On console mods, theft and Bethesda.net

[lasse1001]

I don't like where all of this is going :rolleyes:

[AKcelsior]

Bethnet is a cancer. The fact that I need to spend days porting my mods into stripped down versions to upload to that dreadful site in order to combat theft is outrageous.

[SergeantGrrock]

In response to post #39482355.

Nogrim313 wrote: mod authors should get together in a class action against them for this massive f*#@ up.
as i see it Bethesda is no less at fault for the copyright infringement they are allowing to take place than napster or any of the other filesharing sites.

they are benefiting from this rampant theft as much or more so than the people actually stealing mods, in that they have gained a massive boost to console game sales.

Just had to say I think you make a couple of incredibly valid points.

[bluesunmerc]

Your thoughts are sound and your point is clear. I have nothing to add to the argument other than theft is theft people who steal can spin it anyway they want at the end of the day it is theft. I think its awesome that console have mods because it may spark a recently untapped potential in the Bethesda community that may start making their own mods because of how awesome the current mods are and they can see that they can do it to if they have the drive and determination to try it.

 

Hopefully Bethesda will step in and start to moderate it, because at the end of the day if mods continue to be stolen mod authors will stop making mods and then no one has mods. This is bad for the community and Bethesda seeing as how each game they come out with takes the idea of the mods from the past games (ie. fallout 4 crafting system and survival setting)

 

It is good to see that the nexus is behind the modders (of course I knew they would be) and are blasting down some of the idiotic statements that have been thrown around regarding the issue.

 

To any modders that may read this you have my support and I hope that this issue will be fixed as quickly as possible and it doesn't cause you to much headache. You are a talented set of individuals and thank you for making my elder scrolls and fallout experiences even better.

[PrimalSavage]

@matortheeternal

Please call that entity "Digital Modders Conglomerate of America" (DMCA) for the epic lulz.

 

3. We could potentially look into forming some kind of non-profit entity for the protection of Mod Author's rights. The way this would work is a mod author would basically elect to allow this entity to file DMCA notices/take actions against illegal mod redistribution on their behalf. This would allow mod authors to remain anonymous (so no fear of doxxing after a DMCA), centralize and organize anti-mod-piracy efforts (allows us to track how much is happening better), and would allow anti-mod-piracy operations to be performed more professionally and efficiently. It would also become a lot more legally recognizable and impressive than individual mod authors acting on their own, potentially prompting faster/stronger responses from Bethesda/other parties. This organization would not be limited to Bethesda.net, it could act in other circumstances as well. To be clear: mod authors would not sign any rights to such an organization, they'd simply give it permission to take legal action against copyright infringement on their mods.

Honestly, an organization like this should have been formed a long time ago. It may seem it's a little late to the party, but creating it would be a great way to organize anti-mod-piracy efforts and would help us act more effectively in the future.

 

[Arthmoor]

In response to post #39478660. #39478845, #39479305 are all replies on the same post.

Jebbalon wrote: Thank you Dark0ne, I for one enjoy your level-headed take on the subject. You have always had your finger on the pulse of the modding community and the Nexus reflects that.

My opinions...

- Bethesda.net is a "new wheel". It's ruff and not all that round. In comparison The Nexus is a badass Lamborghini. Given time, will Bethesda.net get better? Sure. Is the modding community and the console community patient enough to wait? Hell no!

- Bethesda's inability to punish thieves by banning them ... Can they? The CK, and ability to make mods, the in-game function to download mods and the Bethesda.net to upload mods is all provided as part of the purchase price of the game. The thief paid for all that. So can the company that provides all that really just pull the plug on them?? I think they can't and the thieves know it.

2 ideas I'd like to put out there...

1. For the Nexus - is there at all a way to add NMM into the in-game mod browsing functionality? Beth would have to release its API or whatever/however it works, but could that maybe be a possibility down the road?

2. For the community - Could there be a master file type mod released containing certain keywords or global variable that then would be required to have in order for mods to work? In my mod I'd simply add the keywords and make that file a master. The idea being that if my mod is stolen it won't work without the master file and I don't have to worry about keeping track of other sites because the master file mod is being tracked. So moderators and such only have to watch out for the master mod not all the other stolen mods. Of course bypassing that system would be too easy but it's just an idea to build on.

PonceMonster wrote: Most thieves are just careless children, if you didn't know... there's no way talking to them, so what's happening there has to do with bethesda just letting it happen. No one said anyone has to get cut off, but they certainly should get banned from uploading any mods.

Jebbalon wrote: I agree they should get banned - I'm just saying Beth may not be able to legally whereas Nexus is an at will relationship, you screw up and you get banned. On Bethesda.net it's not that easy I think.

They can legally bar anyone from uploading to their site. It might be argued that they sold the game with the promise of consoles being able to DOWNLOAD mods, but the PC version of the game and CK are required to create them, and to upload them, and there's nothing anywhere in the advertising or sales language that could possibly hold them to that staying available.

Plus, legally they can not allow the facilitation of copyright infringement, which uploading stolen mods falls under. So they have every authority imaginable to ban people from using the service.

[Eysenbeiss]

You know what ?

 

Usually, I am finding this and that about a "statement" or "speech", "rant" or whatever it is, that makes me thing "nah, I disagree", but this time, to my absolute suprise, I can second EVERY single sentence, statement, fact, point and reason.

 

I went ballistic on Bethesda.net weeks ago, blaming them for this crappy site/portal or whatever you want to call this trash, since it was missing elemental contents and options and what did I get ?

 

Trash and hatred from a lot of fanboys, not able to tell s#*! from gold and that brings me to something, that is wrong on Nexus too.

 

When I released my first mod on here, it was just for fun and not done in a very good way, but you know, you learn by doing and such.

 

Every comment, including the critics, were welcome, just to get to know what people think and expect, but I soon noticed something, that I did not like and that's not how you guys "count" the downloads, even though I still think that there is something not working a 100 percent correct.

 

What, step after step, week after week, pissed me off more and more was the fact, that a lot of people on here are unappreciative and ungrateful, not to mention the "wise guys" and alikes.

 

People are abusing your "rating system" by simply not giving any response at all - I am doing, or have done, only small mods and did not expect to have a couple of tenthousand downloads or such and was very suprisend when the first one made it to 1.000 dl.

 

At the same time though, I notices, not only on my pages, how litte endorsments, or even just comments, the mayority of people were giving/leaving.

 

Sure, some people might not visit this site every day, or even every week, but when they do, they get notified by "you" to endorse or not and it can't be, that the mayority is either closing the window or giving a "negative" vote just out of lazyness or egoism.

 

That SUCKS - even some of the best rated e.g. most downloaded mods don't get a mere 20 percent of responds by all the people that have downloaded the mod.

 

Is it really that hard to hit the "Add comment" link and just leave a "thank you" ?

You don't have to endorse something, that did not meet your expectations, but where is the problem in leaving a line saying exactly that, so that the author has the chance to react on that ?

 

Seems so and at the same time, more and more idiots, trolls, self-adulated wankers and all these people, that wouldn't get ONE WORD out, if standing in front of you, are keep telling crap, telling lies and accusing you or your mod on this and that, not to mention all these idiots, that are asking the same questions over and over again, just because they are too ignorant or too stupid to read the already given answers.

[Arthmoor]

In response to post #39477440. #39478350, #39478925, #39479280 are all replies on the same post.

DumdogsWorld wrote: I'm sorry, but as soon as you all said we don't have the right to charge for mods, you said that the mods indeed don't belong to the authors. They apparently belong to Bethesda. So if they're on Bethesda.net, I don't see what the problem is.

PonceMonster wrote: WHAT?!?!?! WHO SAID ROBIN WAS AGAINST THIS!! GET YOUR s#*! TOGETHER MAN, READ THE ARTICLE. Or watch the Gtymka, because clearly you don't .. nvm.

Thumblesteen wrote: Actually, mods are derivative of copyrighted material. So, Bethesda has all the right in the world to say that they don't want people selling things based on their software.

And then there's the fact that in order to actually sell a mod legally as a product, you need to be a registered company, so that you can pay income taxes. Something which literally nobody did.

And, I'm not defending this, nor would I ever prostitute my artistic expression for money. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm just saying, it was never a right. In fact, it wasn't even done legally. This is capitalism we're talking about, you have no rights unless you can afford to buy them. They've spent the last three centuries perfecting that particular formula.

And corporations telling you what to do is something you should get used to. Because they've basically been their own law enforcement agencies through the use of contracts, licences, legal firms and credit companies since the 1980's.

PonceMonster wrote: hey uhmmm... I said no one was against paid modding, and that the people that are, aren't even on this comment section, nor relevant. :/ Or maybe I deleted that part... idk

And then there's the fact that in order to actually sell a mod legally as a product, you need to be a registered company, so that you can pay income taxes. Something which literally nobody did.

Not true. We were under no legal obligation to do this in April 2015 when paid mods were a thing. Yes, it would be helpful in some circumstances, but you were perfectly able to sign up for the program as an individual, and that's what most of us actually did.

Taxes were handled as 1099-MISC forms for royalties from sales of copyrighted goods. That doesn't require a corporate structure to do. All paperwork was taken care of by Valve so all we had to do was make sure to include it in our 2015 tax filings like normal.

[Meihyr]

In response to post #39477785. #39477905, #39482430 are all replies on the same post.

exShinra wrote: Its in my view, detrimental for consoles to have mods.

Mods are one of the last bastion we have as PC gamers. Mods, graphics, and the keyboard and mouse. As we start getting more and more towards the uncanny valley, the only thing left will be consoles. We will be stuck with DLC, mods created solely on consoles (Remember Far Cry 2?).

We just don't f***ing want that. We don't want the dirty console peasants to reap our rewards, we want them to wisen up and make our community a better place.

Its not bigotry or doucheness to protect your community, especially when the console community as a whole does not appreciate what goes into the creation of mods. If they wanted to have mods, they should have went with PC, since thats our major selling point.

This has huge, overreaching concerns for many different markets to! If PC gaming falls, then graphic card makers like Nvida and AMD will fall as well. There will just be much less demand for their chips if the only practical application of the new GPUS is complex computations and rendering. The enthusiast class of PC gamers has driven technological progress more than the peasants ever will.

Stop trying to defend the console players. They don't give a s*** about what goes into our work, they just want to eat the cake you've made without sharing it.

I hope the Nexus finds a way to punish mod thieves much more harshly. The best deterrent to crime is the nuclear option.

PonceMonster wrote: Consoles are the ones that are gonna die out in the next couple of years. Neither microsoft nor sony, have a plan of what to do next. This is mostly just about the present, and what they're doing to f*** us over. You need not worry about your mods, but with the community, we do have an obligation to feel angry, or frustrated, or offended with what's happening. Don't feel a need to hate on Console players persay', but if they are talking s*** to any of our games or our community, well then you know what to do.

dazzerfong wrote: Do you develop mods yourself? If not, you're reaping our rewards too. See the irony?

Let's not beat around the bush here, I know you make mods, but the overwhelming majority of PC players of this game are not modders, and are more or less identical to console users except their toy is shinier.

Thing about selling points, if you don't adapt, you die. Remind me to tell people that cars are banned as they ruined the horse riding business. Protecting your own 'selling points' is a surefire way of knowing that -that- is the only advantage you have, and it's a tenuous one.

Oh, and you'll be surprised how much money Nvidia and AMD make outside of the gamer market. Open your mind up and don't be a peasant, eh?

@Dazzerfong - 1+ Well said

Edited June 18, 2016 by JayCrane

[Shenzhen]

Thank you Dark0ne, That was an instefull and hopefully helpful speech.