A disturbing trend

[Mauserl]

After the recent Nexus drama I saw a lot of mods resurfacing here, some with the author's explicit permission, some as reaction to a request with no comment on existing or not exsting permissions. But are we any better than Nexus when we freely redistribute other folk's work without asking them? That was the reason those mods got removed after all, wasn't it? Don't missunderstand me, I know exactly how looking for as mod only to find it no longer available is. But I believe in an author's rights over their stuff. If I was too late for the game in the end that's just my bad luck.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Mauserl
grammar and spelling

[MrFuturehope]

29 minutes ago, Mauserl said:

After the recent Nexus drama I saw a lot of mods resurfacing here, some with the author's explicit permission, some as reaction to a request with no comment on existing or not exsting permissions. But are we any better than Nexus when we freely redistribute other folk's work without asking them? That was the reason those mods got removed after all, wasn't it. Don't missunderstand me, I know exactley how looking for as mod only to find it no longer available is. But I believe in an author's rights over their stuff. If I was too late for the game in the end that's just my bad luck.

 

I admit. I reuploaded FSM Body Textures mod without the original author's permission, exclusively here for Loverslab users. People were asking me to do so and the original author could not be reached through Nexus due to his account being deleted. What would you do in my place and what should I do now after hundreds of people downloaded the files that I uploaded as a backup while making it clear in my thread that I am not the original author, all credits goes to the original author and I just wanted to provide a backup of one of my favorite mods that can't be downloaded anymore, but which is still crucial for many people playing Fallout 4? Should I remove the files now and request moderators to delete that thread as if nothing happened? I guess that would be as bad as when the mod disappeared for the first time without trace.

Edited July 14, 2021 by MrFuturehope

[Hht3s]

Theres many points of view here, when you upload "a mod" to the internet, it instanctly becomes a part of the internet, no matter if you delete it someone else in some side of the world is likely to still have it, imo deleting stuff is like shooting yourself in the foot, copyright handling with mods is very poor, it's pretty much impossible the idea of a mod simply dissapearing from the web the moment the autor gets rid of it for x reason, it will always resurge somewhere from someone that donwloaded it in time.

 

Here comes the question, you gave me the right to download it, IT WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG DISTRIBUTING ANOTHER AUTOR CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION, but again, copyright handling on mods is very poor, and each autor is probably aware of that, but deleting the main source of said mod, will leave you imo defenseless against "reuploaders"

 

(cause how badly copyright works with mods, you delete the source, someone else reuploads it, now pray the site where it was uploaded takes it down when you report it, if you even report it cause some autors just don't care or come from china and don't even know it was reuploaded, you don't have many tools to deal with it)

 

But even though, requests are fine, as long as you share the file in private, asking for requests in topics is also fine, what is wrong is distributing the deleted mod in public, I say you have the right of delete your file from yer profile so it doesn't shows up there anymore, but it will still get distributed, the way it is distributed after it's what's wrong, send it to a friend who asked you for the dot 7 zip, that's fine, reupload the mod in some random site without the autor permission, that's not fine.

 

Either good or bad, it can not be helped, it's internet what yer dealing with, and it'll remain the same till copyright rules on this kind of topic start working more efficiently, which is likely not to happen, I start asking myself if mods do even have copyright or if they should have it I mean, they already depend on something they don't own to work (the game itself) everyone has an opinion, and mine, it's all over the place, perhaps mods belong to the community the moment you upload it? or was it ever yours, mods are that, modifications, of something that already existed, how do you copyright something that is a branch from something it does not owns by itself?  A modification needs to run on the original work in order for the mod itself to work, the devs of the main game do have the right to get rid of a mod they find "untasteful" or if they consider it does not respects the original work somehow, don't forget that.

As a game modder, you own some limited copyrights in what you created but what you created is likely copyright infringement.

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Hht3s

[Gukahn]

7 minutes ago, MrFuturehope said:

I guess that would be as bad as when the mod disappeared for the first time without trace.

Nope since you never got permission and you know why it was put down. Just cause people asked doesn't mean it would be right just do to so. I am not playing the moral apostle here, if you didn't have done it, another one would have but if we start hosting mods only because the author can't get reached and people are asking us for them then there where never a point in arguing against nexus new politics.

[TheBottomhoodofSteel]

Fun Fact... According to beth/Zenimax's EULA

 

"Each Game Mod is owned by the developer of the Game Mod, subject to the licenses granted by the developer to ZeniMax as set forth in the Editor EULA." 



The only thing Zenimax/Bethesda gets from you is a license to use/host it as they see fit, and create derivatives for their own games or etc... 

There is 0 limitation to your ownership of the work you make for the game. You own the original mod for all intents and purposes. Bethesda can make a derivative of your work and use it in a game, and you have no rights over it, but Beth has in practice not generally done that without compensating people (Think of Creation Club). 


the amount of people who think beth or any game company would ever risk the legal issues of saying they own all content created by creators is crazy and stupid. Beth would never write it in that if you put the content in their game they own it 100%. Would be corporate suicide and legally they would lose in court on that end alone, especially if beth tried to imply ownership over ported assets..  The PR end of it would also be pretty chilling... Think of Blizzard. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by TheBottomhoodofSteel

[steelpanther24]

If a person does not claim ownership of the mod (stealing), then I would say you are ok.  However, as an active mod author, I would not be happy to see it happen without my knowledge.   There is another thread in here talking about using assets from abandoned mods and there are some clearly strong opinions on either side.   With the recent moves by Nexus, i think there will be many abandoned mods. 

[Hht3s]

28 minutes ago, TheBottomhoodofSteel said:

Fun Fact... According to beth/Zenimax's EULA

 

"Each Game Mod is owned by the developer of the Game Mod, subject to the licenses granted by the developer to ZeniMax as set forth in the Editor EULA." 



The only thing Zenimax/Bethesda gets from you is a license to use/host it as they see fit, and create derivatives for their own games or etc... 

There is 0 limitation to your ownership of the work you make for the game. You own the original mod for all intents and purposes. Bethesda can make a derivative of your work and use it in a game, and you have no rights over it, but Beth has in practice not generally done that without compensating people (Think of Creation Club). 


the amount of people who think beth or any game company would ever risk the legal issues of saying they own all content created by creators is crazy and stupid. Beth would never write it in that if you put the content in their game they own it 100%. Would be corporate suicide and legally they would lose in court on that end alone, especially if beth tried to imply ownership over ported assets..  The PR end of it would also be pretty chilling... Think of Blizzard. 

This makes the difference, now is seriously wrong.

[TheBottomhoodofSteel]

Honestly, You're not entitled to someone else's work. I don't think it's cool to rehost other people's work unless they give permission. Plus with authors leaking out to personal sites, and such from Nexus, you might be hurting the authors by not spreading the new location they are choosing to upload to. There's 0 justification to reupload an author's work without permission or act like you are owed that work. 

Best to get in touch with the authors whose works you like and see what their plans are in this situation with Nexus and respect their decisions and make sure to promote the author to others who might go looking for their work. 

Mods are prolly gonna disappear, but in the end it do be like that sometimes. You're not owed someone else's work and if you don't like that, then learn the tools, learn the skills and make your own version with big titty bitches and blackjack, then you'll have all the rights to it you want. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by TheBottomhoodofSteel

[Wolfshrike]

13 minutes ago, TheBottomhoodofSteel said:

Honestly, You're not entitled to someone else's work. I don't think it's cool to rehost other people's work unless they give permission. Plus with authors leaking out to personal sites, and such from Nexus, you might be hurting the authors by not spreading the new location they are choosing to upload to. There's 0 justification to reupload an author's work without permission or act like you are owed that work. 

Best to get in touch with the authors whose works you like and see what their plans are in this situation with Nexus and respect their decisions and make sure to promote the author to others who might go looking for their work. 

Mods are prolly gonna disappear, but in the end it do be like that sometimes. You're not owed someone else's work and if you don't like that, then learn the tools, learn the skills and make your own version with big titty bitches and blackjack, then you'll have all the rights to it you want. 

 

This with the one caveat that if the mod author has completely disappeared from the face of the earth, I'd say  reuploading is alright... but if they reappear and ask it be removed, you're obliged to do so. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Wolfshrike

[Tron91]

I have been privately sharing the SSE port of the SBF mod for quiet some time via private messaging. Tried to contact the author, but since he/she couldn't be reached, I made a forum note in the Nexus mod page that I will share it via PM and have been doing it whenever I get a PM.

 

@MrFuturehope, maybe you could do the same instead I directly sharing in public domain.

[Vlad19]

2 hours ago, Wolfshrike said:

 

This with the one caveat that if the mod author has completely disappeared from the face of the earth, I'd say  reuploading is alright... but if they reappear and ask it be removed, you're obliged to do so. 

I 100% agree with what Wolfshrike said over here

As a modder myself (of a different game though) I say that this is the best way of dealing with the situation.

 

Modders put their work out for the public to enjoy, that's why a modder uploads his/her own work, it's not for public praise and it's not or for public worship. 

If the modder disappears from the public eye permanently then I would say reposting his/her work is actually a good thing and works in the modders favor.

 

Otherwise if people just private mail the modders work to each other, then people might as well just delete the modders work off the face of the planet and act like he/she never existed. A modder wants his/her work to reach as many people as possible and as long as people gives the original author the credit then it's completely fine.

 

And if the modder shows up and asks for the repost be removed, then the reposter should comply.

Otherwise what... are you all gonna sue or smear hundreds of people because they all want to share someones work?

Good luck with that.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Vlad19

[Mauserl]

3 hours ago, TheBottomhoodofSteel said:

Please excuse the derail, but doesn't that paragraph A mean technically speaking any mod author leaving mods on Nexus is in possible trouble for permitting a 3rd party (Nexus) to redistribute the mod with a commercial purpose?

Edited July 15, 2021 by Mauserl

[Vlad19]

6 minutes ago, Mauserl said:

Please excuse the derail, but doesn't that paragraph A mean technically speaking any mod author leaving mods on Nexus is in possible trouble for permitting a 3rd party (Nexus) to redistribute the mod with a commercial purpose?

Commercial purpose means to use it for profit gain.(it involves money)

However... distributing it for free is completely fine (because it's called sharing)

[TheBottomhoodofSteel]

 

1 hour ago, Mauserl said:

Please excuse the derail, but doesn't that paragraph A mean technically speaking any mod author leaving mods on Nexus is in possible trouble for permitting a 3rd party (Nexus) to redistribute the mod with a commercial purpose?

I'm not sure, and I'm not gonna comment further. 

Nexus is on their own fucked up path right now and has been wrong from the door with this. 

[ssddsquare]

I think uploading other people mod without permission on the excuse of "mod author could not be reach or did not respond on request" are no good excuses. Like ringing neighbor's door bell without respond, then proceed to take stuff out of the house because home owner could not be reach or did not respond on request...

[Mister Wakeman]

9 hours ago, ssddsquare said:

I think uploading other people mod without permission on the excuse of "mod author could not be reach or did not respond on request" are no good excuses. Like ringing neighbor's door bell without respond, then proceed to take stuff out of the house because home owner could not be reach or did not respond on request...

First of all. That makes absolutely zero to no sense at all.

Modders upload their stuff for free so the public can access and view it.

A neighbor earned his stuff with cash and therefore it is a result of business and cash.

 

Its a Massive difference right there, you are mixing up sharing free stuff for stealing privately owned assets.

 

If an author writes a book and publishes it, he does it for cash and commercial use, therefore republishing his work for cash without his permission is considered stealing because you are effecting his privately owned business asset which is that book. If an author publishes a book for free then you are allowed to share the book because it's not a result of profit and it's not a business asset.

 

This is how your copyright laws work.

I wish people would stop criminalizing the method of sharing.

[NukaCherry]

I worked in copyright and we had a similar problem with copyrighted works that we had no contacts for which we wanted to publish (i.e. share the work in a different way - similar to a mod being shared on a different site). We were allowed to do this as long as we did not benefit commercially, we agreed to remove it or pay a fee if the author demanded and we recorded we had made serious efforts to find them.

 

The reason is that the original intent was for the work to be shared/viewed and the author/copyright holder did not restrict this in any way - they vanished, but the original terms carried on. Now, can you take a mod from your hard drive that a mod author has removed from a website.

 

No!

 

Because they have shown intent to remove the mod.

 

 

[maddadicusrex]

I am a pack rat when it comes to mods. I literally keep every file, every version of my favorites in my system. Right now I have about 200 archived. Never update, just add the latest, Vortex offers. I probably would not put them on this site, if asked, because of the latest author/Nexus conflict. In the past, I have ,because an earlier version was deleted by the author and was no longer available. Sometimes the latest and greatest versions do not work for some. Never thought it a bad thing because I was helping out other gamers. I will continue to share mods in PM's because it is for the greater gamer good, but will be more wary of to whom gets them. 

[Mister Wakeman]

4 hours ago, blahblahblah97 said:

I worked in copyright and we had a similar problem with copyrighted works that we had no contacts for which we wanted to publish (i.e. share the work in a different way - similar to a mod being shared on a different site). We were allowed to do this as long as we did not benefit commercially, we agreed to remove it or pay a fee if the author demanded and we recorded we had made serious efforts to find them.

 

The reason is that the original intent was for the work to be shared/viewed and the author/copyright holder did not restrict this in any way - they vanished, but the original terms carried on. Now, can you take a mod from your hard drive that a mod author has removed from a website.

 

No!

 

Because they have shown intent to remove the mod.

 

 

Yes!!!!

 

Thank you!

Finally some clarity

[DiabloJim]

On 7/15/2021 at 12:11 PM, ssddsquare said:

I think uploading other people mod without permission on the excuse of "mod author could not be reach or did not respond on request" are no good excuses. Like ringing neighbor's door bell without respond, then proceed to take stuff out of the house because home owner could not be reach or did not respond on request...

Umm, no, the equivalent of that scenario would be hacking into the mod author's computer and taking the mod. The "real world" equivalent of this thread is the neighbour taking all their stuff down to a local park, leaving it all on the grass, and then walking off down the highway to start a new life. They've put their stuff into the public domain so it is free for the taking, just as mod author's put their stuff into the public domain the moment they upload to Nexus or LL or wherever. They have a right to redress if someone tries to claim the mod as their own, or tries to profit off the mod but they essentially lost control of distribution the moment they made it public. It might suck balls but it's reality and life is not fair.

And before anyone starts slinging stones my way, make sure you've deleted every movie, tv show, song, game, utility/program, and image that you haven't paid for, or created but have downloaded because it is all the same damn thing.

[Ijakor2]

On 7/14/2021 at 11:15 PM, TheBottomhoodofSteel said:

Fun Fact... According to beth/Zenimax's EULA

 

"Each Game Mod is owned by the developer of the Game Mod, subject to the licenses granted by the developer to ZeniMax as set forth in the Editor EULA." 



The only thing Zenimax/Bethesda gets from you is a license to use/host it as they see fit, and create derivatives for their own games or etc... 

There is 0 limitation to your ownership of the work you make for the game. You own the original mod for all intents and purposes. Bethesda can make a derivative of your work and use it in a game, and you have no rights over it, but Beth has in practice not generally done that without compensating people (Think of Creation Club). 


the amount of people who think beth or any game company would ever risk the legal issues of saying they own all content created by creators is crazy and stupid. Beth would never write it in that if you put the content in their game they own it 100%. Would be corporate suicide and legally they would lose in court on that end alone, especially if beth tried to imply ownership over ported assets..  The PR end of it would also be pretty chilling... Think of Blizzard. 

Law situation in Austria and Germany (i dont know the situation in other contrys):

 

The Eula has to be  part of the purchase contract (It has to be known by the customer at the sale)

So if you buy a software product without knowing the eula at the time you payed for it, it is not part of any contract. 

So bethesta has ZERO rights from those Nonsense they write there.

It is absolute waste of time to read it.

 

It would be interresting if a austrian or german Modder would port for example the horses from skyrim to fo4 without violating their copyrights and place the mod on bethestda.net

(the mod user bast to copy the skyrim archive to the fo4 game folder).

[Kromagdon]

I totally agree that the artist has 100% rights to do as they like with their work. Nexus changed the rules mid game and even though half my favorite mods are gone. y

You modders do amazing work that i couldnt begin to do. In the end I believe Nexus will take a big hit as more people move on. Thanks to you all, I dont mind searching for your mods, just please dont delete them 

[Zor2k13]

This whole nexus thing was inevitable it is human nature to eventually take from others and it is probably a good thing that nexus showed us all how they really feel now before starfield or future games are released. Now people don't have to invest any of their time in nexus anymore or making hot files list and all that crap. Just pop up a patreon page, upload some slut uniform mods and get paid. Modding will suffer a lot because of this whole nexus thing but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Just about anything has to go down and crash before it can rise back up again. Nexus had a real good thing going for themselves for a long time and they screwed up everything. Honestly if I knew how to make slut uniform mods and upload them to patreon... yeah I would be doing it too but nothing lasts forever. Cell phones and crazy hours jobs are killing entertainment it all gets dumbed down to a cell phone and a tik tok video then whatever ads you can milk for money on that mess. Youtubers are gonna change up sooner or later too... everything is the dam cell phones now. Computer users are "old people" and so the focus of content is young, stupid cell phone addicts they don't even have to make cell phone games for them anymore just do tik tok or similar and get paid.

 

Content is king and focus of content is emperor, I hate to say these things since I'm a computer user or "old people" whatever but everything really is turning to shit. Tik tok and big asses and titties are the near term future for attention and money. I really hope starfield will be some gigantic open space thing with lots of potential for alternate start slut mods but hope doesn't just works.

 

Now that nexus has shit the bed maybe these mod authors can stop hiding on discord and setup a page somewhere. Hopefully ALL of them that left nexus can eventually do this.

[OH1972]

On 8/10/2021 at 7:14 PM, Ijakor2 said:

Law situation in Austria and Germany (i dont know the situation in other contrys):

 

The Eula has to be  part of the purchase contract (It has to be known by the customer at the sale)

So if you buy a software product without knowing the eula at the time you payed for it, it is not part of any contract. 

So bethesta has ZERO rights from those Nonsense they write there.

It is absolute waste of time to read it.

 

It would be interresting if a austrian or german Modder would port for example the horses from skyrim to fo4 without violating their copyrights and place the mod on bethestda.net

(the mod user bast to copy the skyrim archive to the fo4 game folder).

 

Copyright has ZERO to do with EULAs. It exists completely independently. 

The only relevance the EULA has in that it grants the user licenses. So saying the EULA doesn't apply is self-defeating because it would mean you have no license to do ANYTHING with Bethesda's IP.

 

[OH1972]

On 10/16/2021 at 4:40 AM, Zor2k13 said:

This whole nexus thing was inevitable it is human nature to eventually take from others and it is probably a good thing that nexus showed us all how they really feel now before starfield or future games are released. Now people don't have to invest any of their time in nexus anymore or making hot files list and all that crap. Just pop up a patreon page, upload some slut uniform mods and get paid. Modding will suffer a lot because of this whole nexus thing but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Just about anything has to go down and crash before it can rise back up again. Nexus had a real good thing going for themselves for a long time and they screwed up everything. Honestly if I knew how to make slut uniform mods and upload them to patreon... yeah I would be doing it too but nothing lasts forever. Cell phones and crazy hours jobs are killing entertainment it all gets dumbed down to a cell phone and a tik tok video then whatever ads you can milk for money on that mess. Youtubers are gonna change up sooner or later too... everything is the dam cell phones now. Computer users are "old people" and so the focus of content is young, stupid cell phone addicts they don't even have to make cell phone games for them anymore just do tik tok or similar and get paid.

 

Content is king and focus of content is emperor, I hate to say these things since I'm a computer user or "old people" whatever but everything really is turning to shit. Tik tok and big asses and titties are the near term future for attention and money. I really hope starfield will be some gigantic open space thing with lots of potential for alternate start slut mods but hope doesn't just works.

 

Now that nexus has shit the bed maybe these mod authors can stop hiding on discord and setup a page somewhere. Hopefully ALL of them that left nexus can eventually do this.

 

Or maybe you stop believing that only modders deserve to get paid whereas distribution platforms should run and maintain their servers as a service to humanity and pay the costs out of their own pocket.

 

 Content that no one has access to isn't "king", it is only one thing - irrelevant. Without distribution, content is self-indulgence.