openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

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magamo
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by magamo »

lysol wrote: 31 Jan 2018, 18:18
magamo wrote: 31 Jan 2018, 13:33 Is this Halbe's project? If so, he's usually on Discord, you could probably discuss this with him there.
Nope, this is TimMB's project it seems.

Also, I think I remember Halbe contacting me earlier about including my textures in his modpack, so he seems to be an honest guy.
Gotcha! Good to have that cleared up.
TimMB
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by TimMB »

It is my project.

It is listed on the mod status page. At one time I had a bunch of small projects then I merged them all together into one. It used to be called Game Patch for openMW. Then I rebranded it. I have been working on building a huge overhaul, expansion, defect correction service pack project like this on and off for years.

It is not just a collection of other peoples work. I am currently stripping out almost every mod included in it because I'm tired of people claiming that crap. Clearly anyone who feels that way has not bothered to look at it at all.

The project scope is located in the project scope document.

The kick starter campaign is just to help cover web registration and data storage costs. The other ones are just there to irritate the "Charity Trolls" and the Nexus users who think they get to control who gets to have a donation button and who doesn't. No one ever donates money to them in case you are wondering. The only way the kick-starter campaign will reach $250 is if I put most of money in myself. It is really just their to irritate some people who bother me.

The real people just trying to "make a buck" are the "Charity Trolls" on Nexus mods who harass me for having a donation button, while they try to force me into some form of back door licensing just because some of their was included. Another reason why I am stripping out almost everyone else's stuff.

Personally i don't care who doesn't like it. If you don't want to use it then don't use it. I don't really care. I built it for myself and share it with other people who actually like it. Thankfully not everyone is a prick and I do have around 300 users and a few contributors.
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Jemolk
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by Jemolk »

TimMB wrote: 04 Feb 2018, 01:23 The kick starter campaign is just to help cover web registration and data storage costs. The other ones are just there to irritate the "Charity Trolls" and the Nexus users who think they get to control who gets to have a donation button and who doesn't. No one ever donates money to them in case you are wondering. The only way the kick-starter campaign will reach $250 is if I put most of money in myself. It is really just their to irritate some people who bother me.

The real people just trying to "make a buck" are the "Charity Trolls" on Nexus mods who harass me for having a donation button, while they try to force me into some form of back door licensing just because some of their was included. Another reason why I am stripping out almost everyone else's stuff.
Oh good. That's sure to make people who are associated with your project look good, whether or not we want to be associated with it, no doubt about it. >.>

Just so we're all on the same page, just because a thing is distributed for free, does not mean that it can be redistributed with impunity, and the original authors of a thing are likely to take umbridge at someone else making money off their work when they don't. On the other hand, most people are reasonable, and if you actually talk to them and don't make it seem like you're trying to take advantage of them, most mod authors tend to be fine with most alterations and derivations of their work.

Though stripping out everyone else's stuff is excellent and necessary at the moment, it probably would have been better to have shown them some respect in the first place.
TimMB wrote: 04 Feb 2018, 01:23 Personally i don't care who doesn't like it. If you don't want to use it then don't use it. I don't really care. I built it for myself and share it with other people who actually like it. Thankfully not everyone is a prick and I do have around 300 users and a few contributors.
You'll care soon enough if someone has the means and inclination to make copyright claims against you. Mods are still protected by copyright, by the way, in case you didn't know. Sometimes it really pays to care what people think. Once you've finished removing other people's mods, then you're safe from that, but you probably wouldn't have had to if you had simply asked first.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by AnyOldName3 »

The long and short of it is that it looks like you're breaking the law (there's already been someone in the other thread on this claiming that you're using work derived from something he made without his permission so this isn't just from people guessing) regardless of whether you're charging it or accepting donations, and the fact that there actually is some way for you to make money off this means that the owners of the assets you're using are less willing to let it slide than they might be.

Stripping out almost every mod from it is too little, too late. You need to make sure none of the content at all is illegal for you to redistribute. Unless you want to risk getting sued, you need to take down any downloads for the current version and make sure any future versions only contain content that you:
  • Created from scratch using tools which don't infect it with an incompatible licence
  • Have explicit permission to redistribute from someone who created it from scratch
  • Have permission to do what you are doing with because it was released with a licence allowing it
The easiest way to make something comply with the second of those is just to ask.

Someone said that the pack contained some content that Bethesda made (either the DLC or the official add-ons) but repackaged in omwaddon format and potentially with some kind of fixes applied. If this is the case, there's a genuinely big risk that if Bethesda finds out, you'll start getting scary letters from their legal department.
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wareya
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by wareya »

AnyOldName3 wrote: 04 Feb 2018, 04:33
  • Created from scratch using tools which don't infect it with an incompatible licence
This is a myth. It's not possible for the EULAs or licenses of creative tools (level editors, modeling programs) to reassign the copyright of what you create with them. They can make it a breach of contract to use what you create in certain ways (e.g. selling it or making it proprietary), but even that can be made non-binding by law or legal precedent.

Why? Because, under US law, and any sane legal system:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/204
A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.
There's a lot to be said about how other laws defined "in writing" and "signed" in different contexts, but this particular law predates US digital signature law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_E ... ctions_Act) by a lot, and it's very unlikely for answering a public EULA to be considered a fitting signature for automatic copyright transfer of works that have not yet been created (you can't own the rights to something that has not yet been created).

And even in the case of making it a breach of contract, it still doesn't affect how other people use what you made with it, even if it was a breach of contract for you to get what you made to aforementioned other people.

EULAs can state that the creator of the tool has a right to license, distribute, etc. whatever you make with it, but they can't automatically transfer the copyright to them. And copyright is the only thing that would make it illegal for someone else, who didn't use the tool, to distribute what you made with it.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Even if it doesn't do it directly, creating a mod for a Bethesda game can end up with some of the content from the base game ending up copied to your plugin, so your plugin has ended up infected with Bethesda's copyright from the original game.
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halbe
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by halbe »

magamo wrote: 31 Jan 2018, 13:33 Is this Halbe's project? If so, he's usually on Discord, you could probably discuss this with him there.
I've got nothing to do with this, in fact it's been a pain in the ass since recently as I've been asking for permissions a couple people have mistaken me for that guy and got mad, that's how I first heard about it.
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wareya
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by wareya »

AnyOldName3 wrote: 04 Feb 2018, 14:37 Even if it doesn't do it directly, creating a mod for a Bethesda game can end up with some of the content from the base game ending up copied to your plugin, so your plugin has ended up infected with Bethesda's copyright from the original game.
Yeah, this is a legitimate concern. It's still possibly to purify the copyright of your creation in cases like this, but it's really annoying and a lot more legally ambiguous.
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psi29a
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by psi29a »

Feel free to piggy-back off my work. I've already done a lot of foot-work getting the authors to release their work under a CC license. If you see their name in the README, then that is their consent.

https://github.com/OpenMW/UIX-R

The assets are found on the release tab.
charlieg
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Re: openMW(-OP) is on Kickstarter? Err...

Post by charlieg »

TimMB wrote: 04 Feb 2018, 01:23The other ones are just there to irritate the "Charity Trolls" ... the kick-starter campaign ... is really just their to irritate some people who bother me.

... Thankfully not everyone is a prick
I think the phrase/saying that applies here is, if you think everybody else is an asshole then chances are it is you who is the asshole.
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