Steam workshop policing is meant to work how?

[.kju 3245]

As far as I understand only authors are allowed to upload their own work (or if you get explicit permission maybe?).

With the new workshop API now supporting multiple files with unlimited size,

we are to see more and more people upload mods there - even if not their own.

As such I would imagine these are not allowed?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=422632090&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=422320914&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424595785&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=423628774&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=423148901&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=425665761&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426531289&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=427062138&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=417808747&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=412339064&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386308758&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380892330&searchtext=

As there is no file list on the page available, right now its hard to judge/check without downloading each entry..

Is anyone from BI in charge to enforce the SWS rules? How is this supposed to work?

[Greenfist 1863]

Doesn't most mod licences explicitly allow sharing and redistributing as long as it's not commercial, proper credit is given and the content unmodified?

You can try to report obvious infringements and see what happens.

At least dev Gekon seems to be active around SWS. Dunno if this is his domain though.

But yeah, this will get out of hand.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Greenfist

[dunedain 48]

Yeah, this is gonna be messy if every single community uploads its pack on the workshop. Maybe it would be wise to add an extra step to large uploads, like a manual authorisation by moderators on Steam.

Although it's worth noting they most likely wouldn't bother doing this if it wasn't for some modders turning their nose up at Steam and its workshop.

The workshop has a collection functionality that does its job well and certainly would be more convenient for them.

Edited April 18, 2015 by dunedain

[PuFu 4600]

Doesn't most mod licences explicitly allow sharing and redistributing as long as it's not commercial, proper credit is given and the content unmodified?

You can try to report obvious infringements and see what happens.

At least dev Gekon seems to be active around SWS. Dunno if this is his domain though.

But yeah, this will get out of hand.

Acording to Steam EULA:

6. USER GENERATED CONTENT

A. General Provisions

"User Generated Content" means any content you make available to other users through your use of multi-user features of Steam, or to Valve or its affiliates through your use of the Content and Services or otherwise.

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, 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. This license is granted to Valve for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights and may be terminated if Valve is in breach of the license and has not cured such breach within fourteen (14) days from receiving notice from you sent to the attention of the Valve Legal Department at the applicable Valve address noted on this Privacy Policy page. The termination of said license does not affect the rights of any sub-licensees pursuant to any sub-license granted by Valve prior to termination of the license. Valve is the sole owner of the derivative works created by Valve from your Content, and is therefore entitled to grant licenses on these derivative works. If you use Valve cloud storage, you grant us a license to store your information as part of that service. We may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

D. Representations and Warranties

You represent and warrant to us that you have sufficient rights in all User Generated Content to grant Valve and other affected parties the licenses described under A. and B. above or in any license terms specific to the applicable Workshop-Enabled App or Workshop page. This includes, without limitation, any kind of intellectual property rights or other proprietary or personal rights affected by or included in the User Generated Content. In particular, with respect to Workshop Contributions, you represent and warrant that the Workshop Contribution was originally created by you (or, with respect to a Workshop Contribution to which others contributed besides you, by you and the other contributors, and in such case that you have the right to submit such Workshop Contribution on behalf of those other contributors).

This is not really a simple hosting website. Unless you are orignal owner of the files, you CANNOT LEGALLY upload anything to steam, be it personal mod pack or otherwise...

@kju - i would love to know the same thing. I already forced a removal of RHS from steam this week, i am sure it won't be the last

I am certain a single average user cannot fill up a huge amount of DMCA complains per week

Edited April 18, 2015 by PuFu

[Dwarden 1125]

first there is report button on the workshop itself (but that will take time to notice as huge amount of issues weekly)

second there is our support@bistudio.com (this may take time to process as lot of issues weekly)

third you can contact me directly (email is my nickname on @bistudio.com or via Skype)

you can expect we will be improving / tuning our moderation of Workshop for Arma 3

ways to use compilations, collections, dependencies etc. will be revealed in future

[.kju 3245]

Thanks Dwarden.

How about we use this thread for reports?

This way there is transparency about what has been reported and if/when action is taken.

Also does BI itself have staff to check uploads to the workshop?

At least for mods it should be feasible for BI to do some basic checks and not solely rely on community reports.

[Dwarden 1125]

atm it's mainly me checking the WS items ...

the issue atm. is that there is something broken in STEAM WS content moderation

and as result one can't tell why was something reported, by who etc.

so all I have is huge list of reported items

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Although it's worth noting they most likely wouldn't bother doing this if it wasn't for some modders turning their nose up at Steam and its workshop.

The workshop has a collection functionality that does its job well and certainly would be more convenient for them.

The creator of the content has the right to not upload it to Steam. In uploading anything to the workshop, you essentially sign away all the rights to it (or give Valve a copy of the rights you have, basically) and they can do whatever they want with it as long as they say it's connected with promoting Steam.

[almanzo 144]

This is outrageous and ugly, I would also encourage people to leave comments explaining why you have reported what you have reported. I think the main cause of this is people thinking it's convinient without realizing that what they are doing is wrong.

[Gekon 2]

There is not much we can do from the technology perspective to limit uploading content that infringes copyrights (without steering away from the low-obstacle approach of uploading things to workshop).

Having said that, we can ask Valve to help solve such issues in Steam backend, somehow. (and wait :) ). We have some ideas, but let me ask you anyway:

What would be the best tellers to recognize stolen content without launching the game?

Edited April 21, 2015 by Gekon

[.kju 3245]

The list of files would be a good start. Hashes (ie md5) could be useful as well.

The main focus aside from that should be a clear and simple message (probably as part of the publisher) to inform people clearly,

that they are only allowed to upload their own content (or with explicit permission for steam if that is feasible with the SWS license/agreement anyway),

and to make it clear that uploading their personal community/clan pack is generally not possible (and mention that Steam has collections for that - limited

to the content available in SWS currently).

To make it easier to follow what gets uploaded, email notification or a rss/atom feed for BI (or even anyone) should be quite helpful as well.

(A short summary of uploader, size of upload, file list, description is probably what one would want to have in there)

[PuFu 4600]

the most important is a visible list of file with md5

Besides, as i was telling dwarden on skype, it would be advisable to put down a message via one of your opreps, and/or social media, regarding the fact that SWS EULA has certain limitations regarding content one can upload, as well as explaining the difference between uploading everything and using collections

[Mickyleitor 183]

Hi guys,

I will only remark some interest point BI have to explain clearly, sorry for hijacking this post but It is closely related...

First at all, the EULA of what's steam workshop agreement says:

6. USER GENERATED CONTENT

A. General Provisions

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, 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. This license is granted to Valve for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights and may be terminated if Valve is in breach of the license and has not cured such breach within fourteen (14) days from receiving notice from you sent to the attention of the Valve Legal Department at the applicable Valve address noted on this Privacy Policy page. The termination of said license does not affect the rights of any sub-licensees pursuant to any sub-license granted by Valve prior to termination of the license. Valve is the sole owner of the derivative works created by Valve from your Content, and is therefore entitled to grant licenses on these derivative works. If you use Valve cloud storage, you grant us a license to store your information as part of that service. We may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

If you provide Valve with any feedback or suggestions about Steam, the Content and Services, or any Valve products or services, Valve is free to use the feedback or suggestions however it chooses, without any obligation to account to you

So, this is a "General Provisions" and all of you are in accordance with me that if that's the price we will have to pay for a content we are developing during YEARS then not, I'll not grant all these rights to Valve. It is as simple as that.

In the point B, we can read that all these action taken by Valve can be done under certain situations (BUT definitely they can and have these right)

B. Content Uploaded to the Steam Workshop

Some games or applications available on Steam ("Workshop-Enabled Apps") allow you to create User Generated Content based on or using the Workshop-Enabled App, and to submit that User Generated Content (a “Workshop Contributionâ€) to one or more Steam Workshop web pages. Workshop Contributions can be viewed by the Steam community, and for some categories of Workshop Contributions users may be able to interact with, download or purchase the Workshop Contribution. In some cases, Workshop Contributions may be considered for incorporation by Valve or a third-party developer into a game or into a Subscription Marketplace.

You understand and agree that Valve is not obligated to use, distribute, or continue to distribute copies of any Workshop Contribution and reserves the right, but not the obligation, to restrict or remove Workshop Contributions for any reason.

Specific Workshop-Enabled Apps or Workshop web pages may contain special terms (“App-Specific Termsâ€) that supplement or change the terms set out in this Section. In particular, where Workshop Contributions are distributed for a fee, App-Specific Terms will address how revenue may be shared. Unless otherwise specified in App-Specific Terms (if any), the following general rules apply to Workshop Contributions.

- Workshop Contributions are Subscriptions, and therefore you agree that any Subscriber receiving distribution of your Workshop Contribution will have the same rights to use your Workshop Contribution (and will be subject to the same restrictions) as are set out in this Agreement for any other Subscriptions.

- Notwithstanding the license described in Section 6.A., Valve will only have the right to modify or create derivative works from your Workshop Contribution in the following cases: (a) Valve may make modifications necessary to make your Contribution compatible with Steam and the Workshop functionality or user interface, and (b) Valve or the applicable developer may make modifications to Workshop Contributions that are accepted for in-Application distribution as it deems necessary or desirable to enhance gameplay.

- You may, in your sole discretion, choose to remove a Workshop Contribution from the applicable Workshop pages. If you do so, Valve will no longer have the right to use, distribute, transmit, communicate, publicly display or publicly perform the Workshop Contribution, except that (a) Valve may continue to exercise these rights for any Workshop Contribution that is accepted for distribution in-game or distributed in a manner that allows it to be used in-game, and (b) your removal will not affect the rights of any Subscriber who has already obtained access to a copy of the Workshop Contribution.

Except where otherwise provided in App-Specific Terms, you agree that Valve’s consideration of your Workshop Contribution is your full compensation, and you are not entitled to any other rights or compensation in connection with the rights granted to Valve and to other Subscribers.

Please Bohemia Interactive, give us that "App-Specific Terms" or make a CLEAR Terms for understand WHAT'S THE TERMS AND PRICE we are disposed to pay.

I say this because this misunderstanding are preventing a lot of us (I know by RHS mod and FFAA MOD) uploading content to steam which it's a very well way to redistribute our content.

[.kju 3245]

@ Mickyleitor / mods

Would be better to move this to the (old) Steam EULA discussion thread.

[Mickyleitor 183]

;2925279']@ Mickyleitor / mods

Would be better to move this to the (old) Steam EULA discussion thread.

Where is it? I can't find it

[.kju 3245]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?179994-Legal-discussion-regarding-Steam-Workshop

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148879-ARMA-III-amp-Steam-WORKSHOP

You need to ask a mod to reopen the first one though..

[Dwarden 1125]

create new one as this LA is different to old one

[.kju 3245]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426695074&searchtext=

Not enterily sure here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426629791&searchtext=

[.kju 3245]

A filter to see just mods and not missions would be quite useful too.

So unlike the current tag based, one based on filename. Mission has to be NAME.TERRAIN.pbo (and contain a mission.sqm).

[KeyCat 131]

...snip

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, 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.

...

This is just an insane EULA and I understand mod makers concern! Hope Valve will wake up...

/KC

[.kju 3245]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430619565&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com//id/__int64/myworkshopfiles/?appid=107410

[AhabtheArab 10]

This is just an insane EULA and I understand mod makers concern! Hope Valve will wake up...

/KC

Now you know why Xeno left.

[enex 11]

cycle continues some leave, some join and carry on.

[AhabtheArab 10]

Yeah, except they're leaving in droves now. SW will be the death of mods.

[PuFu 4600]

http://steamcommunity.com/id/brohemia/myworkshopfiles/?appid=107410&p=1