Serious violation of NVIDIA Streamline licenses in Upscalers mods

[other2w]

Translated from Brazilian Portuguese with ChatGPT 3.5

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. I am here to report a significant violation of the licenses for "NVIDIAGameWorks Streamline" publicly available on GitHub. It seems there is a consensus here on Nexus Mods that we cannot distribute the DLL files related to NVIDIA DLSS and NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation, "nvngx_dlss.dll" and "nvngx_dlssg.dll" according to the official license provided directly in the distribution folder:

Quote

LIMITATIONS. Your license to use the SDK is restricted as follows:
[...]
(b) Except as expressly provided in this license, you may not copy, sell, rent, sublicense, transfer, distribute, modify, or create derivative works of any portion of the SDK. For clarity, you may not distribute or sublicense the SDK as a stand-alone product.

This is the main clause used to justify that it is not allowed to distribute DLLs related to NVIDIA DLSS, which is made available together with Streamline on GitHub publicly. However, there is a significant problem if your interpretation is correct. In addition to NVIDIA DLSS, the DLLs related to NVIDIA Reflex "sl.reflex.dll" (essential for the operation of DLSS Frame Generation) and the NVIDIA Real-Time-Denoiser "NRD.dll and sl.nrd.dll" have the same clause presented in the NVIDIA DLSS license.

Quote

"reflex.license.txt"
"2. Limitations.
[...]
2.2 Except as expressly provided in this Agreement, you may not copy, sell, rent, sublicense, transfer, distribute, modify, or create derivative works of any portion of the SDK."

Quote

"NRD.license.txt"
"4. LIMITATIONS. Your license to use the SDK is restricted as follows:
(b) Except as expressly provided in this license, you may not copy, sell, rent, sublicense, transfer, distribute, modify, or create derivative works of any portion of the SDK. For clarity, you may not distribute or sublicense the SDK as a stand-alone product."

If these clauses are used to restrict distribution in mods for NVIDIA DLSS, this should also apply to NVIDIA Reflex and NVIDIA Real-Time-Denoiser (respectively "sl.reflex.dll" and "sl.nrd.dll" and "NRD.dll").

This affects several upscaling mods that share the entire NIVIDAGameWorks Streamline without the NVIDIA DLSS files, but with the NVIDIA Reflex and NRD files, and specifically Reflex because it is the most widespread and distributed without concern by modders and is also essential for the functioning of DLSS Frame Generation.

I open this report not only to discuss the matter but also to find the best solution to this problem and publicly disclose it in the NVIDIA Streamline SDK community.

Edited November 29, 2023 by other2w

[Pickysaurus]

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In this case, I've personally spoken with Nvidia and they are fine with DLLs being shared as part of mods. Prior to speaking with Nvidia, these mods were removed based on the license you mentioned.