Steam workshop EULA

[s73al7h]

Hey everybody on teh Nexus, I'm S73al7h and I found this whilest putzin around on the steam website.

 

Steam wants your moddin skillz to makez them monies :)

 

 

IDK about you guys, but I miss the days when mods werent preyed upon by corporate flunkies looking to make a quick buck off someone elses hard work.

 

on a lighter note, just wanna say hi to everybody on the nexus, and I hope everyone has had a good year so far. cant wait for the CK so we can all get to work making this awesome game even better.

 

Cheers

 

S73al7h

[Sarimae]

Hm, thought Modders know that.

 

Once you load up a MOD of any game to Steam, you give up the rights.ALL rights. so....

[scrivener07]

I really dont like what this might do to the community.

[gofer32]

Er... it looks like a sharealike type licence, and if they make money from it, you get a slice.

 

Which doesn't seem much like grasping corporate thievery to me. If they said "Yeah, you grant us exclusive rights to your stuff, and no one else can use it, and it belongs to us now, so we can make money off it and not pay you a penny" then... yeah. But it's not that, is it?

 

Those Valve boys departed from Microsoft for a reason...

 

[edit:] Don't get me wrong - I understand why everyone wants modding to remain free (myself included). All I'm saying is that those Valve T&Cs don't seem like cause for an end-of-the-world-type panic.

Edited January 19, 2012 by gofer32

[kayinv]

Simple answer is not to upload any mods to Steam. We have well established mod communities and don't need Steam for distribution at all.

 

The first modder that uploads something to Steam and allows them to attach a fee to the download will get blacklisted soooooo fast.

[huntsman2310]

Why, just because he or she wants their mod to be in seen in as many places as possible to get recognition and downloads?

[jimhsu]

Relevant portions highlighted:

 

You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to (a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media, (b) identify you as the source of the Contribution, and © sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

You retain the right to use the Contributions as You wish, even in the context of another game. However, this Agreement does not grant You any rights to Valve materials, and You may not make any use of the Contribution that is inconsistent with the rights You have granted to Valve herein. For example, You may not license the Contribution to a third party on an exclusive basis.

 

Nothing in there in any way forces you to "give up all rights"; in fact, the argument specifically lets you retain non-exclusive rights to do whatever you want with your content. If you want to "make money" with your content (unlikely, except for the largest TCs, and not even likely there), go ahead -- that doesn't stop you from doing whatever else you want, as long as you don't exclude Valve from whatever you're doing.

Edited January 19, 2012 by jimhsu

[Deleted3362774User]

There is a reason over 30 million people use steam. Valve is also imo the best company around in the gaming industry in terms of quality, and customer service. Edited January 19, 2012 by Guest

[throttlekitty]

Keep in mind that there may be a separate EULA targeted at the CK side of the workshop.

[Lanceor]

Having read the EULA, it doesn't come across as corporate thuggery. It seems like a fairly reasonable deal for those who want to use their service, but like any commercial transaction, there are restrictions that we need to be aware of.

 

Let's break down the licensing section word for word. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer so don't take my interpretation as legal advice!)

 

License

 

a. You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to (a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media, (b) identify you as the source of the Contribution, and © sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

 

b. You retain the right to use the Contributions as You wish, even in the context of another game. However, this Agreement does not grant You any rights to Valve materials, and You may not make any use of the Contribution that is inconsistent with the rights You have granted to Valve herein. For example, You may not license the Contribution to a third party on an exclusive basis.

 

worldwide - You can't restrict your mod to certain countries. Then again, why would you?

non-exclusive - Meaning you CAN do other things with your mod, such as uploading it elsewhere. A good thing.

perpetual, irrevocable - This means that once you've uploaded a mod, it stays there forever. This could be a concern to some.

royalty-free - Means that YOU can't charge Valve for the mod. (However, the revenue section says that if they make any money off it, they have to share revenue with you.)

assignable - Means they can transfer these rights to someone else.... hmmmmm....

 

use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, - fairly implicit in uploading a mod methinks

modify - I think they intend to repackage things, create OMOD type installers or other administrative stuff, but the all-encompassing nature of this word has me a little worried.

create derivative works - Ditto. They could re-use your assets to make their own mods for example, though it's unlikely that they would. This could cause problems when calculating revenue sharing.

in any media - They can use your mod for magazine pictures, TV ads, radio and anything else they can come up with.

 

identify you as the source of the Contribution - They acknowledge you as the mod creator. It's good to see that common courtesy was written in to the EULA.

 

sublicense these rights - Once again, they can transfer these rights to someone else. This might worry me a bit.

 

retain the right to use ... as You wish - You can continue to use your own material in any way you want. Fair enough.

does not grant You any rights to Valve materials - We can't use Valve's assets except in ways they allow. This is something we're already used to - we can't grab a Dragon Age mesh and put it into Skyrim for example.

You may not make any use of the Contribution that is inconsistent with the rights You have granted to Valve - Says that you mustn't do stuff that breaks the agreement or screw them over. Fairly common sense, but we know that common sense doesn't apply when it comes to the law. ;) "License the Contribution to a third party on an exclusive basis" was an example of something that breaks the agreement.

 

My opinion is that Steam Workshop will get a mod further exposure and a public perception of "legitness" from being available on Steam. (I say public perception as many uninformed people think of mods as "cheats" or "hacks".) The modder might even get some revenue from it. The price the modder pays for this is loss of control in much the same way that releasing a mod into the public domain would cause.

 

It will be up to us as individuals whether we wish to make that deal with them. Modders with nothing to lose (e.g. those who are retiring from modding) will definitely want to upload their stuff to Steam Workshop, but those who want to retain complete control will certainly avoid using the service.