Rules of Forum use?

[lonewolfkai]

I've always understood that linking to web sites that contain "ripped content," which is in essence material such as meshs/textures/etc. that come from a different game and are ported to the Oblivion game, are a strict violation. However, I do not see this specifically listed in the forum rules. Posting a mod that contains ripped content would probably fall under the uploading rules, but what about simply linking forum posts to sites that contain such mods? Is this something that is stated elsewhere? There's also been mention of even the act of simply naming (not linked) a mod or website that has such material is also considered against the rules. Again, I don't see this stated anywhere.

 

Please inform me as I would like to know what is truth and what is hearsay.

[ub3rman123]

"The posting of copyrighted material, unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material, is strictly prohibited on any Nexus site. This includes linking to sites that contain copyrighted material used without permission of the copyright holder. Legal inquiries regarding copyright infringement are taken very seriously on Nexus sites and we will work with any legal body to identify and bring to justice anyone who might use a Nexus site to share copyrighted material."

 

Ninja'd Pronam. Hah.

[Pronam]

/edit

ub3r beat me to it >.>

 

It probably falls under this part.:

 

The posting of copyrighted material, unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material, is strictly prohibited on any Nexus site. This includes linking to sites that contain copyrighted material used without permission of the copyright holder. Legal inquiries regarding copyright infringement are taken very seriously on Nexus sites and we will work with any legal body to identify and bring to justice anyone who might use a Nexus site to share copyrighted material.

[lonewolfkai]

"The posting of copyrighted material, unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material, is strictly prohibited on any Nexus site. This includes linking to sites that contain copyrighted material used without permission of the copyright holder. Legal inquiries regarding copyright infringement are taken very seriously on Nexus sites and we will work with any legal body to identify and bring to justice anyone who might use a Nexus site to share copyrighted material."

 

Ninja'd Pronam. Hah.

Okay I finally found it. Terms of Service. /slaps forehead.

 

BUT, how does naming the file of the mod or naming the website that has such content fall under that rule?

 

The top of this page is a prime example of why I am questioning this

There is no link, only a person simply stating what the name of the file is. Also, would telling someone to google this also be considered a violation?

Edited April 13, 2011 by lonewolf_kai

[LHammonds]

Allow me to clarify.

 

We don't allow illegal activity nor endorsement of it.

 

If you post an image of an illegal mod as an advertisement for it, you can get banned.

 

If you post an image of an illegal mod asking where it came from, the response from the staff or community should simply be "it is not allowed here" and at this point, the poster of the image should edit the post and remove the image. Member is now educated and moves on.

 

If somebody asks where to find so-n-so mod (which is not allowed on the Nexus), the response from the staff or community should simply be "it is not allowed here" and at this point, the person asking the question should stop. Further questioning of where else to obtain the mod can get you banned as well as anyone actually answering.

 

We obviously would not allow direct links to any illegal mods even if they are hosted on sites that typically do not allow such content. This also goes for giving any indirect information on how to find the mod such as "google it" because it is still the same as advertising the mod and how to get it.

 

We take issue with sites that knowingly allow illegal mods...not sites that may have an illegal mod at this moment. If the site admin is notified and they take the mod down, we have no problem with them. It is the sites that allow illegal activity that we do not want endorsed / advertised on the Nexus.

 

I hope this clears things up. We do not have rules for every possible situation and nor do we care to write such things. We have rules that cover such things in a general (and sometimes specific) way.

 

LHammonds

[Dark0ne]

I just want to clarify that just because we don't allow this sort of stuff I don't really pass judgement on any sites out there; what people do with and allow with their own sites is none of my business or concern. It's merely a concious decision of mine that I don't want to host, promote, endorse or talk about any content that is deemed illegal. I'm happy to acknowledge that some of this stuff is cool and great, but it's not legal, so I want nothing to do with it on these sites that are linked very personally to me.

 

Perhaps it's for my own smug self satisfaction, or perhaps I just like the idea that when some lawyers inevitably come crawling through this neck of the woods I can point them to literally thousands of cases where we've taken down, removed or prohibited illegal distribution of content well within the usual 24 - 48 hours that cease and desist letters allow for. So I can keep my chin-up and point them else where cause there's nothing to see here! :)

 

Keep things as drama free as possible. Less drama, less stress! That's me! :)

[lonewolfkai]

Well understood then, or at least in the admin staff's intention. However, and this is probably due to the part of my education that deals with Business Law (no I'm not a lawyer :tongue: ), I feel a general statement should explicitly state this issue. Something along the lines of "Unauthorized or illegal material may not be advertised, discussed, distributed, linked, or promoted." Maybe even sticky this thread. Otherwise, a poster could simply say it's not in the TOS or stated in forum rules and think they are safe in asking or answering. Not only this, there seems to be a lot of confusion in regards to images of ripped mods with inquiries to where they came from. Read through a couple pages of the Mod Detectives thread to see this. I'm not trying to be a stickler here, only trying to clear up some of this mist. It has been clarified in this thread, but should that not also be stated somewhere in the TOS in general terms? Edited April 13, 2011 by lonewolf_kai

[ziitch]

There's one thing I must say: If you've got lawyers telling you that the ripping of content from one game to another even though that person will not share those files (except images of the results) isn't allowed, that's when you need to tell them to back off - Personal creative use of assets by legitimate users should be protected and not bound by overly strict legal guidelines. It shouldn't matter if it's from another game or not, it should matter if the user legitimately owns that game and promises to not share the files, excluding images of the work.

 

Otherwise, being banned for using ripped content in an image is a bit much. A Strike maybe, but outright banning for being creative is a bit Orwellian, don't you think?

[greywaste]

TBH, I think that anything that isn't available on the site or derived from something thats on the site (i.e personal edits etc) shouldn't be allowed on imageshare, since whats really the point then if half of the stuff you see on Nexus imageshare is stuff you can't actually get on Nexus?

 

If people want to show off, let them do it on the sites they got the stuff from. I do think bans for images are overkill though, should just be a removal, or maybe a strike.

[myrmaad]

At present greywaste, we just remove them (images with illegal content) when we see them. We usually don't see them unless one of our sharp-eyed members brings them to our attention. Strikes are usually reserved for repeated postings of image content after warnings and removals.