' of illegal software sales on Steam, and move paid modding into a PROFESSION that can earn the respect of people. "I wanna get paid for the time I spend making my mod- wahhh!!!" is NOT a legal argument- ask all those artists who spend their hobby time drawing cartoons that include the IP of others on Deviantart etc. You can ONLY ask to get paid when your work is FULLY legal. Most people choose to mod because they can safely ignore this requirement, and quietly or overtly 'borrow' the work of others. If I spend a thousand hours writing a Star Trek novel, and a million people read my book, I still can't get a dime UNLESS I reach a contractual position with Paramount- the owners of the Star Trek IP. And I CANNOT force them to grant me the right to make money from their IP, just because I spent time appropriating it. Most current Skyrim mods are in the same position.

In response to post #24579774. #24580049, #24580149 are all replies on the same post. Chesko should NOT be trying to sell versions of mods previously published on Nexus, plain and simple- but in his favour is the fact that Bethesda and Valve are actively encouraging such dishonest behaviour. To be legal, Chesko MUST create mods that have ZERO prior input from people expecting the mod to remain FREE. And bug finding and feature suggestions from emails and Nexus forum posts count as input that MUST be paid for - this is a simple fact of Law. Chesko MUST create what is known as clean-room code and content- uncontaminated from the days when assistance was provided FOR FREE by people expecting the resultant mod would be free. It does NOT matter how many people here liked his mods, or appreciated the work he did for free. To be LEGAL, Chesko must obey the Law. And that means new work 100% (one hundred percent) of his own ownership. I would imagine 99% of all significant mod authors at Nexus are lucky if their current mod would even count as 25% of their own work when all forms of derivation and unpaid assistance are taken into account. Bethesda and Valve are literally saying "modding is the new Wild West, so scr*w the Law, and join the goldrush"- but given that these two get the lions share of the profits, we should not be surprised- but we most certainly should be saddened.

In response to post #24578069. #24578114, #24578164, #24578219, #24578734, #24578914, #24579054, #24579509, #24579899, #24579914, #24580104 are all replies on the same post. When is he going to pay all the people who made suggestions and helped track down bugs on the understanding that future versions of the mod would be free? Writing code is usually a paid occupation, BUT so is product testing in order to discover bugs and product feature design. Chesko's previously Nexus-published mods are LEGALLY a collaborative effort, whether Chesko likes this fact or not. Chesko is, of course, free to create NEW mods (and not simply versions of existing ones) in which he is the sole owner of the IP- but that is most certainly NOT the case with the existing ones. To make it clearer- Hollywood studios are forever being SUCCESSFULLY sued when they make films that were originally the idea of someone the studio never bothered to pay. You do NOT get to use the input of others commercially, unless you pay them for the input. It is widely established that Chesko used the freely provided input from Nexus forums to 'improve' his mods. It is disgusting that Valve and Bethesda have NOT clarified the law to those mod authors that Valve and Bethesda seek to make money from. Legal mods can most certainly be created from now on for commercial exploitation- but the rules for such mods will be vastly different from the "anything goes" attitude of Nexus.

In response to post #24578554. #24578854, #24579349, #24579589, #24579674, #24579854 are all replies on the same post. The user input that helped him add features or find bugs is also INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. He has NOT paid for these services, even though the Law requires that he does so, or informs people BEFORE they offer their input that he may exploit it for commercial gain without offering payment. Here's how it works in the grown-up world of legally correct software houses. The people who find bugs are PAID employees. The people who make design effecting suggestions are PAIN employees. If the software house runs a forum where user input may be used to improve the product, the software house if legally obliged to state this in the terms and conditions of the forum. Almost every significant mod on Nexus that has had more than one version has benefited from the unpaid input of those who used it and commented- and this was NOT a legal problem when future versions of the mod were to be offered for free. I am NOT stating an opinion- I am stating a fact of LAW. If Chesko wanted to make money from his modding, he should have created brand-new, clean-room mods that were 100% of his invention, or ownership if he started paying others for their assistance. Too many here think that modders are somehow beyond the law, or operate in a universe where the law doesn't apply to them, simply because of the tradition of modding. Well guess what, people- when you chose to go 'commercial' , the rules change whether you like that or not. And as with most things in life- the more complex and 'interesting' the mod, the more difficult the legal problems become.

This is just OBSCENE. 1) it is ILLEGAL in almost every nation for mod authors to charge for a mod that has been developed with the understanding that it would be free, so people provided their suggestions, beta-testing, and bug-locating for NOTHING- unless said mod author reaches a FINANCIAL agreement with everyone who has had anything to do with the mod. 2) all mods with 'dirty' IP (you know, the ones that borrow textures, sounds, designs etc from existing sources) are highly illegal to sell UNLESS a financial agreement has been reached with the owners of the original IP 3) all mods that use other mods or mod resources TO ANY DEGREE are illegal to sell unless said mod author has reached a financial agreement with every person responsible for work from which the mod was derived. 4) any mod sold in a FIRST-WORLD nation needs to meet 'fitness-for-purpose' criteria to be legal according to trading standards laws. This whole "pay for beta access" nonsense is a legal can-of-worms that will NOT be resolved in favour of the authors offering buggy/unfinished product. 5) the above points mean that the only LEGAL paid mods are mods with ZERO usage of other people's work or property (unless a payment for such services has been arranged) - and this most certainly excludes all significant previously free mods (or their new versions) currently sold on steam. Such clean legal mods can now be created from scratch, of course, so long as strictly LAWFUL mod development methods are now followed. But modders are usually working outside the field of strict lawfulness, which matters little when the mods are given away. The moment any payment is required, modding moves from an 'anything goes' situation to the strict legal liability of any commercial software production. The 'wet and cold' mod, for instance, incorporates the intellectual property of many people who freely made improvement suggestions or helped locate bugs. Suggestions and bug finding are also acts of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Commercial software developers are legally required to inform people providing 'free' input BEFORE they do so that such input may be used by the commercial developer without recompense. This did not happen with mods first offered on this site, because the EXPLICIT legal understanding was that the people freely helping the mod author would receive FREE access to any future version of the mod. It is disgusting that Bethesda and Valve haven't banned pre-existing mods (even if the mod has a 'new' steam version) and launched the mod store with an education campaign for would-be paid mod authors that explains what is legal and what is illegal and highly dishonest. Paid mods MUST be made with the same legal scrutiny as commercial games- the moment money is demanded, any 'amateur' excuse vanishes. The grand collaborative mods, where there is a complex tree of relationships between all the people who end up contributing, could NEVER be legally commercial- but these projects will die very quickly as the best modders see that Bethesda rewards the con-artists, and the people selling trivial rubbish that required 2 hours of work. Paramount and Lucas Films allow any Tom, Dick or Harriet to use their Star Trek or Star Wars IP so long as no commercial profit is made (and certain reasonable rules are followed). But if you wish to make money using these IP's, the rules and restrictions are insanely strict and draconian. Bethesda should follow this strict legal model, but the games industry is laughable when it comes to being professional. If Bethesda wants to make extra cash from Fallout or Skyrim, let them act like adults, and take PROPER legal responsibility for fully authorised content made to enhance their games. Let them provide the legal services to ensure the mods are compliant with all aspects of the law, and let them take legal responsibility for the required bug-free nature of the mods.