If you agree that mods should be possible to distribute freely, then please take this scenario into account.
You decide to make a mod. It takes you a great deal of time. You're at times distracted from doing other work, like school projects. After weeks of development, you're finally ready to release your mod - which you've spent countless hours on, perfecting.
You upload the mod somewhere, and put up a Minecraft forums topic. It doesn't get very much attention. However, some really known person finds it and figures out he really loves it. He then proceeds to upload the mod somewhere else, and claiming it as his own.
Because this other person is well known, it quickly gets a lot of attention. His fan base thinks that he actually developed the mod, and recommends it to other people.
As the mod grows in popularity, people start finding your own original topic. The other topic, made by the well known modder, has gained considerably more attention and reputation than yours. While your own topic may have 2-3 replies, his topic may have several hundred. People therefore thinks your topic is fake.
What you get in return for this are comments trying to explain how terrible you are for copying the work of the known modder. You know in your heart that you were the one who created the mod, and should be the one getting the attribution for it.
What you essentially get in return for creating and uploading a mod you put all your time into making, is hateful feedback and a poor reputation among Minecraft users. However much you try to convince them that you made the mod, they won't listen.
There are ways to fix this. You could send a PM to the re-uploader telling him to take down the mod, or you may send a DMCA to the host the re-uploader uses to host the mod files. If the first one doesn't work, the second one certainly would. The problem is that if the Minecraft EULA allows anyone to upload mods, DMCAs won't work and the re-uploader most likely wouldn't listen. You'd be stuck with a poor reputation and accusations of being respectless - all this simply earned from trying to help the Minecraft community.
What's worse is that this will actually happen unless something is done to allow modders to have the rights over their mods again. That's why I argue modders should be allowed to have their own license over the stuff they create. I hope you understand, and if you don't, then please go ahead and make a mod you put all your time into making.
EDIT: The person re-uploading the mod doesn't neccessarily have to be another modder. It could be a texture artist. A youtuber. A mod pack creator. A person not knowing anything about modding. Forgot to mention this during initial posting, however I feel this should've be mentioned.
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
Good grief, what is going on here?! Most all of us are not against asking to use your mod! BUT GET THIS! Alot of times, even when we ask, we get the flipping middle finger!
"As a habit I ignore every PM in regards to mod-packs - both private and public. Everything you need to know about them is listed below. I don't ignore them to be an ass, but I get at least 10 mod-pack requests per day and I honeslty can't be bothered to reply to them all.
In those cases I'd definitely put the blame on the modders for not understanding how people putting their mods in mod packs can significantly boost their downloads and recognition. Personally, I allow my main mod, ChatLog, to be used in any mod pack given that I know where it is hosted and that they attribute me and link to my thread. They don't actually have to link to my thread at all, even, just throwing in "ChatLog by bilde2910" in a credits section is more than enough and I'm happy with it.
There are several reasons I want to keep control of my mod. For instance, I've had people using AdFly to earn money off my content. Under my license, I disallow that kind of behaviour (and I actually specifically state AdFly is forbidden). For what we know, maybe the modders decide to keep their mods under licenses for the very same reason as Mojang - "In order to ensure the integrity of the Game, we need all Game downloads to come from a single central source: us."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
If you agree that mods should be possible to distribute freely, then please take this scenario into account.
You decide to make a mod. It takes you a great deal of time. You're at times distracted from doing other work, like school projects. After weeks of development, you're finally ready to release your mod - which you've spent countless hours on, perfecting.
You upload the mod somewhere, and put up a Minecraft forums topic. It doesn't get very much attention. However, some really known person finds it and figures out he really loves it. He then proceeds to upload the mod somewhere else, and claiming it as his own.
I almost stopped reading here because you are trying to take this whole discussion down a road you know for a fact will just lead to arguments. This is a completely hypothetical worse case scenario designed to make Mojang's decision look bad. Also in your poorly constructed argument, you have the original author post the mod on the MCFs and then the secondary author reposting it at a later point. You claim that there is no way to prove who released the mod when the very fact that they posted on the MCF gives the actual author a time stamp to work with. Also, if the original author had his mod stored somewhere, say Github, they would have further proof. So yeah, your argument is "baity" in how you try to present it, is nonsensical, and the whole can be completely hand waved because a mod author concerned about making sure he got credit for his work has plenty of options to leave a paper trail confirming it is his mod.
There are several reasons I want to keep control of my mod. For instance, I've had people using AdFly to earn money off my content. Under my license, I disallow that kind of behaviour (and I actually specifically state AdFly is forbidden). For what we know, maybe the modders decide to keep their mods under licenses for the very same reason as Mojang - "In order to ensure the integrity of the Game, we need all Game downloads to come from a single central source: us."
And this is why I am hoping that Mojang's internal talks decide that Adf.ly counts as modders attempting to "sell them for money / try to make money from them". This is a stupid argument. I hear all the time that mod authors claim that it is never about the adfly money when they are questioned about adfly and then they turn around and say things like this. :/
"You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit."
For those who don't know, what Mojang has been doing is standard practice. Stop getting your panties all knotted up.
I almost stopped reading here because you are trying to take this whole discussion down a road you know for a fact will just lead to arguments. This is a completely hypothetical worse case scenario designed to make Mojang's decision look bad. Also in your poorly constructed argument, you have the original author post the mod on the MCFs and then the secondary author reposting it at a later point. You claim that there is no way to prove who released the mod when the very fact that they posted on the MCF gives the actual author a time stamp to work with. Also, if the original author had his mod stored somewhere, say Github, they would have further proof. So yeah, your argument is "baity" in how you try to present it, is nonsensical, and the whole can be completely hand waved because a mod author concerned about making sure he got credit for his work has plenty of options to leave a paper trail confirming it is his mod.
We know for a fact that many forum users don't care about timestamps. It even has it's own term - "thread necromancy" - people bumping several year old threads complaining that the prodecures/links in there no longer work. Regarding hypothetical statements - every big company has them. Look for disclaimers. There's a reason microwave companies write that they're not to be held liable for their cat dying after being put in a microwave. It actually happens and the company gets sued and has to pay compensation.
Incidents regarding people copying mods and claiming the mods as their own don't belong to some terrible dystopia, it has actually happened in the past, and it will happen again. I have seen several cases already, and for your convenience, here are complete screenshots of two of them: http://i.imgur.com/jfoXouu.png and http://i.imgur.com/wnz33dJ.png
In the first topic the poster states that "The Author of this Too many Items has given me permission to recoded it". That never happened. Take a look at the second topic, last post - the author is outright lying, and he is well aware of it himself.
The fact that both topics were presumably made by the same person also indicates that even after being warned, he doesn't learn. Try telling these people to remove their uploads.
And this is why I am hoping that Mojang's internal talks decide that Adf.ly counts as modders attempting to "sell them for money / try to make money from them". This is a stupid argument. I hear all the time that mod authors claim that it is never about the adfly money when they are questioned about adfly and then they turn around and say things like this. :/
I also hope that the matter settles with the fact that AdFly links are illegal. Not only is it earning money off something derived from Minecraft, users clicking on the links risk infecting their computers with viruses.
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
Ok, somebody reposted my mod and people think they are the original creator. Good luck to that person, they now need to update my mod and of course if they need help I will offer it. If the community is enjoying something I made, even if they think someone else did, that's brilliant! It's enough for me to know people are enjoying something I contributed to. I would be perfectly happy.
They could decompile it with some decompilation tool and just patch the code. If that other person is another modder, it wouldn't be very hard. Also - there are very few modders thinking the way you do. Not saying that's a bad thing, though. If more modders thought like you, the whole modding community would be quite unaffected by this whole debate. I bet that many people would protest should it happen to your mod. Not trying to be offensive, but, try and put down 100 hours in a mod; you'll then notice how much time and work that really is. 100 hours wasted time. 100 hours that could have been spent doing something productive.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
They could decompile it with some decompilation tool and just patch the code. If that other person is another modder, it wouldn't be very hard. Also - there are very few modders thinking the way you do. Not saying that's a bad thing, though. If more modders thought like you, the whole modding community would be quite unaffected by this whole debate. I bet that many people would protest should it happen to your mod. Not trying to be offensive, but, try and put down 100 hours in a mod; you'll then notice how much time and work that really is. 100 hours wasted time. 100 hours that could have been spent doing something productive.
Hey, if they want to take charge and work on my mod, no problem. Hopefully they can make something people will enjoy. I'm not the "grand vision" type, and if they can make their dream mod using parts from mine, I don't see why to stop them.
I'm happy to respect modders if they respect players back, by leaving players in peace despite personal grudges against modpacks or other modders they might have.
We know for a fact that many forum users don't care about timestamps. It even has it's own term - "thread necromancy" - people bumping several year old threads complaining that the prodecures/links in there no longer work. Regarding hypothetical statements - every big company has them. Look for disclaimers. There's a reason microwave companies write that they're not to be held liable for their cat dying after being put in a microwave. It actually happens and the company gets sued and has to pay compensation.
Incidents regarding people copying mods and claiming the mods as their own don't belong to some terrible dystopia, it has actually happened in the past, and it will happen again. I have seen several cases already, and for your convenience, here are complete screenshots of two of them: http://i.imgur.com/jfoXouu.png and http://i.imgur.com/wnz33dJ.png
In the first topic the poster states that "The Author of this Too many Items has given me permission to recoded it". That never happened. Take a look at the second topic, last post - the author is outright lying, and he is well aware of it himself.
The fact that both topics were presumably made by the same person also indicates that even after being warned, he doesn't learn. Try telling these people to remove their uploads.
I also hope that the matter settles with the fact that AdFly links are illegal. Not only is it earning money off something derived from Minecraft, users clicking on the links risk infecting their computers with viruses.
Sorry, had to head out for a while, meant to reply to this much sooner.
If users do not recognize you as the original author because they do not care about evidence presented, be it that you post your thread days before the person who copied your mod did, that you have an online repository that shows a history that you uploaded your code on a certain date (good luck trying to spoof that), or even something like video footage of explaining your mod, then there is going to be no helping them.
So they copied your mod, yeah that is annoying, but I honestly do not believe that the community will support the other mod. While the average person may not be all too bright, I like to give the human race a little bit of credit.
Here is what happens after someone copies your mod as their own.
Scenario One: Minecraft updates! While as you said if it is another mod author, they could decompile your code in order to do an update, however depending on the complexity of your code this may be an issue and may be too much of a hassle to update. If the person who is claiming your mod updates using your updates, the community is going to start noticing that your version of the mod updates earlier.
Scenario Two: Bugs! Lets say this 100 hour long mod project actually had a ton of bugs after you released it that were found because you didn't have mass testing available until after releasing it to the public. We run into the same scenario as above, the user claiming credit either needs to figure out your code completely and find those issues or has to wait until you fix them. This again makes a publicly noticed event where you release a bug fix and then later on they release a fix, people will notice this. Heck, this could even take a while because you could leave comments all over the code with your name that the person would have to check for and remove, which would increase the time between when you update and they update.
Scenario Three: New content! This is the big one, lets say your mod, like many others, has on going development, you have plans for additional features. Here is the thing, if you are posting updates on your work, sneak peeks of what to expect, this is all creating a paper trail for your work. If you update and release new content for your mod, and it has all these features that you have been talking about for weeks, then it is pretty clear who is making the mod. If the guy claiming your work the comes out with your update and it has the same exact code, same exact models, same exact art assets (hell, you could even sign your art assets on sections of the .png file that isn't being read by your mod), then it is going to be pretty damning for that person. And in the off chance the guy goes and programs an update all on his own, be it the same features or his own features, at least at that point he is contributing his own code.
So yeah, I mean, I get that it has happened in the past, but give the community a chance on this, people are not always as foolish as you may think. And so what if a handful of people still don't believe you, you can't fix everyone.
The important thing you need to keep in mind is that you know that the mod is your work. And while praise is nice to get, even if no one copies your work as their own, that doesn't guarantee that people will praise you for your work or think highly of you. Hell, there are a ton of modders who I respect for the quality of their mods, but have no respect for them as a person because of their words and actions.
As for modpacks, yeah sometimes you'll get people who do not give credit to the mods installed, is this annoying? Yes, but does this prevent people from googling the name of a mod in the pack for information on the mod, which would redirect to you? Nope. Personally I would, if I were to make a pack, list the mods, their authors, heck maybe link to the mod's page for easy access to information on the mod and if I respected the mod author as a person I'd even throw a "Hey, this author is a pretty cool dude, if you enjoy the mod think about donating" and give a link to the author's paypal if they have one. I think this is a nice gesture to do, and I wouldn't do it because it is "morally right" because morals differ from person to person, but I think it is a nice, friendly attitude to have, however I would never expect someone to have to do this, especially with how young the majority of the MC user base is.
Ultimately this is why I think this whole "But what if someone claims my mod as their own" is a pointless non-issue. Also, if both mods are on the MCF, you could just report them to the MCF moderator staff. :V
Also, I am glad that we can agree at the very least about adf.ly. The amount of PCs I help fix because of kids downloading mods through adf.ly links is staggering.
I picked the less nonsensical choice, but don't misunderstand me. I think the poll on this topic was created from a misinformed viewpoint, so the poll itself is sort of invalid, regardless of the results. It's not that modders should or should not copyright content, it's that they cannot do so.
I've seen it argued that many mods bypass the "derivative of Mojang's work" clause by instead plugging into Forge, Bukkit, or other third-party APIs and not containing any work from Mojang at all. That, in principle at least, should mean that creators of such works have retained their copyright.
But whenever these big arguments flare up, many (some Mojang staff included) have apparently considered that view invalid. Sometimes, "it's a derivative of Mojang's work, and thus fully copyrighted by Mojang" is argued by various people to apply not only to mods, but to plugins, third-party programs, resource packs, and even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused).
Will there ever be a non-contradictory answer to this question? Will works which are on the fence (Forge/Bukkit mods and plugins, programs like MCedit, etc.) just constantly flip-flop between "copyrighted by the creator" and "copyrighted by Mojang" when people start arguing about who gets to do what?
Marc, if I produce a code library for generating dungeons, capable of functioning without Minecraft, do I have any rights to it? If I produce a Bukkit plugin allowing the dungeons to be created in Minecraft, do I lose what (if any) rights I had to the dungeon-generating library? If I produce an MCedit filter allowing MCedit to bring those dungeons into Minecraft, do I lose those rights? If I produce a mod so those dungeons are generated directly in Minecraft with no middle-parties, do I lose those rights? If somebody else produces a plugin, filter, or mod allowing my library to interact with Minecraft, do I lose those rights?
I don't honestly expect answers; sorry if you read this and feel I've wasted your time. I understand that you're not a lawyer, and from what I can tell, most of those questions couldn't be truly answered outside a courtroom. From what I've learned as a computer science major, I would have thought the answers were Yes, No, No, No, and No. But it seems the majority of vocal Minecraft mod users would argue otherwise, and copyright law itself is convoluted enough on the matter that it's not even clear-cut whether or not all Java code (Minecraft's included) is a derivative work of the Java API.
Sorry for the rant; this situation of ambiguity has just bothered me for some time.
I've seen it argued that many mods bypass the "derivative of Mojang's work" clause by instead plugging into Forge, Bukkit, or other third-party APIs and not containing any work from Mojang at all. That, in principle at least, should mean that creators of such works have retained their copyright.
But whenever these big arguments flare up, many (some Mojang staff included) have apparently considered that view invalid. Sometimes, "it's a derivative of Mojang's work, and thus fully copyrighted by Mojang" is argued by various people to apply not only to mods, but to plugins, third-party programs, resource packs, and even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused).
Will there ever be a non-contradictory answer to this question? Will works which are on the fence (Forge/Bukkit mods and plugins, programs like MCedit, etc.) just constantly flip-flop between "copyrighted by the creator" and "copyrighted by Mojang" when people start arguing about who gets to do what?
Marc, if I produce a code library for generating dungeons, capable of functioning without Minecraft, do I have any rights to it? If I produce a Bukkit plugin allowing the dungeons to be created in Minecraft, do I lose what (if any) rights I had to the dungeon-generating library? If I produce an MCedit filter allowing MCedit to bring those dungeons into Minecraft, do I lose those rights? If I produce a mod so those dungeons are generated directly in Minecraft with no middle-parties, do I lose those rights? If somebody else produces a plugin, filter, or mod allowing my library to interact with Minecraft, do I lose those rights?
I don't honestly expect answers; sorry if you read this and feel I've wasted your time. I understand that you're not a lawyer, and from what I can tell, most of those questions couldn't be truly answered outside a courtroom. From what I've learned as a computer science major, I would have thought the answers were Yes, No, No, No, and No. But it seems the majority of vocal Minecraft mod users would argue otherwise, and copyright law itself is convoluted enough on the matter that it's not even clear-cut whether or not all Java code (Minecraft's included) is a derivative work of the Java API.
Sorry for the rant; this situation of ambiguity has just bothered me for some time.
I'm going to start off by saying that I am not a lawyer myself, but have studied a little in this area. The following is based off of what I know in regards to similar cases, court cases, what Mojang has stated on the issue and how the EULA has been explained.
The thing you are missing is that the EULA states "If you make any content available on or through our Game". It doesn't matter if the mod uses Forge or whatever. Is the content you produced available on or through (this is the part that overrides excuses such as "But my mod uses Forge" since the modded content is still available through Minecraft) Minecraft? Did you release this content publicly? If yes then you agree to their EULA. If you do not agree to the EULA, then do not release the content publicly and keep it to yourself.
Most of your post is a bit irrelevant since for the most part we have only been discussing mods while you are discussing things like filters or theoretical applications that do not have a real life equivalent for the game currently.
For the most part you have to keep in mind that the EULA also states this:
"Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t."
Things like your "dungeon code library" would fall under the end bit. In my opinion, on what the EULA states and what Mojang has said, the application of that code that is used on/through the game would fall under Mojang's rights, but the actual library may not if it is a standalone thing. Really this is a tricky thing to ask because in my opinion I do not think Mojang as a company would care (because honestly they are only putting their foot down on this issue right now because the modding community has decided to not play nice), but that example would really be something that would have to be fully discussed in court. You take your dungeon library and make your own game completely unrelated to MC and it uses that library, is Mojang going to care? Probably not since it doesn't directly affect their game at that point, what is the official stance? You'd have to ask a judge.
Content you make still belongs to you, however content belonging to you is completely different than having copyright over said content and completely different from giving the right to Mojang to extend privileges to itself and the rest of the user base through agreement (publicly releasing your content) of the EULA. Ultimately you are thinking of things a bit off. You are not losing rights, as per the EULA, by agreeing to through releasing your content publicly, you never had rights to the content and it is not so much as Mojang holds copyright over that particular content, but rather that the content falls under Mojang's current copyright for Minecraft (which is standard for derivative work law as copyrights are not given out freely separately from original works and when they are it is usually granted by a judge.. this is why Mojang is stern about any content you release has to be your own, since that released content is filed under their copyright, so if you release content from a copyrighted source, that copyrighted source is now being pushed under Mojang's copyright which could get the company into trouble, which is why the EULA states "we may hold you responsible and that means you may have to pay us back for any damage we suffer as a result" in regards to Mojang being sued because of content you released). The only time this does not apply is if the content is not publicly released.
All and all the EULA is not really vague, people like to argue it because they are not happy with it. However the EULA is very clear on a lot of matters and is actual very seriously written. In the up coming future the EULA will be expanded to clarify things a bit more, but mostly in regards to people adding malicious code since apparently the community couldn't help itself from making that an issue.
As for this "even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused)" that is more or less people not understanding what copyright is and Mojang has never stated they had any intentions to do this. Mostly this would be more a trademark issue, I think, where a game is a little too similar that it could be considered to be infringing on Minecraft's trademark. Kind of like how if you made bootleg versions of an action figure, you would be infringing on the owners original trademark.
Lets take a moment and consider if Mojang changed the EULA to support modders the way Mr "I support the right of modders to be douches." CPW does:
Modder X, a new comer to the scene, releases a mod that gives players craftable earmuffs that can be tossed onto aggressive mobs to make them docile. An instant hit! Players eat it up and his adfly account racks up tens of pennies a day.
But oh no, evil nasty modpackers decide to steal his adfly pennies by adding his mod to their packs, and they won't stop now matter how much Modder X rages at them in his mod's private thread.
So Modder X, emboldened by the words of his peers and fans concocts a cunning plan to punish those evil modpack users that he knows is totally not disproportionate to the harm caused to him because he has free reign as a modder to do whatever he wants.
A week later, ver1.1 of Modder X's Earmuffs of Doom! comes out, and it adds little faz hats you can force creepers to wear!
Downloads again peaks in the thousands a day, and again the evil modpackers brazenly steam his hard work with little more than a 12 point font "go thank the modder here" set of forum and donation links.
But little do they realize, Modder X has slipped in an extra bit of code, one that watches a text file online and waits.
Two weeks after 1.1's release, Modder X has compiled his list of all who will not obey his rightful demands, and strikes. The watched text file is changed and includes the names of all the modpacks he can find, even the ones who haven't touched his mod because they're just as evil and must be secretly using his mod stealthily (because the mod is in the pack install, which can't possibly be the work of a user who respected his wishes).
Suddenly all those evil thieves get their rightful punishments as his code strips the harddrives bare of all system files, pictures, documents, and anything else of interest.
Celebration rings out as the evil ones are finally punished for their crimes and stopped from perpetration any new ones!
Quietly the next day, little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than ten, enters the Earmuffs forum and asks why the modpack she was playing is saying Earmuffs of Doom! is the reason her daddy's computer won't work anymore.
The reaction swift, fans and Modder X alike all descend on the stupid evil one who dared to intrude. Insults are slung and it is made clear she sided with the wrong people, and Modder X makes it clear he is in charge.
And that's when reality steps in.
Little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than 10, is daughter of Mr Charles Den of the New York law office of Ben, Den, and Sven, corporate attorneys.
Mr Den takes screenshots of all the venom leveled at his daughter and submits his now disabled home computer to the local FBI cyber crimes unit, who performs a forensic analysis and finds proof that the minecraft mod in question is responsible for the destruction of his property.
Less than a month later Modder X, Mojang, and Curse (host of the forums and original download) are served court papers for thousands of dollars worth of data retrieval services and court fees, for destruction of private property, emotional distress, and pretty much every other claim Mr Den's extensive legal knowledge can think up.
Modder X in particular is investigated and charged with hacking and every other fellony charge the FBI feels like lobbing his way.
Final result:
1 modder in jail for hacking.
Tens of thousands of players, with hundreds of thousands to follow, driven away from minecraft for good due to various reasons all related to unable to trust mods.
Curse and Mojang on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
And don't bother trying to claim that's pure fantasy. The "opening volley" in the modders vs modpackers fight was an act by sengir that had the potential to wipe out millions of player hours worth of work.
That is still referenced by anti-modpackers as "A good start."
Considering the vast majority of even the big mods add stuff that a layman would not be able to discern from normal minecraft content, I highly doubt most mods would be considered original works.
But that's for the courts to decide if it ever got to that point.
Content sprung from an individual's original thought is still an original though. If you are basing this off of the aesthetics and stating that if something looks like something else then it is no longer original, I believe you are sadly mistaken. If I wrote a game similar to Minecraft with my own textures and code, yet with the same general mechanics and idea, it would still be considered my content in court as long as I didn't use their name or any of their content. If you compared my millions upon millions of lines of code to that of the code of Minecraft, regardless of how it looks when playing the game, the code is my code. Same goes for mods, if a mod doesn't use any of the original Minecraft code and it was all written by the mod author, that author has the full rights to that content regardless of what game it was made for. As I stated in a previous post in this topic, just because the code isn't functional without the game doesn't mean that you didn't write the code, it is still your code. I'll post a snippet of the analogy I previously made which I think fits this concept quite well:
At what point do we consider one's work to be functional? If one were to write a book which you believed to be rubbish, regardless of your opinion, it is a book and it is the author's work. The same can be said of programmers and their code. Just because you don't see a use for it (in this case, a use for it outside of Minecraft) does not mean that it isn't the work of the author. If a highly known program sold and distributed around the world suddenly ceased to work after an update due to an unknown problem, does that code cease to be what it is: code? I don't think so. Where do we draw the line between work and trash? Furthermore, since when does another's opinion become definitive of what something actually is? Our code is written by us without the use of anyone else's code and is, therefore, our own copyright-able code which only we have the full rights to.
I am not getting the point why mods are subjective to Minecraft EULA, because (most) mods only declaratively depend on Forge, which depends on FML, which patches Minecraft. That means mods don't ship Mojang content, don't actually do anything on their own with or without Mojang content, and are only "expecting" to be loaded and launched by another piece of software(FML/Forge).
And as for Forge/FML, they "generate" a modified minecraft from vanilla, they are not releasing or using Mojang content, they are just "expecting" its existence to be functional. Like when you use Google Translate to translate a commercial book into a certain language, that doesn't make Google Translate subject to the book's EULA, as long as you don't publish the translation. But Forge doesn't publish the modified game, the modified game is only in the RAM and nowhere else.
Which brings us to the question of, whether any content created with the knowledge from reverse-engineering Mojang content, is liable to Mojang's EULA ? Now I am seeing Marc say "that's clearly yes".
I get Mojang's intention is to strike malicious hacks to the game, but what they are doing is essentially "okay I don't know what you guys will do, so I'll just make a white-list and ban everything else." Pretty consistent with vanilla server's behavior. The vanilla server's white-list system is a over-simplified-moderator-dictatorship, and only works on a small scale with few players. Looks like I'm gonna make the same comment on Mojang's attitude towards mods.
Content sprung from an individual's original thought is still an original though. If you are basing this off of the aesthetics and stating that if something looks like something else then it is no longer original, I believe you are sadly mistaken. If I wrote a game similar to Minecraft with my own textures and code, yet with the same general mechanics and idea, it would still be considered my content in court as long as I didn't use their name or any of their content. If you compared my millions upon millions of lines of code to that of the code of Minecraft, regardless of how it looks when playing the game, the code is my code. Same goes for mods, if a mod doesn't use any of the original Minecraft code and it was all written by the mod author, that author has the full rights to that content regardless of what game it was made for. As I stated in a previous post in this topic, just because the code isn't functional without the game doesn't mean that you didn't write the code, it is still your code. I'll post a snippet of the analogy I previously made which I think fits this concept quite well:
I am not a lawyer but I am old enough to have paid attention to a fair share of copyright lawsuits that affect more than just a game and some fan programmers. As such I must reiterate, this is all for the courts to decide if it ever gets that far.
But to back up my point, please read lines 5-12 of Mikeemoo and Co's OpenBlocks source. https://github.com/OpenMods/OpenBlocks/blob/master/src/openblocks/OpenBlocks.java
All mod code relies on Mojang copyrighted code to function. Every block and item is derived from source that is not licensed as an API, but as the Mojang EULA dictates. It contains specific references unique to Minecraft and cannot function by itself.
Lets take a moment and consider if Mojang changed the EULA to support modders the way Mr "I support the right of modders to be douches." CPW does:
Modder X, a new comer to the scene, releases a mod that gives players craftable earmuffs that can be tossed onto aggressive mobs to make them docile. An instant hit! Players eat it up and his adfly account racks up tens of pennies a day.
But oh no, evil nasty modpackers decide to steal his adfly pennies by adding his mod to their packs, and they won't stop now matter how much Modder X rages at them in his mod's private thread.
So Modder X, emboldened by the words of his peers and fans concocts a cunning plan to punish those evil modpack users that he knows is totally not disproportionate to the harm caused to him because he has free reign as a modder to do whatever he wants.
A week later, ver1.1 of Modder X's Earmuffs of Doom! comes out, and it adds little faz hats you can force creepers to wear!
Downloads again peaks in the thousands a day, and again the evil modpackers brazenly steam his hard work with little more than a 12 point font "go thank the modder here" set of forum and donation links.
But little do they realize, Modder X has slipped in an extra bit of code, one that watches a text file online and waits.
Two weeks after 1.1's release, Modder X has compiled his list of all who will not obey his rightful demands, and strikes. The watched text file is changed and includes the names of all the modpacks he can find, even the ones who haven't touched his mod because they're just as evil and must be secretly using his mod stealthily (because the mod is in the pack install, which can't possibly be the work of a user who respected his wishes).
Suddenly all those evil thieves get their rightful punishments as his code strips the harddrives bare of all system files, pictures, documents, and anything else of interest.
Celebration rings out as the evil ones are finally punished for their crimes and stopped from perpetration any new ones!
Quietly the next day, little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than ten, enters the Earmuffs forum and asks why the modpack she was playing is saying Earmuffs of Doom! is the reason her daddy's computer won't work anymore.
The reaction swift, fans and Modder X alike all descend on the stupid evil one who dared to intrude. Insults are slung and it is made clear she sided with the wrong people, and Modder X makes it clear he is in charge.
And that's when reality steps in.
Little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than 10, is daughter of Mr Charles Den of the New York law office of Ben, Den, and Sven, corporate attorneys.
Mr Den takes screenshots of all the venom leveled at his daughter and submits his now disabled home computer to the local FBI cyber crimes unit, who performs a forensic analysis and finds proof that the minecraft mod in question is responsible for the destruction of his property.
Less than a month later Modder X, Mojang, and Curse (host of the forums and original download) are served court papers for thousands of dollars worth of data retrieval services and court fees, for destruction of private property, emotional distress, and pretty much every other claim Mr Den's extensive legal knowledge can think up.
Modder X in particular is investigated and charged with hacking and every other fellony charge the FBI feels like lobbing his way.
Final result:
1 modder in jail for hacking.
Tens of thousands of players, with hundreds of thousands to follow, driven away from minecraft for good due to various reasons all related to unable to trust mods.
Curse and Mojang on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
And don't bother trying to claim that's pure fantasy. The "opening volley" in the modders vs modpackers fight was an act by sengir that had the potential to wipe out millions of player hours worth of work.
That is still referenced by anti-modpackers as "A good start."
Tracking user data is, for one thing, illegal. Restricting malicious modders without killing other modders is more complicated than just "let us censor you or just leave". Your argument is just as valid if you are voting for naked search and capture on demand at an airport security. And lastly, players like you have no sympathy in the effort of making a mod.
Content sprung from an individual's original thought is still an original though. If you are basing this off of the aesthetics and stating that if something looks like something else then it is no longer original, I believe you are sadly mistaken. If I wrote a game similar to Minecraft with my own textures and code, yet with the same general mechanics and idea, it would still be considered my content in court as long as I didn't use their name or any of their content. If you compared my millions upon millions of lines of code to that of the code of Minecraft, regardless of how it looks when playing the game, the code is my code. Same goes for mods, if a mod doesn't use any of the original Minecraft code and it was all written by the mod author, that author has the full rights to that content regardless of what game it was made for. As I stated in a previous post in this topic, just because the code isn't functional without the game doesn't mean that you didn't write the code, it is still your code. I'll post a snippet of the analogy I previously made which I think fits this concept quite well:
And Mojang is not saying that your content is not your content. Remeber, the EULA says "Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t."
However, it is very important that the content belonging to you is not the same as having a claim to copyright the mod, you released that to Mojang via their EULA when you make your content public. The copyright of all mods, of all derivative work, for Minecraft, is rolled into Minecraft's copyright.
I am not getting the point why mods are subjective to Minecraft EULA, because (most) mods only declaratively depend on Forge, which depends on FML, which patches Minecraft. That means mods don't ship Mojang content, don't actually do anything on their own with or without Mojang content, and are only "expecting" to be loaded and launched by another piece of software(FML/Forge).
And as for Forge/FML, they "generate" a modified minecraft from vanilla, they are not releasing or using Mojang content, they are just "expecting" its existence to be functional. Like when you use Google Translate to translate a commercial book into a certain language, that doesn't make Google Translate subject to the book's EULA, as long as you don't publish the translation. But Forge doesn't publish the modified game, the modified game is only in the RAM and nowhere else.
Which brings us to the question of, whether any content created with the knowledge from reverse-engineering Mojang content, is liable to Mojang's EULA ? Now I am seeing Marc say "that's clearly yes".
I get Mojang's intention is to strike malicious hacks to the game, but what they are doing is essentially "okay I don't know what you guys will do, so I'll just make a white-list and ban everything else." Pretty consistent with vanilla server's behavior. The vanilla server's white-list system is a over-simplified-moderator-dictatorship, and only works on a small scale with few players. Looks like I'm gonna make the same comment on Mojang's attitude towards mods.
Mojang holds the right to have "the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t.". The Forge argument is also inherently broken since mods are still run on and or through Minecraft, even if it is patched via Forge, you are still running the mod on Minecraft or through Minecraft. If you were not, then it would not be content for Minecraft and you wouldn't be using Mojang's property in order to use your content.
If you disagree with Minecraft's EULA, then do not release your mods publicly, Mojang is not forcing you to release your works publicly so they are not forcing you to adhere to that section of the EULA. It is the modders choice if they wish to release their mods to the public, and in doing so, agree to Mojang's policies and rules.
Tracking user data is, for one thing, illegal. Restricting malicious modders without killing other modders is more complicated than just "let us censor you or just leave". Your argument is just as valid if you are voting for naked search and capture on demand at an airport security. And lastly, players like you have no sympathy in the effort of making a mod.
What are you going on about. What exactly is Mojang doing to people who are not adding in malicious code that is "killing other modders"?
The thing you are missing is that the EULA states "If you make any content available on or through our Game". It doesn't matter if the mod uses Forge or whatever. Is the content you produced available on or through (this is the part that overrides excuses such as "But my mod uses Forge" since the modded content is still available through Minecraft) Minecraft? Did you release this content publicly? If yes then you agree to their EULA. If you do not agree to the EULA, then do not release the content publicly and keep it to yourself.
Alright, I suppose that settles Forge, Bukkit, and oddly enough, resource packs. That last one could actually be a can of worms itself, as it would imply that resource pack creators need the right to grant Mojang the permissions required by the EULA - and thus packs containing GPL or Creative Commons content (for example, Kevin MacLeod's music, or packs which add royalty-free weather sounds) may be in violation of the EULA, even without violating any copyright.
Most of your post is a bit irrelevant since for the most part we have only been discussing mods while you are discussing things like filters or theoretical applications that do not have a real life equivalent for the game currently.
I felt the need to go beyond modding in the discussion, because mods are far from the only Minecraft thing where "ownership" has been debated. As for the dungeon-generating library I mentioned, I actually am working on one. I originally planned to just make a Minecraft Bukkit plugin, but I've since broadened the scope of the project and may want to use it in a stand-alone game unrelated to Minecraft - and don't want to be told somewhere down the road that I have no rights to that game.
Things like your "dungeon code library" would fall under the end bit. In my opinion, on what the EULA states and what Mojang has said, the application of that code that is used on/through the game would fall under Mojang's rights, but the actual library may not if it is a standalone thing. Really this is a tricky thing to ask because in my opinion I do not think Mojang as a company would care (because honestly they are only putting their foot down on this issue right now because the modding community has decided to not play nice), but that example would really be something that would have to be fully discussed in court. You take your dungeon library and make your own game completely unrelated to MC and it uses that library, is Mojang going to care? Probably not since it doesn't directly affect their game at that point, what is the official stance? You'd have to ask a judge.
I don't mind Mojang saying they hold the rights to the plugin, but I would mind them claiming the library behind it. I wouldn't expect Mojang to make such a claim, but I don't want somebody else to be able to argue that I have no legal rights regarding the work.
Content you make still belongs to you, however content belonging to you is completely different than having copyright over said content and completely different from giving the right to Mojang to extend privileges to itself and the rest of the user base through agreement (publicly releasing your content) of the EULA.
The term "belong" is never defined in the EULA, and could mean anything from "you have copyright" (which it clearly doesn't) to "you get to say you made it, but can't really say much beyond that", to even something as insubstantial as "it doesn't actually belong to you in any important sense, other than the fact that at some point in time you had a copy of it on your computer".
Without any explicit meaning given to the use of the word "belong" in the EULA, anybody can argue about what it does or does not mean. By comparison, YouTube explicitly states that uploaders retain copyright to their work but give Google the right to host and share the content. Mojang could have done the same - leaving the copyright to the creator and simply giving Mojang the rights outlined in the EULA - but the word they used is vague enough that they (and more importantly, anybody else) can say the creator has zero say over the work and need not even be acknowledged for creating it.
Ultimately you are thinking of things a bit off. You are not losing rights, as per the EULA, by agreeing to through releasing your content publicly, you never had rights to the content and it is not so much as Mojang holds copyright over that particular content, but rather that the content falls under Mojang's current copyright for Minecraft (which is standard for derivative work law as copyrights are not given out freely separately from original works and when they are it is usually granted by a judge.. this is why Mojang is stern about any content you release has to be your own, since that released content is filed under their copyright, so if you release content from a copyrighted source, that copyrighted source is now being pushed under Mojang's copyright which could get the company into trouble, which is why the EULA states "we may hold you responsible and that means you may have to pay us back for any damage we suffer as a result" in regards to Mojang being sued because of content you released). The only time this does not apply is if the content is not publicly released.
This is actually another reason I brought up the example of my dungeon generator library. If I wanted, I could decide to never produce any Minecraft-related content for it (unlikely, as Minecraft was the main reason I started the project), and thus it would not be bound by the EULA and also would be under my copyright. However, I could release the library (as open source, no less - and this is a thing I actually plan to do when the time comes, but currently I've been told to not do so). I could release the library and say that it can be used for anything anybody wants - I could choose a license such as GPL or Creative Commons; the only real term I care about is Attribution.
Now, the problem I have with the EULA is: from what we've discussed, it seems it would be a violation of the EULA for anybody to produce a plugin/filter/mod which makes content produced by my library available through Minecraft. I would not give people the permission to give Mojang their requested rights over the dungeon generating library - and as a result, any plugins/mods making use of it would be breaking Mojang's rules.
That is what I don't like about this "fuzzy rights" business. If you're right in saying that a plugin using the library makes the library itself available through Minecraft, that would mean that in order to comply with the EULA, Mojang needs not only permissions the library already openly grants via GPL/CC (which would have already given Mojang the permissions they needed, but would have had obligations of their own, such as attributing the work to its creators), but they need to be able to say that they have copyright over it.
Also, I don't think you're correct in saying I never had rights to the content to begin with: I am perfectly able to create the library before the plugins which associate it with Minecraft. If I never choose to make said plugins, the library would never have had anything to do with the EULA. That's why I would have expected the library to not be bound by an EULA even after a separate application gets involved - but you argue otherwise. If the plugin does cause the library to be subject to the EULA, then rights did get shifted to Mojang. Otherwise, I would not be able to agree to Mojang's EULA even though I wrote both the plugin and the library myself. Therefore, under that interpretation, agreeing to the EULA for that plugin will transfer my rights for the library to Mojang.
I'm sorry I've written so much, but I'd like to point out one more reason why this "cascading rights" idea is a bad idea if it's an actual consequence of the EULA. It would mean that it is already a violation of Mojang's EULA to use many libraries in any Minecraft-related content. MCedit would violate the terms because it can't give Mojang exclusive rights to Pygame. Bukkit would violate it because they can't hand over exclusive rights to GSON, SQLite, MySQL, SnakeYAML, or any of the other libraries they use. WorldPainter would violate it similarly by using Install4J.
For now, I'll be playing it safe and not publicly releasing the plugin or library even when it's done (I was already told to do that before anyhow, or I'd lose my shot at seeing the day a large server uses it). But I find it ridiculous to think the aforementioned projects are all in violation of Mojang's EULA. But, who knows, that may be exactly the case.
As for this "even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused)" that is more or less people not understanding what copyright is and Mojang has never stated they had any intentions to do this. Mostly this would be more a trademark issue, I think, where a game is a little too similar that it could be considered to be infringing on Minecraft's trademark. Kind of like how if you made bootleg versions of an action figure, you would be infringing on the owners original trademark.
I'll agree with your first point, as those games clearly can't violate Mojang's copyright without any sort of derivation or content taken. However, I'm not so sure about your comments on trademarks: trademarks cover names/text/shapes/designs, not gameplay concepts. Unless Mojang has trademarked their GUI layout, or the offending game has re-used something like the creeper face or imitated Minecraft's name, trademark alone wouldn't win Mojang's case. If Mojang were to acquire software patents to concepts related to Minecraft-like gameplay, on the other hand, they may be able to get farther with regards to suing voxel games. Thank goodness Mojang's not like that
Tracking user data is, for one thing, illegal. Restricting malicious modders without killing other modders is more complicated than just "let us censor you or just leave". Your argument is just as valid if you are voting for naked search and capture on demand at an airport security. And lastly, players like you have no sympathy in the effort of making a mod.
Oh happy day, it's Christmas in January!
I was waiting for someone to pull that "you're just a lowly peon" crap.
Tell me little one, how old are you?
I ask because as I have mentioned before, I'm not exactly a kid myself. I am infact old enough that I was modding for a game called Starsiege: Tribes back in 1999.
Back then one of the most popular mods, one called Renegades, was developed by a guy who was very protective of his source. Despite tribes modding being plain text script files in a zip, he obfuscated it so no one could casually look it over.
I, on the other hand, was working on a mod inspired by a little quake mod called team fortress (you might have heard of its descendant). My mod was effectively open source, in that I would show anyone who asked, not that I had a dedicated host for the code or any takers really.
I did get two interested parties though. The first was from the Shifter dev interested in how I did remote controlled vehicles for my drones. Turns out we both had the same idea, override the vehicle mount code to instead form a 2-way reference, and hijack the beacon code as a control trigger.
The other was a guy claiming to be looking for a successor developer for Renegades. Apparently the original dev was looking to leave and they wanted someone to hand it off to, so they wanted to see my work.
I hope you can guess where this is going.
A month later a new version of Renegades was released. Two months later someone wrote a script to de-obfuscate the renegades code and found a heck of a lot of code belonging to other mods. No attribution and given and the developer stood fast that the code was his original work, even when it was proven major chunks were char for char identical to earlier works.
Guess who's code was among it.
Go on, guess.
Funny thing, despite my mod being open source he took great pains to conceal his theft and maintain the lied despite the code being freely given to him.
Moral of the story: Never make assumptions of someone else's experiences. You 'll just end up looking like a First World Problems meme.
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Curse PremiumYou decide to make a mod. It takes you a great deal of time. You're at times distracted from doing other work, like school projects. After weeks of development, you're finally ready to release your mod - which you've spent countless hours on, perfecting.
You upload the mod somewhere, and put up a Minecraft forums topic. It doesn't get very much attention. However, some really known person finds it and figures out he really loves it. He then proceeds to upload the mod somewhere else, and claiming it as his own.
Because this other person is well known, it quickly gets a lot of attention. His fan base thinks that he actually developed the mod, and recommends it to other people.
As the mod grows in popularity, people start finding your own original topic. The other topic, made by the well known modder, has gained considerably more attention and reputation than yours. While your own topic may have 2-3 replies, his topic may have several hundred. People therefore thinks your topic is fake.
What you get in return for this are comments trying to explain how terrible you are for copying the work of the known modder. You know in your heart that you were the one who created the mod, and should be the one getting the attribution for it.
What you essentially get in return for creating and uploading a mod you put all your time into making, is hateful feedback and a poor reputation among Minecraft users. However much you try to convince them that you made the mod, they won't listen.
There are ways to fix this. You could send a PM to the re-uploader telling him to take down the mod, or you may send a DMCA to the host the re-uploader uses to host the mod files. If the first one doesn't work, the second one certainly would. The problem is that if the Minecraft EULA allows anyone to upload mods, DMCAs won't work and the re-uploader most likely wouldn't listen. You'd be stuck with a poor reputation and accusations of being respectless - all this simply earned from trying to help the Minecraft community.
What's worse is that this will actually happen unless something is done to allow modders to have the rights over their mods again. That's why I argue modders should be allowed to have their own license over the stuff they create. I hope you understand, and if you don't, then please go ahead and make a mod you put all your time into making.
EDIT: The person re-uploading the mod doesn't neccessarily have to be another modder. It could be a texture artist. A youtuber. A mod pack creator. A person not knowing anything about modding. Forgot to mention this during initial posting, however I feel this should've be mentioned.
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
"As a habit I ignore every PM in regards to mod-packs - both private and public. Everything you need to know about them is listed below. I don't ignore them to be an ass, but I get at least 10 mod-pack requests per day and I honeslty can't be bothered to reply to them all.
Public Mod Packs:
All mod packs I want to include Thaumcraft already have my permission. Only people I am personally acquainted with have any chance of me giving permission for their mod pack."
Or how bout Optifine?
"The mod OptiFine is Copyright © 2013 by sp614x and the intellectual property of the author. It may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use as long as it remains in its unaltered, unedited form. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this mod on any other website or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited and a violation of copyright."
How bout Mo'Creatures?
"This mod can not be distributed in any other way than through this thread. You don't have the permission to distribute this mod through 'mod packages', installers or pluggins. A multiplayer pluggin is allowed as long as it requires you to download the unmodified single player mod to work. An installer can not host this mod, it must redirect the user to this thread. You can't modify or redistribute my mod without my written permission. Copyright © 2011 DrZhark."
These guys won't even let you ask, with a please! It's NO! NO NO NO NO NO! YOU ARE AN EVIL AND BAD PERSON!
Do you see the problem here? I do, not sure about you guys.
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Curse PremiumIn those cases I'd definitely put the blame on the modders for not understanding how people putting their mods in mod packs can significantly boost their downloads and recognition. Personally, I allow my main mod, ChatLog, to be used in any mod pack given that I know where it is hosted and that they attribute me and link to my thread. They don't actually have to link to my thread at all, even, just throwing in "ChatLog by bilde2910" in a credits section is more than enough and I'm happy with it.
There are several reasons I want to keep control of my mod. For instance, I've had people using AdFly to earn money off my content. Under my license, I disallow that kind of behaviour (and I actually specifically state AdFly is forbidden). For what we know, maybe the modders decide to keep their mods under licenses for the very same reason as Mojang - "In order to ensure the integrity of the Game, we need all Game downloads to come from a single central source: us."
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
I almost stopped reading here because you are trying to take this whole discussion down a road you know for a fact will just lead to arguments. This is a completely hypothetical worse case scenario designed to make Mojang's decision look bad. Also in your poorly constructed argument, you have the original author post the mod on the MCFs and then the secondary author reposting it at a later point. You claim that there is no way to prove who released the mod when the very fact that they posted on the MCF gives the actual author a time stamp to work with. Also, if the original author had his mod stored somewhere, say Github, they would have further proof. So yeah, your argument is "baity" in how you try to present it, is nonsensical, and the whole can be completely hand waved because a mod author concerned about making sure he got credit for his work has plenty of options to leave a paper trail confirming it is his mod.
And this is why I am hoping that Mojang's internal talks decide that Adf.ly counts as modders attempting to "sell them for money / try to make money from them". This is a stupid argument. I hear all the time that mod authors claim that it is never about the adfly money when they are questioned about adfly and then they turn around and say things like this. :/
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Curse PremiumFor those who don't know, what Mojang has been doing is standard practice. Stop getting your panties all knotted up.
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Curse PremiumWe know for a fact that many forum users don't care about timestamps. It even has it's own term - "thread necromancy" - people bumping several year old threads complaining that the prodecures/links in there no longer work. Regarding hypothetical statements - every big company has them. Look for disclaimers. There's a reason microwave companies write that they're not to be held liable for their cat dying after being put in a microwave. It actually happens and the company gets sued and has to pay compensation.
Incidents regarding people copying mods and claiming the mods as their own don't belong to some terrible dystopia, it has actually happened in the past, and it will happen again. I have seen several cases already, and for your convenience, here are complete screenshots of two of them: http://i.imgur.com/jfoXouu.png and http://i.imgur.com/wnz33dJ.png
In the first topic the poster states that "The Author of this Too many Items has given me permission to recoded it". That never happened. Take a look at the second topic, last post - the author is outright lying, and he is well aware of it himself.
The fact that both topics were presumably made by the same person also indicates that even after being warned, he doesn't learn. Try telling these people to remove their uploads.
I also hope that the matter settles with the fact that AdFly links are illegal. Not only is it earning money off something derived from Minecraft, users clicking on the links risk infecting their computers with viruses.
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
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Curse PremiumThey could decompile it with some decompilation tool and just patch the code. If that other person is another modder, it wouldn't be very hard. Also - there are very few modders thinking the way you do. Not saying that's a bad thing, though. If more modders thought like you, the whole modding community would be quite unaffected by this whole debate. I bet that many people would protest should it happen to your mod. Not trying to be offensive, but, try and put down 100 hours in a mod; you'll then notice how much time and work that really is. 100 hours wasted time. 100 hours that could have been spent doing something productive.
I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL MINECRAFT MOD SUPPORT AGENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT PM ME ABOUT PROBLEMATIC MODS THAT ARE NOT MINE. If you're having trouble/crashes with a mod, you'll have better luck resolving it in this forum section than PMing me. If you already made a topic, be patient about responses. If you have troubles with anything non-Minecraft related on your PC, I might be able to help, though, but no promises. Even though I could wish to be, I'm not a wizard.
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Curse PremiumHey, if they want to take charge and work on my mod, no problem. Hopefully they can make something people will enjoy. I'm not the "grand vision" type, and if they can make their dream mod using parts from mine, I don't see why to stop them.
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Curse PremiumSorry, had to head out for a while, meant to reply to this much sooner.
If users do not recognize you as the original author because they do not care about evidence presented, be it that you post your thread days before the person who copied your mod did, that you have an online repository that shows a history that you uploaded your code on a certain date (good luck trying to spoof that), or even something like video footage of explaining your mod, then there is going to be no helping them.
So they copied your mod, yeah that is annoying, but I honestly do not believe that the community will support the other mod. While the average person may not be all too bright, I like to give the human race a little bit of credit.
Here is what happens after someone copies your mod as their own.
Scenario One: Minecraft updates! While as you said if it is another mod author, they could decompile your code in order to do an update, however depending on the complexity of your code this may be an issue and may be too much of a hassle to update. If the person who is claiming your mod updates using your updates, the community is going to start noticing that your version of the mod updates earlier.
Scenario Two: Bugs! Lets say this 100 hour long mod project actually had a ton of bugs after you released it that were found because you didn't have mass testing available until after releasing it to the public. We run into the same scenario as above, the user claiming credit either needs to figure out your code completely and find those issues or has to wait until you fix them. This again makes a publicly noticed event where you release a bug fix and then later on they release a fix, people will notice this. Heck, this could even take a while because you could leave comments all over the code with your name that the person would have to check for and remove, which would increase the time between when you update and they update.
Scenario Three: New content! This is the big one, lets say your mod, like many others, has on going development, you have plans for additional features. Here is the thing, if you are posting updates on your work, sneak peeks of what to expect, this is all creating a paper trail for your work. If you update and release new content for your mod, and it has all these features that you have been talking about for weeks, then it is pretty clear who is making the mod. If the guy claiming your work the comes out with your update and it has the same exact code, same exact models, same exact art assets (hell, you could even sign your art assets on sections of the .png file that isn't being read by your mod), then it is going to be pretty damning for that person. And in the off chance the guy goes and programs an update all on his own, be it the same features or his own features, at least at that point he is contributing his own code.
So yeah, I mean, I get that it has happened in the past, but give the community a chance on this, people are not always as foolish as you may think. And so what if a handful of people still don't believe you, you can't fix everyone.
The important thing you need to keep in mind is that you know that the mod is your work. And while praise is nice to get, even if no one copies your work as their own, that doesn't guarantee that people will praise you for your work or think highly of you. Hell, there are a ton of modders who I respect for the quality of their mods, but have no respect for them as a person because of their words and actions.
As for modpacks, yeah sometimes you'll get people who do not give credit to the mods installed, is this annoying? Yes, but does this prevent people from googling the name of a mod in the pack for information on the mod, which would redirect to you? Nope. Personally I would, if I were to make a pack, list the mods, their authors, heck maybe link to the mod's page for easy access to information on the mod and if I respected the mod author as a person I'd even throw a "Hey, this author is a pretty cool dude, if you enjoy the mod think about donating" and give a link to the author's paypal if they have one. I think this is a nice gesture to do, and I wouldn't do it because it is "morally right" because morals differ from person to person, but I think it is a nice, friendly attitude to have, however I would never expect someone to have to do this, especially with how young the majority of the MC user base is.
Ultimately this is why I think this whole "But what if someone claims my mod as their own" is a pointless non-issue. Also, if both mods are on the MCF, you could just report them to the MCF moderator staff. :V
Also, I am glad that we can agree at the very least about adf.ly. The amount of PCs I help fix because of kids downloading mods through adf.ly links is staggering.
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Curse PremiumI've seen it argued that many mods bypass the "derivative of Mojang's work" clause by instead plugging into Forge, Bukkit, or other third-party APIs and not containing any work from Mojang at all. That, in principle at least, should mean that creators of such works have retained their copyright.
But whenever these big arguments flare up, many (some Mojang staff included) have apparently considered that view invalid. Sometimes, "it's a derivative of Mojang's work, and thus fully copyrighted by Mojang" is argued by various people to apply not only to mods, but to plugins, third-party programs, resource packs, and even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused).
Will there ever be a non-contradictory answer to this question? Will works which are on the fence (Forge/Bukkit mods and plugins, programs like MCedit, etc.) just constantly flip-flop between "copyrighted by the creator" and "copyrighted by Mojang" when people start arguing about who gets to do what?
Marc, if I produce a code library for generating dungeons, capable of functioning without Minecraft, do I have any rights to it? If I produce a Bukkit plugin allowing the dungeons to be created in Minecraft, do I lose what (if any) rights I had to the dungeon-generating library? If I produce an MCedit filter allowing MCedit to bring those dungeons into Minecraft, do I lose those rights? If I produce a mod so those dungeons are generated directly in Minecraft with no middle-parties, do I lose those rights? If somebody else produces a plugin, filter, or mod allowing my library to interact with Minecraft, do I lose those rights?
I don't honestly expect answers; sorry if you read this and feel I've wasted your time. I understand that you're not a lawyer, and from what I can tell, most of those questions couldn't be truly answered outside a courtroom. From what I've learned as a computer science major, I would have thought the answers were Yes, No, No, No, and No. But it seems the majority of vocal Minecraft mod users would argue otherwise, and copyright law itself is convoluted enough on the matter that it's not even clear-cut whether or not all Java code (Minecraft's included) is a derivative work of the Java API.
Sorry for the rant; this situation of ambiguity has just bothered me for some time.
I'm going to start off by saying that I am not a lawyer myself, but have studied a little in this area. The following is based off of what I know in regards to similar cases, court cases, what Mojang has stated on the issue and how the EULA has been explained.
The thing you are missing is that the EULA states "If you make any content available on or through our Game". It doesn't matter if the mod uses Forge or whatever. Is the content you produced available on or through (this is the part that overrides excuses such as "But my mod uses Forge" since the modded content is still available through Minecraft) Minecraft? Did you release this content publicly? If yes then you agree to their EULA. If you do not agree to the EULA, then do not release the content publicly and keep it to yourself.
Most of your post is a bit irrelevant since for the most part we have only been discussing mods while you are discussing things like filters or theoretical applications that do not have a real life equivalent for the game currently.
For the most part you have to keep in mind that the EULA also states this:
"Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t."
Things like your "dungeon code library" would fall under the end bit. In my opinion, on what the EULA states and what Mojang has said, the application of that code that is used on/through the game would fall under Mojang's rights, but the actual library may not if it is a standalone thing. Really this is a tricky thing to ask because in my opinion I do not think Mojang as a company would care (because honestly they are only putting their foot down on this issue right now because the modding community has decided to not play nice), but that example would really be something that would have to be fully discussed in court. You take your dungeon library and make your own game completely unrelated to MC and it uses that library, is Mojang going to care? Probably not since it doesn't directly affect their game at that point, what is the official stance? You'd have to ask a judge.
Content you make still belongs to you, however content belonging to you is completely different than having copyright over said content and completely different from giving the right to Mojang to extend privileges to itself and the rest of the user base through agreement (publicly releasing your content) of the EULA. Ultimately you are thinking of things a bit off. You are not losing rights, as per the EULA, by agreeing to through releasing your content publicly, you never had rights to the content and it is not so much as Mojang holds copyright over that particular content, but rather that the content falls under Mojang's current copyright for Minecraft (which is standard for derivative work law as copyrights are not given out freely separately from original works and when they are it is usually granted by a judge.. this is why Mojang is stern about any content you release has to be your own, since that released content is filed under their copyright, so if you release content from a copyrighted source, that copyrighted source is now being pushed under Mojang's copyright which could get the company into trouble, which is why the EULA states "we may hold you responsible and that means you may have to pay us back for any damage we suffer as a result" in regards to Mojang being sued because of content you released). The only time this does not apply is if the content is not publicly released.
All and all the EULA is not really vague, people like to argue it because they are not happy with it. However the EULA is very clear on a lot of matters and is actual very seriously written. In the up coming future the EULA will be expanded to clarify things a bit more, but mostly in regards to people adding malicious code since apparently the community couldn't help itself from making that an issue.
As for this "even completely unrelated games (think of the many people who have insisted Mojang can sue just about any voxel-based game for copyright violation, even when code and assets were never derived or reused)" that is more or less people not understanding what copyright is and Mojang has never stated they had any intentions to do this. Mostly this would be more a trademark issue, I think, where a game is a little too similar that it could be considered to be infringing on Minecraft's trademark. Kind of like how if you made bootleg versions of an action figure, you would be infringing on the owners original trademark.
Modder X, a new comer to the scene, releases a mod that gives players craftable earmuffs that can be tossed onto aggressive mobs to make them docile. An instant hit! Players eat it up and his adfly account racks up tens of pennies a day.
But oh no, evil nasty modpackers decide to steal his adfly pennies by adding his mod to their packs, and they won't stop now matter how much Modder X rages at them in his mod's private thread.
So Modder X, emboldened by the words of his peers and fans concocts a cunning plan to punish those evil modpack users that he knows is totally not disproportionate to the harm caused to him because he has free reign as a modder to do whatever he wants.
A week later, ver1.1 of Modder X's Earmuffs of Doom! comes out, and it adds little faz hats you can force creepers to wear!
Downloads again peaks in the thousands a day, and again the evil modpackers brazenly steam his hard work with little more than a 12 point font "go thank the modder here" set of forum and donation links.
But little do they realize, Modder X has slipped in an extra bit of code, one that watches a text file online and waits.
Two weeks after 1.1's release, Modder X has compiled his list of all who will not obey his rightful demands, and strikes. The watched text file is changed and includes the names of all the modpacks he can find, even the ones who haven't touched his mod because they're just as evil and must be secretly using his mod stealthily (because the mod is in the pack install, which can't possibly be the work of a user who respected his wishes).
Suddenly all those evil thieves get their rightful punishments as his code strips the harddrives bare of all system files, pictures, documents, and anything else of interest.
Celebration rings out as the evil ones are finally punished for their crimes and stopped from perpetration any new ones!
Quietly the next day, little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than ten, enters the Earmuffs forum and asks why the modpack she was playing is saying Earmuffs of Doom! is the reason her daddy's computer won't work anymore.
The reaction swift, fans and Modder X alike all descend on the stupid evil one who dared to intrude. Insults are slung and it is made clear she sided with the wrong people, and Modder X makes it clear he is in charge.
And that's when reality steps in.
Little Cindy Lu Den, who was no more than 10, is daughter of Mr Charles Den of the New York law office of Ben, Den, and Sven, corporate attorneys.
Mr Den takes screenshots of all the venom leveled at his daughter and submits his now disabled home computer to the local FBI cyber crimes unit, who performs a forensic analysis and finds proof that the minecraft mod in question is responsible for the destruction of his property.
Less than a month later Modder X, Mojang, and Curse (host of the forums and original download) are served court papers for thousands of dollars worth of data retrieval services and court fees, for destruction of private property, emotional distress, and pretty much every other claim Mr Den's extensive legal knowledge can think up.
Modder X in particular is investigated and charged with hacking and every other fellony charge the FBI feels like lobbing his way.
Final result:
1 modder in jail for hacking.
Tens of thousands of players, with hundreds of thousands to follow, driven away from minecraft for good due to various reasons all related to unable to trust mods.
Curse and Mojang on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
And don't bother trying to claim that's pure fantasy. The "opening volley" in the modders vs modpackers fight was an act by sengir that had the potential to wipe out millions of player hours worth of work.
That is still referenced by anti-modpackers as "A good start."
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Retired StaffContent sprung from an individual's original thought is still an original though. If you are basing this off of the aesthetics and stating that if something looks like something else then it is no longer original, I believe you are sadly mistaken. If I wrote a game similar to Minecraft with my own textures and code, yet with the same general mechanics and idea, it would still be considered my content in court as long as I didn't use their name or any of their content. If you compared my millions upon millions of lines of code to that of the code of Minecraft, regardless of how it looks when playing the game, the code is my code. Same goes for mods, if a mod doesn't use any of the original Minecraft code and it was all written by the mod author, that author has the full rights to that content regardless of what game it was made for. As I stated in a previous post in this topic, just because the code isn't functional without the game doesn't mean that you didn't write the code, it is still your code. I'll post a snippet of the analogy I previously made which I think fits this concept quite well:
And as for Forge/FML, they "generate" a modified minecraft from vanilla, they are not releasing or using Mojang content, they are just "expecting" its existence to be functional. Like when you use Google Translate to translate a commercial book into a certain language, that doesn't make Google Translate subject to the book's EULA, as long as you don't publish the translation. But Forge doesn't publish the modified game, the modified game is only in the RAM and nowhere else.
Which brings us to the question of, whether any content created with the knowledge from reverse-engineering Mojang content, is liable to Mojang's EULA ? Now I am seeing Marc say "that's clearly yes".
I get Mojang's intention is to strike malicious hacks to the game, but what they are doing is essentially "okay I don't know what you guys will do, so I'll just make a white-list and ban everything else." Pretty consistent with vanilla server's behavior. The vanilla server's white-list system is a over-simplified-moderator-dictatorship, and only works on a small scale with few players. Looks like I'm gonna make the same comment on Mojang's attitude towards mods.
I am not a lawyer but I am old enough to have paid attention to a fair share of copyright lawsuits that affect more than just a game and some fan programmers. As such I must reiterate, this is all for the courts to decide if it ever gets that far.
But to back up my point, please read lines 5-12 of Mikeemoo and Co's OpenBlocks source.
https://github.com/OpenMods/OpenBlocks/blob/master/src/openblocks/OpenBlocks.java
All mod code relies on Mojang copyrighted code to function. Every block and item is derived from source that is not licensed as an API, but as the Mojang EULA dictates. It contains specific references unique to Minecraft and cannot function by itself.
Tracking user data is, for one thing, illegal. Restricting malicious modders without killing other modders is more complicated than just "let us censor you or just leave". Your argument is just as valid if you are voting for naked search and capture on demand at an airport security. And lastly, players like you have no sympathy in the effort of making a mod.
And Mojang is not saying that your content is not your content. Remeber, the EULA says "Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t."
However, it is very important that the content belonging to you is not the same as having a claim to copyright the mod, you released that to Mojang via their EULA when you make your content public. The copyright of all mods, of all derivative work, for Minecraft, is rolled into Minecraft's copyright.
Mojang holds the right to have "the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t.". The Forge argument is also inherently broken since mods are still run on and or through Minecraft, even if it is patched via Forge, you are still running the mod on Minecraft or through Minecraft. If you were not, then it would not be content for Minecraft and you wouldn't be using Mojang's property in order to use your content.
If you disagree with Minecraft's EULA, then do not release your mods publicly, Mojang is not forcing you to release your works publicly so they are not forcing you to adhere to that section of the EULA. It is the modders choice if they wish to release their mods to the public, and in doing so, agree to Mojang's policies and rules.
What are you going on about. What exactly is Mojang doing to people who are not adding in malicious code that is "killing other modders"?
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Curse PremiumAlright, I suppose that settles Forge, Bukkit, and oddly enough, resource packs. That last one could actually be a can of worms itself, as it would imply that resource pack creators need the right to grant Mojang the permissions required by the EULA - and thus packs containing GPL or Creative Commons content (for example, Kevin MacLeod's music, or packs which add royalty-free weather sounds) may be in violation of the EULA, even without violating any copyright.
I felt the need to go beyond modding in the discussion, because mods are far from the only Minecraft thing where "ownership" has been debated. As for the dungeon-generating library I mentioned, I actually am working on one. I originally planned to just make a Minecraft Bukkit plugin, but I've since broadened the scope of the project and may want to use it in a stand-alone game unrelated to Minecraft - and don't want to be told somewhere down the road that I have no rights to that game.
I don't mind Mojang saying they hold the rights to the plugin, but I would mind them claiming the library behind it. I wouldn't expect Mojang to make such a claim, but I don't want somebody else to be able to argue that I have no legal rights regarding the work.
The term "belong" is never defined in the EULA, and could mean anything from "you have copyright" (which it clearly doesn't) to "you get to say you made it, but can't really say much beyond that", to even something as insubstantial as "it doesn't actually belong to you in any important sense, other than the fact that at some point in time you had a copy of it on your computer".
Without any explicit meaning given to the use of the word "belong" in the EULA, anybody can argue about what it does or does not mean. By comparison, YouTube explicitly states that uploaders retain copyright to their work but give Google the right to host and share the content. Mojang could have done the same - leaving the copyright to the creator and simply giving Mojang the rights outlined in the EULA - but the word they used is vague enough that they (and more importantly, anybody else) can say the creator has zero say over the work and need not even be acknowledged for creating it.
This is actually another reason I brought up the example of my dungeon generator library. If I wanted, I could decide to never produce any Minecraft-related content for it (unlikely, as Minecraft was the main reason I started the project), and thus it would not be bound by the EULA and also would be under my copyright. However, I could release the library (as open source, no less - and this is a thing I actually plan to do when the time comes, but currently I've been told to not do so). I could release the library and say that it can be used for anything anybody wants - I could choose a license such as GPL or Creative Commons; the only real term I care about is Attribution.
Now, the problem I have with the EULA is: from what we've discussed, it seems it would be a violation of the EULA for anybody to produce a plugin/filter/mod which makes content produced by my library available through Minecraft. I would not give people the permission to give Mojang their requested rights over the dungeon generating library - and as a result, any plugins/mods making use of it would be breaking Mojang's rules.
That is what I don't like about this "fuzzy rights" business. If you're right in saying that a plugin using the library makes the library itself available through Minecraft, that would mean that in order to comply with the EULA, Mojang needs not only permissions the library already openly grants via GPL/CC (which would have already given Mojang the permissions they needed, but would have had obligations of their own, such as attributing the work to its creators), but they need to be able to say that they have copyright over it.
Also, I don't think you're correct in saying I never had rights to the content to begin with: I am perfectly able to create the library before the plugins which associate it with Minecraft. If I never choose to make said plugins, the library would never have had anything to do with the EULA. That's why I would have expected the library to not be bound by an EULA even after a separate application gets involved - but you argue otherwise. If the plugin does cause the library to be subject to the EULA, then rights did get shifted to Mojang. Otherwise, I would not be able to agree to Mojang's EULA even though I wrote both the plugin and the library myself. Therefore, under that interpretation, agreeing to the EULA for that plugin will transfer my rights for the library to Mojang.
I'm sorry I've written so much, but I'd like to point out one more reason why this "cascading rights" idea is a bad idea if it's an actual consequence of the EULA. It would mean that it is already a violation of Mojang's EULA to use many libraries in any Minecraft-related content. MCedit would violate the terms because it can't give Mojang exclusive rights to Pygame. Bukkit would violate it because they can't hand over exclusive rights to GSON, SQLite, MySQL, SnakeYAML, or any of the other libraries they use. WorldPainter would violate it similarly by using Install4J.
For now, I'll be playing it safe and not publicly releasing the plugin or library even when it's done (I was already told to do that before anyhow, or I'd lose my shot at seeing the day a large server uses it). But I find it ridiculous to think the aforementioned projects are all in violation of Mojang's EULA. But, who knows, that may be exactly the case.
I'll agree with your first point, as those games clearly can't violate Mojang's copyright without any sort of derivation or content taken. However, I'm not so sure about your comments on trademarks: trademarks cover names/text/shapes/designs, not gameplay concepts. Unless Mojang has trademarked their GUI layout, or the offending game has re-used something like the creeper face or imitated Minecraft's name, trademark alone wouldn't win Mojang's case. If Mojang were to acquire software patents to concepts related to Minecraft-like gameplay, on the other hand, they may be able to get farther with regards to suing voxel games. Thank goodness Mojang's not like that
Oh happy day, it's Christmas in January!
I was waiting for someone to pull that "you're just a lowly peon" crap.
Tell me little one, how old are you?
I ask because as I have mentioned before, I'm not exactly a kid myself. I am infact old enough that I was modding for a game called Starsiege: Tribes back in 1999.
Back then one of the most popular mods, one called Renegades, was developed by a guy who was very protective of his source. Despite tribes modding being plain text script files in a zip, he obfuscated it so no one could casually look it over.
I, on the other hand, was working on a mod inspired by a little quake mod called team fortress (you might have heard of its descendant). My mod was effectively open source, in that I would show anyone who asked, not that I had a dedicated host for the code or any takers really.
I did get two interested parties though. The first was from the Shifter dev interested in how I did remote controlled vehicles for my drones. Turns out we both had the same idea, override the vehicle mount code to instead form a 2-way reference, and hijack the beacon code as a control trigger.
The other was a guy claiming to be looking for a successor developer for Renegades. Apparently the original dev was looking to leave and they wanted someone to hand it off to, so they wanted to see my work.
I hope you can guess where this is going.
A month later a new version of Renegades was released. Two months later someone wrote a script to de-obfuscate the renegades code and found a heck of a lot of code belonging to other mods. No attribution and given and the developer stood fast that the code was his original work, even when it was proven major chunks were char for char identical to earlier works.
Guess who's code was among it.
Go on, guess.
Funny thing, despite my mod being open source he took great pains to conceal his theft and maintain the lied despite the code being freely given to him.
Moral of the story: Never make assumptions of someone else's experiences. You 'll just end up looking like a First World Problems meme.