Legal discussion regarding Steam Workshop

[John Spartan 89]

Ok I would like to add something to this discussion.

Yesterday it was Optical Shares great Blastcore mod that was stolen and uploaded to SW without his knowledge/permissions. Today I found a mod that contains Saul's and mine SU35 and FA18 modified and original PBO's modified/uploaded without any permission.

Besides many concerns that have been discussed here my point of view on all this - is mainly upon someone else stealing IP by uploading modified content to SW. I personally don't think that VALVE would ever really steal assets from mods published, there are many ways how they can obtain legal permissions to acquire content if they see good business in it.

So lets see how does it takes for SW moderators team to process a DMCA takedown notice on this case. It's not that Saul or me are against publishing our work on SW, when we started first project on A3 platform we already were fully aware of SW implementation for addons [the only thing that surprised me was the long time it took for BI to implement that].

Eventually we will release a ORIGIAL versions of our work on SW so they are available to everyone, and just because few new "modders" have no respect towards others work does not mean that all others have to be punished and restricted/forced to no choice how to obtain the content they wish/like [some will stick with Armaholic some will use SW]. We do this for fun and this legal thing actually overcomplicates a simple thing - sharing work with others within community.

What I would like to suggest maybe it's time for BI to add some guidelines and HOW TO publish your work on SW [i mean in the launcher, or within the addon builder or even within a game manual, to send a clear message abut the policy regarding IP rights of original content authors]

Someone says why use SW? There are really some benefits that eventually can be quite useful for the ARMA player base as long as the ARMA SW pages are moderated and organized well by BI and SW moderator's. The general idea of having all centralized is not bad. Once all features are delivered it can be useful platform for community if BI finishes the process they have started. The execution is poor. Companies like VALVE don't plan to invest much money in to moderation/assuring quality of this feature, they just need it as an "extra value/feature" to attract customers to their publishing platform so they can make more sales - pure business - and in fact one very smart business model.

What we can do - is to help BI and SW moderators to flag the IP right violations and also help educating people who wish to start doing they mods how to do a simple thing like a replacement config based on dependencies.

- it is easier to share and deliver updates with SW [depends of course how often you wish to release updates]

- it is easier for new players to use/download community content

[zooloo75 833]

The idea of making it easier for stupid people to do stupid things because they are too stupid to do those stupid things is stupid.

Edited July 17, 2014 by MadDogX
see rule rule §12

[bad benson 1733]

Besides many concerns that have been discussed here my point of view on all this - is mainly upon someone else stealing IP by uploading modified content to SW. I personally don't think that VALVE would ever really steal assets from mods published, there are many ways how they can obtain legal permissions to acquire content if they see good business in it.

exactly my view. while i can understand concerns about Valve, i don't think they are realistic. at least when it comes to normal sized addons. who knows about bigger things that could make money? someone brought up dayZ as an example.

[Dwarden 1124]

well I trying to pay attention

[John Spartan 89]

@Dwarden - what I would suggest since you are the author behind the SW implementation and BI spokesman maybe it's time to clearly state BI's policy on these concerns.

A lot of the addonmakers here expressed their concerns about their IP and this particular case where it ends up "stolen" by someone else. Having a full clarity on BI's plocy how you are planning to deal with such cases in future would make a big diffrenec, since some of the people who have some good quality mods are keeping them private just to protect their IP and there is no clear statement on this one just speculations.

As much as I don't like to admit I am like dinosaur and I am trying to adjust to ARMA being steam only, which was my main concern about lack of choice of platform. And now I don't want to put community users that like the mods Saul and me have done in the same situation I disliked myself - with no choice - Armaholic.com ONLY or no deal. But to continue and release more work for public [for free] I would expect this clear statement from you on this subject.

Since the first message you sent to HJ [person who stole OpticalShares IP] is very "soft" and did not have a great impact since his friend is the one who two days latter releases Saul's and mine IP modified without any permissions.

Such stamen/action plan in these IP theft cases will make t much easier for modders to decide;

- release the mod and accept that whatever happens, happens

- release content to small group of trusted people

- stop making mods at all on this platform

this is my personal opinion on this discussion, we will se how SW project turns out in this case, hope better than GTA or skyrim community pages.

[das attorney 857]

In my mind, the current process is flawed as all things are not equal.

It should be as easy to upload mods as it is to take down. Current process has not enough accountability. As user can upload and then only after ~whatever~ department @Steam has investigated in their own good time, then mod can be removed if proved to by a naughty upload. This gives little confidence to modder and also gives rise to problem that data/models from other games can easily be added to SWS and authors in other games communities can get ripped easily and may not even notice.

So either we should have process where:

A - Anyone can upload instantly, and anyone has power to block instantly (on legal grounds like IP theft).

Or:

B - Process is moderated so submissions are vetted by a BIS nominated party and then can also be removed by same party should they have slipped through the net.

Outcome A would be chaos and so would not be viable.

Outcome B would mean that there is an accountable person who has responsibility for the content of Arma SWS mods, and this would give modders confidence to submit work in knowledge that if unauthorised copies are submitted, then they will be filtered out before being approved and also if they do slip through the net, then they can be removed. A transparent process will give modders confidence in the system. Currently the process is muddy for removal and (too) easy for adding content.

These forums have a similar process for the Squads sub-forum as it was clusterfuck without some sort of pre-moderation in place.

I can see how making it easy for anyone to upload directly was a move to encourage modders to use the workshop, but imo, the ease of uploading is having the opposite effect so people are becoming cagey in uploading.

If BIS really want to encourage modders to use SWS, then they should help them out with some structure. Give them some confidence to use it safely, without it being the free-for-all it is at the moment.

I understand it would cost BIS some money in wages to pay someone to do this, but then the current issues with SWS seem to be sucking up a great chunk of their employees time anyway.

[Jona33 51]

Option B might be possible, e.g. in the DCS user files section a moderator checks all files before they appear on the site, however DCS had a much smaller modding community, whether or not it's practical could be tricky.

Option A is like you said, a terrible idea. I'm sure many people have seen Total Biscuit's video when a company claimed copyright infringement and immediately removed his review of their game because youtube does have a system similar to Option A, anyone can claim copyright and remove a video instantly.

[Dwarden 1124]

i just interesting some people claim theirs stuff can be stolen on SW but not from Armaholic or w/e else mod hub hosting site (moddb, nexus etc.)

it' false premise, there is always possibility someone will try to steal the work, no matter where and how and when and with what license you release it

in moment it's published on internet, such chance always exist ...

and it's unrealistic (humanly impossible) for us to manually sift thru all the mission and mod submissions ...

thus the option with reports and highlights of the bad apples stays the only manageable route

[PuFu 4591]

In my mind, the current process is flawed as all things are not equal.

It should be as easy to upload mods as it is to take down. Current process has not enough accountability. As user can upload and then only after ~whatever~ department @Steam has investigated in their own good time, then mod can be removed if proved to by a naughty upload. This gives little confidence to modder and also gives rise to problem that data/models from other games can easily be added to SWS and authors in other games communities can get ripped easily and may not even notice.

So either we should have process where:

A - Anyone can upload instantly, and anyone has power to block instantly (on legal grounds like IP theft).

Or:

B - Process is moderated so submissions are vetted by a BIS nominated party and then can also be removed by same party should they have slipped through the net.

Outcome A would be chaos and so would not be viable.

Outcome B would mean that there is an accountable person who has responsibility for the content of Arma SWS mods, and this would give modders confidence to submit work in knowledge that if unauthorised copies are submitted, then they will be filtered out before being approved and also if they do slip through the net, then they can be removed. A transparent process will give modders confidence in the system. Currently the process is muddy for removal and (too) easy for adding content.

These forums have a similar process for the Squads sub-forum as it was clusterfuck without some sort of pre-moderation in place.

I can see how making it easy for anyone to upload directly was a move to encourage modders to use the workshop, but imo, the ease of uploading is having the opposite effect so people are becoming cagey in uploading.

If BIS really want to encourage modders to use SWS, then they should help them out with some structure. Give them some confidence to use it safely, without it being the free-for-all it is at the moment.

I understand it would cost BIS some money in wages to pay someone to do this, but then the current issues with SWS seem to be sucking up a great chunk of their employees time anyway.

What could work for workshop is needing a thread on these forums as well, and a link towards the workshop here as well in the complete section. This would make things a lot easier for addons, being able to link some things together. I don't see it working for obvious reason though, but as you said, option A is sucking very hard at this moment

[zooloo75 833]

i just interesting some people claim theirs stuff can be stolen on SW but not from Armaholic or w/e else mod hub hosting site (moddb, nexus etc.)

it' false premise, there is always possibility someone will try to steal the work, no matter where and how and when and with what license you release it

in moment it's published on internet, such chance always exist ...

and it's unrealistic (humanly impossible) for us to manually sift thru all the mission and mod submissions ...

thus the option with reports and highlights of the bad apples stays the only manageable route

True, but the targeted audience is far greater on the SWS than some unknown or small site.

As for Armaholic, we have more control over the content and have a community that knows itself and can easily sniff out stolen content.

With the SWS, the pros are not worth the cons. The only pro is more downloads. The cons; well I won't repeat what I already predicted and that it had happened.

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk

Edited July 17, 2014 by zooloo75

[Sniperwolf572 758]

True, but the targeted audience is far greater on the SWS than some unknown or small site.

As for Armaholic, we have more control over the content and have a community that knows itself and can easily sniff out stolen content.

With the SWS, the pros are not worth the cons. The only pro is more downloads. The cons; well I won't repeat what I already predicted and that it had happened.

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk

A grand total of 2 things so far happened by people due to stupidity and ignorance rather than malice. Someone uploaded a modpack of some sort, and a guy did not know how to do a config replacement, because let's be honest, config manipulation and extending is not explained well anywhere. Action to remove those items seemed swift so far.

What Dwarden is saying that for someone to STEAL your work and profit from it, it does not have to be on Steam Workshop. Do you really think exposure to audience matters when someone wants to steal a specific thing? A simple Google search will yield any download from any place they need models from.

Let's imagine I'm a thief and I want to steal your model, I don't plan on using it within the community, but to sell it for millions and make myself rich off your back. Which seems like the worst case scenario. I already know it exists from a simple Google search. My options are:

1) Buy the game, download and install the game, download the thing from steam workshop, rip into the PBO.

2) Download and install PWS, discover how it works and if I need the game to download addons, download it, rip into the PBO.

3) Click on the download link on Armaholic/RapidShare/Dropbox/Whatever, rip into the PBO.

Path of least resistance is the direct download.

Disclaimer: Nothing but love for Armaholic here, just pointing out the obvious.

What the actual problem is, is what Rock is arguing and it's this action might be giving Valve and Co. rights he does not want them to have, and with their actions, people might be unwittingly giving Valve such rights which they have no right to give. So, can that even hold up in court if it came down to it?

Edited July 17, 2014 by Sniperwolf572

[mr burns 131]

i just interesting some people claim theirs stuff can be stolen on SW but not from Armaholic or w/e else mod hub hosting site (moddb, nexus etc.)

it' false premise, there is always possibility someone will try to steal the work, no matter where and how and when and with what license you release it

in moment it's published on internet, such chance always exist ...

and it's unrealistic (humanly impossible) for us to manually sift thru all the mission and mod submissions ...

thus the option with reports and highlights of the bad apples stays the only manageable route

§19) Posting addon/mod other content without permission

For many years this community has been known as the premium addon/mod creating community, people work tirelessly and in great detail to create fantastic addons/mods/missions/campaigns to release for free so that everyone benefits, including Bohemia Interactive. There are a few simple rules in place to provide the respect to these creative people/groups that they deserve:

The first and most fundamental rule is that you must seek permission to alter someone's work, to mirror it or use it in any way other than for personal use. No permission, no editing, no mirroring, no adding to your mod pack, no editing and sharing around your private squad, none of that is acceptable.

Obviously we cannot unfortunately control what people do outside of these forums, however on these forums you must follow this rule, if a person/team post a thread to share an addon/mod using content from someone else without permission and we receive a complaint then the mod thread will be closed until the issue is resolved and the forum member(s) risks being permanently banned from these forums for taking someone's work without permission.

This isn't just limited to re-using content in addons/mods/missions however, it's not acceptable to edit someone's work without permission and then to post screenshots of it on the forums (even if the edited addon/mod is purely for personal use), it's also not acceptable to edit someone's work, or use someone's work in any way that you don't have permission for and then to create videos which you post on these forums, doing any of the above without the permission of the original creators risks a permanent ban, for individuals, for whole mod teams or squads.

Extend this rule to steam, remove posting permission* from people who don´t follow? Bananadance!

*(Publisher makes that impossible? Flagging users steam internal.. idk)

[zooloo75 833]

Extend this rule to steam, remove posting permission* from people who don´t follow? Bananadance!

*(Publisher makes that impossible? Flagging users steam internal.. idk)

Agreed.

[bad benson 1733]

it'S true that some people have the concern of stuff simply being taken. and i agree that that is not at all a SWS specific thing.

but i think as several examples showed, the real problem is not "stealing" as some people call it but redistribution of entire things. something that is totally out of place here on the forums and the community sites and yet suddenly is supposed to be no big deal when it comes to SWS...nope.

Someone uploaded a modpack of some sort, and a guy did not know how to do a config replacement

if that was the only thing that happened then i think the outrage would've been not nearly as big. i don't know if you really followed the blastcore thing but the guy redistributing was talking badly about OS the whole time and always seeming to see a right for him to not just fix the thing but take it over. it's pretty clear if you read what he himself writes that he doesn't understand the concept of making something yourself.

i personally would not have reacted to it at all if it would've been just a technical problem or pure ignorance.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Bad Benson

[John Spartan 89]

TRUE - content theft is almost impossible to prevent once you choose to release it anywhere on the public domain

AGREE - "§19) Posting addon/mod other content without permission" extend this rules to SW A3 discussions section with a proper moderator support

As for IP theft on Armaholic - this is where I disagree, so far I wont go in deeper discussion about this, I'll just say that I have full confidence in Foxhound and his team that it will be dealt with if it happens.

Also just got thinking - two scenarios, maybe someone can give me more legal explanation or his understanding of this:

Situation 1: content uploaded to SW without original authors permission, violating licence by which content released. If original author files a DMCA takedown request Valve eventually have to take the content down or leave them selves open to a legal liability since person who stole the content did no owns IP and therefore can not transfer it/share it with Valve. Possible outcome within a reasonable period of time stolen content will end up removed.

Situation 2: content uploaded to SW without original authors permission, violating licence by which content released. Original author also has uploaded his IP/content to SW by himself. If original author files a DMCA takedown request on illegally modified/distributed content to be removed Valve can react on that as it sees fit since they already have shared rights to use this content IP granted by original author earlier when he agreed to SW terms on conditions. In this case high possibility that original author's rights will be ignored unless BI and SW have a strict policy on such IP theft cases in place.

Just to summarize, so far here on BI forums and Armaholic we had this full confidence in moderators that authors rights will be respected/enforced, where on SW moderator team still have a long road ahead to build up such level of trust. What I personally would like to know is BI's policy on how these IP thefts will be handled once they happen, I totally agree that there is no way we can prevent them fully, but at least within Arma community we can limit such behaviour. What I want to know is how this is gonna be dealt with if even possible since SW is legally Valve owned resource and therefore BI is limited in what can be done on this matter.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

if that was the only thing that happened then i think the outrage would've been not nearly as big. i don't know if you really followed the blastcore thing but the guy redistributing was talking badly about OS the whole time and always seeming to see a right for him to not just fix the thing but take it over. it's pretty clear if you read what he himself writes that he doesn't understand the concept of making something yourself.

i personally would not have reacted to it at all if it would've been just a technical problem or pure ignorance.

People say and do stupid things to justify their own behavior once confronted or forced to defend their actions, if it's one thing I learned from this community, it's that.

If he had talked shit about OS and then made the config replacement pack in the first place instead of repacking it, we wouldn't be having this (addon theft) discussion about him, right?

[Guest]

So now we are the site enabling the easiest ripping (you forgot to name all other file hosting sites people upload to and link to in their topics on which you also have to click a downloadlink if you have managed to pass throuh all crap popups, ads and waiting times, but indeed thats no fun)

Lets post a banana to celebrate reaching new highs! or better lets post 2 :yay:

You know what, you can all post whatever you want about Armaholic. This minute I stopped carring and I wont check this thread any further. Must put a smile on the face of enough people seeing all this crap references about my website and/or my integrity.

(yes, I take it personal as my integrity is personal and Armaholic is my personal project run with the help of only a few others)

** runs away from this crap thread.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

...

As for IP theft on Armaholic - this is where I disagree, so far I wont go in deeper discussion about this, I'll just say that I have full confidence in Foxhound and his team that it will be dealt with if it happens.

Also just got thinking - two scenarios, maybe someone can give me more legal explanation or his understanding of this:

...

How will Foxhound help you once you find your models on TurboSquid or on sites that are not a part of our community? How will you even know which hosting service the model was ripped from?

Sites like Armaholic and PWS can protect your interests by removing offending content from their sites, but that's it. Don't expect them to fight your legal battles with people who rip your content to sell for a quick buck and whatnot.

---------- Post added at 17:42 ---------- Previous post was at 17:35 ----------

So now we are the site enabling the easiest ripping (you forgot to name all other file hosting sites people upload to and link to in their topics on which you also have to click a downloadlink if you have managed to pass throuh all crap popups, ads and waiting times, but indeed thats no fun)

Lets post a banana to celebrate reaching new highs! or better lets post 2 :yay:

You know what, you can all post whatever you want about Armaholic. This minute I stopped carring and I wont check this thread any further. Must put a smile on the face of enough people seeing all this crap references about my website and/or my integrity.

(yes, I take it personal as my integrity is personal and Armaholic is my personal project run with the help of only a few others)

** runs away from this crap thread.

Fucks sake. :j:

Yes, I did forget to mention them, all those sites are also easy targets for anyone wanting to rip something out of a PBO when you can download a file directly. Dropbox, etc. But you can't really expect me to list every single direct download provider, can you?

I apologise for specifically singling you out. But if you want to interpret my words as me attacking you and your work, I can't stop you, but I explicitly stated that is not the case.

[zooloo75 833]

In the end it's our (modders) rights being violated. No justification can negate that fact.

[Opticalsnare 12]

All we need to do is work out how to stop people accessing or unpacking the .pbo once its been packed, a password or encryption key would be required that only the owner or creator has access to for them to be able to unpack the file properly.

I have decided to employ some countermeasures in stopping people editing my work. I was thinking in bed last nite as you do and thought what would really mess up or make it very hard for me if i was trying to edit someone elses work and then i fiqured it out, I will change all the IDs and References relating to my effects to completely random numbers and letters based on a encrypted file which contains the correct names, without the decryption the class effects will be just a babble of numbers like 0278743b1 what effect is that for, only i will know because on my encrypted file i can simply select decrypt as i have a private key on my end and then i will be able to see what that ID actually means. The other person will have to go thru hundreds of effects and lines with no reference to what that effect is for and start the game each time to test for changes to see what its for and that will take fkin ages. To me it takes 2 seconds.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

All we need to do is work out how to stop people accessing or unpacking the .pbo once its been packed, a password or encryption key would be required that only the owner or creator has access to for them to be able to unpack the file properly.

While, yes, this will make it much harder to crack open pbo's (BI uses .ebo for the DLC's which seems to be exactly what you're asking for), but in the end the game still requires assets to be loaded and understandable for the engine. For persistent people, things can still be ripped out of the game by force while it's running. For example, that special tool for ripping out models/textures which I'm not going to name and within the BI community, binarization used to a method of "protection" until people made tools to bypass that.

I have decided to employ some countermeasures in stopping people editing my work. I was thinking in bed last nite as you do and thought what would really mess up or make it very hard for me if i was trying to edit someone elses work and then i fiqured it out, I will change all the IDs and References relating to my effects to completely random numbers and letters based on a encrypted file which contains the correct names, without the decryption the class effects will be just a babble of numbers like 0278743b1 what effect is that for, only i will know because on my encrypted file i can simply select decrypt as i have a private key on my end and then i will be able to see what that ID actually means. The other person will have to go thru hundreds of effects and lines with no reference to what that effect is for and start the game each time to test for changes to see what its for and that will take fkin ages. To me it takes 2 seconds.

That method is called obfuscation, and in a very basic way it can look like this. While yes, it makes it harder, it does not necessarily make it impossible. After all, you're still writing code that needs to work. :)

Unfortunately, security of things like this is sadly a difficult topic with very little bulletproof solutions. As long as the games run on computers you don't trust, there's not much else to be done besides making it take more effort and time, which certain people will not be willing to commit.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Sniperwolf572

[Opticalsnare 12]

They wanna steal my mod, im gonna steal their time.

[zooloo75 833]

They wanna steal my mod, im gonna steal their time.

If you need help or want me to write up a private obfuscator for you, let me know.

[HJohnson 16]

In the end it's our (modders) rights being violated. No justification can negate that fact.

I don't want to say that you are completely wrong, but ...

Originally there were only two players in the Arma mod community. People who dealt with learning .sqf and how to manipulate Arma to their needs and made things like JSRS, Blastcore, ACE, JTD_Fire and then the people who used them. The key thing about the latter is that they always had issues. "Man, ACE would be better if they didn't do XYZ" or "Why doesn't JSRS do XYZ" or "Why do I get this error each time LMNOP". Back then it was up to the original creators to patch the content and or private groups to administer their own patches. For example, FAR_Revive was made by one of the founding members of the group I play with, but he has all but stopped playing since the beta. Does this mean we continued to play with the old public version of FAR_Rev? No! A couple other members took up the challenge and fixed bugs and added in new features. FAR_Rev Comfy Branch and A3G Medical were born. Does this mean that the original creator's rights were violated? No. A mod was made of another mod. No tears were shed, no swears were said, and everyone went about their day because a new player had entered the Arma modding scene to help equalize things.

These are people who don't make their own original content (at least not at first), but fix and manipulate the content that already exists. CrustAir is an addon that changes the flight and weapon characteristics of all known air assets in Arma 3. Does this mean that he should go and learn to make his own F18 because he doesn't like how it flys or sounds? No. Would you make your own M4 because RH_M4's textures are too clean? No! With these new players in the Arma community you are going to see a great balancing. No more will you have mods go months without updates, someone else will pick it up. No more will you have weapons that have problems, because a third party patch will be out for it soon. That error you get for shooting a modded gun while using S.O.S? Gone! Because someone made a stand alone patch. At the same time, this is going to help ease new people into the mod community who want to make content but don't have the time or skill to make a full sized big mod. This doesn't stop the first party modders from doing what they wish with their mods, but they shouldn't be upset a third party is also co-developing.

This is for the better, to create a better mod community, no matter how many jimmies it may rustle.

[smokedog3para 365]

i don't hold up much hope after i saw the russian hack to open up all a3 mlods on you tube and also ive seen the a3 hunter in spintires http://www.oovee.co.uk/forum/files/file/175-hunter/