What do you define as "moving forward"? Because I doubt these "debates" are going to effect how Bethesda does anything.

Isn't this what we all are doing?

Well... I guess I wonder if it might be possible to self-impose a set of self-governing guidelines that accommodate all points of view, rather than one point of view having to be declared right. I don't see a lot of benefit to that.

And in response to others, again, I just wonder if a set of self-imposed guidelines that can accommodate all views - such as I suggested in some now locked threads - or any other mechanism the community can devise - would be better than waiting for bethesda to parent the community with a set of rules that likely no one will agree with... I am of the opinion that taking control of the situation and defining the rules in a way that works for everyone (a couple of modders licenses is what I suggested) is better than having rules imposed outside of our control.

We are mostly grownups here. We can do better than fighting with each other to come up with a creative solution to these legitimate problems that won't be resolved by anyone convincing the "other side" that their point of view is the right one.

There is no personal attack there, I was very careful to avoid one. I simply stated that you have very few posts here, the primary place of business for the host to our mods; and that I didn't think you had experience with this stuff. You certainly could, though by your response I would certainly say you dont.

I'm not shutting down discussion that disagrees by any means, I'm shutting down discussion by random people who fly in shouting things with absolutely no backing or experience or proof. We're trying to have a civil educated discussion and random people are kicking down the door and yelling fire.

If you don't have experience in this area you are certainly welcome to read the thread, or even post opinions but do not come in blaring facts like you're the expert on this.

We're trying to reach a concensus on this. And it's become rather difficult.

Alright. Could I make one small request that the veteran modders need to stop treating newbie modders and non-modders like plebeians unworthy of participating in the discussion? It's rather condescending to read stuff like this being thrown around:

Bethesda explicitly grants us permission to create and distribute plugins (.esp/.esm) files that modify their game, provided we follow a few rules. So that doesn't apply in this case.

I don't think my post history has anything at all to do with the validity or invalidity of my actions in this thread.

You also seem to be "shouting things with absolutely no backing or experience or proof". I've yet to see you bring forth any evidence to support your arguments. Please, prove me wrong.

*Edit*

I was being intentionally hyperbolic to highlight how ridiculous his argument is.

it's a good idea, one we've talked about in the past in threads like these, but you can't found a system of rules unless you have some standing or ability to enforce it and that's where we fall short unfortunately which is why this is an issue for individual hosting sites to define and enforce on that end. I liked your outline though

As I have no doubt that was directed at me, I simply saying that people with no experience in this need to stop acting like they have any.

It would be like some random guy who's never worked on a car in his life showing up to the Ford Motors Engineering Department and trying to tell the people there how to improve their cars...

Regarding this point:
A modification of an ESP file and redistributing it is not acceptable, ethical, or legal.

May I ask those who don't agree with this consensus (which is shocking to many of us here) ... what would it take to reach this consensus?

A poll?

More voices to the point?

Anything?

Attempting to get back on topic, you merely have to look at qmail for your answer as to the legality of patches. The source of qmail could be distributed unmodified, however patches were still perfectly legal and until it was released into the public domain in late 2007 were the only way to fix it or add features. If you want a runtime based example, just look at the Glider bot for World of Warcraft where Blizzard's claims of it being a violation of their copyright were rejected and specifically stated that someone using Glider was where copyright applied, not the creator(s) of Glider. Yes, Glider also had the EULA to consider and the issue of licensees versus owners of the software to account for but I have a feeling that can be ignored here and using esp mastering falls into the same situation here as well as with qmail's legal patches. Note that in both these cases neither was considered to be a derivative work.

Edit: I'm not suggesting this should be how the community should handle it, I'm merely saying that I believe it is legal. Whether or not a site or service's community wants to add in further restrictions to disallow patches that don't have the consent of the original mod author is up to the community there and its administration.

I'd like to go back to the RiffTrax example, because I think it's a good one. They provide a set of instructions (as well as a recorded product) to use in conjunction with your movie to alter the experience. The argument as to why that's not really an equivocal argument is that a script (through its instructions) is essentially rewriting the experience, not providing something "on top of" it, assuming that the script in question specifically targets another work in which to modify (if I understood the counterargument correctly).

You have no idea whether or not someone has any experience with 'this' (what? modding?). You're making assumptions about people and it's extremely condescending and doesn't paint a pretty picture of 'veteran modders' when such things are said repeatedly.

You have literally no idea as to the experience of those posting. I could secretly be the creator of some amazing mod or a copyright lawyer specializing in game mods or something equally unlikely, and you wouldn't know. Stop making these assumptions, they make you looks like an elitist jerk.

DarkRider has been doing a wonderful job of citing the relevant law that covers all of this, which is what you are angrily claiming is flat out wrong.

So unless you have some court rulings to cite that invalided the statutes he's referencing, neither he nor any of the rest of us are shouting anything without backing or experience.

We'd still be free to conclude from the lack of any evidence to back that whatsoever that you are not these things. You've provided us with nothing to go on to do that other than barging into this thread with nothing but angry and insulting posts.

Though may I also say that even though it may be legal, that doesn't mean that we have to accept it or support it as a community.

Not just you; it's been something I've noticed from quite a few people.

I could say the same of all the people trying to be armchair lawyers. On both sides of the debate.

This happens all the time. It's called feedback, and it's valuable in designing better products.

Truthfully, a consensus won't be reached, not until Bethesda comes in and lays everything out and says "Here, this is how [censored] gonna be." That doesn't mean it's right to falsely claim a consensus has been reached though.

Uhhhgaaah.

Okay, you know what. I'm stepping out. I'm gonna go take a breather before I get mad and do something that I regret.

Well, yeah, that's the nature of a self-imposed set of guidelines. But getting people to agree on a couple of simple, relevant, and substantially different licenses should be possible, if not easy. I think there's a REAL problem with collaboration here... there's not much going on. There's a lot of "I'm right, you're wrong, here's why," and that can be useful but it's been very, very beaten to death here for days now.

Why can't we choose to agree like human beings who want to get along with each other that we can accommodate each other by working to adopt something akin to a set of self-governing guidelines for these problems, and let the community support of the licenses drive adoption by the hosting sites?

It's just an idea. Maybe there are better ones. Maybe mine's not worthy of merit because I'm not seasoned enough in this community. Fine. But I'm beginning to get involved, and this situation is an important one to anyone who wants to get involved.

I think both view points (Cathedral vs Parlor) can be accommodated, and that 99.9% of modders would feel comfortable under a license catered to one or the other.

I'm not insulting you, but you're just a dirty pleb!

also if that were to happen they would file it under suggestions: upon reading it they would say to themselves "Ye gads, TWO cupholders in the front seat? why didn't we think of that while we were fussing with the internal workings of the engine."

Suggestions from un-involved uneducated people are often times the most helpful

He has shown about as much experience as I have. Anyone can copypaste an article on copyright. It takes no effort and isn't indicative of skill.

I simply disagree with his interpretation.

Because humans have feelings, and... I dunno, maybe I'm a pragmatist to a fault, but I try my best to separate how I feel about something, and what is actually right. Truth (or the law, and so on) doesn't particularly care how I feel.


I think your opinion is perfectly valid, and I enjoyed reading your write-up.

I direct you to http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1395173-on-patches-mod-content-modification-and-runtime-methods-thread-2/page__view__findpost__p__21194518, which has an argument and a counter-argument.

This, definitely. It's definitely an argument that needs to be seen from both sides - as a user and as an author. Arthmoor's point is valid, too.

Supporting the argument for no rights is very similar to supporting outright piracy. I don't see how it can be considered valid. The legal aspects are quite clear on the outward edges of it. I think the only thing that's even a bit unclear is whether a patch, targeting a single mod, edited via scripts (at runtime) is illegal. Some of the court cases and other issues seem to lean towards it being legal. The copyright definition of a derivative work seems to hint otherwise, but the examples given hint towards legality, too.



Two examples given here.



You are blatantly calling the copyright statements false, not interpreting it differently. There's a definite difference. He's brought up the valid points that are quite clear.

Please point out where I said that. Because I'm pretty sure I didn't.

He also brought up his interpretation, which I feel is incorrect.