message about my mod releases

[colourwheel]

Thanks everyone.

 

It come to my attention that people have been uploading my work to other forums and places like rayfile without permission. This is causing me to track my work very hard and causing download traffic on this forum low. I cant exactly stop this but I can only ask and wish for people to not do this without asking permission 1st. If this continues I am going to stop sharing my work.

 

I posted this on my new Mods release thread and I am hoping for this message to get out so that this problem can come to an end.

 

If anyone reads this that can get this message out to other forums that are uploading my work to other places please spread this message along.

[bben46]

Unfortunately, some of the dweebs have their favorite site that they think all of their 'friends' should be able to download whatever they put there for them. Whether the author approves or not.

 

There are several reasons why this is not a good idea.

 

First, as colourwheel has expressed it, A mod author likes to have some control over where their mods are.

 

Then, what do they do when they have a problem? Call the dweeb that uploaded it against the author's wishes? No, they blame the author.

 

When a mod is placed on a site that the author doesn't support, updates and bug fixes are not uploaded. Or are uploaded haphazardly whenever someone notices.

 

If there is a problem, such as a bug that has been fixed, people downloading from the non fixed site don't know and blame the author for the problem instead of the dweeb that put it there and abandoned it.

 

Many authors will allow their mods to be uploaded to other sites with their permission. If you don't know, ask. If you do have permission, say so in your description. And always give recognition to the authors as that is the only reward they get for making mods.

 

I do recommend that an author maintain their releases on more than one site. As sites do disappear from time to time.

 

On the nexus sites, We prefer that mods be uploaded by the original author, or be authorized by the original author. And, mod author always has the option of removing their work at any time for whatever reason they have.

[Vagrant0]

Rayfile appears to be a Chinese based site. This is kinda why it seems to be happening. Due to some very annoying Chinese hackers several months back, I believe Dark0ne had to block most of China from being able to access the Nexus. As there are Chinese who play Oblivion, and want mods, some have decided to ignore most of the authors wishes (which they wouldn't be able to read if they wanted) and re-upload mods for other Chinese people. Terms of use and coryright are not universal, and some countries have different views on what is acceptable. If it was taking your mods, and re-uploading them somewhere like PES, taking the credit for the mod, that would be one thing, but in this case, those mods are likely only being downloaded by people who probably don't speak/read much English, so wouldn't be aware of your wishes, or any problems with the mod, even if they could download from where you uploaded. The re-uploaded version may even be translated to that language. While yes, it would be good if people contacted you in those situations, if they don't know any real English, and you don't know their language, any message sent could end up having a translation problem.

 

Personally, I would just add a comment "If you downloaded this mod from anywhere other than... it was uploaded by someone other than myself, I am not responsible for anything that may appear broken." in addition to the usual disclaimers. If some non-english person still blames you for a bad mod, let them, they were the ones foolish enough to download from a secondary source. The unfortunate reality with anything put online is that it is nearly impossible to really control who gets a hold of it, and what they do with it. You can try to post about your wishes, but people don't always have to agree to them. Go watch the Southpark Episode about Napster sometime, it kinda makes a good point. Either you can do nothing, and have people steal nothing, or you can do something, have the risk that people will steal it, but still appreciate the good work that is done. If anything, you should be kinda happy that your work was good enough to re-upload somewhere else. The reality is that alot of mods get re-uploaded to various places without the author knowing, and there is no real way to prevent it when everyone does not speak the same language, or have the same standards of conduct.

[Maigrets]

I had exactly the same problem as Colourwheel about a month ago. Just before Christmas I was waiting on new parts for my computer and I had everything backed up so I couldn't play any games.

 

Being bored I decided to Google my mods and found 7 of the 9 on Filefront without my permission, even though my Readme's say I must be asked first.

 

I have nothing at all against Filefront, but whoever uploaded my mods had old versions which have been updated and revised since. Their Admin were very good when I asked for my mods to be removed. It was done within 24 hours.

 

I host my mods on Tesnexus and PES and I prefer, at the moment, for it to stay that way. I have had some requests for translations, and that was fine with me since they asked first and sent me links.

 

Like Vagrant0 says, I'm going to add the extra to the permissions part of my Readmes. Not that it will make a bit of difference. I found a lot of people disagreed with my views when I mentioned it elsewhere and basically said I was getting uptight about nothing.

 

Colourwheel, the best you can do is make it known you won't support your files anywhere but the sites you upload them to, or the forums you announce them on. There's not much else you can do to stop it.