Legal discussion regarding Steam Workshop

[vegeta897 13]

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that if a report is submitted, reviewed, and deemed to have an actual case, then yes, the download should be disabled.

In this case, it was flagged not because of an automated report system, but because someone got ahold of Dwarden and had him take action as an Arma 3 SWS moderator.

Again I'm not suggesting that at all, you're just assuming I am. What I want is for the download to be disabled after it's been flagged by a moderator...

Currently, even though Dwarden flagged the addon, the page is still public, and if you subscribe to it, the addon downloads.

Ok, then I've misunderstood you, or perhaps you misunderstood my original post that you replied to. Either way, we appear to be on the same page. An addon reported by users should not be disabled, but one flagged by someone of authority, such as Dwarden, should be. This is not currently the case, so I agree it should be changed.

[ballistic09 241]

And so begins the deluge of people uploading other people's addons to Steam Workshop, whether they like it or not...

Gee, nobody saw this coming. :rolleyes:

[major_shepard 82]

And so begins the deluge of people uploading other people's addons to Steam Workshop, whether they like it or not...

Gee, nobody saw this coming. :rolleyes:

The author of the upload uses as nickname a well known french site about FPS -> http://www.nofrag.com/

The big mess is beginning :rolleyes:

Edited July 15, 2014 by Major_Shepard

[vegeta897 13]

Additional unhelpful sarcastic remark :rolleyes:

This can and does happen with every content submission site in existence. Either be part of the solution and report them, or keep your snarky comments to yourself.

[ballistic09 241]

Additional unhelpful sarcastic remark :rolleyes:

This can and does happen with every content submission site in existence. Either be part of the solution and report them, or keep your snarky comments to yourself.

Sarcastic and snarky, perhaps, but unhelpful, no... Maybe just to your cause. :)

On the contrary, I think it is rather helpful to let people know what abuses are going on especially when, as you say, these people need to be reported.

[zooloo75 834]

The SWS is going to need a hell of a lot of moderation to ensure that our IP rights our not infringed upon. Just seeing the situation OpticalSnare is going through is sickening. I already know and have personally witnessed modders going silent, vowing not to release any more of their content and keep it private due to the BS that they have to get involved with such as an unappreciative community (excluding a majority of the BI forum) and theft.

I've already notified Foxhound to modify the license on my work on Armaholic to prohibit redistribution to the Steam Workshop.

Edited July 16, 2014 by zooloo75

[vegeta897 13]

Sarcastic and snarky, perhaps, but unhelpful, no... Maybe just to your cause. :)

On the contrary, I think it is rather helpful to let people know what abuses are going on especially when, as you say, these people need to be reported.

My cause of wanting stolen content to be removed, and the SWS venture to be successful, because it can be tremendously helpful to the platform and community?

I didn't have a problem with you posting about the stolen content here, I had a problem with your sarcastic remark, as if you're happy to see things go wrong with SWS (and also as if there were some people who didn't know there'd stolen content). The sarcastic remark doesn't help the situation, posting the link here does, so we can get more reports.

[theevancat 277]

And so begins the deluge of people uploading other people's addons to Steam Workshop, whether they like it or not...

Gee, nobody saw this coming. :rolleyes:

If someone tries to do this to me I will basically reenact Liam Neeson's role in Taken.

I should also figure out how exactly to upload stuff.

[ballistic09 241]

I had a problem with your sarcastic remark, as if you're happy to see things go wrong with SWS

I stated it that way because 2 of the 3 "nightmare situations" that addon makers have been preaching would happen, addon theft and unauthorized third party uploading, did happen and on the first two days of the main branch release no less... The only "nightmare situation" that hasn't happened yet is Valve taking ownership of submitted content and/or profiting from it directly. I'm about 99.9% sure that will never happen, but you never know. Crazier things have happened.

I make no secret of the fact that I'm not pro-SWS. On paper I think Steam Workshop is a great, well intentioned idea, but it's waaaaaay too open to exploitation. It's extremely easy to upload content, but way to hard to get it removed if it infringes on someones IP. I think if they were to add better (faster) moderation and/or a approval process/review done by someone in the know, then most of these issues would be null. As it is right now though, it feels like legitimate, original content creators have been thrown to the wolves. I especially don't see the need for SWS provided that there are already several alternatives, including Play withSIX which does basically everything that SWS does and more. The only benefit to SWS currently is a broader audience.

There's a reason why you see very few addon-makers advocating Steam Workshop, and quite a few doing just the opposite...

Edited July 16, 2014 by Ballistic09

[vegeta897 13]

I stated it that way because 2 of the 3 "nightmare situations" that addon makers have been preaching would happen, addon theft and unauthorized third party uploading, did happen and on the first two days of the main branch release no less...

I don't think anybody denied that these things would happen, since it was obvious there'd be nothing stopping them, at least not yet. But the opinion of pro-SWS is that these problems are part of the process, and that it will be worth it in the end.

I think if they were to add better (faster) moderation and/or a approval process/review done by someone in the know, then most of these issues would be null.

Totally agreed.

But I disagree on the benefits, or lack thereof, that you claim. Play withSIX will never be adopted by the entire player base, but the new launcher will be, because it's right there in everybody's game, automatically. The launcher will be able to do what PWS can't because it can be genuinely integrated into the game, not just outputting a launch options string. This integration isn't complete yet, but establishing a mod library on the workshop is part of that.

I think you might be slightly exaggerating the situation by calling it a nightmare or saying people are being thrown to the wolves. Even the uploader you linked to was giving credit to the original creators, which means the only real issue is that the mods aren't uploaded under the creator's steam account, which is somewhat arbitrary. It's not like the uploader is getting any actual benefit from this. He doesn't make money from it. As far as the EULA, does it really apply to content that is submitted from one who doesn't own the content? I can't believe it would be, since that would be kind of ridiculous from a legal standpoint. A person who does not own something cannot actually grant rights to anyone, no matter what the EULA says.

Don't get me wrong, it's not acceptable, but the above instance could be far worse (and I'm sure there will be other cases that are worse). If something I created was uploaded without my permission, I'd be pretty upset, even if they gave me credit. But the end result would still just be more people playing my mod. 99% of them wouldn't care who made it.

But like you said, there needs to be a more serious approach to content submission and approval for these situations to be avoided. I think it's worth striving for this than just giving up and resigning to the fact that a significant portion of Arma players are never going to know about PWS or can't be bothered, and continue to play vanilla, unknowingly limiting the amazing potential this game offers. It's easy for people like you and me to forget about those people, because we're already sitting pretty with our mods set up. But there is a large portion of people out there that can and will benefit from this official launcher bridging that gap.

Edited July 16, 2014 by vegeta897

[PuFu 4600]

I don't think anybody denied that these things would happen, since it was obvious there'd be nothing stopping them, at least not yet. But the opinion of pro-SWS is that these problems are part of the process, and that it will be worth it in the end.

I really dont understand this sort of mentality. It SHOULDN'T be part of the process, especially since these sort o f things have been flagged since this came under discussion, before A3 alpha.

Totally agreed.

But I disagree on the benefits, or lack thereof, that you claim. Play withSIX will never be adopted by the entire player base, but the new launcher will be, because it's right there in everybody's game, automatically. The launcher will be able to do what PWS can't because it can be genuinely integrated into the game, not just outputting a launch options string. This integration isn't complete yet, but establishing a mod library on the workshop is part of that.

No community made tool will get the friction of an official tool, just as the vanilla should be stable and feature full, addons being there just to improve and complement instead of fixing. But that goes for their SDK tools as well, vs the community made tools

That just doesn't justify the population of steam no matter of the means used for the sake of creating that library..

An creator should be able to choose if and when he wants to host his work. Even without the existing eula, it should be his prerogative, and no one else to choose to skip/ignore Steam or any other service for whatever reason and without giving anyone an explanation.

I think you might be slightly exaggerating the situation by calling it a nightmare or saying people are being thrown to the wolves. Even the uploader you linked to was giving credit to the original creators, which means the only real issue is that the mods aren't uploaded under the creator's steam account, which is somewhat arbitrary. It's not like the uploader is getting any actual benefit from this. He doesn't make money from it. As far as the EULA, does it really apply to content that is submitted from one who doesn't own the content? I can't believe it would be, since that would be kind of ridiculous from a legal standpoint. A person who does not own something cannot actually grant rights to anyone, no matter what the EULA says.

I also think this is a bit of an exageration, but that being said you cannot understand it unless you are the creator of original content/asset.

I think this has been said before, but acording to existing EULA, dezkit planes (no offense meant here, i like his work) should not be there unless he has written permission from their original mesh/testure creators, since now the IP is shared.

Don't get me wrong, it's not acceptable, but the above instance could be far worse (and I'm sure there will be other cases that are worse). If something I created was uploaded without my permission, I'd be pretty upset, even if they gave me credit. But the end result would still just be more people playing my mod. 99% of them wouldn't care who made it.

How could it be worse? Monetazing on other's ppl work you mean?

But like you said, there needs to be a more serious approach to content submission and approval for these situations to be avoided. I think it's worth striving for this than just giving up and resigning to the fact that a significant portion of Arma players are never going to know about PWS or can't be bothered, and continue to play vanilla, unknowingly limiting the amazing potential this game offers. It's easy for people like you and me to forget about those people, because we're already sitting pretty with our mods set up. But there is a large portion of people out there that can and will benefit from this official launcher bridging that gap.

i am of the opinion that a system to auto-download, synk with server and launch game while keeping things updated was solely needed. but this launcher does only part of that (thus far) and the real problem is, once more, but not for everyone, valves EULA. The current situation doesn't help with the TRUST:

towards Bis ability to maintain a steady hand on the problem, help with taking the necesarry steps towards a proper moderation and their ability to spead up a lenghty process of review when IP concerns are raised.

I for one think this should have happened from day1, especially since they knew about this direction from some time and they should have prepared for it, and secondly, because if they are serious about keeping this francise alive, they should also be serious about their modding community, and fortifing their trust in the new system should have been number 1 priority in that case

If typos: blame my ipad ;)

[Varanon 892]

Additional unhelpful sarcastic remark :rolleyes:

This can and does happen with every content submission site in existence. Either be part of the solution and report them, or keep your snarky comments to yourself.

While it is true that this can happen anywhere, the particular problem with Steam is that there is little the original author can do to get it removed.

[whisper 0]

And so begins the deluge of people uploading other people's addons to Steam Workshop, whether they like it or not...

Gee, nobody saw this coming. :rolleyes:

From what I read there : http://steamcommunity.com/id/eltyranos/myworkshopfiles/?section=collections&appid=107410 it's an upload from the NoFrag community to have the addons they use on their server in one package for their players. Apparently it got removed from SWS and should probably be hosted somewhere by themselves. Good luck having it removed from their server. They wanted to use the benefits of SWS, but that's apparently infringing some IP (I don't know, I don't see the hosted files anymore). Now the IP infringement is hosted on a third party. Ie : "problem" (if there is any in the first hand) NOT resolved.

[vegeta897 13]

I really dont understand this sort of mentality. It SHOULDN'T be part of the process, especially since these sort o f things have been flagged since this came under discussion, before A3 alpha.

It absolutely shouldn't. Like I said, there should be a much better system (or rather, a team of people in place) for preventing stolen work being distributed. My point was that, without that team, we all saw this coming. Keep in mind this point was just in response to the snarky comment, which was like saying "I told you so" when it was really just stating the obvious.

No community made tool will get the friction of an official tool, just as the vanilla should be stable and feature full, addons being there just to improve and complement instead of fixing. But that goes for their SDK tools as well, vs the community made tools

That just doesn't justify the population of steam no matter of the means used for the sake of creating that library..

An creator should be able to choose if and when he wants to host his work. Even without the existing eula, it should be his prerogative, and no one else to choose to skip/ignore Steam or any other service for whatever reason and without giving anyone an explanation.

I think you're missing the context of what I said. It's not my position to say whether these issues are too little or too big of a price to pay for getting BIS's game launcher off the ground. I was responding directly to the assertion that the launcher was unnecessary, and that PW6 could do anything it could do.

I also think this is a bit of an exageration, but that being said you cannot understand it unless you are the creator of original content/asset.

I think this has been said before, but acording to existing EULA, dezkit planes (no offense meant here, i like his work) should not be there unless he has written permission from their original mesh/testure creators, since now the IP is shared.

How could it be worse? Monetazing on other's ppl work you mean?

I do understand it. I create things, and I've had my work stolen (without credit, even) before. When I said it could be worse, I was referring to the above linked instance, in which full credit was given to the authors. It could be worse if the uploader claimed ownership.

While it is true that this can happen anywhere, the particular problem with Steam is that there is little the original author can do to get it removed.

Agreed, this needs to be improved.

From what I read there : http://steamcommunity.com/id/eltyranos/myworkshopfiles/?section=collections&appid=107410 it's an upload from the NoFrag community to have the addons they use on their server in one package for their players. Apparently it got removed from SWS and should probably be hosted somewhere by themselves. Good luck having it removed from their server. They wanted to use the benefits of SWS, but that's apparently infringing some IP (I don't know, I don't see the hosted files anymore). Now the IP infringement is hosted on a third party. Ie : "problem" (if there is any in the first hand) NOT resolved.

The issue with stolen content being uploaded on the workshop is that it's an official portal, and thus receives much more exposure than any community site would. I could host a mod on my personal website despite the author prohibiting distribution of said mod, but nobody would really care. Either way, it existing on their servers is leaving the topic of this thread.

[PuFu 4600]

From what I read there : http://steamcommunity.com/id/eltyranos/myworkshopfiles/?section=collections&appid=107410 it's an upload from the NoFrag community to have the addons they use on their server in one package for their players. Apparently it got removed from SWS and should probably be hosted somewhere by themselves. Good luck having it removed from their server. They wanted to use the benefits of SWS, but that's apparently infringing some IP (I don't know, I don't see the hosted files anymore). Now the IP infringement is hosted on a third party. Ie : "problem" (if there is any in the first hand) NOT resolved.

You don't really get it. If it is hosted someplace else, you are not infringing another person's IP, unless

1. stated otherwise in the addons readme (EULA/ terms of use / distribution methods)

2. the place you hosted has an EULA that grants them same IP rights as the creator. - case of point, everyone uploading to Steam Workshop addons that have NOT been created by themselves is infringing the original author IP rights and/or Valve's EULA. It is obviously not the case if I put them up on my google drive /dropbox or on my own dedicated server box. Or even on armaholic/PWS and alike

[whisper 0]

You don't really get it. If it is hosted someplace else, you are not infringing another person's IP, unless

1. stated otherwise in the addons readme (EULA/ terms of use / distribution methods)

2. the place you hosted has an EULA that grants them same IP rights as the creator. - case of point, everyone uploading to Steam Workshop addons that have NOT been created by themselves is infringing the original author IP rights and/or Valve's EULA. It is obviously not the case if I put them up on my google drive /dropbox or on my own dedicated server box. Or even on armaholic/PWS and alike

SWS EULA does NOT grants to Valve the same IP rights as the creator

[bad benson 1733]

It absolutely shouldn't. Like I said, there should be a much better system (or rather, a team of people in place) for preventing stolen work being distributed.

hmm. you mean like something we already have? like a community of actual people that are organised in a central place (here, armaholic forums etc) where new addons get sniffed at and evaluated and then the major community sites take actions based on that sniffing process?

i get some of your points but why are you so in love with the idea of steam workshop? is it just a fetish with having everything super integrated and literally having steam buttons ingame (i swear someone at BI has that fetish too). i mean as a content creator SWS looks like such a hassle for no reason and even as an addon user i just don't see the benefit besides single features (game integration) blown out of proportion. i go to armaholic everyday and download what i like. then i unpack it and start the game. it's not like my fingers are bleeding from that.

i mean sure doing it all from ingame is so super cool but what's the point, if more important stuff is not taken care of and might never be unless there would be a BI forums like involvement in the moderation, which basically means either dropping all old methods or simply having at least double the work for the people actually doing that work.

i'm just not getting some people's actual stance from this thread. i mean yes points i get like in a debate contest but what about your stance on being an asshole? yes legal agreement blabla. but what about the actual reality? why would you say that the guy who redistributes blastcore has a point when he tries to justifiy his shit using te CBA license?!?11 licenses won't fix anything. it's about respect and communication and not being a little asocial 4chan cunt.

seeing that this guy didn't bother with a simple replacement config just means he's desperate for this kind of attention. he could've easily just send OS a PM saying. "hey quick heads up, i'm making a little personal tweak/fix config that can be used with your mod". hell in that case the PM wouldn't even have to be needed if you really have to NOT talk to people. instead he just took the mod and uploaded it without ever talking to the author. and after still calling it blastcore he now calls it HopeCore FPDR

it's just ridiculous. misguided to say the least.

i know this thread is titled legal discussion but you'll have to face it. by focusing only on the legal aspect you simply doing what these people do. escaping into the legal aspect from the aspect of pure dickishness. let's be honest. what is a license gonna do if it's not properly enforced by anyone? nothing. that's what. it's the frikkin internet. it's not like you can call the cops on someone here. "the laws of your country don't apply to where i live".

the laws of what makes you a dick are pretty international though.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Bad Benson

[PuFu 4600]

SWS EULA does NOT grants to Valve the same IP rights as the creator

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.

OK, not the same, but pretty close. Why would anyone do that willingly is something i cannot grasp though

Do you know who are Valve affiliates for instance? Is it something you have control over?

[bad benson 1733]

well in the case of blastcore it seems like it kind of resolved. it now has been changed to a replacement config upon Dwarden's request or something. sadly HJ is not showing any understanding of what the issue is and keeps a pretty sarcastic and respectless tone towards OS. i don't get it. i haven't seen one case of him saying something positive and thankful towards OS and yet he seems to really enjoy the attention made possible by his work. very twisted individual..

[vegeta897 13]

i get some of your points but why are you so in love with the idea of steam workshop?

The same reason BIS are pushing it. More mod usage by more people, because it's going to be easier and have a much larger reach than any unofficial tool or website ever could. I've said this before and I'll say it again, people like you and me don't have that much of a personal reason to care about BIS's launcher and workshop mods, because we already know where to find mods and how to install them. But we are not everyone, and there is a huge amount of people that are either ignorant of the huge mod scene or simply can't be bothered. An official launcher with highly integrated and convenient mod loading is what will tap into that pool of players. I for one care about Arma's reputation as an awesome open platform to mod for. Too many people are not aware of it.

It's unfortunate that there are people throwing mud on the whole thing by uploading without permission, and that the EULA is too dodgy for many content creators to trust it, but even a smaller selection of mods is better than no mods, and the launcher can work with non SWS mods too (though auto-download requires SWS). To say this integration has no point is just being selfish. You may not have a use for it, but there is absolutely a large group of beneficiaries waiting out there, in their vanilla servers.

[bad benson 1733]

so you got some kind of love for the ignorant and jsut want them to be happy? :p

To say this integration has no point is just being selfish. You may not have a use for it, but there is absolutely a large group of beneficiaries waiting out there, in their vanilla servers.

uhm what? just because i was mocking the ingame button fetish doesn't mean i was saying game integration has no point at all. don't get ahead of yourself. the single most useful feature that the workshop could have is direct addon download from servers upon joining without/with quick game restart.

i don't see that feature and i will be happy when/if i see it, honestly. i'd love that as a modder (finally playing my own mods on random servers) and a user (lazy). so right now there is no advantage except download numbers. my whole point was exactly the opposite of what you just said i said.

at this point there is nothing that makes this more than a choice with added trouble. BUT. blastcore seems like it was handled fast and well. BUT². this was only possible based on the community "mechanics" in place. so as i said. SWS has to be fully community integrated (see what i did? ;)) to succeed. i was just ridiculing this point of view that SWS is so amazing and that justifies the problems it might have because it's so unpersonal since so far there are no special features really that other things don't have. only minor things maybe. the current type of integration is more like a design. like you can like the touch and feel of apple products and UIs. the needs of users and modders go far beyond that though.

and don't get me wrong. i will probably upload stuff on SWS soon. probably based on what just happened there.

[whisper 0]

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.

OK, not the same, but pretty close. Why would anyone do that willingly is something i cannot grasp though

Do you know who are Valve affiliates for instance? Is it something you have control over?

Check few pages back in this thread, there are heavy restrictions put in latest sections on what Valve can do to modify, create derivatives, etc.... from the work.

[vegeta897 13]

so you got some kind of love for the ignorant and jsut want them to be happy? :p

"I for one care about Arma's reputation as an awesome open platform to mod for. Too many people are not aware of it." More people knowing about modding in Arma means more mods in Arma. That's good for everyone.

uhm what? just because i was mocking the ingame button fetish doesn't mean i was saying game integration has no point at all. my whole point was exactly the opposite of what you just said i said.

Must be a miscommunication, because I was responding to you asking questions like "what is the point" and "why are you in love with this idea?" But if you in fact agree that integration is good, we're on the same page here. I agree that in its current state it's not enough, but I did make an effort to speak in future tense, so I'm sorry if you got the impression from me that I thought it was fine the way it is right now.

[bad benson 1733]

because I was responding to you asking questions like "what is the point"

please don't quote out of context. i clearly marked the part that comes after "what is the point, IF...(this part)" as important. other than that i agree.

[vegeta897 13]

To be honest, it was hard for me to follow that part of your post :p