Retired Mod Authors and Leaving Nexus

[Reneer]

From the beginning my challenge has been to name a single example of qualified ownership of private property in our country, outside of EULAs, and all you or anyone have provided so far are links to EULA examples. And my point, again, is that the only enforceable EULA terms are those that pass muster with both our civil laws and our constitutional rights as Americans. The rest (and with every new EULA, that ratio continues growing) amounts legally and simply to wishlists from software and entertainment media publishers. EULAs are not civil law and they have no direct relevance to it.

 

Qualified ownership within the United States:

Guns (can't own one if you've been convicted of a felony)

Wills (grandmother leaves you property she owns, but on the condition you never build on it) (source)

Deed restrictions on property (any number of restrictions and conditions can be placed in the deed, which can severely limit what is done with the property. If the conditions are broken, the property / deed can be taken away) (source)

 

The wills and deeds are the most relevant - since they put direct conditions on your ownership of real / physical property.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Reneer

[TheMastersSon]

I'll take those in order:

 

1. Not relevant. The challenge is to name examples of limited ownership rights of private property, not limits on who can own this property in the first place.

2. Contingent ownership terms, any and all of them, are required to pass the same constitutional and civil law muster as EULA terms. If grandma was a racist wreck and stipulated in her will that her property would never be sold to black people, see how that stands up in any court in our country. Etc.

3. Ditto #2. But imo both 2 and 3 meet my challenge so thank you and congrats. :)

 

I'm really at a loss to explain what you and others are defending here. Do you seriously wish to live in a country or free world where private ownership rights are subject to legal limitations from our own governments, and even from private business interests? It's prostitution taken to the next level, practical enslavement.

Edited February 27, 2018 by TheMastersSon

[Reneer]

I'm really at a loss to explain what you and others are defending here. Do you seriously wish to live in a country or free world where private ownership rights are subject to legal limitations from our own governments, and even from private business interests? It's prostitution taken to the next level, practical enslavement.

Except it's not enslavement of any kind. Enslavement implies you have no choice in the matter and are being forced to do something against your will. Every single mod author made the conscious choice to create mods for Bethesda games, knowing beforehand (there are always a few exceptions) that they could never sell whatever they created.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Reneer

[TheMastersSon]

But now they can sell their work. Or rather only Bethesda can.

 

Read the primary definition for slave and you'll discover it doesn't entail violation of will. My slave video card agrees. :) The word is applicable in the sense that Bethesda now claim complete distribution, financial etc control over one's volunteer work, done in many cases for well over a decade under the assumption (more likely presumption) that their work would not be sold. It's retroactive slavery.

[Reneer]

But now they can sell their work. Or rather only Bethesda can. Read the primary definition for slave and you'll discover it doesn't entail violation of will. My slave video card agrees. :smile: The word is applicable in the sense that Bethesda now claim complete distribution, financial etc control over one's volunteer work, done in many cases for well over a decade under the assumption (more likely presumption) that their work would not be sold. It's retroactive slavery.

 

Slave [sleyv]

noun

1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. (source)

Not seeing it.

 

Plus, Bethesda doesn't claim complete distribution rights or any other control over our work. Only the real condition that is placed on us is we can't be monetarily compensated for our mods. Otherwise we're free to do as we please with our work.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Reneer

[Arthmoor]

 

Your point is that mod authors should be able to sell their work, but the EULA prevents this, but there is no legal basis for it to do so, right?

No. I'm saying Bethesda's CC terms (quoted earlier) are either incorrect or absurdly misleading. In our country and current EULA nonsense notwithstanding, it is illegal for anyone to tell you what you can do with your own property. This basic fact of life will become more apparent now that the Senator from Sony, Orrin Hatch, who has had a major hand in this imposed fascism from the start (e.g. DMCA etc) is finally retiring.

 

Bethesda's CC language explicitly states mod authors own both their work and its underlying IP. This is perfectly legal, what is not legal is telling mod authors they own their work, but only contingent on Bethesda's own EULA terms. It is indeed slavery: Bethesda are saying it's fine for you to work voluntarily to mod their games, as long as they are the only ones who control any financial reward for your work. IMO it's one of several fundamental problems with introducing money into the modding community.

 

No. Their CC language says no such thing. The CK is not the CC. The CK available to the general public comes with an agreement that says you own copyright on your mods, on the condition that you not be allowed to sell them. That's covered by derivative works in copyright.

 

CC is an entirely different animal. That's contract development work where you are making content with the specific intent of transferring the copyright to Bethesda. Look up "Works for Hire". That should explain everything there.

 

As with your lack of knowledge about copyright and derivative works in general, it would appear you lack sufficient knowledge to comment on anything to do with the CC either as you've gotten the whole thing completely wrong. It would also seem, as an extension, that you are not qualified to talk about contract work in general since you seem to have no idea how that works at all.

[TheMastersSon]

Arthmoor, give us a break. We're still waiting to hear why it was claimed mod ownership "transfers to Bethesda" in the CC terms in the first place. Again my confusion was a direct result of that imo at least possibly intentional misinformation from Reneer. The rest is unrelated character assassination toward me personally, par for the course when one cannot answer actual debate points.

 

Please go back and read Reneer's quotes. If you or he/she can explain why CK legal terms of use were quoted in response to a question about the CC, I'm all eyes. Please answer these questions before placing your finger of judgment. I stand on my posting history on this site and nobody can respond coherently to near-total ignorance and outright misinformation. My apologies for trying.

 

The simple truth regardless of anybody's opinions and your personal swipes is that absolutely nothing prevents Bethesda or any other private company from properly and formally employing software authors to produce game content. The CC is a blatant attempt by Bethesda to financially benefit from and otherwise leverage free labor, in many cases over ten years of programming labor, and to facilitate and justify this practical if not legal theft with the entirely subjective and bogus requirement that mods be "rewritten from scratch" -- whatever that might actually mean, because 100 different people will have something close to 100 different opinions about the exact difference between "rewritten from scratch" and a few minutes spent with a simple search/replace function. Etc.

 

I invite you to return to this thread a year or two at most from now and you're excused in advance. The entire CC scheme is half-baked imo and only time will prove that claim. Personally I'm hoping at least one legal challenge results in a court allowing mod authors to sue Bethesda for every hour of programming time they've spent on Bethesda products for the last 10+ years. Heh. Welcome to America.

Edited February 28, 2018 by TheMastersSon

[Reneer]

Arthmoor, give us a break. We're still waiting to hear why it was claimed mod ownership "transfers to Bethesda" in the CC terms in the first place. Again my confusion was a direct result of that imo at least possibly intentional misinformation from Reneer. The rest is unrelated character assassination toward me personally, par for the course when one cannot answer actual debate points.

Intentional misinformation my ass. Practically everything I've written in this thread has been backed up by sources. Obviously you realize you're making predictions about the law, where no one knows the future, and you're not providing any evidence for your claims. And ownership does transfer to Bethesda upon a a CC mod finishing Quality Assurance in the program. It's roughly laid out in the Creation Club FAQ.

 

That all being said, I was being a jerk to you and I'm sorry.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Reneer

[Fkemman11]

I'm a little slow to understand things sometimes. So, my question is if I create new assets in Blender and PS or something and then decide to use those assets in a mod for FO4, am I effectively handing ownership of those assets over to Beth/Zen or are they still mine to do with as I please- like charge money for them in another game or something? Sorry if someone already covered this and I missed it.

 

I understand about CC and that it is contract work- so that is not what I am questioning here.

[Reneer]

I'm a little slow to understand things sometimes. So, my question is if I create new assets in Blender and PS or something and then decide to use those assets in a mod for FO4, am I effectively handing ownership of those assets over to Beth/Zen or are they still mine to do with as I please- like charge money for them in another game or something? Sorry if someone already covered this and I missed it.

 

I understand about CC and that it is contract work- so that is not what I am questioning here.

According to the CK EULA you grant Bethesda a non-exclusive license to use your work and not sell it. So, as long as you're selling your work outside of the mod (that is, the mod has a NIF file and you're selling the OBJ file on something like TurboSquid) I -think- everything would be copacetic. But IANAL and all that.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Reneer