LE Copyright/Licensing question

[Perraine]

I DID PM a moderator (if you read my post above you'll see that) unfortunately the answer was as vague (sorry bben46) as the one above ... If we take Buddha's reply to my PM and the answer from bben46, then I could probably find about 50 mods within a few minutes that should be taken down for breaching the rules.

 

I'll ask a simple question of any moderator who cares to answer ... IF I upload my mod (which I'll state again is no different really from MANY other mods on the Nexus, will I be banned? Or will my mod simply be taken down? ... I love what the Nexus sites offer and it's the reason I purchased a Premium membership, to, in a small way, thank them for this wonderful site, but I obviously don't want to be "banned" for what they decide is unsuitable content.

[Astymma]

I DID PM a moderator (if you read my post above you'll see that) unfortunately the answer was as vague (sorry bben46) as the one above ... If we take Buddha's reply to my PM and the answer from bben46, then I could probably find about 50 mods within a few minutes that should be taken down for breaching the rules.

 

I'll ask a simple question of any moderator who cares to answer ... IF I upload my mod (which I'll state again is no different really from MANY other mods on the Nexus, will I be banned? Or will my mod simply be taken down? ... I love what the Nexus sites offer and it's the reason I purchased a Premium membership, to, in a small way, thank them for this wonderful site, but I obviously don't want to be "banned" for what they decide is unsuitable content.

 

Examples of mods that break the rules are NOT an indicator that the rule should be broken, they are an indicator of the failure of users of the site to use the report button and file reports. The staff can't police every mod uploaded to the Nexus and depends on the reporting of those mods by the users. If you see one, report it... but don't contribute to the problem just because you see others doing so.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Astymma

[Ironman5000]

Is your mesh UV mapped from the vanilla texture or did you change for a completely new one? If your texture file is set up the same way then why not release the mesh only as a remodel of the armour, that way to get it to work the texture in the DLC would be required and you can think about adding your custom texture later on. I'm sure it would still get the popularity you want and you can get out this headache. Edited September 19, 2012 by Ironman5000

[Perraine]

@ Astymma:

Apparently you either didn't read or utterly fail to understand my previous posts, So please don't preach to me about right and wrong ... The whole point of this thread and my PM's to moderators, is that I DON'T WANT to upload a mod that breaks the rules, I WANT to contribute to the Nexus in a positive way by uploading a mod that users have asked for, the problem, is that the "rules" seem to be either a) flexible or b) vaguely written and not stringently enforced, All I'm asking for is a simple, DEFINITIVE answer, not a quote from a rule book that, if you browse through the current mods, apparently isn't actually used. I won't upload any files until a moderator says yes.

 

@ Ironman5000:

My mesh does use the original UV, however I used the alpha property method to remove the unwanted parts, and also changed the texture quality/colours/sharpness/ and so on, to make it look better, then added a second NiTriShape to the mesh (the pants) and created a totally new texture file for them (though using the vanilla UV map) ... I can still use the original normal map for the armor, and of course it doesn't look right without the matching boots and gloves, so "technically" it would still require the user to have purchased Dawnguard.

[Cyberlazy]

Lots of mods are removed and/or authors banned even after *winning* File of the month. (As evident by the fact many months only have 4 or 3 winners now)

 

Others I have seen banned 6+ months after last update of the mod out of the blue.

 

Basicly, Nexus may ban you and/or mods at any time for any reason they wish. That they have not banned mod X for maybe violating rule Y just means.. they have not gotten around to it yet.

[Ironman5000]

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.

 

...the same creator.

 

I must admit this is a little vague because I don't see a problem with someone making for example an 'armour overhaul' of a DLC with edited meshes that would require the textures of the bsa from this addon to function (which is why I asked about UV) or reverse rules for edited textures.

 

There are quite a lot of mods with other games that do a similar thing to this concept which seems above board, perhaps better specification is required for the benefit of other authors who have this issue? It might seem silly to staff but it would save a lot of time and effort in the long run.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Ironman5000

[Isilmeriel]

Bethesda is pretty clear against porting materials from one product to another, and this probably includes DLCs. It does not matter whether you modify the mesh and textures, if you used even a small part of them, your mod will be stuck specifically for that product, to do otherwise would violate EULA. There's really no ambiguity about it as far as I know.

 

To enforce things on your end, you need to make your mod dependent on the dawnguard esm.

[Ironman5000]

The original point was the fact that this guy has edited DLC content that could actually could be used without purchasing the addon because both meshes and textures would be needed in the uploaded file. It's easy enough to set the DLC as a required master, but users can easily bypass this as the meshes and textures are there to use however they want, which is why I suggested using some vanilla texture paths for the meshes.

 

I'm fairly certain that modding DLCs is OK but to what extent is not entirely clear - obviously adding an armour/weapon mod WITHOUT the DLC as a master set in the esp is a no-go, but if it WAS set then would this particular project be safe?

Edited September 20, 2012 by Ironman5000

[bben46]

:rolleyes: If it ain't your work or you don't have the makers permission don't use it and there will be no problems.

 

1. Everything that is published is automatically copyrighted - by copyright law. :confused:

2. Uploading a mod is publishing - by definition.

3. Therefore, ANYTHING that you see on the internet is copyrighted.

 

4. if you rip - that means NOT creating something, but copying the mesh and/or textures that is a copyright violation - UNLESS the author of that object specifically allows it to be used - either freely by anyone or by you specifically.

 

5. If you create a new mesh and texture, then that is yours and the copyright on that mesh and or texture is yours to allow or not allow as you please. We prefer that you do allow it to be used by others in their mods as too many have succumbed to the "It's MINE and you can't use it. MINE! MINE! MINE!" attitude.

 

As for DLCs. These, and all meshes textures music and anything else included is copyrighted by the game maker - and they get to decide how their stuff will be used. Bethesda is actually very liberal in their allowing. You can use ANYTHING from a DLC in your mod AS LONG AS you require that DLC to be loaded on the computer of the person who uses that mod. This is to protect Bethesda from copyright lawsuits from the third party (NON Bethesda) programmers that they licenced some of the content from.

 

As for using Bethesda content in some other game, even another Bethesda game - that is specifically not allowed by Bethesda. Again to protect them from lawsuits by third party programmers who licensed their work to Bethesda SPECIFICALLY for use in that ONE game. A DLC is considered a part of the game that it was made for for these purposes.

 

Note: ANYTHING that is included in the program that is the game is allowed - even if it never shows up in the game - this was shown when Fallout:New Vegas included hundreds - if not thousands of items (Meshes textures etc.) that were originally from FO3 that were never used in FONV - these can be used in FONV mods with no problems.

 

I hope this clears up any misconceptions. :thumbsup:

[Ironman5000]

You can use ANYTHING from a DLC in your mod AS LONG AS you require that DLC to be loaded on the computer of the person who uses that mod.

 

Yes. This is basically what Perraine wanted to know :thumbsup:

 

I figured as much but with the ban reports regarding this I wanted to clear this up too just in case.