Some concerns about the community

[Deleted82156User]

 

I'm just suggesting that public domain should be the default state of any work published on the Nexus

 

That would put Nexus in legal peril and open to legal action. Mods use assets from many different sources and many of those sources come with specific terms of use themselves. While copyright owners of assets (meshes/textures/voice acting etc) may allow use in a mod/specific mod, as in it can be downloaded and used in game, they have restrictions on further usage and require things like specific attribution with links etc or plain do not allow use beyond in a particular mod.

 

Setting the default permission to 'Public Domain' is dangerous because everything within a mod will be taken as 'public domain' and distributed as such. When the mod authors do not have the ability to do that on assets that are not their own. Leaving mod authors and Nexus open to legal action.

 

The default setting as it is now 'Do not use' is a safeguard for Nexus. You cannot rely on everyone to set and give correct permissions and having it all set at restricted is sound, legal protection for Nexus and mod authors.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Guest

[TechAngel85]

Mator suggested it on Reddit and a lot of people think it would be a good idea: When publishing a mod, make the author select the permissions before being allowed to proceed. The "default" therefore would be "you must choose" and it would eliminate all doubt on any new mods uploaded because everyone would know those mods uploaded past that date had to go through the gateway. I suggested further expanding that to updates on existing mods, which would force more authors to choose something rather than leaving things as they are. The only things left at that point would be the old stuff that's either done and not being updated anymore, or abandoned works with no permissions specified that can't be assumed are free to use.

This is the most rational thing I've read in this entire thread.

[Meihyr]

Reminds me of drama often sparking up in the furry community: "oh noes, %username% used my character's likeness, SUE THE HERETIC!".

In my opinion, Nexus should add a few lines to its ToS, declaring all mods published here released into the public domain de jure and internally enforcing only two sensible rights of a mod author:

a) To be credited for their work

and

b) To have the deciding vote in whether their creation can be used as a part of a commercial product

— so that outside those two issues, public domain rule would apply in any disputed case.

 

While I have adopted a cathedral approach with my permissions I don't agree that it should be forced onto to the wider community. That's bound to drive people away from the site.

[Graybark]

 

Mator suggested it on Reddit and a lot of people think it would be a good idea: When publishing a mod, make the author select the permissions before being allowed to proceed. The "default" therefore would be "you must choose" and it would eliminate all doubt on any new mods uploaded because everyone would know those mods uploaded past that date had to go through the gateway. I suggested further expanding that to updates on existing mods, which would force more authors to choose something rather than leaving things as they are. The only things left at that point would be the old stuff that's either done and not being updated anymore, or abandoned works with no permissions specified that can't be assumed are free to use.

This is the most rational thing I've read in this entire thread.

 

I agree with this, as well. Sounds like a very good idea to me.

[Meihyr]

 

 

Mator suggested it on Reddit and a lot of people think it would be a good idea: When publishing a mod, make the author select the permissions before being allowed to proceed. The "default" therefore would be "you must choose" and it would eliminate all doubt on any new mods uploaded because everyone would know those mods uploaded past that date had to go through the gateway. I suggested further expanding that to updates on existing mods, which would force more authors to choose something rather than leaving things as they are. The only things left at that point would be the old stuff that's either done and not being updated anymore, or abandoned works with no permissions specified that can't be assumed are free to use.

This is the most rational thing I've read in this entire thread.

 

I agree with this, as well. Sounds like a very good idea to me.

 

 

I am on board with this.

[sunshinenbrick]

 

Surely that does depends on country of origin (and/or distribution) though... especially now :laugh:

Well, yes, but it's also a pretty standard time limit among Berne Convention signatories. Some amount of time beyond the author's death.

 

Also on what Bethesda decide to do and how they handle support for external assets i.e. you may have rights to the assets but be effectively unable to use them.

What?

 

More specifically I imagine in the laws you refer to, that such copyrights are automatically applied to all works created in said origin. Would it be possible to circumvent this, as in make work immediately publicly available or within 30 years of death, for example?

Yes. Copyright applies from the moment the work is first created. Which is again standardized across Berne Convention signatories.

 

Only the copyright holder can place their work into the public domain before the statutory time limit expires. So yes, the copyright holder can forfeit everything immediately, or specify that after X amount of time the work falls into the public domain, but no matter how they go about that it generally isn't going to be as simple as saying so on a mod's description page. It usually has to be backed up by some kind of legal filing people can easily refer to in court should the situation arise where someone is getting sued over it.

 

 

This is what I thought and have read up on. While this could be seen as a +1 for the creator it actually automatically takes some rights away and applies them to the state when there is insufficient documentation to an alternative. So in a way you still end up having to go through all the legal fanfair just to keep things the specific way you intend them to be, with or without automatic 'protections'. Of course there are benefits in things being 'on your side' to begin with, but there are many instances where having one's own intentions followed could be beneficial either to the original creator or any intended benefactors.

 

It could possibly help to have more flexibility and accessibility to these mechanisms as this may increase variety and competitiveness in the market. Something that would maybe even free up the frameworks that in many ways stop modders like yourself from getting properly paid.

 

My point on assets being 'unusable' would be like in a scenario where you had sound files, texture files etc.. but if Beth decided to limit the support for or ability to use external assets or affiliated third party tools, then it would mean that the assets may be copyrighted but become effectively redundant until modified (if they could be) for use in something else. Furthermore once any asset interacts with the CK or network then it is possible any related or derivative assets may be held under similar conditions.

[hishutup]

 

 

 

Mator suggested it on Reddit and a lot of people think it would be a good idea: When publishing a mod, make the author select the permissions before being allowed to proceed. The "default" therefore would be "you must choose" and it would eliminate all doubt on any new mods uploaded because everyone would know those mods uploaded past that date had to go through the gateway. I suggested further expanding that to updates on existing mods, which would force more authors to choose something rather than leaving things as they are. The only things left at that point would be the old stuff that's either done and not being updated anymore, or abandoned works with no permissions specified that can't be assumed are free to use.

This is the most rational thing I've read in this entire thread.

 

I agree with this, as well. Sounds like a very good idea to me.

 

 

I am on board with this.

 

You definitely got my vote for the select perms things.

[ozoak]

 

The damage is done, and is not repairable.

 

Lets say that MxR didn't start this. Now lets assume we don't all know all the actual details of what's transpired. Because we don't.

And then lets look at what's happened.

MxR removed a video. One of hundreds. Give it a couple of months and he and perhaps a majority of the subscribers to his channel will just have moved on to the next moving target.

The mod author? Has been forced into hiding. Death threats, abuse, hate speech and just some truly awful comments out there; and that's just the stuff that we can see, the stuff that hasn't yet been taken down. All of that is coming from people offended by what's happened to the single video, not directly from MxR themselves but people who feel they need to grab pitchforks and somehow defend him.

 

The terrible reality is that MxR is doing nothing to prevent what is essentially a large scale distributed bullying campaign being conducted in his name.

It's pretty shitty that Tarshana has to effectively go in to hiding, there's a change.org petition to get her banned here (which obviously will hold no weight), she's felt she had to close off public communications. I would wager that she's not doing that because she's ashamed, but because of the volume of hate flowing towards her (imagine if 1/10th of 1% of MxR's followers heard what he said in the video and decided to 'go her': ever been bullied by one person? imagine bullied by >1500 simultaneously).

 

What a human being would do in MxR's position is renounce the hate campaign and ask people to go easy. Call me an SJW or whatever dismissive derogative term is required to brush the following aside: MxR could temporarily close comments on a video, hell he could post an a single video asking his followers to be more mature, he could do just about anything to give an impression that he wasn't cool with the hate campaign, and in not doing anything he is giving tacit approval to bullying.

[AGreatWeight]

The OP of this thread can be found rabble rousing and making false statements in the comments of the most recent video.

 

-edited for clarity-

Edited April 11, 2017 by AGreatWeight

[blove]

A change.org petition?! I had to see it with my own eyes. What is wrong with people these days?