Nexus reuploading mods?

[Geoff_Skywalker 2]

As a member of the Nexus community, I would like to weigh in on this, partially because I would be unable to do so on the Nexus site (per unfair and inconsistent moderation), and partially because I feel it's important to convey to the greater gaming community that not everyone within the Nexus modding scene agrees with Dark0ne on this matter.

 

He and many of his loyal followers have their torches and pitchforks out against mod thievery right now, literally right on the heels of the Nexus becoming the biggest non-torrent site for downloading pirated mods on the internet.  Nexus didn't ask a single mod author for their permission to upload those mods.  Authors can contact them and have them removed, which is all fine and dandy, but that doesn't change the fact that the mods were uploaded to a 3rd party site without anyone's permission.  If I steal something from you, and you confront me about it, and I offer to give it back and tell you I was just trying to do you and the world a favor, would that magically make it ok?  Not in most tribunals, it wouldn't.  It would be considered theft.

 

Dark0ne genuinely thinks he's in the right, and he cannot understand why anyone would call him out for being such a hypocrite, although he does have a knack for getting away with being so (particularly last year when it was discovered that this self-styled champion of keeping mods free was actually taking a percentage of mod sales on Steam as a curator).  The bottom line is that someone who is hosting thousands upon thousands of pirated mods on his own website doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to speaking out against mod piracy on console platforms, or anywhere else.  No one disagrees that mod piracy is bad, but the biggest pirate of all doesn't have any business leading the discussion, and he certainly doesn't have any business trying to tell Bethesda how to deal with it, because Dark0ne's definition of mod piracy is simply piracy in which he doesn't profit off himself.

 

I cannot in good conscience continue to be a member of the Nexus community.  I cannot be privy to and condone that level of hypocrisy, and I genuinely don't want to associate with people who do.  Anyway, thanks for indulging me here, because you can't say this kind of stuff to the Nexus community without being crucified for not blindly praising Dark0ne with great praise.  Well I do not praise him.  I condemn his hypocrisy, and I condemn his actions.  I hope one day he opens his eyes and sees the error of his ways.

[Canderis 180]

I just got control over my mods back. If anyone comes across any of mine not under my username let me know. I may have missed some. 

At least the nexus is quick on their support if you email them.. There's worse places to have stolen mods uploaded to.

[therevan789 7]

I'll hate to say it, but when thousands of mods are in danger of being lost forever, you cannot take the luxury of asking each one of the many modders that made them.

 

Think about how many mods were in danger of being lost forever, if saving them meant to break the permissions of authors, then so be it, it'd be a nightmare to contact all authors, since they archived firefront in general, not just a easily contactable sector.

 

Of course, if the modder himself comes and asks for the mod rights, they should allow it, but otherwise, the modder might be MIA and his work could be lost forever, and that is something that should be avoided at all costs.

 

Is it theft? Perhaps, but it's a necessary thing to do for a greater good to be gained, and allow other mods to survive, the modders here are just a small section of those on filefront, but I'd bet that most modders that uploaded something to filefront aren't around anymore, and that means that, if lucky, only a 40% of mods could be kept.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

The mods are already backed up on the Waynack Machine. They aren't lost forever.

[therevan789 7]

The mods are already backed up on the Waynack Machine. They aren't lost forever.

Can you go back at kotor filefront on the wayback machine?

[DarthParametric 3,785]

All the mods that Nexus archived were already archived by the Wayback Machine. That was only GameFront though. Whatever wasn't already there from KOTOR Files was lost years ago.

[Canderis 180]

I'm going to be perfectly honest, and probably a little harsh with this statement: I don't feel anyone who hasn't made a mod has any right to say what should or should not be done with an author's work. Does this make me an elitist? Perhaps. But I have seen a distinctly larger amount of greater good arguments from non-modders than modders.

[DarthParametric 3,785]

That's pretty much the way it has always been, end-users being in favour of the open season model, anything on the internet being fair game. Of course modders are not all of one mind. There are certainly those that advocate basically the open source model for mods. I recall running into a faction of them with Dragon Age Origins modding, back 5 or 6 years ago, where they were almost militant in their open source zeal. There was a period there with some pretty nasty inter-modder factional hostility.

[Mutilator57 140]

As a long-time user of mods for all sorts of games (though never creator), I just think it's entirely presumptuous to expect that just because something has been uploaded to the Internet, the rights/wishes of the creator should be rendered immaterial.

It appears to me that the impetus for trashing said rights is that the exigence of the situation demands it - these mods are going to be lost forever. However, in my honest opinion, no matter the situation, the rights of the creator are the rights of the creator and should not be overturned. Only someone who has put in the work, time and dedication should have a say with what happens to that work.

Just my thoughts.

[RevanFan 6]

I've created mods--not for KOTOR, but for other games--and while I readily give permission for parts of my mod to be used, I'd never want to see it uploaded somewhere without my permission. I love when people enjoy the mods I work on, and I love when they want to use parts of it for their own work, but uploading a mod somewhere without attributing it to the proper source would honestly really irk me. That's one of the many reasons I upload my mods to several different hosts. If one goes down, it's still safe. Actually, GameFront was one of the hosts for my mod. But, I also already had it on Nexus, and I did a search to see if I found any duplicates, and none came up.

[Sithspecter 909]

I'm going to be perfectly honest, and probably a little harsh with this statement: I don't feel anyone who hasn't made a mod has any right to say what should or should not be done with an author's work. Does this make me an elitist? Perhaps. But I have seen a distinctly larger amount of greater good arguments from non-modders than modders.

 

It's so nice for other people to tell us what's right and fair to happen to our mods...

[Revanator 60]

It's so nice for other people to tell us what's right and fair to happen to our mods...

It's so nice and fair for you to decide on rights on mods for someone else's game...

[LiliArch 115]

The arguments in this topic are seriously causing me to have second thoughts about modding.

[Sithspecter 909]

The arguments in this topic are seriously causing me to have second thoughts about modding.

 

Care to elaborate any?

[Blue 68]

The arguments in this topic are seriously causing me to have second thoughts about modding.

 

It does kinda kill the mood... Maybe we should rename this topic to Civil War lol. 

[LiliArch 115]

If I suddenly lose all rights to my original content I've spent a few years creating, when I save it to a BioWare fileformat, why on Earth would I do that?

[Revanator 60]

If I suddenly lose all rights to my original content I've spent a few years creating, when I save it to a BioWare fileformat, why on Earth would I do that?

I don't think you lose all rights.... I don't agree with what Nexus has done. I'm just calling for a bit more of a calm reaction to this, instead of all the modders getting really upset over this.

 

Do I count as a modder? I guess technically, but not really. So maybe I'd feel differently if I'd put as much work into one of these as you guys have. But I see several people in this thread really quite angry at Nexus despite the fact that the situation is still amendable and fixable. You can regain all rights to your mods; do so and move on.

[Canderis 180]

I just cannot believe the hypocrisy of the nexus. Preaching how wrong it is to reupload mods without permission and then go and do it themselves. Personally, I don't care too much about the nexus reuploading my mods because I can still get access to them. What I'm not okay with is the fact that hundreds of these mods were uploaded when the author wouldn't want them to be or doesn't even know it happened because they left the community.
And I'm also not okay with people telling me what should be done with my mods. Where they should be uploaded. I decide, not you. The author decides, not us. 
Plenty of my mods are uploaded places where I don't want them to be, and I cannot do a thing about it.

The wishes of the modder should be upheld. Even if that mod is then forced to be a "back-room" mod.

[Revanator 60]

Just a thought: if a modder leaves the community and is no longer actively modding, should they retain the rights to their mods? Sort of like how copyrights expire if they're not renewed....

[Mutilator57 140]

Just a thought: if a modder leaves the community and is no longer actively modding, should they retain the rights to their mods? Sort of like how copyrights expire if they're not renewed....

Copyright expiration IMHO is a poor comparison considering it takes something between 50 - 70 years for it to expire in most countries. 

 

IMV the rights are absolute and should never be extinguished. Irrespective of whether the modder leaves the community. Irrespective of whether the mod is about to be erased from the Internet. Irrespective of whether the community believes it necessary. Irrespective of it all.

[Revanator 60]

Copyright expiration IMHO is a poor comparison considering it takes something between 50 - 70 years for it to expire in most countries. 

 

IMV the rights are absolute and should never be extinguished. Irrespective of whether the modder leaves the community. Irrespective of whether the mod is about to be erased from the Internet. Irrespective of whether the community believes it necessary. Irrespective of it all.

Unless the author/creator dies and his estate chooses to not renew the license. Which in this case could mean the modder leaves the community and does not return.

 

Just a thought, not stating my opinion on it one way or another.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Just a thought, not stating my opinion on it one way or another.

I'd prefer you to state your opinion rather than play devil's advocate. Tempers are a little high already about this, don't you think?

[Revanator 60]

I'd prefer you to state your opinion rather than play devil's advocate. Tempers are a little high already about this, don't you think?

Very true. All right, here goes.

 

I've said before that I'm not a fan of the modders who try and (for lack of a better term) hoard the rights to their mods and I didn't get why people were so sensitive about their rights in the first place. Perhaps this was simply a bit of an overreaction to the number of people in this thread getting very uptight about it. Regardless, I want everyone to understand that I do see where you all are coming from and that I do care about modder's rights. To an extent.

 

A lot of us put months or even years of consistent hard to work into making a mod that truly enhances the game experience or provides alternate choices and paths to further diversify the games. We should be able to choose where to upload and how to spread the mod around the community. However, to say we have FULL rights to our mods is a bit of a stretch, I think. We are using assets, textures, models, scripts, sometimes even entire file formats that were created for this game specifically. We are simply blending them in a new way while injecting our own modified versions of these (oftentimes entirely new ones, yes, but we're still inserting them) into the game in a new way. The code, the method, the structure, wasn't created by us. In fact, sometimes we're pushing the limits of the fair use policy by spreading these files around. BioWare and Obsidian are kind enough to let us do this, but don't forget that we are modifying THEIR intellectual property, first and foremost.

 

In the case of Nexus, it's not an easy problem. I'm as baffled by their hypocrisy as much as the rest of you. But seeing that they are very cooperative and do seem genuinely interested in returning all the mods to their rightful owners, I don't see this as a huge issue. If you are an active member of the modding world, you can go, request your mods, and have them returned to you. For those who aren't...I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think they gave up their rights when they left the community, gave up modding, and still left their mods up online for others to use. If they're no longer contactable by modders and mod users alike, then they no longer have the rights to those mods. If they wanted to retain them, they'd remove the mods, OR remain contactable, even if they're not active in the community.

 

That came off a little harsher than I intended it, but I don't have the time right now to fix it. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

OK, your opinion is noted and you have now had your say. Debate is not going to sway anyone one way or the other on this divisive topic. I think we let everyone have their one last civil remark on the subject before I close the thread . . .

 

No responses to others comments from here on. If you wish to discuss it further after you've "had your say", use the Private Messaging system.

 

Oh and I delete folk's comments that have already had their say (unless they are staff member's comments.) I'll leave "my say" for later.

[Eauxps I. Fourgott 81]

This might be a stupid question, but...

 

Theoretically, if a modder's work was about to be lost forever (e.g. the Gamefront incident), couldn't somebody preserve it by saving a copy of the work on their personal computer, and then maybe trying to contact the author about publishing it elsewhere?

 

Doesn't really clear up the question of what to do if the author has disappeared, and I'm not sure what should be done about that (although I would lean towards respecting the author's last stated wishes), but maybe current authors should, if they're going to disappear, leave instructions on what should be done with their work in future?

 

Just the immediate thoughts of a non-modder...