Redpower going the way of Nandonalt's Mods?

[Malkuth]

No they don't and even if they did, a TOS cannot invalidate another copyright.

Huh? You can't copyright something that is copyrighted by someone else.. Or use there property and copyright it and say its yours.. No matter if you think you copyrighted it or not.
Notch has no problems with mods.. But the mods can't go and sell there mods for 20 dollars without violating the copyrights of minecraft.. So yeah..

Maybe I just misunderstood what your trying to say..

 

[bwillb]

Forgive my ignorance but... don't all mods violate the Minecraft TOS and therefore any copyright associated with them is completely invalid?

Not all of them, but a lot do. Forge distributes Mojang code, and many mod authors distribute slightly recolored Mojang art assets.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Forgive my ignorance but... don't all mods violate the Minecraft TOS and therefore any copyright associated with them is completely invalid?

Morally? No more than aftermarket vehicle parts, accessories, or paint. Legally? I'm no lawyer.

 

[Morvelaira]

Precisely speaking, mods do not violate Minecraft's copyright because they are not for sale. Advertising revenue through YouTube or Adfly links is not the same thing as selling a mod, and the TOS have explicitly said this kind of fund raising from mods is ok. Any mod you find saying, "You must pay $20 to buy and download this mod!" would be in copyright violation, and probably quickly taken down by a ninja lawyer squad.

The reason why folks say copyright is often only defensible to those with lawyers is because they require defense from offenders. It's not criminal law in most cases, it's civil law. A lot of copyright law is left up to, "or as the creator deems it." That basically translates to: "Here's the guidelines, but creators are free to say you can use their works in other ways too. When in doubt, follow the creator's guidelines." While what mod makers do would be copyright violation with other games, Minecraft and Mojang have expressly allowed mods - and as such they are not in violation of copyright unless the violate the terms of the TOS.

 

[bwillb]

Precisely speaking, mods do not violate Minecraft's copyright because they are not for sale.

It doesn't strictly speaking violate the copyright, but it does kind of preclude mod authors from claiming their own copyrights on reused Mojang assets. So legally, no, the mods aren't "illegal", but they also don't have a legal leg to stand on against other modders further modding or distributing the work.

 

[57782]

Edit: Apologies, this seems to be a little behind, typed out a response. Had to take care of something, and more time passed than I thought.

I know I've written about this before, and I'm liable to sound like a broken record, but I haven't seen any other modding community (I've been a part of many since half-life came out) that has such a high threshold for what constitutes respect, and that's not a compliment (nor is it an insult, just an observation). Most of these communities in order to respect somebody you gave credit where credit was due. It was an oddity to have mod authors or texture artists, modelers say "You cannot change this. Take it or leave it." I only remember one instance of something like that happening, one website started getting named by name because they weren't doing proper credits and they put the modifications behind a paywall.

Having and exercising a right does not mean that everyone else has to like you, and it does not shield anybody from criticism.

You may feel that doing everything you can to help mod authors is what is required of you by being part of community, and any attempts to hamper your efforts hurt. But, have you considered that your attempts to help, against the wishes of the content creator, might possibly cause more problems than you hope to solve?

The thing about situations like this is, while you could say that these other people are causing more problems, I could say that an author's pride is causing problems. Refusing help simply isn't productive, it doesn't create anything. I think it would be wise to remember that sometimes we cause our own problems. I've been there, asking myself "why is this happening?" then I looked at how I acted and things became pretty clear. We can't control the world, we can only control how we react. As far as communication goes, one of the other criticisms of redpower I see a lot, it shouldn't be surprising that people start getting frustrated. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are, or how good the stuff you make is, if you cannot communicate or you refuse to, people will get tired of you. This goes for friends, family and work.

 

[DoctorOr]

Huh? You can't copyright something that is copyrighted by someone else.. Or use there property and copyright it and say its yours.. No matter if you think you copyrighted it or not.

No, you can't. Your problem is that you believe a mod of a game that doesn't allow modding would be owned by the original.

That _may_ be the case, but its for a court to decide, and honestly it's not very likely. Something like fanfic is owned by the original author because its based on the story and character building of the original. Game mods are code that simply interface with the original, and are not derivative from it. Let me repeat this, because it's clear many don't get it: Interfacing is not by itself a derivative work.

But the mods can't go and sell there mods for 20 dollars without violating the copyrights of minecraft.. So yeah..

That's an untested circumstance. Don't put too much faith in it. There are plenty of historical game mods that exist for games antagonistic to the mods existence.

 

[war_kittens]

Yeah well I'd say that misogyny is a problem in every STEM field, so thumbs up to the assessment of "externalities." It's just a thing we all have to work on.

I understand where you are coming from. I'm female, and not only do I work in a STEM field, I also do science outreach. I agree that it is a goal that we all need to work on, however, we also need to remember not everything is an attack or inherently stereotypical. It doesn't help the cause at all. Giving people the benefit of the doubt goes much further than assuming someone is stereotyping, especially on the internet. Like I said before, I know KingLemming is a beer guy, that was the basis of my statement on top of my personal experiences.

I could write a book on this, so I'll just stop here. The only thing I can leave you with is that you will go much further in helping the cause with positive reinforcement.

 

[KirinDave]

I could write a book on this, so I'll just stop here. The only thing I can leave you with is that you will go much further in helping the cause with positive reinforcement.

You be the carrot, I'll be the stick. As PZ Meyers has shown, it takes all kinds.

 

[Morvelaira]

You be the carrot, I'll be the stick. As PZ Meyers has shown, it takes all kinds.

At least the both of you are united in sentiment, if not feeling about method. I like this. ^_^

 

[war_kittens]

You be the carrot, I'll be the stick. As PZ Meyers has shown, it takes all kinds.

Rock on, fellow mindcrafter, rock on.

 

[Enigmius1]

Or yknow, just improve it. Almost all forms of redpower lag (and all I've ever come across) can be negated with more efficient systems, this assuming you aren't running the server on a cardboard box in the first place ofcourse.

This is (modded) Minecraft. You're not allowed to tell people that their problems with lag and poor performance might possibly be related to badly outdated hardware. It's a law written somewhere or something.

Just like I'm not allowed to say that Redpower creates no lag issues for me whatsoever. To the reader, that is the same as saying, "I am superior to you in every way." Nobody ever takes a contrary point of view in the spirit that it's offered. It's either, "You agree with me and are therefore welcome to join our circle jerk" or "you disagree with me and I must therefore find ways to try and make you feel bad."

I see the Let's Plays. I see the relentless stream of imgur albums on reddit. Joe Average modded MC player just doesn't really know what they're doing. If they have any kind of automation at all, it's usually a sloppy hack job that's pointlessly convoluted. They insist on using the worst possible combination of power, transport, and processing "because I like <mod x that has shit machines>". Then when things don't work, it's someone else' fault. Sometimes a person can simply learn what works well and put their own twist on that and all of a sudden the, "Why does my crap not behave the way I thought it might" fiascos and "dag nabbit mod dev you ruined my life" contrivances would be far less frequent.

 

[Neirin]

re: Copyright:

For what it's worth, a mod author selling their mod is against the TOS, but completely impractical to enforce. Indeed, pretty much everything related to mod copyright, regardless of game, is impractical to enforce. Lost views, downloads, or sales are very unlikely to cause enough financial damage to warrant the cost of a legal case because they are such niche products. However, precisely because they are niche products (based around active internet communities, no less) you can reach critical mass of public awareness of a copyright infringement very easily.

The copyright boilerplate mod authors put on their works isn't because they're realistically going to go sue someone, it's so they can easily show that, should someone copy their work, the public shaming will ultimately tarnish the thief's name and drive move views to the original work. Of course, "if you copy me, I'll unleash the proverbial hounds" sounds a lot less professional than "this work is copyrighted." Mods can be pretty personal projects (I think this is a big reason Eloraam doesn't get help for RP), so some authors might enforce their copyright legally on principle alone if pushed to it, but I doubt many have the time or money to put into something like that. At least, I have yet to see it.

 

[RavynousHunter]

This is (modded) Minecraft. You're not allowed to tell people that their problems with lag and poor performance might possibly be related to badly outdated hardware. It's a law written somewhere or something.

Just like I'm not allowed to say that Redpower creates no lag issues for me whatsoever. To the reader, that is the same as saying, "I am superior to you in every way." Nobody ever takes a contrary point of view in the spirit that it's offered. It's either, "You agree with me and are therefore welcome to join our circle jerk" or "you disagree with me and I must therefore find ways to try and make you feel bad."

I see the Let's Plays. I see the relentless stream of imgur albums on reddit. Joe Average modded MC player just doesn't really know what they're doing. If they have any kind of automation at all, it's usually a sloppy hack job that's pointlessly convoluted. They insist on using the worst possible combination of power, transport, and processing "because I like <mod x that has shit machines>". Then when things don't work, it's someone else' fault. Sometimes a person can simply learn what works well and put their own twist on that and all of a sudden the, "Why does my crap not behave the way I thought it might" fiascos and "dag nabbit mod dev you ruined my life" contrivances would be far less frequent.

Thank. YOU. Though, the whole "mod x that has shit machines" bit is...pretty subjective, a lot of this is spot-on. Its like, nobody knows how to take criticism, anymore. Not on the net, at any rate. If I post up a design and you say "I think x would look better if you did it this way," I'd probably respond with somethin like "Never thought of it like that, I'll give 'er a try." Now, if you're a dick about it, I'll tell you to go fornicate with a stump, but that's how I respond to dicks of any stripe.

Probably comes from all this "U R SPESHUL SNOFLAEK!" bullcrap they pump into kids in school, nowadays, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[bwillb]

This is (modded) Minecraft. You're not allowed to tell people that their problems with lag and poor performance might possibly be related to badly outdated hardware. It's a law written somewhere or something.

See, I notice the problem in the other direction a hell of a lot more. You can't say a mod has a problem because, OMG THAT MOD IS SACRED! RedPower has a game breaking bug? NOPE REDPOWER IS UNFAILIABLE!

 

[KirinDave]

This is (modded) Minecraft. You're not allowed to tell people that their problems with lag and poor performance might possibly be related to badly outdated hardware. It's a law written somewhere or something.

Just like I'm not allowed to say that Redpower creates no lag issues for me whatsoever. To the reader, that is the same as saying, "I am superior to you in every way." Nobody ever takes a contrary point of view in the spirit that it's offered. It's either, "You agree with me and are therefore welcome to join our circle jerk" or "you disagree with me and I must therefore find ways to try and make you feel bad."

Okay cool, but make no mistake: RedPower2 has several longstanding bugs, a few outright client crasher bugs and two server crasher bugs I have run across in just 4 weeks of running a server. And it definitely introduces some client latency to some of the slower computers that connect. You can tell them to buy nicer computers, but that's sort of a dodge: other complex mods seem to be more-or-less okay... So let's just agree the codebase is showing a few cobwebs, and stop arguing around the subjective how-we-feel stuff. Could be better, many of us know how to fix it, but we really can't (or even if we could, it'd be very dicey if modpack maintainers would risk crossing Eloraam's spectre to apply it).

I see the Let's Plays. I see the relentless stream of imgur albums on reddit. Joe Average modded MC player just doesn't really know what they're doing. If they have any kind of automation at all, it's usually a sloppy hack job that's pointlessly convoluted.

I'm not sure what game you're playing, but mine doesn't have a leaderboard. I'm pretty sure even "good" modded players do their best to vary what they're doing and not just copy the most optimal setup we've all seen before. The scoring function is "is it interesting?"

They insist on using the worst possible combination of power, transport, and processing "because I like <mod x that has shit machines>". Then when things don't work, it's someone else' fault. Sometimes a person can simply learn what works well and put their own twist on that and all of a sudden the, "Why does my crap not behave the way I thought it might" fiascos and "dag nabbit mod dev you ruined my life" contrivances would be far less frequent.

I think you're misreading the now-settled discussion, so let me help you out. This is what we all agree:

1. RedPower2 was–and to some extent still is–a beautiful, interesting, well-designed mod. Its quality is well above the average mod, and alternatives like PowerCraft (while themselves great accomplishments) feel and look a bit cartoony by comparison.
2. Eloraam put a lot of good work into authoring said mod, and deserves credit and praise.
3. ... However her license is far from laudable. She has made it very difficult for responsible, well meaning people to use or help contribute to her mod. Her license is also not strictly legal.
4. She has also been MIA for some time now. This is her business, and we have no place in saying she has any responsibility to do anything otherwise. Her life, her value judgments.
5. RedPower2 is starting to fall behind the rest of the Minecraft codebase, and has long standing crasher bugs.
6. It would be nice if Eloraam at least updated the redpower blog, if only to tell us she has other stuff to do.
7. Some of us have little faith that she is going to come back, and would love to see interesting replacements to RedPower2 start making their way into some modpacks. Recent modwork has shown that tubes are hardly the omega of machine automation; more like the alpha of it really.

So now you're all caught up. Let's talk about something else interesting.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Let's talk about something else interesting.

So that space elevator guy got successfully Kickstarted, how long do you think it'll be before we get a proof-of-concept constructed?

 

[Enigmius1]

Okay cool, but make no mistake: RedPower2 has several longstanding bugs, a few outright client crasher bugs and two server crasher bugs I have run across in just 4 weeks of running a server. And it definitely introduces some client latency to some of the slower computers that connect. You can tell them to buy nicer computers, but that's sort of a dodge: other complex mods seem to be more-or-less okay... So let's just agree the codebase is showing a few cobwebs, and stop arguing around the subjective how-we-feel stuff. Could be better, many of us know how to fix it, but we really can't (or even if we could, it'd be very dicey if modpack maintainers would risk crossing Eloraam's spectre to apply it).

You and the people who share your point of view can agree to whatever you want. My post was as much satire as anything else. I just find it tragically mirthful that anyone can volunteer a very significant amount of time to create something and then distribute it for free and when something goes wrong people talk about it like it was a service they paid for every step of the way. And just for the record, the second you bring up legal this or license that, you lose about 99% of your credibility with me. It';s a free addon to a cheap game, and as an addon it's something you can choose to use or not. The second people start getting their jammies in a wad over what may or may not be "legal", you can tell they're taking it just way too damn seriously.

 

[KirinDave]

And just for the record, the second you bring up legal this or license that, you lose about 99% of your credibility with me.

But Noooo! One more punch on my card and you owe me a free coffee! This Enigmus1 loyalty card is WORTHLESS now.

It';s a free addon to a cheap game, and as an addon it's something you can choose to use or not. The second people start getting their jammies in a wad over what may or may not be "legal"

For you, software licenses are just a thing jimmies can be rustled over. For me, they're sort of how I support my family. Forgive me for understanding more about them than the average kid. It's not like I'm accusing you of having never read Neuromancer or anything.

But maybe I should listen to you. If I understand you right, I should just ignore Eloraam's license, fix the bugs, and re-release it from my server?

 

[Xakthos]

For you, software licenses are just a thing jimmies can be rustled over. For me, they're sort of how I support my family. Forgive me for understanding more about them than the average kid. It's not like I'm accusing you of having never read Neuromancer or anything.

But maybe I should listen to you. If I understand you right, I should just ignore Eloraam's license, fix the bugs, and re-release it from my server?

I think you might be surprised at the demographics here in the number who actually understand a tremendous amount about licenses. I suspect on this board it may be a bit higher than average.

So frankly yes feel free to. Heck RE it and put the code up on billboards around the USA. The only repercussion is social. I think it's too much hassle and annoyance for the issue but someone else is free to be hassled all they like. I'd use a patched/maintained fork of RP2 without any hesitation; I view it as a natural evolution.