Owing to interesting events last night, the Minecraft EULA - in particular, where it pertains to multiplayer servers - has become a very hot topic. So what's all the fuss about? Why is this even a thing right now? Bebopvox gives a pretty solid breakdown of the situation, both from the perspective of Mojang, and the community at large.
PLEASE NOTE:
Some key points about the situation, in TL;DR format:
- Has the EULA changed? - No, not yet
- Is Mojang shutting down servers? - No
- Are there talks about finding a middle ground with server owners and Mojang? - Yes
Basically,
I used to think I disliked Beebopvox as a person but, it's simply the abrasively over-animated persona he portrays that I find annoying. It was very refreshing to see him "keepin' it real". When you consider all the pirate servers that are active, it begs the question, "how much authority can Mojang actually munster to shut down servers operating outside of the bounds of the EULA?"
Rules and regulations do not come into being arbitrarily, they emerge when freedoms are abused.
The freedom (Liberty, really. as Mojang turned a blind-eye to the EULA violations) to profit from your private minecraft server.
"Some code for the love of coding..."
*LDX raises his hand*
Actually they do. They wrote it in the eula when Minecraft was made. They specifically said you may not sell any things related to ingame minecraft for real life money which means servers are illegal. They will sue people if they do not follow it from now on.
Servers that sell things are illegal.
Agreed. Everything is a video these days.
Whereas if they actually innovated on the game and added content of their own, they wouldn't be having such a bad time.
un-innovative servers are the ones that will be hurt. This is how the world works. If a company is unable to be better than the other companies it goes out of business. Therefore, companies strive to offer better content and the MineCraft world has a whole gets better.
More servers isn't always better. Few people who are actually good at development and programming can make high profit servers. Minecraft lets you make servers. If you want to host it on your home PC for you and some friends, SO BE IT. GO DO THAT. IT'S FREE! But don't go purchasing a $50 a month dedicated host that can support 500 people at one time and hope to rely on donations alone. That isn't how the real world works.
To those of you saying "If I make a mod I'm not allowed to sell it". You are allowed to sell content that you have made. If YOU wrote a bukkit plugin you are allowed to sell it. It doesn't matter if it relies on Mojang's code or not. Minecraft relies on Microsoft's or Apple's code. With out their OS Minecraft wouldn't be able to run! But Mojang can still sell their game with out being sued by Microsoft or Apple you can sell your code with out being sued by Mojang... That's how it works. Say you write a plugin that displays very nice particle effects over bow shots. You can sell that to players in game.
If some one else writes a plugin to do something, YOU ARE NOT allowed to sell that with out THEIR permission.
If you want to charge people to play on your server, that is perfectly fine. It is pretty much saying "If you want to use my computers resources, and connect to my machine over the internet, you're going to have to pay. Mojang does not own your internet when you host a server.
as for the pc version, mojang relies on java, independent of the OS, minecraft can be ran on linux, mac, and windows, lol. if it was windows only and reliant on microsoft's code, i would be required to use WINE on my system since i run linux mint 16, lol.
people often get servers cause they dont have the hardware to run a server and play at the same time, lol. I play with a good share of people in both minecraft and jka that still gont have a pc that can run today's newer games with decent performance.
many gamers rely on laptops as its the only thing they have, relying on donations doesnt make a community bad. how they use the donations is what counts. this will hurt the entire minecraft community, just just the "bad servers" if mojang goes hitler about this.
sueing people will greatly hurt mojang's image as well as spying on people who buy their game when just yesterday they took part on the large scale reset the net event, playin both sides of this scenario
@Hypbling: Not the original Notch EULA, some of this stuff is Jeb's doing.
@Kabis:How many servers have a successful paywall, out of the total number of servers? Look at WoW v. the free-ish games that are on the same model. The free ones are gaining subscriber base. WoW is losing. Granted, Blizzard alienated people with Pandaria, but people will buy stuff more easily in game than they will buy a subscription. Also, you've insulted every small server out there. Bad. Very bad.
Donator perks are a necessary evil, if they're evil at all. I find it rather stupid to suggest that every server that needs an incentive for player donations is boring. For that matter, I don't see why Mojang has to weigh in on this-If players would start pushing on server owners to be better at pricing, then we wouldn't HAVE this problem.
In order for Minecraft to run on IOS, Windows, Linux, Minecraft needs to use code created by the developers of those operating systems to run functionally. Java is the programming language used to develop the game. Java is owned by Oracle. Oracle lets developers use their language and sell what ever they make with it. You are not allowed to sell the language it self as that is selling Oracles property.
MineCraft is able to work on so many platforms because of its graphics library. It uses OpenGL. In order for OpenGL to work on a computer, the developers of the hardware and software need to program in special command line instructions. Microsoft does this for support up to OpenGL 1.1 or something, where was independent graphics card developers have support up to the most recent version.
Apple is in charge of their own hardware and so they created the software for their support of OpenGL. Linux is up in the air as how it works. Probably similar to the Microsoft implemented it.
If Minecraft decided to use DirectX (OpenGL's Only competitor), then the game would only run on Windows machines. Why is this? Because Microsoft wrote DirectX and they only want it to run on their machines.
Your only other argument is "I don't have enough money, nor the resources to start a company, but I'm going to do it anyway because I want to". If you want to start a server you need the resources to do so.
If you purchase a server then you need to make the money in order to keep it up. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't make a server. Simple as that.
You are not allowed to sell another companies property in order to fund something.
People who play minecraft like to believe everybody should create a server. That is not the case, if you do not have the ability to make a server, you should perhaps instead join one that can.
The server I play on is able to stay up not by pestering it's members to pay in order to gain features that they have the right to, but because the owners have actual jobs. The person paying for the server wants the server to be up so they willingly give their money to keep it up. If your server is really fun, and its member actively want to play on it, they will donate, they don't need bribes.
Story of my life
this is true there are things that have alot of money
We have lots of questions & the webs are full of gossip, rumors & accusations.
If Mojang had just said, today, "We're working on the issue right now and will report back to you as soon as we've developed a policy, As of right now, we're not enforcing any major policy changes re: EULA," things would be a lot better right now.
Instead, I learned notch won't use FaceBook with his smart phone? Srsly?
Meantime, I produced this today, since I was getting PMs from viewers, asking me what was going on.
Mojang EULA: Not the End of Servers
Published on Jun 6, 2014
Enforcement of Mojang's End User License Agreement is NOT the end of MineCraft servers! It's the beginning of something much safer & healthier for servers, players, mod makers, skin crafters! That is, as soon as Mojang announces a clear, transparent and detailed EULA & TOS that set it all out for us?
Lol @ the login system.
Lol @ the... wait wut...
uhm? of course this is enforceable in court. It says you can't make money off of other people's property. whatever way you spin this, payservers violate this.
And its wrong and has to go, no matter how you put it. Those servers are making money in a way you expect it in some cheap MMO. And on top of that you paid already money to play the game...
Edit 1: This server... Are they seriously selling ranks for 10000 US Dollar?
Are they kidding or are they serious?