ARMA III & Steam WORKSHOP

[PraPoredos 10]

Will ARMA III support Steam Workshop? Its very useful service for mods support, you can easily browse/download/install mods, scenarios etc.

[MissileMoose 10]

Absolutely not. At least until the Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement is changed or expanded on.

As RKSL-Rock pointed out over on the Armaholic forum, it will cause too many issues if one uploads another developers work without permission. Especially if the theft of work is discrete (ie models, scripts and textures).

2. License

You grant to Valve the following rights, which Valve may exercise or not in its sole discretion:

a. You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to (a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media, (b) identify You as the source of the Contribution, and © sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

[amadieus 0]

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

[ProfTournesol 956]

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

It isn't an Armaholic statement, but from RKSL-Rock, one of the most respected addon makers here, who is worried by this agreement which gives Valves all rights on someone else IP. It's easily understandable.

[white 1]

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

im not sure but i think that hes talking about the arma 2 mods that use models from other retail games, i think that would become a problem on steam workshop because of copyright issues.

[MissileMoose 10]

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

This isn't an issue about receiving credit for work, but a potential issue for stolen work being used and sold to commercial game developers without the permission or knowledge of the author. If I understand correctly, Intellectual Property rights still apply regardless of the foundations which work has been created upon. For example, if a software developer creates a desktop application for a Windows operating system, he doesn't forfeit the rights to his work.

As for your final comments, if you take time to read the post which I linked, you would understand that those words have no relation to the Armaholic website but are from a respected community member, who sadly is all too aware of the issues surrounding the respect for author rights in this community.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Absolutely not. At least until the Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement is changed or expanded on.

As RKSL-Rock pointed out over on the Armaholic forum, it will cause too many issues if one uploads another developers work without permission. Especially if the theft of work is discrete (ie models, scripts and textures).

I think this should be pointed out to all addonmakers, possibly requiring stickies/warnings on this forum, and maybe an official statement from BI, because that is one of the more retarded license agreements ive seen in a while.

[rksl-rock 1300]

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

Aside from being a friend of Foxhound I have no affiliation with Armaholic at all. The opinions expressed in that post are solely my own and no one else's.

It isn't an Armaholic statement, but from RKSL-Rock, one of the most respected addon makers here, who is worried by this agreement which gives Valves all rights on someone else IP. It's easily understandable.

Thank you. I'm blushing. Honestly I am.

im not sure but i think that hes talking about the arma 2 mods that use models from other retail games, i think that would become a problem on steam workshop because of copyright issues.

My comment covers a few different scenarios:

1. Someone "steals" content from a community made addon for use in their own mod and uploads it to Steam Workshop as their own work.
   
2. Someone collects a group of addons together (without editing them) and uploads 'his collection' to Steam Workshop
   
3. Someone steals models from another commercial game (COD/MOH etc) and uploads it to Steam Workshop as their own work.
   

There are other options but this is just to illustrate the point.

Once they upload anything to Steam under that agreement they are giving Valve the right to do whatever they want with that content. Models, textures scripts etc. It could all be used in any way they chose to. Theoretically, models etc made by this community could be used in a Valve commercial product without our consent*.

(* In fairness I have no idea if Valve have ever exploited user uploaded content in that way but we're talking about possibilities here)

The actual author has no control over how it's used. The uploader does not have the legal rights to agree to the licence on behalf of the actual author. So one day the author may wake up to find a model he spent hundreds of hours making used in a game he's never even owned. He receives no credit or compensation for his work.

Does anyone here think that's fair or right?

Personally I wont ever upload anything to Steam Workshop under that licence and I will fight tooth and nail to get any of my content put there by anyone taken down.

But thats just me.

People should read the license first but very few do. And if they do, I wonder how many really understand what it actually means.

EDIT -

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Anyone that creates a model, texture or script owns it. That only changes if part of it is made from something owned by someone else.

The majority of addons only reference Bohemia's content. As per the licence agree that comes with the BIS Tools and the statement made by BIS about addon ownership we own everything we make.

There are exceptions but most of them are covered by other licences. eg sample models etc.

As for credit being enough... well when a proper high spec model sells for anywhere between $600 - $7000+ a time then and the game/sim makers charge double or triple that. Wouldn't you feel a bit put out if all your hard work was being sold off?

You know you would.

Edited March 10, 2013 by RKSL-Rock
Added an extra bit.

[darkxess 60]

Will ARMA III support Steam Workshop? Its very useful service for mods support, you can easily browse/download/install mods, scenarios etc.

Armaholic is very useful too, and you can easily browse/download/install mods aswell... I dont why all you lot thinking that the steam workshop is better

than a site that has been around since the START covering all the latest news, downloads, uploads, etc... and dont ever forget, that Armaholic has been

doing it ALL this time for free! Turning your back on a site like that is just sad...

[Hornet 1]

Armaholic is very useful too, and you can easily browse/download/install mods aswell... I dont why all you lot thinking that the steam workshop is better

than a site that has been around since the START covering all the latest news, downloads, uploads, etc... and dont ever forget, that Armaholic has been

doing it ALL this time for free! Turning your back on a site like that is just sad...

Steam workshop allows auto update so anytime the author have an update, it can be automatically pushed to the user without requiring the user to manually check back a site for updates

Steam workshop is free too.

[k3lt 3]

Steam workshop integration doesn't mean you have to use it, use whatever you like better I don't see any issue there.

Myself i would use Steam Workshop, just because I'm lazy and it's s doing everything for me, which include downloading, installing and auto - updating all mods on startup to the latest version.

I don't know anything about all the "licence and stealing" stuff and never heard about any mod creators to have such issues and I used it alot (in Skyrim for example)

[Dwarden 1124]

well I think that if 'they' tried use someone else 'work' w/o actually approval, i'm quite sure it would open backdoor to quite some lawsuits (cause we all know how EULAs can backfire (looks back at some nasty lawsuits)) and not to mention how it would fuel theirs competition and damage public imagine ...

anyway I will put some eye into clarification on that clause sometime later ...

I already posted if (at all) we use STEAMworks, then we will moderate the addons similar like on the forums and all community addon websites/hubs which works with us ... and if needed to take the violators downs

so let me rephrase one spokesperson " there is nothing to fear, there are no IP problems in the country of content makers and these clouds above your heads are just imaginary" ;)

[k3lt 3]

I already posted if (at all) we use STEAMworks, then we will moderate the addons similar like on the forums and all community addon websites/hubs which works with us ... and if needed to take the violators downs

Even community could take care of that if someone would try to steal or take credit for some mod:

A) Downvote

B) Report

C) And as result of above 2 = get it removed by support

[d3lta 10]

Please Boehmia, put steam workshop in Arma3, my problems with mods and noobs and sixweird things is over. please please.

Enviado de meu MZ604 usando o Tapatalk 2

[nettrucker 142]

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement

With all due respect but only a fool would agree to the steam workshop legal agreement.:mad:

[jsmuk 13]

What?! How can something be theft when you use Arma 3 as a core base for the mod / addon? Anyways if the point is getting no credit for your work, then i think that cannot be the sole reason for not letting it be Workshop supported. Credit enough for the creaters i am sure of that!

Besides i am not suprised by such a statement from Armaholic wich existence is being threatened by Steam's workshop....

If I make a model or write a script its mine no matter what it ends up in the end. A very large mod for the game gmod (wiremod) apparently decided to not put their mod onto Workshop when it became available for gmod for very similar reasons involving the licence agreement.

Pesudo-legal / ethical reasons aside Workshop has some major technical problems that (IMO) would prevent it being useful for what most people on here would want to use it for. It doesn't support large files and it doesn't support delta file patching. So most mods would probably have to be broken up and every time a small update is released it would be to be entirely re-downloaded.

However that aside (I hear they are working on it anyway) I would love to see Workshop used as a way to find missions, that's one thing I personally think its ideal for.

Also, even if Workshop did make an appearance I don't think it would threaten sites / services like armaholic or PwS / Six Updater. As other games have shown (Skyrim for example) it can co-exist with mod sites quite happily.

[rksl-rock 1300]

...I already posted if (at all) we use STEAMworks, then we will moderate the addons similar like on the forums and all community addon websites/hubs which works with us ... and if needed to take the violators downs

Is that going to be actual official policy or just another forum promise? :p

It would be nice if that did happen if BIS do choose to use Steam Workshop. But you do hear stories of problems in Skyrim etc... better to be informed and aware than caught by surprise.

so let me rephrase one spokesperson " there is nothing to fear, there are no IP problems in the country of content makers and these clouds above your heads are just imaginary" ;)

Do you mean that in the same ironic sense as it was mean when it was said originally? Or is this another

. Edited March 10, 2013 by RKSL-Rock
spelling

[VerkadeB 1]

I like and dislike Steam workshop at the same time, it updates the mods if there is an update. But it steals mods...

[naizarak 4]

hopefully not. i prefer installing and managing mods myself, especially for a game as mod-focused as arma. it makes me cringe just thinking of letting steam auto-manage my mods. what a mess that would be

[Madus_Maximus 0]

Isn't there a similar clause in the BI tools like O2? Anything you import using their tools is technically the property of BIS at that point.

[dayglow 2]

Steam workshop seems to be thriving for Skyrim. Has Valve/Bestheda taken stuff without credit to the mod makers? Or is this the usual fear for fears sake?

[k3lt 3]

this the usual fear for fears sake?

This.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Steam workshop seems to be thriving for Skyrim. Has Valve/Bestheda taken stuff without credit to the mod makers? Or is this the usual fear for fears sake?

Or maybe simply trying to have a mature discussion about addon makers IP.

[dayglow 2]

I'm simply asking is there a history of Valve taking content from people making mods to actually raise this concern? Or is this along the lines of the argument against Steam because they can shut down all your games for no reason if they wish, even though it hasn't ever happened?

[Madus_Maximus 0]

There's a long running debate as to wether they used the concept of the Charger in L4D that a member of the community described in detail before Valve ever showed off such a monster, though it's far more common than you think for developers to have the same or similar ideas that people in the community have which then appear to be "stolen". That wasn't something anybody ever actually made though, it was just explained in detail and was never implemented into the game as far as I'm aware.

Either way, they wouldn't do such a thing if the content is created for someone else's game. For starters the people who's game it's a mod for would likely sue them anyway considering the fact there are VERY similar clauses written into mod tools for pretty much everything stating they own the content if you use their tools to import it into the game, just like BIS' tools have.

As usual with the internet, it's much ado about nothing.