Mods and Money!?

[MadMansGun]

1 hour ago, Halstrom said:

Yep and if half the framework/tool mods you required for your work asked for $ per sale and the other half didn't, apparently you would be super shady as fuck to try charging for your work to cover that expense.
Its very noble you have the freedom to give it away for free, but you deny others should have the freedom to recoup a few $ for their 50 hours of work to buy a steak occasionally or upgrade their computer every few years.

that's not "shady", that's "complete douchebag full of shit".

if i asked for money i would be in violation of all asset permissions and then banned from the site.

 

i will oppose anyone that try's to monetize something that has been free to do for the past 50 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5v6NPjybQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Td0P9Mqu68

[Halstrom]

6 hours ago, Jazzman said:

Sorry but they'd assess you for not having declared a small business or the additional income as such. One unfriendly contemporary that'd fink on you and you're financially dead, man.

And who are the 'we'? I've successfully modded between 2002 and 2006 and don't have the slightest idea on who 'we' are... doubtlessly not the ones we were before, huh?

Read the Australian Government Tax Return. And in anyway a ABN costs peanuts anyway, and lasts for 10 years. If it were important E-Bay would ask for it. Financially dead over $5k? Laughable even if ATO wasted its time on a petty amount dragging them into an Audit and you didn't have any expenses for stock purchase etc, its like $500 unless you are in some stupidly high tax bracket.

Well, since you haven't modded in 10 years you're probably not really a current modder then. Maybe you are them then.

5 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

that's not "shady", that's "complete douchebag full of shit".

if i asked for money i would be in violation of all asset permissions and then banned from the site.

 

i will oppose anyone that try's to monetize something that has been free to do for the past 50 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5v6NPjybQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Td0P9Mqu68

And this is why there are so few animators... no ones interested in learning to do so much for free.
Oppose all you like, its going to happen one way or another. People have the right to receive donations for their efforts. And I'm happy to donate and pay for quality mods at an appropriate price as long as its not a Paytron credit card subscription. Second Life has been doing it for 10 years just fine and would have never got to where it is if everything had been free like those other dead virtual worlds.

[GrimReaper]

On 6/27/2018 at 1:53 AM, dagobaking said:

I didn't jump topics. I was responding to your point that anyone making money on Patreon while making mods is playing with fire over theoretical intellectual property violations. The fact that Bethesda embraces F4SE in their own publication, even though it is also a clear violation of their usage terms, would be a substantial fact in an intellectual property case.

 

I think that, for "playing with fire" to have merit, you have to identify a business reason why Bethesda would sue people. I already gave a business reason why they wouldn't. Because they would risk losing the modding community. Instead of being iTunes, they would be Metallica.

 

You did jump topics because the possible legal problems that come from tampering with the game's executable file via reverse-engineering have absolutely nothing to do with selling mods. So if a judge would ask why they didn't press charges against the script extender teams, they'd simply say because they're not making money off of it. But I could turn this all around and ask why nobody is really selling mods and instead hides behind a donation system. Doesn't seem to be so simple and clear like you imply it is.

[Jazzman]

7 hours ago, Halstrom said:

Read the Australian Government Tax Return. And in anyway a ABN costs peanuts anyway, and lasts for 10 years. If it were important E-Bay would ask for it. Financially dead over $5k? Laughable even if ATO wasted its time on a petty amount dragging them into an Audit and you didn't have any expenses for stock purchase etc, its like $500 unless you are in some stupidly high tax bracket.

Well, since you haven't modded in 10 years you're probably not really a current modder then. Maybe you are them then.

And this is why there are so few animators... no ones interested in learning to do so much for free.
Oppose all you like, its going to happen one way or another. People have the right to receive donations for their efforts. And I'm happy to donate and pay for quality mods at an appropriate price as long as its not a Paytron credit card subscription. Second Life has been doing it for 10 years just fine and would have never got to where it is if everything had been free like those other dead virtual worlds.

Since 40 percent of the US population can't even raise $400 w/o borrowing from family and friends or selling personal possessions, I wonder close to what wondrous billabong you are living down under. And please don't confuse a possible fiscal Armageddon for young players (in case of students they are often already indebted by student loans beyond repair) with my financial situation. That's foolish, just in case you didn't know it yet. It's not about me, no worries, but about you! Your arrogant attitude, to be more precise. Sorry to say that.

 

Without modders and their mods for free that came before - if this were the first generation - you'd still play vanilla plus, and that's a fact. Today modders are thus everything but special compared to others in the past or future, only a mayfly might disagree. They simply come and go. It's a line of gifted people that temporarily play an important part in the scene.

 

And you happily use free tools to create your mod or to adjust things to your liking as player, the free knowledge base of the community to learn to connect the dots in game, the mysteries of the CTD, most likely free face and body presets instead of vanilla and of course still free mods to play your game appropriately and, as modder, to test the compatibility of mods scheduled for pay to play. How hypocritical is that? Pay your dues to all the makers whose stuff you use for free before demanding anything, drain your billabong if necessary. Wipe the slate clean to get a fresh start, do you understand? And never, never confuse this discourse with a financial penis competition, you might come up short.

 

 

[khumak]

I don't really see what everyone is getting worked up over.  As long as free mods continue to exist, nobody is being forced to pay for mods.  If there are also paid mods available, some people will buy those and some won't.  For me Skyrim wouldn't make financial sense if I had to buy all of my mods.  My game would cost between several hundred to more than 1000 dollars if I had to buy every mod I'm using and several thousand dollars if I had to buy every mod I have ever downloaded.  I would go back to only playing games that felt complete without mods and that I could buy for $20 or so (which is generally what I pay for the Game of the Year edition of Bethesda games).  Skyrim is a great game with all of those mods but it's not a $1000 a game.

[pinky6225]

Am i missing something here, last few pages stuff along the lines of "well it should be the users choice whether they donate or not" which is fine nothing against that but if someone is making something (with there own resources - we have plenty of utility mods like that say FNIS for example) and they wish to charge why do people have the right to say they can't? You have the right to not buy it yourself but i dont get how that gives you the right to say others cant

 

 

[Kimy]

54 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

And you happily use free tools to create your mod or to adjust things to your liking as player, the free knowledge base of the community to learn to connect the dots in game, the mysteries of the CTD, and of course free mods to play your game and, as modder, to test the compatibility of mods scheduled for pay to play. How hypocritical is that? Pay your dues to all the makers whose stuff you use for free before demanding anything, drain your billabong if necessary. Wipe the slate clean to get a fresh start, do you understand? And never, never confuse this discourse with a financial penis competition, you might come up short.

 

 

It's absolutely evident that you (and the people bringing up the same silly argument over and over again) have not even a trace of understanding of how software development works. Thing is that ALL software development is done exactly in the manner you describe. People are using tools and assets made by others to create something new. Skyrim was made using tools not made by Bethesda, for example. According to your crude logic that means that they can't sell their games, because they are relying on other people's stuff. Well, as you know, they can, and that's because they have permission to use these assets. Either because they are free to use to begin with, or they paid something to the creators of the tools they are using for the right to publish software based on them.

 

So what's the difference to mods?

 

Well, here is the shocking news...there isn't any.

 

Like professional software studios, modders can use 3rd party assets only if they have permission. Some creators allow their stuff to be freely usable, even in for-profit mods. Some allow reusing their work for non-profit or for-donation use (that's what I am personally doing), and some don't allow reusing their stuff at all.

 

What you don't seem to grasp is that it doesn't matter one bit if my mod is 100% made by me or is using assets from 50,000 different creators. What matters that I have their permission to use them for what I am doing. If people are uncool with other modders using their stuff in Early Access mods, all they need to do is saying so in their licence, and it cannot be used by mods distributed like that. But if they DO give permission, the stuff is ok to use for that purpose, period.

 

I know for a fact that my code is used by modders running a (donation) Patreon. Why do you think they owe me anything when my own license says that they can do that? They really don't. It shouldn't be so hard to understand, no?

[MadMansGun]

3 hours ago, t.ara said:

Could you please tell me about how you create new animated objects by using TES5EDIT ?

the mesh needs to be registered into the game before FNIS can use it, whatever you name it in TES5Edit is the name you need to use in the FNIS list files

3 hours ago, Halstrom said:

And this is why there are so few animators... no ones interested in learning to do so much for free.

well there's me, and:

Panicforever

Dayelyte

llibsky

Xandero

Gone

Billyy

Evacuation!!!

FunnyBizness

KisakiChika

Kurg4n

Leito86

mastermike8800

Mike24

mojito817

nazonootoko

Proxy86

RohZima

Rydin

Sailing Rebel

SirNibbles

SpaceHamst3r

Suke

znaroks

3jiou

 

and in the beginning even Komotor and AnubiSs2167 did as well.

 

24 minutes ago, Kimy said:

According to your crude logic that means that they can't sell their games, because they are relying on other people's stuff.

 

[dagobaking]

21 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

it's super shady and down right sleazy, everything relies on someone else's work and/or software, Eg....

 

As kimy pointed out. This is how software development works.

 

Fallout 4 itself relies on someone else's work. Loverslab, Nexus, Juicehead, MxR all collect revenue that wouldn't be possible without other peoples work. It isn't shady or wrong at all. Someone allowing work to be freely used does not obligate everyone who uses it to then also make their work free. As I pointed out pages back, there are entire markets of income generating software that use open source, free software (for example wordpress).

20 hours ago, QuietPippin said:

If you are using other peoples free assets/tools for your mod to function, why would you even think it's fair to charge or hold off anything for a public release ?

See above. A massive proportion of every piece of software in the world does this.

 

9 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

You did jump topics because the possible legal problems that come from tampering with the game's executable file via reverse-engineering have absolutely nothing to do with selling mods.

You assert this without addressing my detailed explanation for why those two things are connected.

9 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

So if a judge would ask why they didn't press charges against the script extender teams, they'd simply say because they're not making money off of it.

And how does "making money off of it" turn it into an intellectual property issue as you framed it?

9 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

But I could turn this all around and ask why nobody is really selling mods and instead hides behind a donation system. Doesn't seem to be so simple and clear like you imply it is.

There is a difference between what peoples defendable rights really are and what plays out practically. That is because Bethesda has amassed a large amount of wealth and has an expensive legal team. Very few, if any, modder is willing or able to turn their lives upside down for years in order to win a case like this.

 

Just think about it logically. You can spend a year making a body mesh for Skyrim in 3DSMax without ever actually touching anything related to any Bethesda product at all. How does Bethesda own that? And how do they have any basis for preventing that person from charging someone else to use that work product?

7 hours ago, khumak said:

For me Skyrim wouldn't make financial sense if I had to buy all of my mods.  My game would cost between several hundred to more than 1000 dollars if I had to buy every mod I'm using and several thousand dollars if I had to buy every mod I have ever downloaded.  I would go back to only playing games that

We did the math early on in this discussion. Mod users would only have to pay 25-50 cents per mod in order to make worthwhile dollars for modders. It wouldn't cost you 1000 dollars.

 

It only gets expensive like that when outside companies get involved and want to jack prices up. Unfortunately, for a reasonably priced market site to materialize, it probably would need the blessing of the studios. And so far, they can't see the forest for the trees on this issue.

 

7 hours ago, Kimy said:

It's absolutely evident that you (and the people bringing up the same silly argument over and over again) have not even a trace of understanding of how software development works. Thing is that ALL software development is done exactly in the manner you describe.

Thank you!

[MadMansGun]

4 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

Just think about it logically. You can spend a year making a body mesh for Skyrim in 3DSMax without ever actually touching anything related to any Bethesda product at all. How does Bethesda own that?

that's easy: Bethesda owns the skeleton it's using.

[dagobaking]

7 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

that's easy: Bethesda owns the skeleton it's using.

Except that you don't need to use their skeleton. In fact, modders have been using another one for years in Skyrim.

[MadMansGun]

5 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

Except that you don't need to use their skeleton. In fact, modders have been using another one for years in Skyrim.

that one is just Bethesda's skeleton with extra nodes attached to it, therefor it still belongs to Bethesda.

[dagobaking]

7 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

that one is just Bethesda's skeleton with extra nodes attached to it, therefor it still belongs to Bethesda.

lol

 

You don't need to use any skeleton when making a body mesh. And this doesn't matter anyway.

 

The point is that a lot of mod work is outside of anything Bethesda owned. Those parts don't magically become Bethesda's property because they later get used in game or use other assets. That isn't how intellectual property works.

[dagobaking]

7 hours ago, t.ara said:

Standard rig-file-skeletons for animations are based on vanilla, or ARE vanilla - skeletons (pornphile´s rig-F-M-files for example).

I´m starting to animate inside of motion builder and I can luckily use the vanilla skeleton for that transfers, as it is the most simple and ideal working skeleton for such a work. I´d never try to use a different or more complicated skeleton in it´s place.

Thank you. I understand this.

 

My point is that intellectual property doesn't transfer to someone else because it touches someone elses property. Using other assets doesn't render your own assets/work someone elses property.

 

Bethesda can still say that whatever is theirs can't be used outside of their terms. But, that does not mean they can stop people from making money on their own work, even if it is designed to work in Bethesda games. And, as noted before, Bethesda has already greatly compromised their existing terms by sending mixed messages about what is allowable.

 

[[

There are a couple aspects to this that I see:

A. CAN Bethesda sue? Of course. Anyone can sue for anything. AND people get what they want by threatening to sue, even when they are wrong, all the time.

B. CAN Bethesda win a suit against a modder getting paid? Obviously, it depends on the details. Someone re-selling their branded items, etc. is one thing. But, imo, it's not a slam dunk case for many mods given how much of the work is independent (is in fact often used in multiple games), how much Bethesda has enabled, encouraged and profited from modding.

C. WILL Bethesda sue? This seems to be the bottom line. And I don't see it happening except in egregious or large scale cases. They have a lot to lose and word travels fast in this industry. Lawsuits get spread all over gaming news and it only takes one unpopular one to damage a studios long-term image.

]]

[QuietPippin]

14 hours ago, Halstrom said:

Yep there we go, by cheapskate logic, unless an animator recreates all these assets and tools they have to spend hundreds of hours learning those tools and making animations for users for free or they are insulted as being super shady as fuck...…
I doubt there are ANY game modders in the world with the time and skills to do all of the above to create a basic sex animation mod. ant then people want Pregnancy etc...…….
How much is a mod going to cost if someone making a mod has to add the respective creators charges for all of these into every animation he makes? Mods will cost more than the original game.
Anyone who doesn't think their time is worth money should stop asking for more animations and create their own if they demand them for free

Funny how everyone who liked this has a patreon and holds off stuff for public release.

[DoctaSax]

58 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

Pay your dues to all the makers whose stuff you use for free before demanding anything

I don't remember Halstrom demanding anything, or even accepting any sort of donation, and as for paying dues, well... he's been around since forever, making stuff for no other apparent reason than that he likes to do it. I thought that was being the good guy?

 

I don't accept donations either, and I think that over the years I've spent quite a bit more time, effort and sanity on this modding thing of ours than most.  I explicitly allow the use of anything I do, to anyone, for whatever purpose, forever. That includes commercial use - I don't need or want any recompense for that at all. People using anything of mine, whether code or documentation helping them make mods, or the presence of a mod of mine in a load order to make theirs work, are welcome to do so for whatever purpose, and the last thing I need is for somebody to start white-knighting on my behalf, saying I'm owed something for that if someone else should make some pocket change off it. Whether or not I'm owed something for what others do with my stuff has always been my choice, and I chose not to be owed.

 

It wasn't always like that: in the early days, I hadn't really thought about it. Instead of a public domain or copyleft license on my mods, I had an implicit "guess people can contact me if they want to use something and we'll see about that then" policy, like so many do. Entirely unhelpful, I realized, when talking to prideslayer during the tempest of Beth's first paid mods fiasco. At first, my emotional response to that was: well, everyone's standing on the shoulders of giants here, cathedralism and all that, so how dare these 'paid modders' make money off something they build on top of what others have built for free? What about all the documentation and accumulated 'community wisdom' that helps modders along, bit by bit? Surely that counts for something?

 

And yes, it does. Frameworks, tools, free-to-use assets, clear documentation etc are all incredibly important, without them we're nowhere. And guess what, the people who actually made and are making all that are by and large less likely to condemn others for donations or other types of commercialization than those that white-knight for them, saying that it shouldn't be allowed in their name. Halstrom and I made our bones making mods for Sexout, which prideslayer made entirely public domain. He never bent my ear over how I initially pretty much pretended to 'own' my Sexout-dependent mods more than he 'owned' the framework it was built on. Fine by him, I was just a snotty kid that didn't know any better But he didn't take well to my condemnation of paid modding because of the 'standing on the shoulders of giants' and 'paying your dues' argument. So the following is how I paraphrase how he popped my bubble of indignation at the time:

 

If you believe in helping others mod, then do so. If you think it's important that you write documentation so that mods can be made, just do it instead of being upset over the idea that it could just as well be used for 'paid mods' too. If you say you're not in it for the money and don't want anything in return for yourself, then don't start tallying up who owes what to who.  If you want to build a tool or framework that others can use to make mods of their own, then do so. If that's important enough to you in and of itself, it should be important enough to do it even when some could use it for a commercial project. You're not in it for the money yourself, after all, remember, you keep saying so. If you like modding as a pastime, then pass some time doing it, it's no skin off your back what others do, do it for, or how much they contribute. If modding is a hobby to you, then treat it as such, rather than thinking modders are people who're working for you, punching some imaginary clock that you'll check to decide if they've sufficiently 'paid their dues' so that you can start respecting the choices they want to make. Rule 1 of the site is supposed to be that modders come first, so what the hell are you doing, jackass - aren't you supposed to enforce that shit? Relax already.

 

I miss that guy. IIRC he left over people drawing up lists of 'traitor' modders during the paid mods thing. I distinctly remember telling people to stop doing that, only to be called a 'shill' for Bethesda by some guy who never contributed a damned thing but said the paid modders owed the community a debt, for all the hard work the users put in, of all people. As well as removing several uploads of some 'paid mods' that somebody thought would be a good idea to put on LL for free instead, to stick it to the man because that's all we want, and justifying it by being worried about paid mods potentially stealing content from 'forever free' modders (who, for the most part, don't turn out 'free' mods in the bests sense of the word). The modding community at its finest: bat-shit insane.

 

That is not to ignore the many outstanding issues surrounding patreon donations and paywalls when it comes to mods of course, and I could just as well write another huge wall of text about that, let me assure you - things like getting value for money, reasonable pricing, being able to opt out, transparency, respectful communication, and how to handle the never-ending drama surrounding this topic in a community that's still just not ready for it. There are very real headaches there, but they're all of a practical nature, not one of principles.

 

When it comes to standing on the shoulders of giants though, the greatest giants in the community I've known don't mind: their shoulders are pretty strong, and if it helps others reach heights they couldn't get to on their own then so much the better. It's no surprise that many of them actually have a professional coding background - they know better than most that there isn't an app, program, game or website that on some level doesn't run on some free-to-use code that someone once wrote because it needed doing. The people that wrote it probably thought it'd be nice to have programs and websites and what not some day. They stood and stand for things getting created, that's all. Not internet points, not squatting rights on an IP. Yes, it would be nice to have more of those in the modding community - but you can't force it on anyone, and the people who already paid their dues lifting up others are likely to be the first to tell you that.

[GrimReaper]

3 hours ago, dagobaking said:

And how does "making money off of it" turn it into an intellectual property issue as you framed it?

 

Because when money gets involved, things change.

[Lozeak]

Pay walling - In general unless it's all your own work and doesn't build on/use free resources (without explict constent). I'm against it.

 

Early Access model- I don't like it but it is create by the modding community only paying for early access content. (aka- It's a community issue not a modder issue)

 

Donation system - People that have a problem with this need to grow up.

 

Basically, if you only pay for mods that have early access but enjoy free mods (that have donation link) and never donate, you are creating a more closed off modding community.

If you do both and base it more on the content you enjoy over the getting access to content you can't then that imo is the fairest way to do it.

If you only donate to donate only mods, your an idealist and I love you !

 

Ideally, all mods would be free and people would donate to content that enjoy. Problem is people don't so early access mods are the middle ground we'll have to accept.

 

Personally, I don't think I've donated to any early access mods or paywall mods. I've donated the odd amount to donate only mods. 

 

As a modder for skyrim. I will likely never early access my content (mainly cause I love hearing about how much people enjoy the new things ASAP) and out of apperiation of all the skyrim/oblivion mod I got to consume for free.

(Hypophetically) maybe I'll stop modding in skyrim or modding in general to try and make money via making my own game or something which means because I'm donation only, you'll lose a modder. Which is why I'm ok with early access. If it keeps talented people making content for free on a game I love go for it.

[Halstrom]

5 hours ago, Jazzman said:

Since 40 percent of the US population can't even raise $400 w/o borrowing from family and friends or selling personal possessions, I wonder close to what wondrous billabong you are living down under. And please don't confuse a possible fiscal Armageddon for young players (in case of students they are often already indebted by student loans beyond repair) with my financial situation. That's foolish, just in case you didn't know it yet. It's not about me, no worries, but about you! Your arrogant attitude, to be more precise. Sorry to say that.

 

Without modders and their mods for free that came before - if this were the first generation - you'd still play vanilla plus, and that's a fact. Today modders are thus everything but special compared to others in the past or future, only a mayfly might disagree. They simply come and go. It's a line of gifted people that temporarily play an important part in the scene.

 

And you happily use free tools to create your mod or to adjust things to your liking as player, the free knowledge base of the community to learn to connect the dots in game, the mysteries of the CTD, most likely free face and body presets instead of vanilla and of course still free mods to play your game appropriately and, as modder, to test the compatibility of mods scheduled for pay to play. How hypocritical is that? Pay your dues to all the makers whose stuff you use for free before demanding anything, drain your billabong if necessary. Wipe the slate clean to get a fresh start, do you understand? And never, never confuse this discourse with a financial penis competition, you might come up short.

 

Oh yeah $500 is so important but then entitled people deny those very people struggling on low income the right to ask for donations for their work.... yep obviously the Great American way of Freedom for some.....

 

4 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

the mesh needs to be registered into the game before FNIS can use it, whatever you name it in TES5Edit is the name you need to use in the FNIS list files

well there's me, and:

 

 

Well fine for you "rich" Skyrim people, we only have 3 current animators in Fallout. Perhaps if it were financially beneficial we'd have more and the animations that so many non-animating modders are waiting for.

1 hour ago, QuietPippin said:

Funny how everyone who liked this has a patreon and holds off stuff for public release.

Funny how I don't have a Paytron unless you can point it out for me please? Please do post a link to it for me.

The only Demanding I see in this thread is people demanding everything for free at the cost of others freedom to ask for money for their time, skills and efforts.

[dagobaking]

1 hour ago, QuietPippin said:

Funny how everyone who liked this has a patreon and holds off stuff for public release.

False.

17 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Because when money gets involved, things change.

That doesn't answer my question. How does the money in this case make it an intellectual property issue?

9 minutes ago, Lozeak said:

Ideally, all mods would be free and people would donate to content that enjoy.

I appreciate your reasonable post. But, I don't agree with this. Mods being free would only be "ideal" if they grew on trees.

 

Mods take a lot of work. The ideal would be that people get compensated for that work so that they could do more of it instead of something else to pay the bills. The ideal would be that mod users have no problem pitching in 50 cents to download a mod and would see it as a more efficient way to support the people doing work on the games that they play.

 

Look at how many abandoned and unfinished mods there are out there. And some people scratch their heads wondering why that is. It's not difficult to understand. Eventually, unless someone is lucky enough to have more free time as they age, they eventually have to take on more responsibility, paying bills, raising families, etc. And a "fun hobby that pays nothing" as a priority is somewhere down between buying yard gnomes and cleaning the gutters.

 

By resisting paid mods, mod users aren't doing anything noble. They are shooting themselves in the foot.

[Lozeak]

 

23 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

I appreciate your reasonable post. But, I don't agree with this. Mods being free would only be "ideal" if they grew on trees.

Won't explain too much. 

When I say Ideally, mods would all be free.

It's the same as ideally, every person would have enough money, food and safety to do anything they want.

Basically, Reality != Ideal

That's why there I'm 100% with how modder employ an early access model.

 

I may not donate to early access mods/content and I do donate to some donation only content because I rather push towards the ideal. 

That said, people that donate nothing to anyone don't help anything.

And people that only donate to get access to content(rather than enjoyment based content) push toward a more closed off modding community (not a bad thing if it means we get more mods)

 

Edit: worth me mentioning, money isn't only thing I consider a donation. People that take time to give feedback/reviews/troubleshoot are also donaters to mods too.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

...

Not exactly true.

I did pay, from my own pocket, at least three of these animators for a mod I released for free.

Now, I paid because I was consuming their time, and they did a wonderful job all of the three I paid. (Some others did the work for free, SirNibbles for example.)

 

Now, I have zero problems on money, so I am 100% OK to pay for a job done.

 

My mods are free, because I do it just for fun and only when I have time and willing to do them.

What will be my next update? What I will care to do it! I work for free, I do it with passion, I do not get any reward. So I do it when I want.

 

But people working most of the time (more than 8 hours a day including weekends) then also give for free a part of their work, the DESERVE to get compensation for whoever has some coins to spare.

They have to pay bills, and if that is their job, they should only be respected.

 

Some are abusing, and we (LLab stagff) we are chasing them out.

Some are not, so we are letting them stay.

 

Until a formal policy for "paywalling" will be published by Ashal, then the is just drama.

But not hard-drama, so I like to keep this thread going.

 

 

[FauxFurry]

On 6/13/2018 at 8:10 AM, Halstrom said:

Oh well crap happens, if only half the people buy it or donate, that's still better than none. And a lot of users don't use those sites anyway, some of us like less Malware than others.

Leonardo Da Vinci probably didn't realise how many people would copy his pictures and redistribute them either.
The only safe way is to not make mods or not share them.

Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork was mostly just a means to make money for him. Invention was his true passion, not imitation of nature. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork was mostly just a means to make money for him. Invention was his true passion, not imitation of nature. 

Fully agree. And Mona Lisa was done on commission.

An then all world benefit after a while. (OK, a very long while, but LLab what not involved.)

[GrimReaper]

46 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

 

That doesn't answer my question. How does the money in this case make it an intellectual property issue?

 

You already answered your own question. First you say that Bethesda has no legal claim in this matter because they allow script extenders. Then you say that modders don't actually sell their mods and use a donation based system instead because Bethesda might sue them if they outright sold mods. Now we're back to square one.

 

The OBSE, SKSE and F4SE teams don't receive money. Yes, there's a potential breach in the ToS here because they're tampering with the games executable files and they're generally very carefully in doing so. However, that's very different from a product or service that's sold that uses another IP as the very core of it's existence. Selling mods would

 

1) probably come with a copyright claim because the potential customer might confuse the unofficial mod with official DLC from Bethesda

2) probably come with the claim that you do not own the rights or license to make money with said IP by selling additional content for it

 

After all, nobody has any second thought about uploading a free mod anywhere on the web, but when it's about receiving payment for a mod, people suddenly skirt around the issue by asking for """donations""". The reason I put donation in quotes here is because there's a few things that differentiate a purchase from a donation but some modders blur the line to the point where it's obvious it's a purchase for all intends and purposes.