Johny

I am sorry you find our monetization of DLCs intrusive. Please remember that this way you are actually allowed to play the scenario without having to have the DLC. If the DLCs were sold in the regular way, you would not be able to play the scenario at all. In any case, the best way to get rid of the nags is to purchase the DLCs on Steam or our Store.

Currently all the data in Arma 3 is distributed under EULA (https://www.bistudio.com/community/licenses/arma3-end-user-license) . If you take such content like Altis Map and you want to edit it, you would have to debinarize it by using external tools, which would fall under disassembly or reverse-engineering and such use of the data is expressly forbidden by the EULA – whether you publish it or not is irrelevant. There might be practical issues with enforcing such provisions when it is done at home and no one knows about it, but that does not mean it is allowed or that it complies with our licenses. For editing Arma 3 terrains, you will have to wait for if and when the data is released under more permissive license such as APL-SA (Disclaimer - this is not a promise of such release and it is still something we will have to determine in the future.)

Hey, to the best of my knowledge, the Arma 3 terrains have never been released under APL-SA, so that license does not apply. The data, which we have released under the APL and similar licenses are available for download here https://www.bistudio.com/community/licenses/licensed-data-packages. Each pack has the correct license (or licenses) marked in its file name and also one copy should be attached to it in the file itself.

Hello Pozzer18, it seems that you are under a mistaken impression that gamechanging perks as rewards for monetizations in Arma 2 have been allowed. They are not and they have never been allowed. Only voluntary donations are allowed for Arma 2 and current Arma 3 and Dayz monetization rules extended those voluntary donations. So this new system actually gives more legal options to monetize our games and servers. Also a bonus is that it gives us a way to reward people, who do not infringe on the IPs of modders. Of course this would not be effective without enforcement, which is why we stepped our game in that area and are now pursuing monetization infringements with much more zeal than in the the past. Thanks, we will take a look. The best way to report these communities is to use the "Contact us" form at http://www.bistudio.com/monetization

James, I understand. If you use the official communication channels, then feel free to reference your post, I will make sure the info gets to me.

Hello James, can you please share what is the name of your community? We have several cases open. so I am not sure which you are referring to. In any case: Why you, why now? - Most probably your community was reported to us for infringing on Arma 2 and so we investigated it. But still, sending C&D letters is one of the last resorts, prior we usually try to communicate with the community for weeks, so it is highly unlikely you got served with a C&D letter out of the blue. We have always tried to contact and work the issues in a friendly manner and where possible suggest alternative ways of monetization. All we are asking of our communities is to start following the rules. We have not threatened anyone to sue them over past damages and the money they made. While I understand that running a server and community costs money, you need to understand there are rules and you need to follow them. There are other ways of rewarding donators (teamspeak priviledges, forum badges, etc.) which you can use without having to sell in-game weapons. You need to remember that monetization beyond voluntary donations was not allowed in Arma 2 so your argument, that you have been doing so for years, doesn't really help your case. Basically you are hinting that have made 36 000 USD by violating our license (not to mention the law) and that we are the bad ones for not stopping you sooner.

I am sorry you feel this way. From our perspective we did not stop anything as it has never been allowed to monetize the game (besides the videos and donations). This server monetization gave server owners several options to monetize and improve their donation systems with cosmetic rewards for donators, but at the same time our goal was to make sure everyone in the community may have the same gameplay features regardless of their budget.

Anything that affects gameplay is not allowed. The faq link above is a good starting point and also this thread is full of examples and explanations and you may always ask here or use the contact form on the website if you have an example you are unsure of.

If there is a server with pay to win perks, then please use the contact us button here http://www.bistudio.com/monetizationand send us more details and we will take steps to make sure the proprietor of the server understands whose perks are not allowed. Incidentally that link also features a list of approved server which may use the non-gameplay affecting perks. It is not exactly the honor system you are proposing, but I think it is close.

Thanks Dscha. It is nice to hear we were able to turn your opinion and help you.

Hello everyone, it has been almost half a year since we published the server monetization rules and we have approved a few servers, denied quite a lot more and there has been a significant number of people who just switched to voluntary donations. So since there has been a lot of questions and worthwhile feedback in the beginning I would like to ask you for your opinion and notes on the whole thing now, when you had a chance to observe it in real world for some time. As always, your feedback is much appreciated!

Hey, I am sorry I just noticed this thread. The version 2 has been on the steam for some time, but only as a developer "BETA". I will publish it to the main data this week.

Hey Mickyleitor, prior to the workshop support release we have discussed the issue both internally and with Valve. We were quite aware that the original workshop rules were not very modder-friendly, but before steam workshop support was added to Arma 3 (in summer 2013), Valve has changed the original WS policies and integrated everything into the SSA. At that time they have added the following section: Part (b) of this clause does not really apply to Arma 3 workshop, as we are not accepting any workshop contribution for in-app distribution (like TF2 or CSGO do), which leaves Valve with license for derivative works only in situations described in (a). This limits scope of the license and rights assigned to Valve quite a lot. With the "App-Specific Terms", I am afraid that those are for amending changing parts section 6B, which does not really help with the licenses assigned to Valve in 6A. Also these terms are also mainly aimed at governing the workshop items monetization. Maybe if you could sum up the specific points, which you are worried about, then I could try and help. (feel free to send me an PM.)

We are looking into making the list a bit clearer. Plus we are exploring an option of having monetized servers visualized in the in-game server browser.

Yes, mods usually don't have registered copyrights, but you don't need to register a copyright to have IP rights to your works, you get those automatically. On the other hand we do have registered copyrights which gives us an advantage of better establishing our IP ownership and thus helps us with takedown proceedings. As I said before, I am not going to describe our process regarding the violators. As anyone who has ever tried to do so can confirm that taking stuff down from the internet is hard even without me giving a list of tips and hints on how to make it harder for us. About the taxes - we have no authority or right to monitor or audit anyone's tax morale. It is like if I were to ask Apple if they check that everyone selling apps on their app store is paying their income taxe.