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[4760]

It looks like the paid mods scheme is now defunct (source).

[Tchos]

What concerns me is that I do not see what really prevents unscrupulous people from taking my free work and uploading it for sale by them. Even if challenged they could claim it was theirs.

But I think in reality this will happen. Money is the root of evil and unethical behavior unless actively kept in check will occur.

 

It will almost certainly happen, because it has happened with popular games like Oblivion, even when there was no money involved.  The praise was motivation enough for some people, even though they knew they didn't deserve the praise.

 

It looks like the paid mods scheme is now defunct (source).

 

Well, that was fast.  Never mind, then.

[Lance Botelle]

<SNIP> Money is the root of evil </SNIP>

Hi Kaldor,

This biblical passage is often misquoted, which I felt obligated to correct.

The true (KJV) quotation is:-

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

i.e. It is not "money" itself which is evil, but the "love of money". And this is quite a pertinent point to the debate in some ways because asking for money in and of itself is not wrong. How much money one asks for their work may be wrong, but so is the person who does NOT give any money for something due to them "loving" their money too much to part with some of it to thank someone else for something they may have done for them.

"And there endeth the lesson."

 

It looks like the paid mods scheme is now defunct (source).

 

Well, I guess that ends that for now then.  It's a shame I think, as I felt that it had some great potential for people if handled in the correct manner. Hopefully, Valve will look at the good and bad of the last few days and bring out a more robust system.

 

EDIT: Just back from reading some Steam forum posts. Is it just me or do others see a lot of "unreasonable rage" (beyond just "unhappy") flying around over this topic on the Steam forums? Do you think the NWN modders and players would react the same?

Regards,
Lance.

[Jfoxtail]

I'll just leave this here for your reading pleasure:

 

http://www.reddit.co..._exit_from_the/

 

Anyone with rose colored glasses about how this will play out really should keep tabs on the realities.

 

This is both an interesting read and sadly one person's poor experience being a trailblazer.

 

I hope he / she finds closure.

 

It is very very regrettable that he/she is being trolled. I am not certain that is unique to this business model ~ that may in fact be a broader sociological issue about the Internet and social media. "The Scarlet Letter" phenomenon which will have to be addressed by Internet users themselves long before "governments, and courts of law" regulate such behavior. 

 

I am not sure that "this will always be" the case for every modder ; nor are all others "looking through rose colored glasses".

 

Me certainly - I cannot speak for others. 

 

Like TrentO I think this "trial balloon" is really just the first stab at something potentially very good.

 

A lot of thought, communication and work will need be done to make it fair. It maybe was not here in this instance; that doesn't doom the experiment to failure.

 

The concern that all the indie-hobbyists will only produce "armors, and swords" instead of quality additions is a bit of a non argument.

 

If something is "cheap, easy to produce. and widely available" the Market will drive down the price to near $0 over time. Simple laws of supply and demand.

 

In Economics it is called low barrier to market entry ; the easy profits will be scooped up early and the latter products will have to have many "added value features" to be deemed worthy by purchasers. Once "dozens of uber swords are available" no one will pay for it or the cost will be $0.01 as it will be perceived to have no value.

 

The real time update on the Reddit Post actually says it all I think.

 

I fully appreciate the author is very upset but:

 

1) All content is restricted to those who already purchased it !

 

2) The copyright ownership is not really in dispute I do not think.

 

Unless I am completely missing the point if someone "buys" permission to your copyright material ~ you cannot take it back.. Caveat Venditor.

 

<< The analogy would be the U2 Album CD bought at a store and through ITunes. Thankfully Bono and the lads of U2 cannot come back and repossess by CD ! I have the right to play it. The Itune has restrictions on how many devices I can place it on but again they cannot take it away from my very old desk top that essentially only hosts my Itunes account >>

 

Caveat Venditor indeed !

 

 

Real-time update - I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine 

[rjshae]

While this experiment has failed, I suspect that a happy middle-ground could be found by engaging the modding community as a whole, rather than individual mods. For example, the vendor could request mods for inclusion into an enhancement pack, perform integration QA testing on that set, make it available as a low-cost DLC mod pack, then feed part of the profits back to modding support sites like the Nexus and to maintaining the pack with new enhancements and fixes.

[Tchos]

i.e. It is not "money" itself which is evil, but the "love of money". And this is quite a pertinent point to the debate in some ways because asking for money in and of itself is not wrong. How much money one asks for their work may be wrong, but so is the person who does NOT give any money for something due to them "loving" their money too much to part with some of it to thank someone else for something they may have done for them.

EDIT: Just back from reading some Steam forum posts. Is it just me or do others see a lot of "unreasonable rage" (beyond just "unhappy") flying around over this topic on the Steam forums? Do you think the NWN modders and players would react the same?

 

Thanks for the clarification on the quote.  I think you have the right interpretation.  As for unreasonable rage, yes, there is, but such rage is quite common in many forums and comment threads (usually only on the more popular ones with large amounts of exposure).  It's hard to tell how much of the rage is genuine and how much is trolling to provoke others.  I think it's in that very thread that I saw some mention of the also-common victim-blaming response, telling the victims to grow a thicker skin.

 

Unless I am completely missing the point if someone "buys" permission to your copyright material ~ you cannot take it back.. Caveat Venditor.

 

It depends.  When you own a copyright, that means you have the right to sell or license specific rights.  It's a legal contract, and what rights you sell or license are governed by the contract.  You don't have to sell them all, they don't have to be exclusive, and most relevantly they don't have to be irrevocable (which is why you see contracts which specify that a party is granting irrevocable rights).  So it really depends on the contract this person agreed to.

 

This is why when NWN1's EULA says that a modder is granting them certain irrevocable rights (to distribute the mod without compensation -- in other words, to host the mod on their site, as they once did with the Bioware Social Network), that does not mean that they're taking all of the rights and holding them exclusively.  The modder retains all other rights.

[MokahTGS]

Personally, I think the greatest misstep (out of many) was enacting a paywall instead of an optional donation feature.  The Minecraft modding community has been operating this way for years and there are several popular mod authors that make enough from donations to do it full time or at least feel compensated for their work.  The one clear difference is that NO MOD is held from the community for non-payment.  Mods that ever attempt this are quickly called out and for the most part corrected.

 

The community's benevolence keeps the system running.  They police themselves and, for the most part, modding continues to expand.  Mod quality has increased and innovation has been encouraged.  Many of the larger mod packages even open up their code with APIs so the community can build onto it and add features.  For the most part, the community works together to make the game more fun with mods.  Isn't that the point?

 

This was Valves goal, but they missed a very critical piece.  If Valve had setup up a donation system, where 75% or even 50% of the donation went to the mod author and the rest went to Valve and the game publisher, I believe the system would be working well.  The difference is Valve opted for commerce, not community.  This is where they failed.  Failed in application and failed in understanding how modding communities work and how they form.

[Lance Botelle]

Personally, I think the greatest misstep (out of many) was enacting a paywall instead of an optional donation feature.  The Minecraft modding community has been operating this way for years and there are several popular mod authors that make enough from donations to do it full time or at least feel compensated for their work.  The one clear difference is that NO MOD is held from the community for non-payment.  Mods that ever attempt this are quickly called out and for the most part corrected.
 
The community's benevolence keeps the system running.  They police themselves and, for the most part, modding continues to expand.  Mod quality has increased and innovation has been encouraged.  Many of the larger mod packages even open up their code with APIs so the community can build onto it and add features.  For the most part, the community works together to make the game more fun with mods.  Isn't that the point?
 
This was Valves goal, but they missed a very critical piece.  If Valve had setup up a donation system, where 75% or even 50% of the donation went to the mod author and the rest went to Valve and the game publisher, I believe the system would be working well.  The difference is Valve opted for commerce, not community.  This is where they failed.  Failed in application and failed in understanding how modding communities work and how they form.

Hi,

I think you are right here .... and is the way I thought it may head if all went well. I also suspect that part of the "Valve" donation would have had to pay Hasbro their part for allowing modders to use their software (re EULA) if being directly marketed through a "sales" like platform, even if it is purely on a "donation" basis.

Lance.

[Jfoxtail]

snip.....I think it's in that very thread that I saw some mention of the also-common victim-blaming response, telling the victims to grow a thicker skin.

 

......It depends.  When you own a copyright, that means you have the right to sell or license specific rights.  It's a legal contract, and what rights you sell or license are governed by the contract.  You don't have to sell them all, they don't have to be exclusive, and most relevantly they don't have to be irrevocable (which is why you see contracts which specify that a party is granting irrevocable rights).  So it really depends on the contract this person agreed to.

 

 

Thanks Tchos 

 

snip 1 ... yep. The sociological problem of the internet / social media. Anonymous postings, social shaming, trial by court of public before all the facts are known. Eventually governments or courts will step in. Tentative steps are being taken by Facebook, Twitter et al vis a vis revenge porn etc.

 

This issue is frankly the greatest challenge of science/technology/modern media ; its not artificial intelligence for example. Transparency is instant but due process is lacking.

 

snip 2... much better and specific advice than I can offer; but again the whole point irrevocable is not mentioned in any of these threads and blogs.

 

This is the crux of the "failings" of this trial balloon I would surmise.

 

You seem to have much better knowledge than I.

 

I am no lawyer and wont play one here other than to say "I think" the vast majority of book, e-book, music, film DVD business is based on irrevocable ownership.

 

The general provision is that the ownership is for personal use and is not to be re-sold or distributed in any fashion. Bono wont re-posses my CD or Itunes album if I simply enjoy his music and do not record my voice over and re-sell. Much of this law does exist and is in place across most nations; mod authors should be researching the precedents of the recording industry vis a vis Napster / Johnny Sussy American being sued by record companies / Ebooks. 

 

I know of very few examples where your "hard copy or electronic copy purchase" self deletes. When you buy games of steam / Itunes they limit perhaps the number of machines you can load on. Occasionally I note the library's that lend e-books out do have "auto delete" built in after so many days.

 

I quoted Caveat Venditor and Caveat Emptor - not because I am smart or educated in Latin  - but because this is an "issue of debate" in modern society around e-commerce. 

 

In the old days of selling hard goods much precedent in contract law was based on buyer beware... caveat emptor. I mean it had to be safe and legal but after that...the buyer assumes responsibility if it didn't work the way they envisioned.

 

Today's technology and e-commerce is in fact shifting precedent law to caveat venditor to an unknown degree.

[Tchos]

Just to mention, I'm no lawyer either, but I am very good with language, and the language of contracts is written to have very precise meanings, and as little ambiguity as possible.  I've also made a special study of contracts and copyright, since I hold some copyrights, and I've worked under some intellectual property contracts.