About Workshop And Cheaters

[Display__]

From the announcement published yesterday，it can be inferred that you,the KLEI, has the right to manage the mods at the workshop.

So,as many players see now,there are so many mods that cheat other authors' work.These cheaters modify other's mods and then publish again without getting the author's agreement.I do not think such behavior is permitted by the rules.Just mark the copy with so called "self use"?

What's more ,some servers use these stolen copies to get profit.Why KLEI is blind to these mods and servers?

If you think it costs huge to give a solution to avoiding these questions.PLEASE take action to give moders a way to encrypt the mods.

[jan Mele]

Seems like someine cares about internet karma too much. 

People use mods because of their content, not because of their creators.

Klei posted "Clarification of Workshop Rules and Monetization" in which they said that beggining from march 1 2022 mods that provide features in exchange for money will be removed from the workshop, but you probably already know. But yeah, it would be nice if Klei took actions about servers that sell content available for free (or re-sell content) earlier.

[Duck986]

4 hours ago, Display__ said:

These cheaters modify other's mods and then publish again without getting the author's agreement.I do not think such behavior is permitted by the rules.Just mark the copy with so called "self use"?

mods are free to use and modify, I don't see any problems here. If the mod creator took inspiration (or "inspiration") from another mod, he may or may not credit the original author, that's just a question of morality.

Edit: the original author's mod will still be more popular than its plagiarism tho, if we're talking about Geometric Placement, Combined Status and other "Most downloaded" mods.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

there is no copy right so, even if is an ungly thing to do, they cant do anything about people re-uploading open source stuff

[Hornete]

3 hours ago, Duck986 said:

mods are free to use and modify, I don't see any problems here. If the mod creator took inspiration (or "inspiration") from another mod, he may or may not credit the original author, that's just a question of morality.

 

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

there is no copy right so, even if is an ungly thing to do, they cant do anything about people re-uploading open source stuff

That is absolutely not true.

 

OP, if people are re-uploading your mod and clearly stealing assets, then you have full rights to file a DMCA report if any mod is stealing code, art, sounds, or any other assets.

However it sounds like you're talking about other creators works, so they'll need to be the one to file the DMCA report if it's their mod, and they might just not care. I know for some mods I might not care(say a joke mod), but if it's a mod I've put genuine effort in with unique sprites and mechanics then I would absolutely file a DMCA report. Hope that helps.

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

4 minutes ago, Hornete said:

 

That is absolutely not true.

 

OP, if people are re-uploading your mod and clearly stealing assets, then you have full rights to file a DMCA report if any mod is stealing code, art, sounds, or any other assets.

However it sounds like you're talking about other creators works, so they'll need to be the one to file the DMCA report if it's their mod, and they might just not care. I know for some mods I might not care(say a joke mod), but if it's a mod I've put genuine effort in with unique sprites and mechanics then I would absolutely file a DMCA report. Hope that helps.

 

ye, the workshop has a report system for that but isnt klei bussiness as far as i know

my bad for not remembering that

 

[ADM]

As a mod author you're the one who set the rules of your content unless you already infringe Klei / Steam terms of use (services you depend from), you should decide and specify what users are permitted to do. I wouldn't mind if someone decide to re-upload one of my mod if there's a justification, that's only gonna improve someone experience so that's a good thing in fact. You should expect people have good intentions and usually ask first, redirect to original creations or just verify by themselves what they are permitted to do. Always been the case for me so far.
On your side, you are expected to let know players if they're free to do certain things and be open to discuss with them, don't be the bad cop and report re-uploads if they couldn't know you don't want it.
On the other hand it might be difficult to apply your rules when you don't moderate a service such as the workshop. But at the rate infractions happen you should be fine in 99% cases, just not making a hell out of a situation and be more understanding will make things simpler for everyone.

[l0rdgumby]

7 hours ago, Display__ said:

What's more ,some servers use these stolen copies to get profit.Why KLEI is blind to these mods and servers?

How are servers gaining profit? I think everyone else addressed the fact that stolen copies can be addressed with DMCA and setting rules for your own mods if you're an author, but this I don't quite understand.

[Duck986]

1 hour ago, Hornete said:

OP, if people are re-uploading your mod and clearly stealing assets, then you have full rights to file a DMCA report if any mod is stealing code, art, sounds, or any other assets.

but you have to license it first or smth, haven't you? There's a Factorio mod named Industrial Revolution 2, and it's author clearly lets you know that this mod is under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (free to use and share, but for non-commercial use and its contents can be remixed for personal use only), while most (if not all) DST workshop mods aren't saying anything about that.

[Hornete]

27 minutes ago, Duck986 said:

but you have to license it first or smth, haven't you? There's a Factorio mod named Industrial Revolution 2, and it's author clearly lets you know that this mod is under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (free to use and share, but for non-commercial use and its contents can be remixed for personal use only), while most (if not all) DST workshop mods aren't saying anything about that.

By default you own the intellectual rights and and copyright of things you create.(While Valve has distribution rights)

The author of that Factorio mod decided that people can use their mod however they wish, and you are correct in saying most DST mods don't say anything about that, because most authors do not want people stealing their intellectual properties.

[Duck986]

36 minutes ago, Hornete said:

By default you own the intellectual rights and and copyright of things you create.(While Valve has distribution rights)

The author of that Factorio mod decided that people can use their mod however they wish, and you are correct in saying most DST mods don't say anything about that, because most authors do not want people stealing their intellectual properties.

no-no, you got me wrong - I meant that if author does not want his mod to be copypasted/remade/stolen/whatever, why not specify that? Thereby you let others know that this mod is yours, and the license will be an additional argument in your favor.

I also implied that IR2 can only be distributed "as is", while its remakes/reuploads/assets cannot be posted on the internet as not a part of the original mod and must be used by the remake creator creator only - this problem still persists in the workshop where you can see countless re-uploads of the same mods and no one's tracking this.

[Hornete]

17 minutes ago, Duck986 said:

no-no, you got me wrong - I meant that if author does not want his mod to be copypasted/remade/stolen/whatever, why not specify that? Thereby you let others know that this mod is yours,

Because the assumption is people don't want their mods to be stolen or copied. It is not necessary to specify.

[Capybara007]

i dont think specifying that you dont want your mod to be copypasted is gonna actually change if it gets copied or not

[CarlZalph]

2 hours ago, Duck986 said:

I meant that if author does not want his mod to be copypasted/remade/stolen/whatever, why not specify that?

2 hours ago, Hornete said:

Because the assumption is people don't want their mods to be stolen or copied. It is not necessary to specify.

In Valve's DMCA takedown notice procedure it states:

Quote

If you have access to the original work, it would be helpful to add a note to that page identifying the owner. It can make the process much quicker by simply adding a note to the bottom of the original content page such as “Copyright 201X [Owner’s Name.] This item is not authorized for posting on Steam, except under the Steam account named ______”

While it's not needed, it helps proclaim that it's explicitly forbidden to do it and expedites claims.

From what I was told in the past about this, disputes on copyright should be handled through the DMCA system.

I'd encourage people to try to talk it out first before filing though.  It shows a good faith effort, and most people are understanding.  I myself had one of my things copy-pasted in some combinational mod and asked for its removal, and it was.  No filing needed, and the other individual didn't know that Steam had a collections thing.  I'd like to believe modders are doing it from passion not greed.