Mojang Reps Saying Modders Can't Have Terms on Their Mods

[KirinDave]

Presented without comment:

A tweet thread noting that Mojang considers mods derivative works.

A rather lively thread on the subject on Minecraft forums.

For the record, it's very difficult to argue from a legal sense that any mod built around Forge is not a derivative work of Minecraft. The problem lies in the fact that Mojang doesn't need to you agree it's a derivative work, they can claim that your content is in violation of their EULA if you don't agree that it is, and therefor shut your mod down. The amount of time, resources and goodwill that would be expended legally fighting that makes it unlikely to be overturned.

 

[WayofTime]

If I understand this, that is basically saying that all mods are technically under a Creative Commons sharealike noattribution liscense, neh? So, any person could make a derivative of someone's work and the mod maker cannot do anything legally. So liscenses such as Covert's would be non-enforceable. I suppose that does suck for some people...

But at least it is the modder that makes the mod, not just the code! I'll want to wait and see what happens.

 

[Pip69]

My quick read of it, is that Mojang can make any mod, that requires Minecraft, free to use and modify by anyone and the author has no say in that.
But it only give Mojang the right to make that decision, it is not a default.

 

[Democretes]

In my opinion, I have yet to hear a case where someone decompiled a mod just to steal it's code. Even if that did happen, the community probably wouldn't go for their mod, making it a waste of time in the first place, particularly with popular mods. Anyone who would even stoop down to that level probably doens't know much about their code ore coding in general to even add on to the mod. There's nothing to gain from any of it except simple knowledge.

That being said, I highly doubt Mojang will hold any grudges about most mods as long as they don't have some kind of blacklist on players and even then, I doubt they would spend the time fighting it out.

 

[JoeDolca]

All I read was "Common sense, apply to the forehead".

Mods are not regulated properly, so you have no legal say in what someone does or doesn't do with your mod. As is the case of most of anything on the internet, really. Not seeing what's news about this...

 

[Bomb Bloke]

The problem lies in the fact that Mojang doesn't need to you agree it's a derivative work, they can claim that your content is in violation of their EULA if you don't agree that it is, and therefor shut your mod down.

A few points:

I don't get why this is a "problem".

I don't get how one could possibly argue that any mod for MineCraft is not a derivative work of MineCraft.

I think we can all agree that they wouldn't shut a mod down without good reason, regardless as to whether they have the right. I'd say they've earned at least that amount of trust.

 

[DREVL]

heav-y shit. I admit I take all of that lightly, but the internet is full of pretentious a holes.

 

[KirinDave]

A few points:

I don't get why this is a "problem".

I don't get how one could possibly argue that any mod for MineCraft is not a derivative work of MineCraft.

I think we can all agree that they wouldn't shut a mod down without good reason, regardless as to whether they have the right. I'd say they've earned at least that amount of trust.

The "problem" with it is that Mojang doesn't care if it is or isn't. You're in violation of Mojang's copyright if you release content for their game that conforms to that license, and evidently they're keen to enforce this.

It's going to be a "problem" because some modders will be absolutely livid with what they perceive as a change. It's going to be messy before it's clean.

It's an interesting situation for me. I am now on even footing in terms of mod archiving as FTB now. I do not have to ask for permission to archive mods anymore. Which has been a massive portion of my time on the RR project.

 

[Necr0maNceR]

It's an interesting situation for me. I am now on even footing in terms of mod archiving as FTB now. I do not have to ask for permission to archive mods anymore. Which has been a massive portion of my time on the RR project.

At the same time, you're likely to make a number of enemies AND not necessarily get help from the mod authors for inter-mod bug fixing if you don't ask.

 

[KirinDave]

At the same time, you're likely to make a number of enemies AND not necessarily get help from the mod authors for inter-mod bug fixing if you don't ask.

That's a dangerous game.

Good modpacks do a profound service to modders; we offer support forums, field and reproduce bugs, and help keep the modders focused on real bugs and not managing a flood of chatter to their servers. This is something I take pretty seriously with RR, and we've spent real money (RR has cost me well over $2000 at this point over the life of the project, and that's considering my time as worthless) to try and make that possible. We field a lot of bugs, run an IRC support channel, and carefully reproduce bugs and offer them to modders on a silver platter (there are more modders than staff in our admin channel right now!) And of course, I shudder to think what ATlauncher is costing its maintainer and author, Ryan.

So the idea that modpacks don't provide value to the modder and that they can simply anger us lightly? I find it a bit offensive, myself. For mods we choose to rehost, we offer that value when we can.

 

[WTFFFS]

Good modpacks do provide value to the mod makers in the way of initial support (bug chasing, odd interactions etc) but good modpacks are fairly few and far between most just throw a crapload of mods together make some semblance of an attempt at configing to not crash and let er rip.

I make good modpacks myself but only for my own use I really do not want the hassle or headaches that the makers of good modpacks deal with and given my nature I would feel compelled to support anyone using my modpack so nup not doin it

 

[Shadowclaimer]

I've been rambling on stream about this for a bit.

Effectively from what I understand, anyone can gut my artwork, our code, anything about our mod and re-release it in their mod or anywhere else without any ground for us to contest. So thousands of hours of hard work of coding and artwork is absolutely worthless when I could just go around playing "grab bag" of what I need from other mods and you know in this community there's an army of 10 year olds with zero idea how to do anything that will do this.

How long before my art starts showing up in other people's texture packs? How long before my art shows up in Metallurgy RELOADED a direct copy of my mod with minor alterations to values?

Its bad enough for years we've been trying to shut down websites rehosting our mods and making huge ad revenue off of it, but now we have zero legs to stand on in regards to defending our own work against other people wanting to repurpose it for any use they please.

I understand Minecraft is Mojang's property, but what I've created is mine. These 16x16 pixels were hours of labor and love that I can't get back that I made for my fans and mod players to enjoy, I've spent 5 years of my damn life on this game and now all that work is borderline worthless because its not even my work anymore.

I can't explain the amount of sorrow this fills me with.

I appreciate the good modpacks that will continue giving credit and all that jazz, I appreciate good people who will ask to use my artwork (Rhodok for instance for Painterly), please keep up the courtesy, we really appreciate it.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

By that same token, a tweet, even one from a company employee, is far from a legal document. And the EULA explicitly acknowledges this:

Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t.

Right now, that does mean that they acknowledge that mods are explicitly belonging to the authors and you can do whatever you want with them (as long as you don't try to make money off of them). Since restricting access does not have make money, it can be interpreted that mod authors still have the ability to retain distribution rights.

It may not stay this way, but that is the way it currently is now.

In fact, the language in the next section might even make mod packs outright banned:

Any content you make available on our Game must also be your creation. You must not make any content available, using the Game, that infringes the rights of anyone else.

 

[Shadowclaimer]

It seems like the MCF guys are saying they aren't personally bound my the EULA and so they will continue removing mods that steal from other mods at least. So we have that going for us.

We'll at least have some rights over there. I'm sure FTB will hold the "if you stick it in an FTB private pack you have to have permissions" bit as well.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm sure FTB will hold the "if you stick it in an FTB private pack you have to have permissions" bit as well.

Indeed, nothing's changed in terms of what's polite.

 

[Vauthil]

Okay, so using my crystal ball here I could see this thread getting very fun. Let me set some ground rules right quick.

This thread is not about the ancient history of FTB vs. (insert launcher/modpack here). This thread is not about the history of (insert specific modder who ticks you off). Anybody turning this into a soapbox for either will go on a forum vacation. If you see somebody heading into that digressive territory, move along and don't engage them.

All forum rules remain in full force and effect in this thread. If people get slap-happy, boots will descend. Use the Report button for breaches of the rules (and not for "he isn't agreeing with me") and otherwise do not reply to posts if they are going to make you step over the line of the forum rules.

I would like to keep this open for thoughtful discussion. I would like to see the rhetoric limited to flourish and not insult and for it to be understood that there are people behind each of these forum avatars and posts. This community -- barring some outliers that appear from time to time -- is more than capable of doing this and usually operates on those lines, for which I am grateful. For most of you, this post is totally useless and I'm glad it is.

Thank you. Carry on. =)

 

[KirinDave]

It seems like the MCF guys are saying they aren't personally bound my the EULA and so they will continue removing mods that steal from other mods at least. So we have that going for us.

We'll at least have some rights over there. I'm sure FTB will hold the "if you stick it in an FTB private pack you have to have permissions" bit as well.

That is good.

But no one can steal a mod very well, man. Because your mods are ongoing and living things. Old mods that stop getting developed actively are gone in mere months. They have no shelf life. So your productivity is what sets you ahead of the pack.

 

[Shadowclaimer]

That is good.

But no one can steal a mod very well, man. Because your mods are ongoing and living things. Old mods that stop getting developed actively are gone in mere months. They have no shelf life. So your productivity is what sets you ahead of the pack.

I expect nothing is going to change on the face, its moreso a matter of principle.

I'm happy Curse is sticking up for us and FTB most likely will. In the 5 years I've been modding I've had to call out quite a few mods for jacking my artwork, really hoping this doesn't increase it, because its already an annoying thorn in my side.

 

[WTFFFS]

That is good.

But no one can steal a mod very well, man. Because your mods are ongoing and living things. Old mods that stop getting developed actively are gone in mere months. They have no shelf life. So your productivity is what sets you ahead of the pack.

I could see this being used as justification of "Redpower 2 the reincarnation" quite easily and I suspect that some good (as in active, able coders not ethical) devs would pick that up, which would be "stealing" a mod and sure ethical pack makers would not include said mod but the endusers? yeah they would howl for it. (yes I do have a low opinion of people why do you ask?)

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I expect nothing is going to change on the face, its moreso a matter of principle.

I'm happy Curse is sticking up for us and FTB most likely will. In the 5 years I've been modding I've had to call out quite a few mods for jacking my artwork, really hoping this doesn't increase it, because its already an annoying thorn in my side.

Curse does not have the legal right to stick up for anyone in this case. This is a matter between Mojang and the modders.

As it stands, the only person whom the mod authors cannot reserve distribution rights against is Mojang itself. Mojang may, if it so chooses, share that right with others, but only if it so chooses. Until the company chooses to do so in an official capacity (i.e. something more like a Corporate Action than a random tweet from an employee), a mod author's rights are still explicitly reserved and acknowledged by the EULA and TOS.