Nexus Vs Steam Workshop. A warning for Modders

[Sheralynn]

This is the real sweatheart

 

4. Steam can change the legal agreement at any time by posting an updated agreement.

 

Not only do you sign away all rights on your creation to them the minute you upload your mod, they can also change the agreement at any time. Including any agreed upon compensation. What you're going to do? Sue a multimillion dollar company that has armies of lawyers at their disposal?

[thesapien]

Can't be compared to agents who compete with another. You have to imagine there is just one single agent. This one agent has the universal connection between one party (Beth) and all its customers. Beth and Steam already have full legal control over all mods of Skyrim. Offering profit sharing of 25% still sounds outrageously low to you???

 

Please explain, why you think they have full legal control already. When someone created a texture and chooses to use it for a Skyrim mod, that does not make that texture be owned by Beth or Skyrim. The texture can be applied to anything one deems fit. Switching on the light in a house does not make Edison posthumou®sly owner of your house.

You might refer to the plugins and the geck then. Well. Should the geck be the culprit, we collect a little money and buy some third partie liscenses Beth and Steam themselves didn't bought exclusively and publish our own geck. What can it cost? 10.000? 100.000? Piece of cake in this large community.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/924398-1328391811.jpg

 

You're just arguing to argue now. If I'd said so and so had the rights to such and such, it would be silly to think they also had rights for all content. A company that sells generic music, for example, keeps ownership of their music even after it is used in another production. To understand what I meant, make a mod and try to sell it without legal repercussions. You can't. Steam is offering to change that for you.

[terzho]

The real issue here is the co-opt of ownership. If Steam/Bethesda owns the mod they can tell Nexus and other sites they can not host the same mod.

 

Actually they can't tell Nexus and other sites that they cannot host the mod.

 

"You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license"

 

Non-exclusive..............although if they change the agreement like the above poster said.

[thesapien]

25% is not bad considering Steam and Bethesda will be doing all the leg work. The real issue here is the co-opt of ownership. If Steam/Bethesda owns the mod they can tell Nexus and other sites they can not host the same mod. I think Steam and Bethesda may be trying to lock up the modding community and become the one and only site for mods of their games. If that happens they can start to charge a fee for mods. They can decide which mods are allowable. Being corporate entities they will bow to the edicts of the most vocal groups. No blood, no gore, no sexual or sexy content, nothing that flies in the face of whatever group thinks is amoral or offensive. Soon we will all be playing Donkey Kong.

 

I realize that's a stretch, I doubt Steam has some ulterior motive to destroy the gaming community but they are interested in profits. Any company will aggressively defend whatever profit source they find. If they did not think they could make money with this Steam Workshop thing they would not be doing it. Once it is in place they will try to squash any competition. Nexus is the big competitor, especially since it is free. Steam will not be able to let that go. If however, no one puts mods on their site they can't do much to Steam.

 

Yes, the bigger issue would be any forcing out of free mods and free communities. They could simply do it with the CK by including it with a legal contract agreement for its use. "You agree to use this software only for personal use or to share using Steam Workshop" kind of thing.

[ginnyfizz]

If they did move the goalposts and then try and wield the big shillelagh, they would fall foul of all kinds of laws all over the place.

As I have said before, their EULA's are so over the top draconian and violate consumer and other types of law in so many ways, they'd be laughed out of court anywhere, except perhaps the USA. Remember, even M$ have realised they can't get away with the same EULA for XboxLive in Europe that they do in the USA. So for example, if they tried to change the agreement to "exclusive" and then tried to get Nexus to take down a "dual hosted" mod, the correct response would be "Aw nuts".

 

Of course, the safest way of all is not to upload anything there at all, period, and retain control of your work, to some extent.

[Dark0ne]

I think the likelihood is that any mod they wanted to start charging for they'd ask the author to sign over the exclusive rights to the mod to them, and them alone. So you'll see lots of free mods on Steam Workshop, and then if a Midas Magic mod, or a mod of a similar calibre comes along they'll get in contact with the author and say "we'd like to go in to an exclusive content partnership with you, this involves taking your mods off any other sites and hosting them exclusively on Steam Workshop, your cut would be XX%", etc..

[olafreinhardweyer]

Can't be compared to agents who compete with another. You have to imagine there is just one single agent. This one agent has the universal connection between one party (Beth) and all its customers. Beth and Steam already have full legal control over all mods of Skyrim. Offering profit sharing of 25% still sounds outrageously low to you???

 

Please explain, why you think they have full legal control already. When someone created a texture and chooses to use it for a Skyrim mod, that does not make that texture be owned by Beth or Skyrim. The texture can be applied to anything one deems fit. Switching on the light in a house does not make Edison posthumou®sly owner of your house.

You might refer to the plugins and the geck then. Well. Should the geck be the culprit, we collect a little money and buy some third partie liscenses Beth and Steam themselves didn't bought exclusively and publish our own geck. What can it cost? 10.000? 100.000? Piece of cake in this large community.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/924398-1328391811.jpg

 

You're just arguing to argue now. If I'd said so and so had the rights to such and such, it would be silly to think they also had rights for all content. A company that sells generic music, for example, keeps ownership of their music even after it is used in another production. To understand what I meant, make a mod and try to sell it without legal repercussions. You can't. Steam is offering to change that for you.

 

I am not arguing just to argue, i am not that kind of person. Thing is, regarding the agreement, the full content of the mod is owned by steam and the offer steam makes, is getting the repercussions in the first place, by "selling" to them. You can not republish what you publish at their place. You are not treated like the loops and samplers company you are talking off, because that company can publish those loops to anyone they want. They could not do so, if they posted their loops on steam, e.g. as a modders resource. They would instantly loose the ability to publish or sell it somewhere else.

For only 25% were everyone can do, what steam is doing in this age of the internet (the nexus would not exist otherwise),

that would be indeed a very bad business decision.

[xrws31]

You grant to Valve the following rights, which Valve may exercise or not in its sole discretion:

 

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.

 

With respect to Valve Games, You retain the right to use your original work in 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. With respect to Third Party Games, the end user license or subscription terms for the Third Party Game may provide to You or third parties different ownership rights and responsibilities for Contributions.

 

I think that makes it pretty clear that, as far as Steam and Valve are concerned, you can still do whatever you like with your mod, post it to Nexus or wherever, just as long as you don't sell an exclusive right to someone else.

 

The only thing modders should be concerned with is the possible changing of the agreement at short notice, and not being aware of changes until it's too late.

 

I'd also add that mods are all about people messing around with stuff in their own time, so they can make things exactly how they want them to be and then share it with other like-minded gamers. Freedom is the very essence of it. If Steam/Beth try to impose too many restrictions, they'll simply drive modders away from Steam Workshop, because on the internet there's always a way to get around restrictions. Steam/Beth may be greedy, but I don't think they're stupid.

Edited February 4, 2012 by xrws31

[olafreinhardweyer]

I think that makes it pretty clear that, as far as Steam and Valve are concerned, you can still do whatever you like with your mod, post it to Nexus or wherever, just as long as you don't sell an exclusive right to someone else.

 

Try to sell any media content NON-exclusively and you will see my point. You just can't, because no one will buy.

Okay, you might not want to sell at all. But that is how you look at it today, before that someone came along, who

got interested ... and then you can't.

[luxwing0go]

I think this was brought up before. A while back, actually.

 

The best way to avoid any ink is to...not post there. Don't want to bother with fine print? Post elsewhere.

 

Honestly, I think Dark0ne it right. Valve/Steam/whoever would probably offer the modder a contract of sorts. If the modder agrees, then it becomes a DLC. If the modder declines, they are free to either keep the course or remove their mod. They cannot really prevent anyone from posting the mod anywhere along with the SW. In all realistic sense, someone who has made a really great mod would more likely than not want it on more than one site so that A. More people have access to it, and B. In case of a site shutting down it will still be available.

 

All sites come with contracts. In actuality, most game development sites that allow you to post mods for their games onto their servers have similar ones.