Morrowind 2011 Mod Collection Pulled After Complaints

[John the Gamer]

For those bastards:

Spoiler

Thanks for breaking such a great effort to extend the lifetime of a great game.

 

[Delusibeta]

I was suspicious when all the downloads options was a Mediafire link and a torrent. No ModDB link or Nexus link, because they would have rejected him out of the bat for using other people's files without permission.

 

[Sethzard]

It was a dick move on his part in that he didn't include everyone in the credits, but seriously, they lost nothing, and gain a small amount of publicity and other people get to have fun. That is just bloody stupid.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Luckily I already downloaded it. And how can someone threaten to sue when original modders didn't sell their mods, and Morrowind 2011 guys didn't want to sell it either?

Copyright is about control not about selling. It's why its still illegal to pirate System Shock 2 even though you can't buy it anywhere (except eBay). A big part of the community is about respecting other people's work. This guy shat all over that.

They have no copyright. Do you know what you have to go through to have something copyrighted? First they would need Bethesda's writing permission to mod the game. Than they would have to ask for a copyright and pay proper authorities to have it copyrighted. They didn't do that. They don't own anything. They just made it, and they released it for free. Legally, anyone can do with their mods whatever they want.

 

[Starke]

He should of asked permision and the modders are overreacting

I think bethesda just pulled an attempted (but failed) damage control in banning him

To an extent? No. It isn't an overreaction by any means. Taking and using or distributing someone else's mod without permission is a pretty fundamental violation in the community's standards. As for Bethesda, it's not damage control, it's a reaction to the egregiousness of that violation.

 

[RicoADF]

You can actually still download it. Not all of the file network sites have removed it.

I've seen this kind of prima donna bitching before by various modding communities, and it's always stupid in my opinion. If they had a problem with not getting credit for their work, they could have contacted Smith and asked to be included in the credits. To shut it down completely reeks of selfish egotism. Besides, mod authors don't even use their real names most of the time, just their online pseudonyms.

Now I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but the whole "violating copyright laws in about a dozen countries" claim reeks of bullcrap. Nobody was making any money off of this. Moreover, it's unlikely any of the mods would be protected like Morrowind itself, since they were all based on the original game's IP.

In short, the modders need to drop the drama queen routine and work something out.

Actually copyright and IP are 2 different things, and yes the moment you create anything such as a model or texture its copyrighted (well in Australia its automatic).
You don't need to sell something to breach copyright and yes they had every right and could legally sue the guy for stealing their work, weather you agree or not thats the law (I did a screen course and copyright was a HUGE part due to how dangerous breaching it can be).

Luckily I already downloaded it. And how can someone threaten to sue when original modders didn't sell their mods, and Morrowind 2011 guys didn't want to sell it either?

Copyright is about control not about selling. It's why its still illegal to pirate System Shock 2 even though you can't buy it anywhere (except eBay). A big part of the community is about respecting other people's work. This guy shat all over that.

They have no copyright. Do you know what you have to go through to have something copyrighted? First they would need Bethesda's writing permission to mod the game. Than they would have to ask for a copyright and pay proper authorities to have it copyrighted. They didn't do that. They don't own anything. They just made it, and they released it for free. Legally, anyone can do with their mods whatever they want.

I don't know about your country, but in Australia anything you create gets an automatic copyright protection, theres no charge for it or anything like that, and you don't need to sell it to protect it you just need to prove its yours.

 

[Craig Cameron]

Not to be a dick to the mod authors, this has probably been mentioned by now given there are 8 pages at time of writing, but they don't own copyright on anything, a modification of proprietary software such as Morrowind falls under the copyright of the original creator( Bethesda in this case) not the author and their mods only exist because Bethesda allows them to.

My point being that an author may have threatened legal action, but he wouldn't win because he himself violated Bethesda's Copyright of the Elder Scrolls series. As much as all PC gamers love mods and modders, they are in violation of copyright the moment they began work on the mod. It is my understanding that the vast majority of them understand this and thats why it's "requested" of people who post the mods elsewhere to cite the author as they have no legal hold over it.

 

[xDHxD148L0]

I know they have rights to their creations, but seriously with the hell would you publish a mod if youre going to have a fit everytime someone else uses it.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Actually copyright and IP are 2 different things, and yes the moment you create anything such as a model or texture its copyrighted (well in Australia its automatic).
You don't need to sell something to breach copyright and yes they had every right and could legally sue the guy for stealing their work, weather you agree or not thats the law (I did a screen course and copyright was a HUGE part due to how dangerous breaching it can be).

[...]

I don't know about your country, but in Australia anything you create gets an automatic copyright protection, theres no charge for it or anything like that, and you don't need to sell it to protect it you just need to prove its yours.

So many people are commenting on this without understanding the issue. The TESCK EULA requires you to surrender the rights to the creation to Bethesda. They are the sole copyright holder. Modders own no copyright to their works created with TESCK.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

Good thing I downloaded it when I first read about it.

 

[Starke]

They have no copyright.

Actually they do.

Do you know what you have to go through to have something copyrighted?

I've got a pretty solid idea, actually.

First they would need Bethesda's writing permission to mod the game.

Which they have, and which retains legal ownership of any modifications to... wait for it... Zinimax/Bethesda Softworks.

Than they would have to ask for a copyright and pay proper authorities to have it copyrighted.

That's for a registered copyright. And granted if you're doing professional publishing you need to do something like that, in this case the situation is slightly simpler.

They didn't do that.

Had they tried, they would have discovered that the technical copyright does remain with Bethesda.

They don't own anything.

Technically incorrect. Also, factually incorrect in this case, and utterly irrelevant.

They just made it, and they released it for free.

Which doesn't exclude it from the copyright provisions in the SDK EULA.

Legally, anyone can do with it whatever they want.

By that logic, anything released for free ever is public domain. Now, you're welcome to test that theory all that you want, but in this case it doesn't get you past a fundamental problem. This already was copyrighted under the Bethesda filing.

Finally, you're assuming you need a registered copyright to issue a DMCA take down. You don't.

 

[Ironic]

For once, I'm with the lawsuits here. He used the mods without the original owners permission. I can almost guarantee that if he contacted the creators first, this would never have happened.

I would rather have all the mods compiled into an easy package than find all of them myself. It doesnt generate any money for the modders, they're credited anyway. I think substantial work went into this finding mods that don't conflict, maybe not as much work as the sum of its parts, but enough to warrant it being a separate work in its own right.

If he contacted the creators first, they probably would've said no if the stance they're taking now is this extreme, also, people make mod-packs all the time, the only reason this one is being brought down is because its popular.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

I think the modders just care how many Downloads their file recieves.

 

[Levi93]

Ok if i created an awesome mod and it got put into a comilation of other awesome mods that brings a not so current generation game into the current generation i'd be fucking estatic.

This is just silly, i thought modding was about improving a game and sharing it with the gaming community, but perhaps i was wrong and it is just about the money.

And hes giving it away for free which is what the origional creaters of the mods were doing.

 

[RicoADF]

Not to be a dick to the mod authors, this has probably been mentioned by now given there are 8 pages at time of writing, but they don't own copyright on anything, a modification of proprietary software such as Morrowind falls under the copyright of the original creator( Bethesda in this case) not the author and their mods only exist because Bethesda allows them to.

My point being that an author may have threatened legal action, but he wouldn't win because he himself violated Bethesda's Copyright of the Elder Scrolls series. As much as all PC gamers love mods and modders, they are in violation of copyright the moment they began work on the mod. It is my understanding that the vast majority of them understand this and thats why it's "requested" of people who post the mods elsewhere to cite the author as they have no legal hold over it.

Some game companies give permission and explain the terms, eg: ArmA II you can mod all you want but aren't allowed to sell it, however anything you make you own unless it includes parts from ArmA models/textures). Just depends on the game

So many people are commenting on this without understanding the issue. The TESCK EULA requires you to surrender the rights to the creation to Bethesda. They are the sole copyright holder. Modders own no copyright to their works created with TESCK.

I would suspect that would depend on the work and what was used in creating it, regardless they would still own the rights to control who can reproduce their mods to some extent, if their work is their own and not a modified Bethesda job, however as stated above it depends on what the wording of the EULA is.

 

[Shadowsole]

He should of asked permision and the modders are overreacting

I think bethesda just pulled an attempted (but failed) damage control in banning him

To an extent? No. It isn't an overreaction by any means. Taking and using or distributing someone else's mod without permission is a pretty fundamental violation in the community's standards. As for Bethesda, it's not damage control, it's a reaction to the egregiousness of that violation.

But to warrent threat of legal action?
I'm an artist or at least consider myself one I don't make any money, if I was to find somebody (for this exsample) claiming they created it. I would be pissed and request them to remove it and contact the site they where hosting on to get them to remove it if they refused but I wouldn't threaten legal action. Now if I made money or the person stealing my work was making money off my work then it would be a diffrent story. but that is irrelivant to these curcimstances. and My thoughts on bethedas recation is purely an idea. might be wrong but we can't say... at least yet

 

[Starke]

I don't know about your country, but in Australia anything you create gets an automatic copyright protection, theres no charge for it or anything like that, and you don't need to sell it to protect it you just need to prove its yours.

That's more or less true in the states as well. Improv is thinking of registering a copyright, which is necessary for mass publication. That said, the SDK does retain ownership of any modifications of the game for Bethesda.

 

[Bretty]

I think you need a reality check - the mod creators aren't in the wrong here, what the guy did was illegal, and what's more he clearly [well according to this news post anyway] didn't ask permission from the modders in the first place - and he's gaining positive publicity from their work...there's nothing wrong with them threatening action against him.

How is what he did illegal? The MOD creaters dont own any of the IP as it belongs to Bethesda. The only one who can sue anyone would be Bethesda.

But as the compiler is not making a profit, the Modders claims are baseless and jumped up.

This guy tried to do good for the community. Frankly speaking, as a member of that community, I am appaled that the modders were like this.

 

[grammarye]

Le sigh. The irony is that those modders, who spent a lot of their free time to work on great mods, are now less likely to see people using their work.

Should Mr Smith have requested permission? Yes. Should the modders have overreacted and made completely ridiculous legal threats? No. The burden on ownership of copyright is to prove that you made original works, first, without plagiarising others. I would genuinely struggle to see anyone other than individual model/sound artists etc. being able to make that claim. Software for example (scripts, source code) is notoriously hard to prove one way or the other. Ideas, note, cannot be subject to copyright - only patents.

Besides, what are they modding for if not for recognition? Smith needed to provide that by providing credits for certain, but that's the primary goal, no?

This 'you must give credit & you must contact the author' stance is getting ridiculous. For example, Fallout 3 had a great collection mod, the Unofficial Patch, containing loads of fixes. Today, Fallout New Vegas will never have such a collection, because the modders who might take on the task think it's far far too much work to catalogue, condense, and obtain permission for the literally thousands of little fix mods that they'd need to compile.

There is such a thing as too stringent. We're past that and into looney territory when modders, changing someone else's property in the first place, are claiming they can take legal action.

Reality checks required.

I don't know about your country, but in Australia anything you create gets an automatic copyright protection, theres no charge for it or anything like that, and you don't need to sell it to protect it you just need to prove its yours.

That misses an important legal distinction, setting aside that Bethesda only grant certain rights to modders anyway, which is that proving that something virtual like software is your creation is actually really hard. That it has your name on it is nothing like enough. It's a piece of electronic source code and could be altered by anyone at any time - you have to prove that you created (say) that script first and originally. That is extremely hard to do in a legal fashion, if someone contests that claim, at any point.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

For once, I'm with the lawsuits here. He used the mods without the original owners permission. I can almost guarantee that if he contacted the creators first, this would never have happened.

I would rather have all the mods compiled into an easy package than find all of them myself. It doesnt generate any money for the modders, they're credited anyway. I think substantial work went into this finding mods that don't conflict, maybe not as much work as the sum of its parts, but enough to warrant it being a separate work in its own right.

If he contacted the creators first, they probably would've said no if the stance they're taking now is this extreme, also, people make mod-packs all the time, the only reason this one is being brought down is because its popular.

Pretty much. They feel threatened by someone actually gaining some sembalance of popularity. But they also feel that someone else is gaining popularity based on their work. But while the author of this compilation has bent over backwards and greased up his cornhole to deal with an acebric and egotistically petty community, the community in turn has just fucked him over all the harder.

I wish it was as black and white as to say that one party is clearly in the wrong here.

In some communities hard work and careful crediting would bring you praise and accolades. In the cesspool that is the TES modding community, it brings you legal threats and derision. In this light, I don't know why anyone bothers modding for these people. I have some Morrowind mods I am quite happy with, that I have made, and I share with friends, but Id never give them to the larger community. They frankly don't deserve it.

That said, however right or wrong the community or this compilation author may have been, the facts are this:

A: The TESCK EULA requires modders to surrender copyright to Bethesda.
B: This compilation was done without permission of the mod authors.
C: At least one of these mod authors complained to Bethesda.
D: Bethesda canned the mod compilation and banned the author.

Thats that. Bethesda's the copyright holder. They exerted their rights as the copyright holder.

Though I have to say, banning him from the forums as well cannot be anything other than trying to do damage control with the very histrionic mod authors. Personally, though, in the mod compilation authours place, I wouldn't want to participate there anymore either,