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Retired Mod Authors and Leaving Nexus


Fkemman11

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I meant ownership in a practical sense. Obviously Bethesda owns the assets and mods legally, my original and still standing point is that it forcibly converts modding work done as a hobby into a financial corporate asset, and forcibly converts one's hobby into a paid job or business. Time will tell what happens and if the CC turns out to have a positive effect on the modding community, who is anyone to complain about it? But so far as mentioned I've been seeing way more retirement notices and NLA mods than new ones. NLA seems to be the byword in everything today, from operating systems to browsers and search engines etc etc. This mass clenching of the collective anal sphincter will continue until we get proper recognition and protection of internet traffic in our country. IMO it probably won't be happening with a Rupert Murdoch media phenomenon sitting in our White House, and an FCC run by Verizon, Comcast, Disney and Sony.
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A mod author does NOT own a mod, it is Bethesda who owns it since it is stated in the EULA, which all players must agree to follow before installing Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. That also applies for the Fallout series too.

 

When Bethesda launched the Creation Club, the main purpose for modding as a hobby simple vanished and a lot of modders decided to retire as it wasn't fun anymore and modding had lost its charm.

 

Even my mod for both SLE and SSE is a property of Bethesda and I cannot make money of it without permission from Bethesda / Zenimax, which is stated in the EULA and I have no other choice than to agree with the EULA when I installed Skyrim.

This is incorrect. Mod authors do own our mods, as per the Creation Kit end-user license agreement:

2. GAME MODS; OWNERSHIP AND LICENSE TO ZENIMAX

A. Ownership. As between You and ZeniMax, You are the owner of Your Game Mods and all intellectual property rights therein, subject to the licenses You grant to ZeniMax in this Agreement. You will not permit any third party to download, distribute or use Game Mods developed or created by You for any commercial purpose.

Edited by Reneer
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Jesus, how is it that some people still believe the fallacy regarding Bethesda owning mods?

(as stated by Reneer above, the CK EULA states clearly, in unequivocal terms, that mod authors own their mod/s, not Bethesda)

If you don't believe that this is the case, I suggest you contact Bethesda directly about this... straight from the horses mouth etc.

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2. GAME MODS; OWNERSHIP AND LICENSE TO ZENIMAX

A. Ownership. As between You and ZeniMax, You are the owner of Your Game Mods and all intellectual property rights therein, subject to the licenses You grant to ZeniMax in this Agreement.

 

Ok now I'm really confused. Aren't many if not most of the necessary components of mod development (e.g. file formats like DDS et al) proprietary and/or licensed to Bethesda by others? Or does "Game Mods" refer only to scripts?

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Ok now I'm really confused. Aren't many if not most of the necessary components of mod development (e.g. file formats like DDS et al) proprietary and/or licensed to Bethesda by others? Or does "Game Mods" refer only to scripts?

"Game Mods", again from the CK EULA, are defined as:

The term "Game Mods" includes all parts and elements of a Game Mods, including without limitation themes, music, sound, voices, graphics, artwork animations, video (including but not limited to animation-style videos), content, pictures, characters (and items and attributes associated with characters, including but not limited to character names and likenesses), catch phrases, locations, concepts, structural, landscape and other designs and methods of operation, and all audio visual or other material appearing on or emanating to and/or from the Game Mods, as well as the design and appearance of the Game Mods and each element thereof.

The DDS file format (textures) is made by Microsoft and isn't licensed to Bethesda. It's part of DirectX.

 

The NIF file format was originally created for the NetImmerse / Gamebryo engine, which Bethesda bought a source license to when they created their Creation Engine which powers Skyrim and Fallout 4.

Edited by Reneer
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Can you tell us if mod authors are free to sell "their" work outside the CC? And if not, why not?

Mod authors aren't allowed to sell our work outside of the CC because Bethesda makes that a stipulation of giving away the CK for free:

D. No Fees for Use. In exchange for the Editor being provided to you free of charge, You agree that You will not charge or require, directly or indirectly, a fee or other consideration for others to download, install or use Your Game Mods, including without limitation selling, licensing or other commercial distribution or commercial exploitation (e.g., by renting, licensing, sublicensing, leasing, disseminating, uploading, downloading, transmitting, whether on a pay-per-play basis or otherwise) of any Game Mods without the express prior written consent of an authorized representative of ZeniMax. This includes distributing a Game Mods as part of any compilation You and/or other users may create. You further agree not to charge, accept or solicit, directly or indirectly, fees or non-monetary contributions for developing or creating Game Mods, including without limitation fees collected through "crowd funding." However, the foregoing limitations in this Section shall not apply if and to the extent such agreement violates applicable law.

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Pay close attention to that last line. Any company are free to make whatever terms it wishes for their products. None of the terms have any bearing on civil law or constitutional rights. If something is legally owned by you ("You are the owner of Your Game Mods and all intellectual property rights therein"), and no other owners exist (as per Bethesda's language), nobody has the right to limit how, when or why you sell your own property. It's a First Amendment issue, among other obvious problems with established contract law in the U.S. and most other Western countries. Edited by TheMastersSon
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Pay close attention to that last line. Any company are free to make whatever terms it wishes for their products. None of the terms have any bearing on civil law or constitutional rights. If something is legally owned by you ("You are the owner of Your Game Mods and all intellectual property rights therein"), and no other owners exist (as per Bethesda's language), nobody has the right to limit how, when or why you sell your own property. It's a First Amendment issue, among other obvious problems with established contract law in the U.S. and most other Western countries.

A First Amendment issue? Where exactly did you get that idea from?

 

And if there is an issue with contract law, I'm sure you'd be able to point it out easily enough.

Edited by Reneer
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In what country do you live, where your right to sell your own property is limited by terms and restrictions from the companies who manufactured or produced it? Can you name even one example of this? I'm referring to legally enforceable limits on sale, not software EULAs which have been absurd for the last 30+ years and that legally amount to nothing but wishlists from software publishers. EULAs are not civil law and they have no direct relevance to civil law in my country (the U.S.) Edited by TheMastersSon
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