Morrowind 2011 Saga Continues! Or something like that

[Caiti Voltaire]

I'm not really going to sensationalise this like some people might want to, but my best friend found through his blog feeds that the Morrowind 2011 site has popped back up, on Ultima Aeira.

Their new article: http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/aiera-is-now-hosting-the-morrowind-2011-site/

The actual site: http://morrowind2011.ultimaaiera.com/

Personally, I breathed myself a deep sigh, that an ongoing drama is going to keep going, and I suppose I'm going to feed it more than a little by posting this, but I know quite a few people have been looking for the files and information.

It appears that the old mod download is unavailable. The guy says:

I?m not going to repost [sic] the old version of the mod on this site as I?m working on a newer version, there are torrents and mirrors everywhere if you want it. 2. I have a new version in the works, and right now I?m thinking about the pro?s [sic] and con?s [sic] of it being released. 3. We didn?t start the flame war I think most of the argument is over, there?s a credit list, and I have removed all the bad shit I said such as people?s public emails.

I somehow doubt that is true.

Regardless, it at least restores the old guide for those trying to figure out the download.

 

[kebab4you]

Will be sure to get his new version and seed it into oblivion.

[small]huhu[/small]

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Heh, I'll be curious to see how a new version is received. I strongly suspect that irregardless of what the compilation authour does at this people, there will be modders who want him tarred and feathered just because he's that Morrowind 2011 guy.

People are, after all, people.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Heh, I'll be curious to see how a new version is received. I strongly suspect that irregardless of what the compilation authour does at this people, there will be modders who want him tarred and feathered just because he's that Morrowind 2011 guy.

People are, after all, people.

It's ridiculous, really. I mean, good luck sometimes getting even TWO freaking mods to play nice with each other. The mods' developers should be thanking him for getting twenty or more together to deliver an improved gameplay experience. Hell, half of them probably forgot Morrowind existed altogether up until he used their mods in this package.

I can see both sides. On one hand, if I invested a lot of my time into making something, I would be upset that someone else took it and used in that way without even asking or giving notice or something.

On the other hand, there really isn't any harm done by the compilation. The guy's gaining nothing except negative noteriety for doing it, and a ban from the Bethesda forums. So really ... I don't get it.

I hope that he manages to reconcile things into an agreeable form so that people can enjoy a much-improved Morrowind without having to worry about feeling they have blood on their hands or something, using it.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I really hope he did find something to satisfy the complaints of the original modders. It's a shame that a mod that could vastly improve the experience for many players had to get caught up in this drama. Hopefully it's all sorted out now.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

MGE does a pretty good job of that irregardless of this mod compilation.

I feel I have to diffuse one misunderstanding though: This guy didn't do anything terribly technically adept. All he's done is taken a bunch of mods and using the available tools (mostly MLOX) made them cooperate. There aren't any mods in there that have significant conflicts.

That doesn't make it any less of a compilation though. There just seems to be this idea that he underwent some sort of monumental task. And it really wasn't.

 

[Pandaman1911]

Will be sure to get his new version and seed it into oblivion.

[small]huhu[/small]

I see what you did there...

In all seriousness, I'm not sure why it was such a big deal in the first place. Can somebody fill me in as to why this took off like it did? I don't see the issue.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

I see what you did there...

In all seriousness, I'm not sure why it was such a big deal in the first place. Can somebody fill me in as to why this took off like it did? I don't see the issue.

The guy used the work of several mod authours without obtaining (or attempting to obtain) their permission to do so, first.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Reading that guy's comments on his site pretty much shows that he has no respect for the modding community, and I doubt that the community is going to be the side to bring in the olive branch, all thing considered. If the new version doesn't suffer a similar fate as the first, I'll be surprised. Not that I mind surprises.

That said, I think I'm going to go with this [http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1156204-betawipz-morrowind-overhaul-sounds-graphics/] instead. They're actually getting the permissions ahead of time.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Yeah, I have to say I lose a lot of sympathy reading through the comments on the site. It seems pretty egotistical, almost.

 

[Irridium]

Hopefully he sorted it all out. And hopefully he actually asked each modder for their permission to use their work this time.

Will be sure to get his new version and seed it into oblivion.

[small]huhu[/small]

I see what you did there...

In all seriousness, I'm not sure why it was such a big deal in the first place. Can somebody fill me in as to why this took off like it did? I don't see the issue.

Like the person above said. He used other modder's work without getting permission. Almost all modders will let you make a compilation or whatever, but they'd want to be notified first. In fact, most mods say that right in the description/readme. And he didn't do this, so they got rightfully got pissed.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

How does this accomplish what liberal application of other mods cannot achive. I mean people have been basically building Morrowind to their own tastes using a combination of MGE, Animation and model mods. As long as you can get things to mesh properly Morrowid can look just how you want it to look.

Personally I think a program that lets people combine mod combination without crash-causing conflicts would be of infinite more benefit than the several compilations out there.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Lol, moders flipping out at others moding their mods. From what I understand he's changing scripts and applying various tweaks to the ESPs making it a derivative work that's protected under fair use even if the moders have copyright, which they don't. Now if only all this was over a mod that actually effected gameplay instead of a mod for graphics whores.

Fair use doesn't apply. Fair use only applies to educational use, or uses of a portion of content for comedic or review purposes.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Personally I think a program that lets people combine mod combination without crash-causing conflicts would be of infinite more benefit than the several compilations out there.

Well MGE does go some way to achiving that.

Some way, though it introduces a fair few bugs itself, and isnt an option for people on computers that aren't fairly beefy.

 

[Tzekelkan]

Heh, I'll be curious to see how a new version is received. I strongly suspect that irregardless of what the compilation authour does at this people, there will be modders who want him tarred and feathered just because he's that Morrowind 2011 guy.

MGE does a pretty good job of that irregardless of this mod compilation.

Stop saying "irregardless". It is not a word.

And I was surprised from the beginning that he didn't ask permission for using someone else's mods in his own. Although Morrowind is pretty old, so maybe he thought it'd be all right. I'm glad to see that he hasn't given up, despite the weird flame war.

 

[incal11]

Fair use doesn't apply. Fair use only applies to educational use, or uses of a portion of content for comedic or review purposes.

That is not all there is to fair use (using the US code assuming most modders are from there):
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Let's see if that mod is fair use.
"1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"
It is nonprofit and made for entertainment. Attention to the wording here, it only includes educational purpose, that is not a limitation.
"2. The nature of the copyrighted work"
Derivative work made up of other derivative works.
"3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"
Many entire mods which are given credit for, and were free before. This begs the question of why the heck some people feel they need to copyright their already derivative work, when "give credit where credit is due" used to be enough for mods :/
" 4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"
Makes people want to play Morrowind, and it's mods.

With some reluctant reserves on point 3, that mod is fair use.
I'm baffled as to why people feel the need to copyright everything and anything even when it is all about fun making and sharing, originally.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I really wish people would get off the copyright talk. The models and textures used in graphical updates are not derivative works. End of the story is that the modders have a basis for legal action that may or may not actually go anywhere in court if they were to pursue it. Any talk beyond that is pretty much pointless for anyone other than copyright lawyers (who would likely disagree with each other on the matter anyway), so why don't we stick to aspects of the subject that don't require doctorates to properly analyze?

Morrowind 2011 isn't going anywhere, no matter how much of a douche its assembler comes off as on his own website and no matter how little respect he has shown the people that actually did all the work making these mods. That's just the way the internet works. What it comes down to is whether you would rather support a compilation that has a hard road ahead with no community backing, or another compilation that is looking to do the same thing (though with different mods in some cases) that does have community backing. If your opinion is "screw the modders" then I really don't know what to say. Without these people no one would even give a shit about Morrowind anymore, or Oblivion either for that matter.

Oh, and let's not make too big a deal of the guy getting banned from the TES forums. I know of at least one high profile modder whose work is highly respected and utilized within the community who got banned from the forums. The relationship with the community is far more important than the relationship with the moderators.

 

[incal11]

The models and textures used in graphical updates are not derivative works.

Since those textures and models were made exclusively for use in a copyrighted game by users they still qualify as derivative. Copyrighting these makes no sense beyond telling bethesda it cannot make profit off the mods without permission.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Fair use doesn't apply. Fair use only applies to educational use, or uses of a portion of content for comedic or review purposes.

That is not all there is to fair use (using the US code assuming most modders are from there):
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Let's see if that mod is fair use.
"1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"
It is nonprofit and made for entertainment. Attention to the wording here, it only includes educational purpose, that is not a limitation.
"2. The nature of the copyrighted work"
Derivative work made up of other derivative works.
"3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"
Many entire mods which are given credit for, and were free before. This begs the question of why the heck some people feel they need to copyright their already derivative work, when "give credit where credit is due" used to be enough for mods :/
" 4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"
Makes people want to play Morrowind, and it's mods.

With some reluctant reserves on point 3, that mod is fair use.
I'm baffled as to why people feel the need to copyright everything and anything even when it is all about fun making and sharing, originally.

The key word here is "educational". The use of an entertainment product is not an educational use.

Releasing an item for free does not make it free game, nor is it a waiver of legal rights. Indeed, were this the case, the free software movement in its current form could not exist.

Mods of Morrowind are a derivative work of Morrowind, therefore the rights to these mods reside, legally, with Bethesda Softworks.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Morrowind 2011 isn't going anywhere, no matter how much of a douche its assembler comes off as on his own website and no matter how little respect he has shown the people that actually did all the work making these mods. That's just the way the internet works. What it comes down to is whether you would rather support a compilation that has a hard road ahead with no community backing, or another compilation that is looking to do the same thing (though with different mods in some cases) that does have community backing. If your opinion is "screw the modders" then I really don't know what to say. Without these people no one would even give a shit about Morrowind anymore, or Oblivion either for that matter.

I couldn't agree more with what you've said here, and Im glad you posted that link. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and regardless of the guys motives, which we can speculate on endlessly, at the end of the day he did it the wrong way.

People have spent hours, days, weeks, sometimes months and years building mods for Morrowind and Oblivion. They should be respected for their work and given credit for them. Someone asking that you ask before their work is used, is not an undue request. If they don't answer after a reasonable amount of time, then that's a whole other ball game, but this guy didn't ask to begin with.

And here we have offered a mod pack that is taking great pains to make sure things are done properly. I know which I'll support, personally.