Legal discussion regarding Steam Workshop

[Guest]

Besides most of us have the clause below or similar in our EULAs:

"DISTRIBUTION: You may distribute the original .PBO files within this download freely, so long as the PBO files are unmodified and the Readme and EULA files are included. Under the following conditions:..."

Which allows people to mirror and rehost our packages freely. Most of the current licenses don't factor in services like Steam Workshop etc. I'm in the middle of redrafting ours to exclude SWS use at the moment.

Thats also a good point :)

I have seen licenses where it was written it was not allowed to redistribute and in those cases I always ask the author. Yep, I actually read licenses......

Not to mention the fact I think these days at least 75% (if not more) of the authors whos work is on Armaholic actually either sent us their work directly or sent us a notice about it to mirror. The rest most of the times thank us for the mirror afterwards.

All this effort we put in to make sure everyone is happy about our work to publish their work.....cant wait to see the fast and fair response from the SWS crew to remove illegally uploaded content like we do.

[zooloo75 833]

Thats also a good point :)

I have seen licenses where it was written it was not allowed to redistribute and in those cases I always ask the author. Yep, I actually read licenses......

Not to mention the fact I think these days at least 75% (if not more) of the authors whos work is on Armaholic actually either sent us their work directly or sent us a notice about it to mirror. The rest most of the times thank us for the mirror afterwards.

All this effort we put in to make sure everyone is happy about our work to publish their work.....cant wait to see the fast and fair response from the SWS crew to remove illegally uploaded content like we do.

Try not to let the unappreciative people get to you Foxhound. Modders of this community should be grateful of the services brought upon by Armaholic and PW6.

[PuFu 4591]

Armaholic and PlayWithSix may not be literally stealing your work but they do infringe on peoples copyrights. They redistribute peoples mod without asking the creator then make money of other peoples content via ads and are able to spam the forums vis a vis "service". I think the whole steam workshop discussion pales to that kind of sleezy.

good grief lad!

did you really shit this post? do you happen to know the cost associated with hosting hundreds of gigs and hundreds more of traffic vs web ads revenue?

ungrateful and ignorant...niced

[vegeta897 13]

It's possible he was just playing devil's advocate to prove a point.

Example response: Do you happen to know the legal risks associated with being a large corporation hosting millions of pieces of user-created content? There are a lot, and they need a EULA to grant them rights to protect themselves. These rights could in theory be abused, but that does not mean they will be. Without these rights, Valve runs a very real risk of being sued by people exploiting loopholes.

[defk0n_NL 2]

Anybody is free to ask us to remove their content and in such case we will make sure the content will never again be available on Armaholic.

Please, leave us out of this Steam discussion, we try to make a community effort here and if you dont like it feel free to contact me asap and all your work is removed from Armaholic within a minute!

It really amazes me to read such crap posts.....people use file hosters who make millions and believe me.....they have not a single community effort thought in mind....yet we have ads to pay the bills and people have problems with those ads, block them and complain/refer to them as kind of a complaint.

Maybe its time I add another ad so I can pay a lawyer to write use a proper license agreement.....you know.........like Steam.

[add on]

Oh, and we have permission to post our mirrors here. Since I am no longer a moderator you can just add me to the ignore list so you wont be bothered with my spam.

And, if you think nobody should be allowed to post mirrors here make a suggestion to the BI forum moderators. It was done like that in the past and that worked out kind of well.

Free the BI forums of effort spam!!!!!

This is a legal discussion and not a community feel good story, legally speaking you have liabilities because you are not asking the creator for permission. Wether they can DMCA request after the fact is besides the point. If your in the business of filehosting you should know better.

and by spam i am referring to the the strict sense of the word. "Unsollicited Contact"

[Guest]

See my other post! They submit their content themselves, inform us and ask us to mirror and otherwise thank us afterwards.

So you can take your liability where the sun does not shine.

As for "Unsollicited Contact", ...... I guess you heard a word and thought you should throw it in as well?

[defk0n_NL 2]

See my other post! They submit their content themselves, inform us and ask us to mirror and otherwise thank us afterwards.

So you can take your liability where the sun does not shine.

As for "Unsollicited Contact", ...... I guess you heard a word and thought you should throw it in as well?

Well im seriously questioning your integrity at this point. You know aswell as i do that you do mirror mods without explicit persmission unless specifically stated otherwise.

(Not saying thats always the case)

I think alot of people appreciate your efforts including me and i doubt anyone in the arma community havent heard of Armaholic so dont see where your hostility is coming from.

Im just finding it weird that you mirror peoples mods without their permission. Why cant you just link to their mirrors instead.

[rksl-rock 1300]

Well im seriously questioning your integrity at this point...

After over 10 years in this community Foxhound is one of 4 or 5 people i trust implicitly. For you to question his integrity is frankly laughable. He's proven his adherence to the "rules" and demonstrated his integrity time and time again with very little thanks. Without him we'd not have the community we have now.

[haleks 8204]

Im just finding it weird that you mirror peoples mods without their permission. Why cant you just link to their mirrors instead.

But they do have their permission.

And if Armaholic only linked to author's mirrors, half of them would be dead today (the links, not the authors).

[jeza 5415]

Foxhound is one of 4 or 5 people i trust implicitly.Without him we'd not have the community we have now.

I would strongly like to second that.

[roshnak 41]

I don't understand what any of this Armaholic stuff has to do with Steam Workshop.

[Tonci87 163]

After over 10 years in this community Foxhound is one of 4 or 5 people i trust implicitly. For you to question his integrity is frankly laughable. He's proven his adherence to the "rules" and demonstrated his integrity time and time again with very little thanks. Without him we'd not have the community we have now.

This^ times 10

Some people.....

[das attorney 857]

FH is a good guy - I trust him and he's honest about what he does which is more than can be said of some people frequenting this forum.

[BL1P 35]

Yer making mods pay to use is a shit idea and this thread proves it.

[defk0n_NL 2]

After over 10 years in this community Foxhound is one of 4 or 5 people i trust implicitly. For you to question his integrity is frankly laughable. He's proven his adherence to the "rules" and demonstrated his integrity time and time again with very little thanks. Without him we'd not have the community we have now.

Your trust is yours to give, That should not give someone community wide authority over redistributing any which mod without permissions.

Edited July 11, 2014 by defk0n_NL

[zooloo75 833]

Your trust is yours to give, That should not give someone community wide authority over redistributing any which mod without permissions.

Well, if you'd like to be an indirect cause towards the death of the community, be my guest.

[defk0n_NL 2]

Well, if you'd like to be an indirect cause towards the death of the community, be my guest.

Its not about killing the community its about the hypocrisy. The standards you walk by are the standards you accept.

If someone does not include a license with their addon that should not make them fair game to redistribute their shit.

Edited July 11, 2014 by defk0n_NL

[roshnak 41]

What does any of that have to do with Steam Workshop, though?

[Guest]

Well im seriously questioning your integrity at this point.

LOL, this community is full of people who deliberatly, willingly, openly and constantly do everything they can to use the work of others in ways so only they themselves get better from it. Yet you question my integrity.

That comment for me was enough to know your not worth any further replies and your just trolling around.

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.

[.kju 3239]

Sad to see you take this personal Foxhound.

I think he makes a very good point:

It could be that you, Play withSIX and others hosting community made content could be legally challenged or worse held liable.

If that's a possibility or not, I am not able to judge and it certainly depends on the very specifics of the case.

However I doubt you would want to get a DMCA request, a cease and desist letter, or a legal challenge at court.

This happened to a lot of people in Germany having ads on their website and as such become a business in legal terms.

So again it think its the benefit of all, if this topic becomes more clear.

[pettka 694]

The topic of this thread is Steam Workshop. Definitely not Armaholic nor PlayWithSix, no matter how great service they do to community. Try to leave them out of this topic as their valuable work is not even remotely related to legal situation of Steam Workshop. Do not try to offend the great people who built the right community or there are going to be bananas flying all around :icon_evil:

[rksl-rock 1300]

Your trust is yours to give, That should not give someone community wide authority over redistributing any which mod without permissions.

LMAO!

I really do think you are missing the point. For more than a decade, community sites have been the backbone of this community without the need to sign away any rights to them. They have worked with addon makers to spread news and distribute their content. Nearly every addon makers out there will welcome their mirrors. I know I have. Nearly every addon maker that has a EULA/Readme has a line in there allowing redistribution of their content with some conditions. As Foxhound says, if you don't want to use this service all you have to do is tell him. There is no "community wide authority", permission is given by 99% of addon and mission makers to redistribute content (without having to sign and agreement to share rights) just read the EULAs.

Q - What is the advantage of sites and people like Foxhound?

A- Because they do it for the "love of the community" they aren't expecting to make money out of it. They want to play with our addons as much as the rest of us and they treat those addons with the level of respect that is impossible to find elsewhere. And these sites are gathering points for the community. People have built trust in them. People have built partnerships with them.

Q - What makes Community hosting better than Workshop?

A - Because, I know that if i need my addons removed/updated, offensive comments I can goto Foxhound and others and get it done. I don't have to fight to establish ownership of content I make. I also know that ArmAholic will not allow illegally ported content and if it does get put on their site it will be removed immediately once reported. I wont have to fight for months to protect my rights.

I'm not blind to the advantages of the Steam Workshop. In principle it could be an amazing boon to the community. But the fact i have to sign that contract to allow irrevocable rights and i have to fight each and every time to prove that i have rights puts me off using it.

---------- Post added at 10:02 ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 ----------

The topic of this thread is Steam Workshop. Definitely not Armaholic nor PlayWithSix, no matter how great service they do to community. Try to leave them out of this topic as their valuable work is not even remotely related to legal situation of Steam Workshop. Do not try to offend the great people who built the right community or there are going to be bananas flying all around :icon_evil:

It is inevitable there will be comparisons. Community vs Steam legal issues. I agree though that it has taken a sadly personal twist.

[das attorney 857]

Agree with all points made by Rock there.

In addition, if making money was FoxHounds primary objective, he could have reacted badly to the whole SWS thing as it would affect the amount of people visiting AH for downloads. Instead, he chooses to continue to support the community professionally and without compaint. In my book this demonstation of integrity deserves my respect, and wild accusations like this should be shot down as swiftly as possible (even though the discussion continues to digress).

The problem I have with this sort of behaviour on the internet is that; if we were having this conversation in a pub (for example), you could defeat the other persons logic in a matter of moments. The conversation could move on and everyone would be happy.

On the internet however, it's a permanent record of statement and some idiot(s) will come along later and then these accusations will resonate with them. They won't have the time and inclination to read the entire discourse and then they go off to use this kind of disinformation to fuel whatever agenda they have. In short, idiots on the internet have a much more powerful voice than in real life.

Sorry Pettka for going OT but I think this one should play out to it's logical conclusion.

[Tonci87 163]

Ok, now that we all have declared our love for FH and Armaholic lets get back to the topic.

Question:

What if someone makes a really awesome mod that becomes the next great thing? He distributes it over SWS and Arma 3 sells like crazy just because of the mod. It is so profitable that he decides to make a full game using assets and framework of the mod. Does he have to sign a contract with Valve since they now own the content?

[Kerc Kasha 102]

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.