Is It Illegal To Share The Mods They Make?

[icesin]

Just wondering cause my homie got the horse armor, he says "doesn't matter he just wanted he's horse to look good" I know he's a dork. But what if I take it and share it with all of you guys what you think they would do sue for a $1.99? :ph34r: :closedeyes: :glare: :dry:

[Stampede]

You do that and you would get banned. We don't want it, so don't share it. That's piracy and these forums are not a haven for criminal acts.

[icesin]

You do that and you would get banned. We don't want it, so don't share it. That's piracy and these forums are not a haven for criminal acts.

 

No worrys there i wasn't going to anyways just making a good funny statement

You can go ahead and delete this forum

[Lemmus]

you think they would do sue for a $1.99?

 

Yes. I think that they would. There are three reasons.

 

First, they wouldn't sue you for $1.99, they'd sue you for $50k (or whatever copyright violation is these days).

 

Second, if they don't sue you, then they set the precedent that they don't enforce their own copyrights. When that happens, another company can steal their work and resell it. Now you, I, and everyone else knows that you giving it away for free (illegally) and some company selling it is not really the same thing, but U.S. law does not make that distinction. So if they don't enforce their copyrights every time, they can lose the right to enforce them at all.

 

Third, they'd sue to set an example. Horse Armour is only the first of many mods that they plan to release. By suing someone who distributed it. they'd be more likely to protect their investment in the long term. More money for them means more professional quality art, resources, and mods for us.

[unusgaia]

yes its illegal to distribute coprighted works but it happens all the time (torrent anyone?) and if u really like the company wait for the set of all the mods buy it for cheap that way at least maybe the devs end up getting some money cuz u kno we love em.

 

in the offical forums theres a sticky with one word in bold its about testing takes forever (cmpared to morrowind) and somehow that jacks up the price (i can find the post if u dont wanna). they should just release it for 1 and beta it with us. people love betas. let em have it. its lots of feedback (if somehwta untrained). but the profit margins the f0cking profit margins they have to have PROFIT MMARGINS (_)_)lllllllD im so horny lol they live for teh profit margin.

 

and on some offical news doc (main site maybe?) a rep said they made more money than they expected.

 

so.

 

they are happy.

 

and so are thousands of gamers.

 

the horse mod is really tight btw. def worth it.

[Stampede]

I really do not see any point to this topic being left open...unless someone can provide something worthwhile.

[Peregrine]

Is it legal? No, obviously not. Would they sue? Not likely, for a few reasons:

 

1) You don't exactly make a good target. It would be hard to argue for a truly impressive settlement, especially since I doubt you have the money to pay anyway. And suing you doesn't really stop anything, people will still share them just like before.

 

2) The game industry has avoided the scare tactics of the RIAA, probably out of desire to keep good relations with their customers. Suing some random person for copying a $2 mod would really hurt their public image, especially while major piracy sites get away untouched.

 

3) The more likely target is the site hosting the mod. Shutting down the hosting site is a lot easier than suing Dark0ne to get your name, hunting you down, then filing a lawsuit against you. It would be much easier to send Dark0ne a demand to remove the mod, then sue him if he refuses.

 

4) They couldn't win much anyway. The RIAA might throw around huge numbers, but notice that none of their cases have actually made it into court. Every single one has been settled out of court, by picking easy to intimidate targets and using the threat of lawsuits to force a more "reasonable" settlement. I seriously doubt that their absurd claims would actually last in court... the actual settlement awarded for a $1.99 mod wouldn't even start to cover the legal fees of winning it.

 

First, they wouldn't sue you for $1.99, they'd sue you for $50k (or whatever copyright violation is these days).

 

I guess you don't know how lawsuits work... there isn't some set amount for each offense, the person filing the lawsuit makes the decision on how much to ask for, and the jury decides whether to award it or not. Bethesda could sue for $1.99, could sue for $1.99 x the number of recorded downloads of the file (a likely middle ground), or could sue for $199 billion. Of course the lower numbers would have a much better chance of actually being awarded, but that doesn't mean they don't have a legal right to ask for $199 billion.

 

 

=====================================

 

The reason discussions of piracy and hosting of illegal files are banned is to keep Dark0ne from having to deal with liability issues. As it is, it gives him an easy way out of any legal issues, simply pointing to the site rules, removing the offending file and/or poster, and placing all the blame on the person abusing his site against the terms of service. This is not exactly a small concern, since if Bethesda wanted to start throwing around lawsuits, they'd be targeting the distribution sites first.

[Marxist ßastard]

delete this forum

 

ATTN Dark0ne.

[aleswigger]

You must be talking about the X-Box version I guess. In the PC world, there's plenty of free horse armor mods out there. I had a friend actually thinking about getting a new X-Box just to play this game as he loved Morrowing so much, and his old PC was beyond upgrading. He'd have to spend over a grand easy for a PC rather than a few hundred for the 360. But it was the mods that made him go the PC route. Morrowind mods added so much replayability, and literally thousands of new things and options to the game. I can't see being able to try out thousands or even mere dozens of mods for the X-Box version if they're $1.99 each. Its a shame the manufacturer's chose that pay route, its going to limit the number of cool X-Box mods to a number far below their potential.

 

But I guess the hardware has something to do with this also. Anybody can make a mod for the PC, opening up a world of mods by potentially thousands, even millions of mod creators. But I guess you need to be a manufacturer's programmer with a liscence to the code and all that to make a mod for the X-Box. Not sure about how that works.

 

OK, this adds nothing helpful to the discussion, so you may now close this thread.

[Stampede]

In the PC world, there's plenty of free horse armor mods out there.

 

What? If they are free, it's only because somebody paid for them already. There are retexturing mods for the armour, but they require the original plugin.

 

This thread is useless though, thanks to Peregrine for trying to explain this concept, but it is still difficult for some people to grasp methinks.

 

OFFICIAL PLUGINS CAN ONLY BE BOUGHT FROM BETHESDA.

 

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM, DON'T PAY FOR THEM.

 

'FREE' OFFICIAL PLUGINS ARE STOLEN, THEREFORE WE WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM AND WE WILL BE SURE TO REMOVE ANY INDIVIDUAL ON THIS SITE WHO ENDORSES THEM.

 

Thanks for reading everyone. :)