Plus+ Pack

[LazDude2012]

I'm also getting into modding, and while I'll never be the next Eloraam, and (hopefully) never be the next RichardG, I still have my thoughts on the copyright/permissions thing.

1. At least the first point on the Plus+ page is correct. Copyright infringement is a civil crime, and (at least in 'Murica) by our constitution, there has to be at least $20 in provable monetary damages for your case to even be eligible for the court system. (Let alone the fact that when the judge hears what the case is about, he'll laugh you out of the courtroom, possibly with a night in contempt of court for wasting his time and the court's)

2. My personal belief, and it's ok if you want to hate me for this, is that all mods should be some form of open source. Seeing as they're created by opening Minecraft's source, closing mods' source is a bit unethical, IMAO.

3. Ignore my avatar, I couldn't fine the old one without "uber troll" in it. xD

4. EDIT: As for derivative works, yes. Mojang has assigned modders the right to create derivative works, however, in most jurisdictions, without the payment of some form of license fee, those derivative works have no copyright protection at all.

 

[Hydra]

So even if you consider a mod a derivative work of Minecraft, since Mojang declares in their terms of use that plugins for Minecraft belong to their authors, and if they meet some (not too high) originality requirement (which I think many mods in the pack easily meets) they actually fall under copyright protection. Thus any copying of such mods without the consent and permission of the authors is indeed copyright infringement.

No damnit!

It's appaling how many people without the slightest understanding about how software licensing works feel the need to spew this kind of nonsense.

Copying software is NOT by definition illegal! Why? Because if it would be, the internet would not exist! Copyright is tied to licenses. You give people the right to USE your software with a certain license. If you give your software licenses away for free, which means people can use your software without paying for it, you cannot suddenly start trying to convince a certain group that they are not allowed to make copies, because making a copy of a piece of software without actually using it if always perfectly fine (no matter what some software companies want to try to convince you). Every single router between you and where is constantly making copies.

With software and getting money for it you have two options: you sell licenses or you give them away for free. With Minecraft, you are only allowed to do the latter.

Copyright does come into play when it comes to people 'stealing' your code and using it for their own software. But since that's pretty much what modders are doing already when they use some parts of minecraft and Mojang is totally fine about it, it's pretty rediculous to then go and wave the "copyright" flag.[DOUBLEPOST=1362504335][/DOUBLEPOST]

Or you know, your ability to pay for it. There is NO mod author out there willing to throw away thousands of dollars (assuming they even had it to begin with, a lot of major modders are either in college or have been out for just a few years) going to court over something they created for free with the hopes that people would not be dicks and adhere to their (in 90% of mod cases) simple policies for modpacks.

I doubt mod pack authors have any more money than mod authors so in that regard it's an even playing field. The reason they're not going to because there is actually no legal basis. Sure they might have copyright to their work (grey area at best). Does that allow them to demand modpacks to remove their mods? No.

 

[Guswut]

It's appaling how many people without the slightest understanding about how software licensing works feel the need to spew this kind of nonsense.

It makes sense, though, as very few people have any idea at all as to how the world of software licensing and whatnot goes. That's why I want to see this settled in court, to at least give some legal backing to the discussion.

 

[MagusUnion]

Copying software is NOT by definition illegal! Why? Because if it would be, the internet would not exist! Copyright is tied to licenses. You give people the right to USE your software with a certain license. If you give your software licenses away for free, which means people can use your software without paying for it, you cannot suddenly start trying to convince a certain group that they are not allowed to make copies, because making a copy of a piece of software without actually using it if always perfectly fine (no matter what some software companies want to try to convince you). Every single router between you and where is constantly making copies...

In order to be allowed to create a mod for Minecraft, you must legitimately own the LICENCE to play Minecraft. The LICENCE grants you the ability to make derivative works (mods), and also gives you authority over those works. If you make a mod with a hacked client of Minecraft, you have no rights to that mod, as you did not purchase the licence (aka, the permission to play) to have Minecraft on your machine...

Do not accuse us of being ill-informed about the issue. We know very well what we are allowed to do with the Minecraft licence....

4. As for derivative works, yes. Mojang has assigned modders the right to create derivative works, however, in most jurisdictions, without the payment of some form of license fee, those derivative works have no copyright protection at all.

Notch, when he was in charge of Mojang, basically said that the only requirement to have a mod licence was to own a legitimate copy of Minecraft, and to not share hacked versions of the client. Since there has been no change from Mojang on this issue, I would believe it is safe to assume that this standard still applies now...

 

[Guswut]

Notch, when he was in charge of Mojang, basically said that the only requirement to have a mod licence was to own a legitimate copy of Minecraft, and to not share hacked versions of the client. Since there has been no change from Mojang on this issue, I would believe it is safe to assume that this standard still applies now...

You have misread that post, it appears.

After some internal discussion and general anxiety, we’ve arrived at a plan for supporting mods. It’s still a bit vague and the details might change after we’ve run it by our lawyers, but here’s what we want to do:

I have bolded the word that matters. That entire post is dealing with a possibility of a future state (which has not come to past being that post is almost two years old now), not the current reality. You don't need to be a lawyer to get the feeling that it wouldn't stand up in court without a shark lawyer squad.

 

[LazDude2012]

Honestly, the only way to get any of this stuff settled would be to take it to court.
And unfortunately, that's impossible to do, so the armchair lawyering can go on ad infinitum.

 

[Milaha]

Honestly, the only way to get any of this stuff settled would be to take it to court.
And unfortunately, that's impossible to do, so the armchair lawyering can go on ad infinitum.

I disagree. Up to this point no one has had the willingness and/or ability to actually bring it to the point where mod authors would need to defend their supposed rights. Tekkit got a lot of flak for pushing in this area, but they always backed down. The fact that we now have Plus+ forcing modder's hands is settling the issue. Sure, some people may continue to throw fits and play armchair lawyer until there is an actual court case, but the issue is being settled (arguably it is already). DMCA takedowns *failed*, Plus+ continues to exist, and as long as it does, it is the argument killer. You can claim they have all these legal rights all you want, but at the end of the day if they did exist in *any enforceable capacity* then Plus+ would be gone. The gates have been thrown open by Plus+, and platform has delivered the means for anyone to walk through them. You can stand at the gates and scream that they are closed all you want, but you will look pretty silly as hundreds of people flood by you.

 

[Endyl192]

It's appaling how many people without the slightest understanding about how software licensing works feel the need to spew this kind of nonsense.

My thoughts exactly

Copying software is NOT by definition illegal!

That is true. But software is by definition protected by copyright (if you read my post you should know it ). And if someone copies a software against the will of its copyright holder, then that is illegal.

For those that claim they know, how software licenses work, let me quote one of the most popular open source software licenses, the MIT License:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Bolding in qoute is my doing.

Notice how it needs to state explicitly that this license also grants the right to copy the software which is distributed under this license. Should it be not stated in there, it would not grant the right to copy a software under this license, thus making that illegal.

And just because someone shares something on the internet (for free or for charge does not matter), it does not mean you can willy-nilly redistribute it against the will of the author. You have the right to download it for personal use from the site/hosting environment of the author, but you cannot share copies of it, because you would infringe on the authors right to copy the software (unless you get a license with the software which grants you the right to do it, like in the MIT license).

And just because a court does not have time to deal with cases when there is no (substantial) monetary loss/gain, it does not mean that those cases not involve infringements on copyright principles.

And even though Mojang does not allow you, to sell copies of your mod, it clearly allows you to hold copyright of it (read the terms of use which I have qouted). As in, you know, the right to copy. I don't know why people cannot understand this very simple concept. And if you say, "Oh Mojang is rewriting its TOS anyway, and it won't matter blah, blah"; well, until they actually update their TOS, the current one stays in effect

Consider, that mod developers spent countless hours of development to publish their work for us to enjoy, we really can only answer with "F*** you, and your copyright, I can do whatever I want because you have no time and money to sue me, and I am simply uncapable of respecting your will about your piece of software. Also I will bitch about you trying to protect your copyright." I think we are better than this.

And I have to say, that I'm a huge supporter of open source software (I use it instead of proprietary ones whenever I can), but I can also respect those, who do not want the result of their hard work be openly distributed. It's their right to restrict access, and I can oblige.

If you want I can also explain why it can be damaging (not only money wise) to distribute software against the will and knowledge of the author.

 

[Velotican]

On another note, I'm really not sure why someone would want to play a pack with 200 mods in it, but that's just me.

I've been through this argument in another thread from another angle, so I'm not going to repeat myself here, but if you forced me to answer the question "does Plus+ bother me?" it'd be a no.

 

[LazDude2012]

Here's the thing: mods are in a legal grey area anyway, especially in countries with ridiculous copyright laws like America. Mojang can't really just tell them they have a derivative licence... text on a website isn't, and never will be, legally binding. That has to be written contracts, signed by both parties. Also, in countries where the laws make the breaking of DRM illegal under circumstances that would otherwise be legal (America, Canada I believe, and others) modding is illegal, period. Minecraft's obfuscation definitely qualifies as a form of DRM under that law, and MCP breaks it.

CovertJaguar was violating the DMCA at the same time he was using it to try and snuff out Plus+

 

[MagusUnion]

I have bolded the word that matters. That entire post is dealing with a possibility of a future state (which has not come to past being that post is almost two years old now), not the current reality.

It's called a 'de facto' principle statement. With this principle, you have these permissions. Yet in practice, that can change at any time, and of course don't hold any weight or real bearing when put under legal stress. However, it is easy to point out that in order to do anything with the game, you must own a legitimate version of it.

Honestly, the only way to get any of this stuff settled would be to take it to court.
And unfortunately, that's impossible to do, so the armchair lawyering can go on ad infinitum.

True...

That's why the only other option is to weaponize the code in a way that ONLY harms select player worlds if a mod is used in a mod pack that a mod developer does not wish to be apart of.

1. Courts won't protect your game worlds... that concept alone is SILLY and STUPID
2. You can always disable these factors if you have an equal amount of Java Programming experience, and put forth the effort to disable that portion of the mod
3. YOU always risk your worlds whenever you install mods at any time. Look at all the bugs in mods from beta Minecraft version that could corrupt your worlds. There is NO PROMISE or guaranteeing that a mod will ALWAYS work with your game client as intended. (Example: Like Mystcraft breaking a version of the DW20 pack not too long ago)
4. MOST of the playerbase will remain unaffected. This weaponization only applies to packs that a mod developer targets. Most players probably won't notice the extra lines in the .java files
5. Would discourage non-consensual distribution. This basically means that you have to communicate with the developers you intentions before you make the pack. So horrible, right?
6. Will require ALL Mod developers to place a disclaimer (regardless of if they are open source or not) saying that the PLAYER is responsible for the adding/deleting/usage of mods in their world. This disclaimer also covers critical bugs and glitches that may occur between mod versions, and alleviates some of the 'DIS BROKE! FIX DIS!" crap that flies around in some communities.

It is time that mod developers gain claws and teeth in this issue. Yelling 'illegal! illiegal!' does nothing but create flame wars and forum bickering/trolling. Instead, It would be more useful for mod developers to develop black-listings of communities (modpacks) that they do not wish to be apart of, and use that as their premise to control distribution their mod. FTB is a shining example of a white-listed mod pack, because they actually talk and communicate with developers. But if a mod does not wish to be apart of FTB, even they are susceptible to the same countermeasures (in reality, however, I don't forsee a case where slowpoke doesn't listen to the protests of a mod author over being in a modpack).

And no, this isn't classified as malware so long as only the items in a Minecraft environment are affected. You can break Minecraft worlds easily with mod incompatibility. If you honestly think your worlds can be protected with court orders, then be my guess...

 

[Velotican]

One thing I didn't mention that I'd like to point out: if a contract is invalid under the law, it becomes void in its entirety. Pay attention to a big company's game licence when they're describing specific restrictions that are patently illegal in certain countries and that section will be flooded with "if applicable in your country" and other such caveats to stop the licence becoming void.

Minecraft makes no such caveats whatsoever, and everyone seems to forget that Mojang aren't legislators. I'm pretty confident that Minecraft's licence holds up 100% in Sweden but that's about all I'm willing to be confident in, actually.

 

[Milaha]

That's why the only other option is to weaponize the code in a way that ONLY harms select player worlds if a mod is used in a mod pack that a mod developer does not wish to be apart of.

Except that several mods already contain some form of DRM, and the Plus+ team has shown they are more than capable of circumventing it. Would you like developers to waste time getting into an arms race of destructive code, or would you rather they simply accept that they do not have the ability to *enforce* their wishes on the community, and place their time in more constructive areas?

 

[MagusUnion]

Except that several mods already contain some form of DRM, and the Plus+ team has shown they are more than capable of circumventing it. Would you like developers to waste time getting into an arms race of destructive code, or would you rather they simply accept that they do not have the ability to *enforce* their wishes on the community, and place their time in more constructive areas?

Arms Race. I'd still like to see unauthorized modpacks inconvenienced. If you don't fight for what you want in life, other people will decide what your life will be. This issue is no different...

 

[Milaha]

Arms Race. I'd still like to see unauthorized modpacks inconvenienced. If you don't fight for what you want in life, other people will decide what your life will be. This issue is no different...

Let me ask you this then. You say fight for what you want. What do they want in this case? What do they stand to gain by entering into this arms race. From my perspective an ideal situation is that unauthorized modpack shuts down, less people play the mod, less people enjoy the creators work, and the creator gains nothing (tangible or not) in return. What does the mod creator stand to gain (tangible or not) from even the ideal situation.

 

[Guswut]

It's called a 'de facto' principle statement. With this principle, you have these permissions. Yet in practice, that can change at any time, and of course don't hold any weight or real bearing when put under legal stress. However, it is easy to point out that in order to do anything with the game, you must own a legitimate version of it.

So, what you're saying is that you can pretend that what Notch said almost two years ago actually matters, when, in reality, it has no bearing in the legal world, and as such it means that your point is disproven by that?

I must be misunderstanding this, and as I'm not a lawyer that is understandable. But, please, if you meant something else about how what you posted as evidence that Notch claimed this was the functioning principles of the MineCraft modding community, and yet they are legally void, let's try and figure that out.

 

[MagusUnion]

So, what you're saying is that you can pretend that what Notch said almost two years ago actually matters, when, in reality, it has no bearing in the legal world, and as such it means that your point is disproven by that?

No, I'm just saying it was a guideline that was set, and that's the best guess that we have toward their official policy. It's not THE official policy, but a guild to work with until Mojang gets off their lazy ass to disprove/prove/validate/mention/care about the privileges of mods in general. (I'm well aware of the fact it has no legal bearing, I think I've already made that point)...

Let me ask you this then. You say fight for what you want. What do they want in this case?

To be taken seriously when they said "No, I do not want this included in your modpack". Your theory that less players will enjoy their mods by doing this is easily disproved (FTB is proof of that alone). The measure only applies to modpacks that mod authors don't want to be apart of, for any reason (such as not wanting to deal with those types of bugfixes, not wanting to deal with those members of that type of community, or generalized xenophobia if that developer suffers it).

 

[Velotican]

When the drama surrounding Plus+ broke out at the beginning of February, somebody actually asked Mojang customer support what they thought about this.

Mod devs often forget that they're contributing to Mojang's community whether they like that fact or not.

 

[CrafterOfMines57]

The way that I see it, is it illegal? No, but is it a dick move? Yes. Honestly vanilla Minecraft bores the shit out of me now, and it's safe to say that I would not be playing the wonderful game of Minecraft today if it was not for mods. I'm not certain how many other people share my view of mods making Minecraft playable, but to me if I was making a modpack, I would show some respect to the people who take time out of their lives so that I can enjoy my Minecraft experience. For my hypothetical modpack, if I received a "no" to using one of the mods in my pack, I would not put it in anyway, simply because somebody who I respect for creating this mod has stated that they do not want me to redistribute it. The Plus+ creators are, put simply, asses, and not the "kind we need", this community does not need asses, things would much better if Technic, Plus+, DNS, [insert other shitstorm-worthy pack here], never existed, every single pack that has ever created drama in the community has had one thing in common, they have all given a massive "f--- you" to the modders.

EDIT: @above, that was worded really badly, so badly that anybody that says no to that question would be an absolute idiot, a better wording would be something like "What about code that ruins maps if used in a modpack without the modder's permission", not the general gist of "is bad code put in for a bad reason bad?"

 

[MagusUnion]

When the drama surrounding Plus+ broke out at the beginning of February, somebody actually asked Mojang customer support what they thought about this.

Mod devs often forget that they're contributing to Mojang's community whether they like that fact or not.

Mods are property of the dev. If they want them to be included in a modpack, that's up to them personally. We're not involved there.

You also must consider this as well, regardless of your argument...


Off-topic: the question tweet comes from this guy, apparently: http://www.texasgopvote.com/users/bob-price
Crazy to think about if the twitter is legit. If it is, I'd rather not devolve the thread into an argument over Republicans, lol...