Dart98Rock Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 I agree, some (if not most) mods here on Nexus the modders are not able to copyright because it relies to much on other material. Take my mods for example, all they do is add color forms to the game. The only thing that is there to hold copyright on is the colors and those are not able to be copyrighted. Other works that are all custom (Dread Knight Weapon Set, IA, Jaysus Swords, Ghosu Weapons, etc), soon as the modder makes them the modder holds copyright to them (doesn't have to go through anything unless they won't legal records, which yes is a major pain in the ass and cost depending on item count). There is always a risk of someone stealing your work online (for me it's worth the risk and effort to defend it), for my digital 2D art I sign and date them at the bottom to show copyright and add copyright messages (for mods, not sure what the best way to sign them is). My line of thinking isn't always the best (as my past has shown) but after being; screwed over, cheated, jumped, and having property stolen I will fight for whats mine (as most people should, can't let thieves win). My upcoming mods will be based on my life's work, if any one steals it they will find themselves in a court of law. The reason that I post things here on Nexus (a public area) and take the risk is because I owe most of what I know, and will learn to this site. Nexus introduced me to 3D modeling, texture painting, new ways of using Photoshop, how games work and so on, (by modding Skyrim I have been offered a job to work on a game for the upcoming console Ouya) by uploading mods here is the only way (for now) I can give back to the Nexus community which has helped me out a lot. (That's just my line of thinking) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 The only part of a mod that is owned by Bethesda is what the CK was used to make. models and textures are not created in the CK and Bethesda cannot use them in a new game without first getting the creators permision. The CK EULA cannot trump copyright law so if you create a new model and use it in a Skyrim mod bethesda does not gain full rights to the model, they do get rights to the esp file so if the model is a painting for walls they will have to make a new model to be used by that esp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtMurder Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 This is america The internet is America? The internet is more america then america itself is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 This is america The internet is America? The internet is more america then america itself is. Which America? South? North? Central? Oh wait thats USA were talking about and I agree, the internet is more of what US citizens believe the USA is when in reality it is by far less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bben46 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 @Dwiss The Nexus Site is a public site like many othersNot so. The Nexus is a Private site - and like most private sites we do have rules - one of those is to not steal someone elses work.they dont own any rightsActually we do 'own' some rights, However unlike some other private sites - We do recognize other people's rights to their own work - here it is right from the Terms of Service everyone must agree to in order to join this private site.User-generated content and the rights to removalYou remain the sole owner of any content you have personally created and uploaded to a Nexus site. You remain solely responsible for the content you upload to a Nexus site and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless this site, and any related websites. We reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any information we have about you) to authorities in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any information posted by you, and any information sent either private or public can be made available to any admins, staff or enforcement agencies at any time.We have the right to remove any content we deem objectionable at any time and without warning or reason.By uploading and/or posting content to a Nexus site you agree to allow administrators of the site to store and present the content whenever and where ever the administrators deem necessary until such time as a request is received by the original uploader/poster for the content to be removed. Removal of content is a manual process, however, so please realise that we may not be able to remove or edit content immediately.You only retain the rights to content you have created and uploaded to a Nexus site. You do not own the rights to content not posted by yourself that might have been created as a result of your content being available on any Nexus site, including, but not limited to, ratings, comments, images created by other users, articles in regards to your content and any statistical information in regards to your content.As far as copyrights are concerned, ANY time you publish any work - and uploading a mod is publishing by definition, By law, that work is automatically copyrighted and can be litigated based on that in court. :yes: But, as there is no money involved, the cost of suing over a mod is not really cost effective. Here is the text from the TOS.The posting of copyrighted material, unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material, is strictly prohibited on any Nexus site. This includes linking to sites that contain copyrighted material used without permission of the copyright holder. Legal inquiries regarding copyright infringement are taken very seriously on Nexus sites and we will work with any legal body to identify and bring to justice anyone who might use a Nexus site to share copyrighted material.Most modders are happy to share - and we prefer that they make their work available to others to use to build on. There is actually a place in the form you fill to upload a mod that asks you to specify if you allow use of your mod or it's assets by other modders. Most do allow it, with the stipulation that they be credited for their work. The complaint here is that people are taking mods made by others - including some by modders who only posted their work here, and selling this work on another site. The person selling these works is claiming they made these assets (lying about creating something they got somewhere else) and are selling what technically belongs to someone else without their permission - This is a copyright law violation. But hard to sue for due to the small amounts of money involved. :whistling: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwiss Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 (edited) @bben46 Thank you for your reply. I am completely aware of the rights here at Nexus as i am publishing here myself - and i am actually reading ToS. The sentence about Nexus not owning rights has been formulated in an unfortunate way but wasnt the main point anyways - i was pointing towards an earlier post that Bethesda should get involved as the owner of rights. But i do repeat what i said earlier as i dont think you reacted on the real point: Nexus is a public site in the understanding that anyone with an account here is eligable to download material from here (some mods can actually also be downloaded without an account as far as i recall). Public used by me in this context as in ' no real life information is required but an email' - i consider these sites always public as most others will as well since there is no check of personal information involved. The entire topic is based on the events around one particular mod which is actually based on a former add-on by Bethesda which makes any copyright issues a bit more complicated than people are aware of - i was simply pointing that out. By creating a Robe that was originally part of an older add-on in the elder scrolls series he/she already walked on a grey path regarding copyrights - unless he/she has officially requested usage rights with the original copyright owner. Edit: Without being too cryptic simpy said: there are hundreds of mods on Nexus using design patterns, complete graphical clones etc from other games - and i highly doubt that any of them has any consent from the original copyright /trademark owner. So shooting at someone doing something not legally correct without being completely legal yourself is very naive. Edited March 31, 2013 by dwiss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dart98Rock Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 @bben46 What kind of records would you recommend for mod authors keep so they can prove that the mod is theirs. Would the mod description page count as proof of ownership of the mod. @dwiss I see it more as being a hypocrite, but other than that I agree and that is a good point. The mod itself is his/hers (and that's what was stolen) but other than that I agree it would be hard/impossible to claim copyright to the entire mod. That's why I don't claim any copyrights to my current mods, the one I am working on most items will be based on existing things so I can't/won't claim the copyright to them (the original items I will). I will own the meshes and textures and that's it. The weapons/armor mod I will be doing are of my own design (design, 3D models, and textures), those I can and already have copyright's to. As mod authors we "own" our mods but as far as copyrights go most are on a thin/complicated line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 It is not a thin line really. Both Bethesda and the mod maker share the copyright. Everything made with the CK Bethesdas rights trump the mod makers if they decide to use them and custom mesh, textures and sound files are sole property of the mod maker. With the original assets thats in the game such as models or textures Bethesda gives us mod makers the right to use them in our mods. If you resize the textures or make an armor mashup then the rights are the same as CK created and can only be used in the game the assets came from. So yes you very well can claim copyright infringement if your mod is being hosted at another website. But you cannot claim a financial loss for any part of it but custom textures mesh, or sound files that you created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwiss Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 @jet You also missed the point of what was talked about - it was a general uproar. You talk like all these mods are based on bethesda material where the majority is actually based on non-Bethesda material to start with. The most popular mods are all based on material basically taken from other games to start with - be it armors, hair etc. Some use ripped textures from those games , some just use the inspiration of the original design - but still the majority isnt even based on any Bethesda vanilla material at all anymore. So crying about a misusage of ones work requires that you oblige the rules yourself to start with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaradin Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 Props to BBen, that was a classy example of rule moderation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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