Legal discussion regarding Steam Workshop

[whisper 0]

They don't own the content read the clause.. it says they can use said content however they want "in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site". This clause is here to stop people going hey my stuff is indirectly helping promote your system therefore i am now suing you for all my lost profit!!

Why does everyone miss this part of the agreement, it's literally says that they have the power only for this part of it nothing says 'we can do whatever we want with anything you upload', that shit won't fly anywhere.

People want to blame Steam for whatever reason suits them, they'll lock on 1 word (in this case, "irrevocable"), and avoid all the rest. It's a company, hence to be opposed to a "community".

I'm like you, I'd like a proof that Valve owns Steam Workshop's content. As it is written in the EULA currently and as I read it, they don't own ANYTHING. This is much ado bout literally nothing.

Which leads to the argument we've seen for pages now from people who like me don't see SWS owning anything : in this case, why are you crying at Steam for doing exactly what other sites do, sites that you label at "totally trustworthy" and assets to the community (which they definitely are for so many years now that we can only be amazed at the service given), and you blame SWS for doing the same while protecting their ass?

"Philosophical" sh*** asides, the issues which seems real is the latency and unwillingness by SWS to remove content which are in infringment. I can perfectly understand creators being pissed off seeing their work stolen and distributed via SWS. And apparently (I don't have knowledge of it, just trusting Rock' words here), SWS is bad at reacting in this case.

Unfortunately not distributing their work through SWS is NOT going to resolve that problem. This is a separate issue from SWS EULA and hosting your work on SWS

[bad benson 1733]

the issues which seems real is the latency and unwillingness by SWS to remove content which are in infringment.

boom! that's it.

and that ties in perfectly with why people bring up armaholic. while armaholic consists of more than one person, it is safe to say that armaholic = foxhound, when it comes to having the last word about things (pls correct if wrong). and that is the entire difference. talking to a person, an actual person, and talking to some type of support system. and in addition the type of person.

while this topic is named "legal dicsussion" and people like to put the focus on the mere words inside agreements, i think that the real core of things is mostly about trust. and while i agree here with Darkwanderer, since he pointed out that the "real" difference to other services might be small and it comes down to trust, i have to say that focusing on the legal aspect to win the argument is kind of stupid because it obviously is not the main issue here which some, bad, comparisons with armaholic have clearly shown. btw. even if the armaholic team makes some money, wtf is your problem with that? getting money for doing actual work is not a bad thing. it doesn't automatically mean it's an exploitive relationship.

i remember several recent cases of people taking other people's work and redistributing it under a new "license" and even lecturing the original authors about their own license and how it allows others to just take the stuff. in one example one guy said that his regional (where he lives) laws allow him to do certain things and he is free to ignore what the author has put in his license. fair enough i guess...but also making very clear what the real issue is.

these are the cases, in addition with valve's slow response, that create a real problem beyond words and legal mumbojumbo. even if armaholic doesn't make you sign stuff, the mere fact that you know that the people behind it are trustworthy makes up for any type of legal agreement by far. it almost seems like the internet is making people unlearn basic principles of real human interaction. twist facts all you want. a community is not something created by legal agreements..

this is what people seem to miss. it's very simple. a defensive stance or even defensive measures are only needed in case of an attack. when people say "back bone of the community" it's not only an empty phrase. questioning that trust is playing with fire. if you start to dissect and doubt these factors you are only left with piles of words in legal agreements. this is the internet. these words mean shit in most cases. actual trust and respect is worth a million times more.

but these mentioned recent cases only show a regress of these basic civilised behaviors. i mean seeing people post in the threads of authors trying to force them into taking over their additions and changes only shows that it already lacks at the most basics. "do i write the guy a PM and offer help or do i try to get a lot of attention by posting in his thread trying to hijack his project?".

maybe it's coming from the dayZ modding community where everything is a mod of a mod and no one cares anymore who originally made the main effort to create something from the ground up. maybe it's just people in general growing up with the internet taking its "freedoms" as a given that rule over any common sense and respect towards others.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Bad Benson
just some improvements

[zooloo75 834]

I can foresee a lot of the community's content being uploaded by random users to the SWS, unmodified, or modified without our permission. What exactly is preventing this from happening?

[Sniperwolf572 758]

I can foresee a lot of the community's content being uploaded by random users to the SWS, unmodified, or modified without our permission. What exactly is preventing this from happening?

Right now, I'd say inconvenience. Only addons since the addons on Worshop were enabled are still my two little features and a set of dezkits planes and there's nothing like that happening. Yet.

Inconvenience due to the fact that only single .pbo addons are publishable right now, the publishing tools are stashed away in the tools kit dev branch, etc.

But, here's some positives. More people have been exposed to the stuff I made than the entire year they've been available. I can't imagine the exposure a proper mod could find there.

[vegeta897 13]

Does he have to sign a contract with Valve since they now own the content?

What Kasha said, not only do they not own your content, but the rights they are granted are non-exclusive. You lose absolutely nothing by uploading to SWS.

[bad benson 1733]

But, here's some positives. More people have been exposed to the stuff I made than the entire year they've been available. I can't imagine the exposure a proper mod could find there.

yea that's a great advantage. eventhough i personally would care more about more servers actually using/allowing my addons rather than just the amount of downloads. while it's nice to make people happy with useful or fun stuff, a lot of my things i made because i want them in the game myself. i know it's slightly OT but to me the usefulness of SWS would come from direct automatic download of modsets a server i join uses because it would also mean that people would be more encouraged to host with nice features/game inprovement addons like yours, which kind of would defeat the argument that SWS offers nothing that community sites don't.

I can foresee a lot of the community's content being uploaded by random users to the SWS, unmodified, or modified without our permission. What exactly is preventing this from happening?

not sure if that would become very common since i agree that's it's a bit inconvenient to just do it to troll. but in the cases i was refering to i could imagine that happening. i guess that's another point that has been hinted at. this kind of anonymity that comes with bigger platforms, which could lower the inhibition threshold. but that's all speculation at this point.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Bad Benson

[zooloo75 834]

Here's a process I see possible for server mod management to fit into how ArmA works.

Steps:

1. Connect to server.

2. If client does not have the mods required by the server, present a screen that asks if the client would like to download the required mods, if so, download them from the workshop.

3. Go grab a snack or watch Youtube, whatever to pass time.

4. Once the mods are downloaded, restart the game with the required mods and automatically join the server.

5. Play as usual.

[Mickyleitor 183]

We, FFAA mod team, are contemplating publish our mod on steam workshop but we have serious doubts about the right and license we are giving to steam platform. As we've stated on our roadmap, we are waiting for the official and clear statements by BI when Steam Workshop for addon will be full working. To clarify us, the addon makers, all information refering to what we are exposed when we upload some content (specifically addons and mods) to Steam platform, what are the limits upload, if we can sue to another user has stolen our work and publish them without our permission or if we want to remove our mod of the steam platform, we can be sure we can do it and much more questions so we will wait to official release of the steam workshop for addons and MANW entry for addons announcement.

We think, as many of you, steam workshop for addons is a VERY VERY useful tool to publish and distribute at a HIGHER number of people than through traditional channels which is basically what we (the addon makers) want, our addon reach as many people as possible.

The example is what Sniperwolf572 said "More people have been exposed to the stuff I made than the entire year they've been available. I can't imagine the exposure a proper mod could find there."

Anyway I will be reading this topic as It's turning to an interesting discussion and affect us on the future..

Edited July 11, 2014 by Mickyleitor

[Sniperwolf572 758]

yea that's a great advantage. eventhough i personally would care more about more servers actually using/allowing my addons rather than just the amount of downloads. while it's nice to make people happy with useful or fun stuff, a lot of my things i made because i want them in the game myself.

Exactly. Those things were made because I wanted to see them, and they're public because I don't really have a reason to keep them away from public. They're on workshop because they were handy single pbo addons that could be used to test the Publisher and the Workshop functionality. I was surprised at the amount of interest.

One good thing about interest for modmakers is the fact that it provides two things. Motivation to keep on doing such things and the exposure to bigger developers who might hire such mod teams and whatnot. We've heard the "successful mod team/mod maker gets hired and jumpstarts their career" story way too many times to say it's not true.

While I understand the stance Rock and others take. In my head, for any thing I make, if I make it available publicly, it's there to be ripped to shreds in any way if anyone wants it. Personally, even if I made models and whatnot for the sole purpose of distributing it to public as mods, I'd never expect it to stay under my control. Even with other public mod hosting providers, I'd be fooling to myself if I expected to remain in full control of it. Be it on Workshop, Armaholic or PWS, the models can be ripped out and redistributed at will. My time is better spent on things I enjoy doing rather than chasing idiots on the internet trying to make a quick buck off of things I made for fun or to learn.

If my livelihood depended on me maintaining full intellectual property control over things I made publicly for free, then I seriously believe I'd be approaching the subject with the wrong attitude.

If I believed that Valve or any other big dev will go out and plan to steal my shit and put it in their games, I'd be insane. The route of paying me off for it is much simpler and painless for both sides. I realized this during a call with such client about a five figure invoice payment being late. Their response was: "Oh, that's strange. Usually those small invoices go through the system pretty fast. We'll take a look." My annual income isn't in 5 figures and they're treating it like I treat my pocket lint.

i know it's slightly OT but to me the usefulness of SWS would come from direct automatic download of modsets a server i join uses because it would also mean that people would be more encouraged to host with nice features/game inprovement addons like yours, which kind of would defeat the argument that SWS offers nothing that community sites don't.

That's exactly it, I'd love it if we ended up with an awesome autodownloader and autoupdater. I'd love it even if you could specify other remote locations to fetch files from. While I'm fully capable of manually installing mods and whatnot, ever since Sickboy released the initial version of SixUpdater, it never left my PC due to sheer amount of convenience it provides. One day, I hope the BI launcher and the Workshop integration will reach the point where convenience for mod makers and users is paramount. It currently isn't.

[Tonci87 163]

What Kasha said, not only do they not own your content, but the rights they are granted are non-exclusive. You lose absolutely nothing by uploading to SWS.

Ok. Since that is out of the way the only real problems I see are:

How to deal with people who steal your work?

Filesize limits.

Availability of old versions if an update breaks something.

[rksl-rock 1301]

What Kasha said, not only do they not own your content, but the rights they are granted are non-exclusive. You lose absolutely nothing by uploading to SWS.

Can I ask what you think "non-exclusive" means in this context? And how it affects the discussion and the addon makers?

[defk0n_NL 2]

People want to blame Steam for whatever reason suits them, they'll lock on 1 word (in this case, "irrevocable"), and avoid all the rest. It's a company, hence to be opposed to a "community".

I'm like you, I'd like a proof that Valve owns Steam Workshop's content. As it is written in the EULA currently and as I read it, they don't own ANYTHING. This is much ado bout literally nothing.

Which leads to the argument we've seen for pages now from people who like me don't see SWS owning anything : in this case, why are you crying at Steam for doing exactly what other sites do, sites that you label at "totally trustworthy" and assets to the community (which they definitely are for so many years now that we can only be amazed at the service given), and you blame SWS for doing the same while protecting their ass?

"Philosophical" sh*** asides, the issues which seems real is the latency and unwillingness by SWS to remove content which are in infringment. I can perfectly understand creators being pissed off seeing their work stolen and distributed via SWS. And apparently (I don't have knowledge of it, just trusting Rock' words here), SWS is bad at reacting in this case.

Unfortunately not distributing their work through SWS is NOT going to resolve that problem. This is a separate issue from SWS EULA and hosting your work on SWS

SWS does not own peoples content in the strict sense of the word, but once you provide your content you do give them the right to redistribute, modify, and edit your content.

Possibly in ways that you cannot forsee now.I think SWS could be a good way forward if Valve would allow senior community members and moderators access to edit/remove/modify listings (not content)

I see we host one work from you, I expect a message from you to take down your work.....supporting ungratefull bratts is not something I am willingly doing.

I dont see why i would ask you to take down my work at this point unless you feel like doing it yourself.

Even though you uploaded that without my permission, I dont feel specially protective about it. I made it to be shared.

I only think a simple question or subscriber optin list would be more appropiate. How can i be ungratefull for something you did to/for a object i own without my permission.

Thats like me kicking you in the shins then say "oh you didnt like that? how ungratefull", Maybe some people like to get kicked in the shins maybe some dont.

Maybe a better analogy would be me taking your dirty car without your permission then take into a carwash, Is it reasonable for me to assume you would take it in good faith even though i dont know you.

Either way, I do not wish to futher feed any hostility and feel like everything has been said already at this point.

Edited July 12, 2014 by defk0n_NL

[vegeta897 13]

Can I ask what you think "non-exclusive" means in this context? And how it affects the discussion and the addon makers?

It means you do not lose any of the rights you have over your content by granting them to Valve. Tonci's question implied that you would be unable to do certain things after uploading to SWS.

[Guest]

Even though you uploaded that without my permission, I dont feel specially protective about it. I made it to be shared.

And this is why you are just a funny guy.......you submitted that addon yourself to Armaholic! See the news post (now you know why that piece of text is included in the news).

[smokedog3para 365]

but once you provide your content you do give them the right to redistribute, modify, and edit your content. Possibly in ways that you cannot for see now

that's why for me i won't upload to sws they (can modify, and edit your content), armaholic when you upload to armaholic they only redistribute it they do not edit or modify or abuse your addons and FH will go all out to protect you from that happening on his site.

[nikiforos 450]

Foxhound is trying to help and to make life easier for a lot of the community members. Some people are just wrong and I fully understand if Foxhound is pissed with the attitude in here.

[rksl-rock 1301]

It means you do not lose any of the rights you have over your content by granting them to Valve. Tonci's question implied that you would be unable to do certain things after uploading to SWS.

Actually that's not correct.

Non-exclusive means you have the right to do other things with it. To explain, I make a model. I can "grant" the rights one of two ways:

1. Exclusive - means I hand over all control of the rights to the buyer and I retain nothing.
   
2. Non-Exclusive - means that I give the "customer" rights to use the models but retain the rights to use it how i see fit. While they have the right to do with it as they want. Now this mean I can re-sell/redistribute it anyway i like. But it also means (depending on contract) they can also do the same.
   

So here's my issue, while you may think I lose nothing what i actually lose is the right to choose how my models are used. Especially given this little line:

You grant Valve and its affiliates the non-exclusive, irrevocable right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and publicly perform, your User Generated Content, and derivative works of your User Generated Content, in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site.

Given the advice i have received this gives me great concern:

1. its affiliates - Nowhere is the definition of affiliates given. Previously i've seen this definition include sub-contractors and supporting studios.
   
2. irrevocable - well this has been covered many times and is common sense.
   
3. modify, create derivative works from - This gives me and my lawyer significant concern.
   
4. in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site. - This was the biggest kicker. You see its gloriously legally vague at the same time as implying its only for PR purposes. Operation and Promotion means different things to different people. You assume it means making screenshots and renders? It would be nice to get a proper definition from Valve.
   

Now, you can claim that i am being unduly paranoid but I've had several bitter experiences with licensing. I was a self-employer 3D freelancer & engineering consultant for nearly a decade before the recession and defence cuts forced me back into corporate IT management. Here are a few examples of my own bitter experience:

1. I had 3 years of freeware (for no monetary gain) work ripped and resold internationally in the Flight Sim community because I took a licence on faith. believing the best of people is admirable. Businesses and Corporations on the other hand, not so bright. They exist to make money and usually follow the letter and not the spirit of the contract. Which they tend to interpret in less than altruistic ways. I ended up out of pocket and a 20 year gagging order.
   
2. I made 27 models for a Freeware collection (for no monetary gain). The contract stated that no fee would be charged for content. However another clause said that a fee may be charged for distribution and packaging. Seems that fee was £19.99 per box sold. The contributors received nothing, the publishers made a tonne of money and they even won the court case on a contract technicality.
   
3. I thought i had a solid non-exclusive, one-platform license with a company 5 years ago. They wanted to release all my content to their main customer, who then wanted to release it to all their suppliers. I lost a relationship i valued because of that. In return I got a small payout and within 12 months lost over 80% of my customers due to my customers being given models to customise rather then commission.
   
4. Another corporate entity with whom I've had a 10 year relationship - similar single platform license with derivatives clause to the SWS agreement - I came across some models at a trade show that were virtually identical to mine running on a totally different platform. After some inquiries i discovered they came from my customer. They had copied my models changing just over 30% over the details and UV so as to "legally constitute/represent a new model" so they said there was no breech of contract. I sold the original models for about £3000 (US$5000). My customer charged £14,750 (US$25,000) to resell a lightly modified version of my work.
   

So yes, I am concerned by the contract. I will freely admit I am suspicious of Valve's intent, even though I do acknowledge that they changed the original agreement to address our concerns but experience has taught me cynical and very cautious.

As Bad Benson and others have pointed out, this issue is a lot about trust. But its also (for me at least) about not making the same mistake again and blindly trusting on what I think might be Valve's intentions.

Edited July 12, 2014 by RKSL-Rock
Spelling Grammar and clarification

[vegeta897 13]

I think you're reading into my post too much and responding to a lot of things I didn't say. And your response to me telling me what I said was incorrect is saying the same thing I said except explaining it more thoroughly. Exclusive = you lose rights, non-exclusive = you retain rights. I said this, and you said this, so I'm not sure why you're calling me incorrect.

I didn't say they couldn't also do the same. The question I answered specifically asked if you would be unable to do certain things (selling it as part of a full game) as a result of uploading to SWS. The answer is no, you do not lose your ability to do that. Of course you can take the meaning of losing nothing in a different direction as yes, you "lose" the ability to choose how you want to distribute your content. But if your content is on SWS you already made the choice to distribute it there, so I don't quite see that as losing anything you didn't intend to.

I wouldn't claim anyone is being paranoid. It's not easy to hand over your trust to any corporation, no matter their history. But we're talking about mods for a game here, not giving entire games away to Valve. If you intend to profit off of assets you create for Arma 3 by using them in other projects, you should be wary of any site or service you upload to, SWS or not. The EULA is made to protect themselves, not you.

-----

By the way, has this been mentioned yet? If I'm understanding correctly, it means workshop addons will be able to have multiple files and unlimited file size.

Edited July 12, 2014 by vegeta897

[rksl-rock 1301]

I think you're reading into my post too much and responding to a lot of things I didn't say. And your response to me telling me what I said was incorrect is saying the same thing I said except explaining it more thoroughly. Exclusive = you lose rights, non-exclusive = you retain rights. I said this, and you said this, so I'm not sure why you're calling me incorrect.

I would argue that you aren't considering this objectively. But you actually said:

It means you do not lose any of the rights you have over your content by granting them to Valve.

I said you do lose the right to control how its used by valve and affiliates. So i do have something to lose.

I didn't say they couldn't also do the same. The question I answered specifically asked if you would be unable to do certain things (selling it as part of a full game) as a result of uploading to SWS. The answer is no, you do not lose your ability to do that. Of course you can take the meaning of losing nothing in a different direction as yes, you "lose" the ability to choose how you want to distribute your content. But if your content is on SWS you already made the choice to distribute it there, so I don't quite see that as losing anything you didn't intend to.

Anything I release into this community i do it for free. I want it to remain so. I don't want others profiting, modifying or creating derivatives of my work. By using SWS i do lose the ability to prevent Valve from "profiting" (this definition is open for debate i admit) while i receive nothing.

I have a problem with this debate because some people here are just blindly rushing to SWS as though its a one stop solution for everything. People really should know what it is they are agreeing to.I know from talking to about 20-30 people since this particular discussion began that 95% don't even realise what they are agreeing to. The earlier discussion about SWS also caused a discussion about what the SWS agreement really meant to them and I know a lot of mod leaders/members went and did their own research. The bottom line here is "Do you understand what it is you are signing and its implications?" If so, go right ahead. If not go take some advice because you've already clicked that you agree to it (since they merged the user and SWS agreements) and dont upload anything until you do.

I wouldn't claim anyone is being paranoid. It's not easy to hand over your trust to any corporation, no matter their history. But we're talking about mods for a game here, not giving entire games away to Valve. If you intend to profit off of assets you create for Arma 3 by using them in other projects, you should be wary of any site or service you upload to, SWS or not. The EULA is made to protect themselves, not you.

I would say that anyone that trusts a corporation is a complete idiot. All you have to do is watch the news. And I completely agree that the SWS agreement is designed solely to protect themselves and their profits. That's precisely my concern. To build trust there needs to be mutual respect and benefit. I dont want to have to "pay" for that relationship by handing over rights to my content.

I'd rather make my own content and let my "fan base" come and find me on my own website or community sites where i don't have to sign away my rights to my hard work.

If other people want to use Steam Workshop I'm fine with that. but they should be made aware of the implications of that choice and the way that disputes are to be resolved.

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:40 ----------

By the way, has this been mentioned yet? If I'm understanding correctly, it means workshop addons will be able to have multiple files and unlimited file size.

Well that removes the last technical obstacle but its not really relevant to the legal discussion.

Edited July 12, 2014 by RKSL-Rock

[Zenophon 110]

Firstly, I only skimmed the whole thread, so I apologize if this has been brought up before.

I am certainly no lawyer, so perhaps some one with relevant legal knowledge or experience can comment on this. However, if some one releases their work to SWS under a certain license, is Valve not legally bound by the terms of that license? In the work I have recently released (see my signature), I felt it was appropriate to make use of a very restrictive Creative Commons license. For reference:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Looking at various parts of the license, it seems that these terms below directly contradict the terms of SWS and do not allow the Steam Subscriber Agreement to simply erase any other agreements or force anything on the author without their clear, written consent.

Quote CC-NC-ND-4.0 International:

"6.c

For the avoidance of doubt, the Licensor may also offer the Licensed Material under separate terms or conditions or stop distributing the Licensed Material at any time; however, doing so will not terminate this Public License.

6.d

Sections 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 survive termination of this Public License.

7.a

The Licensor shall not be bound by any additional or different terms or conditions communicated by You unless expressly agreed.

8.c

No term or condition of this Public License will be waived and no failure to comply consented to unless expressly agreed to by the Licensor."

I agree with RKSL-Rock that we should at least question Valve's intent, and I take the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement very seriously. If Valve is willing to accept that alternate licenses apply to content on SWS, do they not still have the right to refuse hosting/distribution service? Is an implied agreement to the terms of SWS upon release there really legally binding if the author's own legal agreement requires clearer consent?

Finally, on a more personal note, I believe that if Valve will not acknowledge and respect the IP rights of people who create content (the people they need to make SWS a success), then is not in the best interest of content creators individually or the community as a whole to support the SWS in any way. I, for one, will never release a mission there.

[smokedog3para 365]

its about time bi and who ever at steam sort this shit out instead of leaving it to fester, give us some answers once and for all nothing ever is clear cut and that's what we need simple eulas that make sense to the layman without having to consult legal teams were modders not full blown indi teams

[vegeta897 13]

I said you do lose the right to control how its used by valve and affiliates.

But you never had a right to control how it's used by valve and affiliates, so how can you lose that?

Anything I release into this community i do it for free. I want it to remain so. I don't want others profiting, modifying or creating derivatives of my work. By using SWS i do lose the ability to prevent Valve from "profiting" (this definition is open for debate i admit) while i receive nothing.

I understand that. But my point was that what you were saying was kind of circular logic. You say you lose the right to choose how your models are used, but in uploading to SWS you agree to lose that right. So it's kind of a given. Everyone understands that already, so I don't get why you're telling me as if I said otherwise. Again, you are taking the meaning of "lose" as I used it too far, despite me already saying I agreed with you on the facts of the situation, semantics aside.

I have a problem with this debate because some people here are just blindly rushing to SWS as though its a one stop solution for everything. People really should know what it is they are agreeing to.I know from talking to about 20-30 people since this particular discussion began that 95% don't even realise what they are agreeing to. The earlier discussion about SWS also caused a discussion about what the SWS agreement really meant to them and I know a lot of mod leaders/members went and did their own research. The bottom line here is "Do you understand what it is you are signing and its implications?" If so, go right ahead. If not go take some advice because you've already clicked that you agree to it (since they merged the user and SWS agreements) and dont upload anything until you do.

I would say that anyone that trusts a corporation is a complete idiot. All you have to do is watch the news. And I completely agree that the SWS agreement is designed solely to protect themselves and their profits. That's precisely my concern. To build trust there needs to be mutual respect and benefit. I dont want to have to "pay" for that relationship by handing over rights to my content.

If other people want to use Steam Workshop I'm fine with that. but they should be made aware of the implications of that choice and the way that disputes are to be resolved.

I can agree with all of this, and I never said otherwise.

I'd rather make my own content and let my "fan base" come and find me on my own website or community sites where i don't have to sign away my rights to my hard work.

Of course, that's how it's been for a while. But the point of SWS integration was convenience. The biggest obstacle for mod usage in Arma is that convenience and discovery. So many public servers run vanilla because they shut out a large number of people by running mods. Better integration with Steam can (and will) change that. It's just unfortunate that there are a lot of legal issues to be aware of, which to you and others are deal-breaking.

[chrisb 196]

I think, those that want to stay away from SWS should do just that. If there is anyone that wants to use your mod/addons, they can find them in other ways.

Those that do want to run with SWS, go for it, if your comfortable with it.

I use google search the most for mod/addons, invariably quite a few searches lead back to AH, AA or some others, but there are still plenty out there that come from other sources. This is all good, most sites are run pretty well that have mod/addons for DL. I don't use PWS so can't comment on that.

On the whole most people aren't out to fleece others. Those that do, usually get it returned in some fashion or other.

What goes around comes around..

[roshnak 41]

But you never had a right to control how it's used by valve and affiliates, so how can you lose that?.

Yeah, you do have the right to control how it's used by other people. You can say, "That doesn't belong to you, you can't use it that way."

By uploading stuff to Steam Workshop you're saying, "This belongs to both of us now."

[miketim 20]

Not that I am advocating for steam workshop, or saying you addon makers should lose rights, but remember...

Anyone who is playing ArmA 3 with your mod, bought the game off of steam.

Every single person (excluding pirated copies).

So valve is already profiting, at least in some form.

Anyway, uploading stuff to the steam workshop will mostly likely profit BI studios, indirectly.

Since some kids will see some mainstreamers doing youtube reviews for mods, and it will open up arma 3 to a bunch of newbies, something like how every time "yogscast" does some gameplay video for some game, 300000 kids always buy it instantly.

Not that that is a good thing either.:(

Also I agree that people who want to stay away from workshop should.

But it is sad that I feel like we already lost many modders/players to steam integration, and now we will lose even more to workshop, because they will be heavily pressured to use workshop, and just decide to give up or stop modding for ArmA.

Overall it's just a mess, I hope it is really difficult to upload mods or somthing, just so some scrubby mod-stealers will have too much trouble and give up :D

Also what about file-size limits? (If I remember correctly) Garry's Mod had many issues with some type of infamous file size limit, will ArmA modders (using the steam workshop) have to release those big 1 nation super mods in like 8 parts now?

:(:confused::(

Let's just hope this doesn't turn out too badly...

Edit:

What if addon makers can obfuscate/encrypt addons?

(Or could people just re-upload encrypted files... I guess?)

Can anyone think of a solution to the problem of re-uploading of addons?

Edited July 12, 2014 by MikeTim