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Copyright/Licensing question


Perraine

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This is obviously a topic that needs a light shown on it. I think so long as your mod absolutely requires the master esm file for the content to work, then it should be fine. Mods for Oblivions Shivering Isles were coming out all the time and non of the good ones were banned. It would be a great hypocrisy if they ban DLC modding now.

 

So long as you're not including the entire ESM and Dawnguard assets then you shouldn't be breaking any rules. Also point in case, Bethesda doesn't care either so long as you don't give out the whole DLC for free. They wouldn't permit people to mod the darn game otherwise.

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But it is more complicated then that, if copyright were a simple matter no one would make a big deal over it. Bethesda allows people to upload the base games content, modify it, tweak it, change it. They own the rights to it yes, and since everyone likes to go on "Technically they can...". Yes technically Bethesda or any other game Dev could sue for content being borrowed and put onto a website or a game. Or whatever. If it is copyrighted the original artist, writer, designer etc etc can sue for it if it falls under a few categories of copy right. Again it falls under Bethesda, not NexusMods whether there is copyright infringement. NexusMods has the right to deny mods if there is a potential problem for infringement. Part of the catch is if there is any money involved. 1 or two lousy little models being retextured and modded is not exactly costing Bethesda a customer, especially if it is made to require the content it came from. Now if mod authors were selling their content thats CR infringement plus a whole boat load of other things including theft of Intellectual property.

 

I could go into a bunch of finer points about Copyrights. My point is, a bunch of other modder's have already done something of this nature with the original game. Is it still piracy if someone downloads a Skyrim mod that has original game content in it, if they don't have skyrim? This whole website really has no authority to dictate what is copyright infringement, it isn't an international law firm. It just has the right to protect itself. A copyright lawyer could tear NexusMods to pieces if Bethesda suddenly decided to shanghai the modding community purely on the sole terms of "If it changes our game in any way that isn't how we sold it." Which would first come in the form of a Cease and Desist, then an Injunction and then very very large fines.

 

 

Piracy in it's completeness in this case would entail, literally someone uploading the whole of Dawnguard. Because it isn't just a small piece of dawnguard, but the whole add on. That is the dumb thing about the horse armors for Oblivion (which should have been free) because no one could upload mods that contained the whole content of the horse armors. Whole content. One bow is not the whole content of Dawnguard. Nor is the armors, weapons, sounds... so crying "Piracy" here is just not applicable.

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I suppose it could be? No one is going to, because that's just asking to get banned. Regardless there is some things that only the master file holds so it would still need to be provided, technically. Point is, the fine lines can't be confused with the ideas of who gets to get away with uploading content and who doesn't. If they ban one person for uploading "modded" dawnguard content but let someone else do it, it is kind of pointless and more than unfair.
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^ This is why I'd REALLY, REALLY like someone (anyone?) from the Nexus admin to shine some light ... The mod I have is a rework of one of Vampire Armors = removed some parts using the alpha method, added a pair of pants to the mesh, then created a whole new texture file and normal maps for the cuirass and pants using the UV maps as the base. So they are similar but heavily modified versions of Dawnguard assets ...

 

The problem is, this means that "technically" it doesn't "require" Dawnguard to be installed, and I DID male the comment about simply putting "Dawnguard Required" on my description page, but anyone who knows even a little about modding will see this as pure sophistry ...

 

The Mod I mentioned above has this "warning" but when you open the archive you clearly don't need Dawnguard as the mod supplies both the mesh and the texture ... I guess I could make it to point to one of the Dawguard installed cubemaps or something or, maybe use the original normal map for the cuirass itself and thereby "requiring" Dawnguard, but again this would be a bit of a copout really and still seems not quite legit to me ...

 

We really need an "official" statement from the Nexus on this I think ... We've all seen recently what happens if a community site gets noticed by one of the 'Big Boys" (see the LOTR mod)

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Lets be frank, reasonable and honest...

 

No one gets banned for have used a mesh on his mod that came from a DLC, each case is analysed and reviewed to check what was that intention.

Actually I've seen it happen for exactly that. Just because only some people get banned doesn't mean they all couldn't. The staff are a finite number of people moderating thousands of uploads. Stuff is bound to slip by from time to time.

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Check the terns of service that you are supposed to read. It's already spelled out there .

 

Absolutely no copyrighted work is to be used without permission of the original creator. This includes content from other games, from DLCs, music creators or from other file authors. This also includes members from countries that do not recognise copyright laws (such as Russia).
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