Minecraft Forums

Quote from Cuchaz»

What licenses do you think are appropriate for distributing mods? I'd be particularly interested in licenses that are open-source, permit derivative works, and have a proven legal history of protecting the copyright holder's rights.

Personally, all rights reserved. For you, probably some Creative Commons licence.

Quote from CoolSquid»

Personally, all rights reserved. For you, probably some Creative Commons licence.

Creative Commons actually recommends against the license being used for software, and recommend that you give the GNU.org "How to choose a license" page a read instead.

Quote from jakimfett»

Yup, which is why I use the license I do (the DBaJ license)...it allows redistribution (because I love modpacks), but only if there's no monetisation (so any website with ads is in violation).

Your license is interesting. I like some parts of it, and don't like other parts. Is that the solution to monetized content theft? Craft a custom license that grants explicitly the rights you want to grant? What are the chances these custom licenses would actually hold up if challenged in court?

Quote from CoolSquid»

Personally, all rights reserved. For you, probably some Creative Commons licence.

Creative commons isn't really useful for software distribution, particulary open source software.

Quote from warlordjones»

Just since it would be difficult to tell otherwise, http://mods-para-minecraft.blogspot.co.uk/ seems to be fairly legit - telling you so it doesn't get mis added to the list, unlikely as that is. My mod was posted about, but they used my official links and things. It looks to just be spanish (?) friendly mod site.

Also, thank you for doing this

I'm checking all websites before I list them.

Quote from Cuchaz»

Your license is interesting. I like some parts of it, and don't like other parts. Is that the solution to monetized content theft? Craft a custom license that grants explicitly the rights you want to grant? What are the chances these custom licenses would actually hold up if challenged in court?

Part of why I made the license is because I wanted something that other people could modify to fit their needs. Feel free to fork and modify.

As for if it'll hold up in court...realistically, all that matters is how much money you can throw at lawyers, and/or who you know in the political power structure.

My license has enough legalese in it to satisfy the "reasonable person" clause that shows up in a lot of laws (eg, would a "reasonable person" understand this to be binding), but keep in mind I'm not a lawyer, and lawyers aren't reasonable people in the courtroom.

If you want it to be completely airtight, hire a lawyer to write a license for you that fits your needs.

I second that this should be stickied and that the average user must become aware of this. Too many people - some of my estimates put it at more than 20% - go to sites like these to download mods and suffer as a result, and often then transfer that suffering onto the developers, myself included.

Quote from jakimfett»

Part of why I made the license is because I wanted something that other people could modify to fit their needs. Feel free to fork and modify.

I might do just that. Thanks for the inspiration. =)

Quote from Cuchaz»

I might do just that. Thanks for the inspiration. =)

Please do, I'm also open to suggestions for making the license more user-friendly (and more jerk/scammer-hostile).

To be fair, some of those websites actually use my own adfly account link (they can put their download through my adfly), so I get revenue from their downloads. I'm in no way defending them, just saying that not all sites are 100% evil.

Here is a list of referals on my adfly account, there might be more and they might still have malware and other things mentioned in the post and I would not suggest using them, but if anyone's interested: minecraftdl com, skydaz com, minecraft-france fr, minecrafteo com, mods-para-minecraft blogspot com ar, 6minecraft net, minecraftings com

Oh this is becoming a thing now huh? Well I fully support it! Hopefully we can get this going to really make a difference.

Quote from jakimfett»

Please do, I'm also open to suggestions for making the license more user-friendly (and more jerk/scammer-hostile).

Sure. When I get some time, I'll try to draft a new license. I'll send it back your way after I'm done if you want to see it.

Quote from chylex»

To be fair, some of those websites actually use my own adfly account link, so I get revenue from their downloads. I'm in no way defending them, just saying that not all sites are 100% evil. Here is a list of referals on my adfly account, there might be more and they might still have malware and other things mentioned in the post and I would not suggest using them, but if anyone's interested: minecraftdl com, skydaz com, minecraft-france fr, minecrafteo com, mods-para-minecraft blogspot com ar, 6minecraft net, minecraftings com

The problem is that they use their own AdFly links on many mods too.

By the way, did you know that AdFly has an abuse form?

Also, while everyone's paying attention to this thread, is there any interest in trying to form some kind of Minecraft modders' guild, to try to fight these kinds of problems (eg monetization/theft) using the wonderful powers of online organization? I could throw up some kind of simple web page on my server (without ads of course =P) without too much trouble.

Quote from CoolSquid»

The problem is that they use their own AdFly links on many mods too.

By the way, did you know that AdFly has an abuse form?

Yes, but what would I put there as the category and what would it help? If a website only puts my adfly link over the download and they have their own non-adfly ads on the website, why would I report it if the only thing it'd change is that they'd stop putting adfly links on the downloads? I'd still have stolen mods, but with no revenue. If a website has their own adfly links over my mods or something like a link chain, then sure but other than that, it doesn't make sense.

While I don't necessarily condone rehosting mods without permission, I am going to speak up in defense of Skydaz. They seem to use the Adfly API or something, because I've gotten additional Adfly revenue from my mods from them for quite a long time now. They're the only Minecraft mod site I know of that does that, and I respect them for at least showing some consideration to modders and not outright removing or redirecting revenue to themselves.

If you have a problem with them rehosting your mods in installers without permission, however, then that's an entirely separate issue. But that doesn't bother me personally in that specific case.

Quote from Cuchaz»

Also, while everyone's paying attention to this thread, is there any interest in trying to form some kind of Minecraft modders' guild, to try to fight these kinds of problems (eg monetization/theft) using the wonderful powers of online organization? I could throw up some kind of simple web page on my server (without ads of course =P) without too much trouble.

We actually have a website.