What ever made you think you owned any user created mods in the first place? They are modifications to Skyrim. Without Skyrim they're useless. All game manufacturers reserve rights to user created content for their games. It's the trade off you make for being allowed to customize your game. They get free development ideas, you get your game how you want it. It's a win-win and has always been this way.

Yes. If they so chose, they could sell your stuff as a DLC without the need to pay you. But this is not new to the series. The terms haven't changed since morrowind.

you own any original work you create. by using the CK you are granting bethesda rights to use that work in any way they see fit. rights and ownership are 2 separate things




no. its more like "hey, these are mine, but you can use them however you like"

technically, bethesda has the right to redistribute your work as a sellable DLC, but the chances of that happening are extremely unlikely. if your mod is super top notch work, i think the chances of them offering you a job would be higher than them just blatantly "stealing" your stuff.

So where's the CK? Can't see it in the Tools section. High res pack is downloading though (but veeeery slowly).

If you want to make a profit off your work and exercise direct control over it, make your own game. Don't mod somone else's

I said in another thread just the other day that there would be a clause like this in the CK's terms. People tried to shoot me down for it. Well here it is. It's standard for most toolset terms that people don't bother to read...

Von: Try restarting Steam.

Ahh thanks.

It should also be mention that in 10 years of us modding their games, they've never done this.

Yeah, I don't really see what the fuss is about. As has already been mentioned many times in this thread, this sort of thing is standard for modding toolkits. Go ahead, open up the EULA of any modding toolset and I guarantee you'll find something similar.

A bit weird to call it just Creation Kit with no mention of Skyrim...

vD

Depends how good your lawyer is.

The Steam TOS is abit worse. The no make money thing is pretty standerd for all fan-base stuff. General rule (itlest in USA)
If your not making money off it, using it to become famous, sell your buiness/products. It falls in Fan-Made Catagory of safe stuff.

There are alot of if's and but's.
If you create clothes designs, and use them in real life, then put them in game (which you already own legal rights to) I'm sure there are some legal issues on its own. (which put you at fault)

But stuff like that. (I Mod over at Capcom) So issue has come up before.
Often content is checked, so if say Beth wants to use your mod or release it as pay DLC, or reward you. They will check and ask for legal rights before hand. They be walking into Trap if they just out right claim rights to it.
If Legal Issue is in Question, the "work" will often not get used.

Same goes for Steam agreement, Techinally Beth has 1st legal rights.

Just need ask yourself.. you willing to give something of yours for free. Or save it for the day you make your own video game?

As noted this is standard boilerplate for any CKs. It's mostly to prevent modders from selling their mods (which some have tried but no one bought them and they quickly stopped.)

That's correct. I think there's a misconception that an author can hold copyright rights to a mod they create using the editor and that's never been the case.

The Creation Kit (and previous kits) is our gift to the community to create whatever you want in the game. We're generally happy with anything you guys do as long as you're not going out and selling the mods.

It was exactly the same in Morrowind. And people will winge about it now like they did then.

That's actually a fair trade.

I think the bigger question people really (and quite needlessly) concern themselves with are the actual art work they create without the CK that is implemented to the game through references placed by the CK (in a proprietary format, the .esp file). But as someone else noted, rights and ownership are two totally different things.

I read that too and I think that makes perfect sense. It's based off THEIR product they made for US.

This is no different than any editor I've ever used; and exactly like Bethesda's previous agreements.

Before getting all old lady about it, remember that modding a game is a choice. No one is forcing you to mod Skyrim; just like no one forced them to allow us to mod the game.

I'm quite bummed that there's a handful of anxious people already getting slightly worked up about standard agreements.

Mods exist to improve and enhance the game for PC users. Without the game (Skyrim), they are useless, as others have noted. Neither the Nexus or Steam Workshop are built on the Apple Store model.

This legal language, aside from the fact that it has been present in every editory released by Bethesda, allows the developer to add changes proposed by the mod community into the game for all to benefit. This happened with Oblivion and has already happened several times for Skyrim. The mod community is a resource, not only to the customer base, but to Bethesda itself. If you take that away, you might as well say goodbye to PC support for future TES games altogether.

If you're afraid of this, don't use the CK to generate content for Skyrim.

All the MODs for Skyrim so far haven't used the CK so that legal terms shoudln't apply. If you restrict yourself to meshes, textures or if you use Skyedit and such your IP is "safe", so to speak.

Damn, my evil plan to create TES VI in my basemant then sell it earning me billions is ruined now - sarcasm.

In the worst case scenario moder idea becomes part of the next better game.

I'm no lawyer, and I could be mistaken, but handing over the rights for user-created content to Bethesda might actually be a really good thing for Skyrim modders, depending on how the fallout from the SOPA/PIPA legislation being pushed through the U.S. Congress shapes up. If you live in the U.S. anyway. It isn't much of a stretch to go from shutting down websites with user-created game content (see http://www.gamezone.com/editorials/gaming-sites-vs-sopa-pipa) to shutting down individuals who put up the content in the first place, depending on what the government decides to lump under "piracy". I'd rather legally hand over rights to the content that I create than wind up being fined $250k for copyright infringement by some federal agency looking for an excuse to justify its existence to a congressional committee. So count your blessings.

That's a pretty good point. Remember, under those silly and poorly written laws, it falls on the government, not the copyright holder to press chages because it becomes a felony. That's right, even if a Copyright holder has no problem with something that is technically an infringement, the government can step in and prosecute you anyway.

Quite simply "no they cant." Middle Earth is being re-made, so do they own it? No. Anything you make with the CK they can lay claim to, sure, fill yer boots. You get characters, landmass and all the usual stuff, welcome to it, because its useless without any of the meshes and the textures YOU make with no recourse to Bethesda whatsoever. So basically whatever is made can only be passed back and forth "as is" without anything you made outside the CK.

As long as you play fair, dont claim someone else copyright and infringe it, then so what? Everything you make external to the CK is yours, period.

If you make it with the CK, its theirs. But its quite useless without the stuff YOU made.

Companies don't generally get away with claiming rights to things created with their file formats. Permitting that would raise very scary antitrust issues. This is the big reason American law protects reverse engineering: creating products compatible with existing products is considered a pretty universal freedom, hence all those third-party iPhone cases.

You just simply give Bethesda rights to anything you build with the CK regardless of whether you otherwise could have withheld them. I think the real worst case is Bethesda could promote and distribute your mod without attributing it to you. They're not in that habit, but their language seems to permit it.