Modpacks - doing it right

[Anathera]

Thank you for the clarification. I still need to tell you that as i am not english or american i dot not have a good grasp what i should be looking for with google. English is not my everyday language. About my post, maybe i should have made it more clear at the beginning that what i say is just my opinions but it was clear to me and this is how i wrote the post.

Anyway i will not change my view about the fact that if someone posts a mod to the game and someone else wants to use it in a pack and even writes credits for the original maker, then why the hell the person who made the original would want it to take it off? Using it just means that we like it so much that we want to use it! Its like some sort of self ego boosting BS of having an illusion of power over someone else. Would you got to a park to feed the ducks with bread and just as they are going to eat you go kick them and yell: "THATS MINE!".... This is just how its looking like to outsiders. It just makes me not to want using these mods anymore if the mod builders are getting so egoistic. Thank god the game in its original for is so awesome.

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

The discussion at hand is similar to the downloads section of my McLauncher. (which is currently only 10.12 stable download mods until trangar sets up his site)

When i was releasing the downloads update for McLauncher, I went around asking the mod authors for permission to use their mod(s).
I also checked the origional posts for any copyright/license notes, and even in the info.json
And unless specified, McLauncher shows no license for the mod when downloading.
I created a program to add mods to the database, at the same time it checks to see if the info.json has a license or copyright field, and uses that.

So, as you can see i believe in permission of use to redistribute the mod. All the mods on McLauncher, i asked for permission to redistribute.
I think of it as a form of respect for the mod developers. If you don't respect them, who is going to make or update that mod you love so much?


When i started seeing the mod packs, i even started telling my friend that its going to happen. I told him give it a few months and its going to be pretty hectic.
I think the very first one was industrio, But that one got turned into a mod, more than a modpack. As i believe permission was granted there and more.


Another thing to take note is, Similar to minecraft mod devs, Some of the devs here have used adf.ly links, Now i am 100% against it, But it works.
adfly is a link redirector, but it shows you a ad for 5-6 seconds before you can click the skip button. This generates a little bit of money for the mod dev. And by putting the mod in a modpack and redistributing it, it prevents the mod author the profit from the download of his own mod.
Think if 100 people download mod Z, but this guy makes a modpack that includes mod Z and it turns out that this modpack is really good, and gets 1200 downloads. That is 1200 downloads from the modpack, and not the mod itself.

[ruyan]

Thank you for the clarification. I still need to tell you that as i am not english or american i dot not have a good grasp what i should be looking for with google. English is not my everyday language. About my post, maybe i should have made it more clear at the beginning that what i say is just my opinions but it was clear to me and this is how i wrote the post.

Anyway i will not change my view about the fact that if someone posts a mod to the game and someone else wants to use it in a pack and even writes credits for the original maker, then why the hell the person who made the original would want it to take it off? Using it just means that we like it so much that we want to use it! Its like some sort of self ego boosting BS of having an illusion of power over someone else. Would you got to a park to feed the ducks with bread and just as they are going to eat you go kick them and yell: "THATS MINE!".... This is just how its looking like to outsiders. It just makes me not to want using these mods anymore if the mod builders are getting so egoistic. Thank god the game in its original for is so awesome.

Let me compress what you just wrote:
If somebody does something illegal it's fine with you, but if someone stands by his rights you won't like it.
Great attitude!

I'll try to put this in a perspective you may understand... Try to imagine you are baking bread. You made a nice and tasty bread. You show this bread to a duck and say "see what a nice bread I just made" The duck flaps his wings, flies up and steals your bread. You are hungry. The duck is an ass.

And whatever language you are speaking on a daily basis, I bet the word "copyright" has a meaning in it as well.

[ssilk]

First of all: Since v0.10 the mods must have a licence. If not, the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ is valid, which allows redistribution and modding. See
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p48968
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... le=Modding
The consequence is, that redistributing is allowed for most mods. This thread is (in my opinion) about the exceptions for mods, which license doesn't allow it and how to make sure, that this is respected.

And of course to bring this problem into mind.

This is not about banning of modpacks etc.

However, I highly dislike how the packs are released currently. It's just taking X mods, putting it in an achive, distribute it and see how it goes. Well, I don't know who raised these guys, but I was taught that I ask BEFORE I take something that isn't mine(*).

Well, it's not on me (and you) to rate the quality of the modpacks. What counts for me are hard facts.

Contact the original authour BEFORE doing anything with the mod!

If the licence allows it, this is fully legal. And the default licence for the mods http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Well it is technically not copyright as the modding is in itself legal in the game.

That depends from the licencse, if the author allows redistribution and/or modding of his mod!

Seek to make things very complicated?

No. Seeking for a way to have modpacks, without breaking laws.

So clarify your point of creating this thread?

The point is, that I don't want to have to moderate discussions about redistributed/modified modpacks by authors, which have changed their license to disallow that. I want to clear that now, and not later.
Whatever the result is, I will accept it and try to moderate like so.

Both modders and modpack authors are doing important work. The less friction there is between the two groups, the better for all of the community.

I see this in the same way as for example the linux kernel and linux distributions. This is a perfect example of such a win-win-situation. But there are many other stuff, which doesn't allow to redistribute (no I don't want to discuss that now). And you'll not find such programs in those distributions.
The modders here don't do that. I claim that of course . I cannot prove it.

That is the point! How can this be made transparent?

If you post a mod at the games own public website for a game that you do not hold any copyrights, do not start giving crap to people about anything even related to owning some sort of copywrights. Just by publishing a mod in here you are giving it free to the players to use it as they wish.

This is just not right. Right is, that an author has the copyright, if not stated otherwise.
Yes, it can be easily thought so, but it is not right.

[Nova]

Anathera, you can't just "hope that people automatically give up their rights". The mod owners did publish their mods for free, but they didn't accept that they are published through other means than their download link, at least not to the public. The whole "licensing thing" mentioned by ssilk should clarify this.

[ssilk]

Anathera, you can't just "hope that people automatically give up their rights". The mod owners did publish their mods for free, but they didn't accept that they are published through other means than their download link, at least not to the public.

And this is also not correct. If they use the default license , which replaces the copyright, they allow redistribution.
Gnaa. this is complicated.

Again:
- Normally, if not stated otherwise, someone, which creates something owns his copyright.
- For Factorio the devs said now "You need a license, if not, the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ is valid." This was made, cause otherwise the normal copyright would't even allow to fix bugs.
- This can be said by them, cause the modders use their forum for distribution. (think of Apple selling Apps, the App-creator needs to accept the copyright terms of Apple; this is about the same reason)
- Despite from that, a mod author can use his own license. And this can say for example "No, for this mod the normal copyright is valid".

[drs9999]

- For Factorio the devs said now "You need a license, if not, the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ is valid."

Actually, in the very same thread slpwnd also said:

Thanks for the input. So I thought a bit about this. If we require mods to specify licenses then there will be an issue with material that mods "adapt" from the game itself. Our Terms and Conditions (http://www.factorio.com/terms-of-service) in the Intellectual Property section explain in plain (and hopefully clear) language the situation regarding the game and its assets itself.

Now, if we would like to do this properly, we should start by putting together a license for the game content itself (namely the images and sounds). The Factorio code itself is proprietary and it will stay like that for now. However the content of the base mod is not. We tolerate and even encourage people to make mods using assets from the game (tinting, combining assets, etc.). That is completely ok. However we don't want the assets to be used outside of "the free mods domain area" obviously. So we would need to put this formally into the license and then require any work that uses this content (i.e. sprites) to include this license. Because if we just make creative commons the default license, then mods that just tint or include sprites from the game "relicense" these for use outside of Factorio domain.

So for me that means that there is still no "you have to put in a license otherwise cc-whatsoever applies"

[LordFedora]

@ssilk should we have a sub forum in mods for mod packs?

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

@ssilk should we have a sub forum in mods for mod packs?

I knew i forgot to mention something in my post, I was thinking about that too.

[Anathera]

I am not saying that anyone should do anything illegal. I just wish the mod creators to understand that they are creating something for a game that is not originally theirs. If they wish to monetize their mods trough adfly or something similar, it would also be decent from them to announce this purpose of the mod. It would be much more clearer for alot of users who dont have the knowledge of the modding rules and rights like my self.

[Freakachu]

- For Factorio the devs said now "You need a license, if not, the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ is valid." This was made, cause otherwise the normal copyright would't even allow to fix bugs.
- This can be said by them, cause the modders use their forum for distribution. (think of Apple selling Apps, the App-creator needs to accept the copyright terms of Apple; this is about the same reason)
- Despite from that, a mod author can use his own license. And this can say for example "No, for this mod the normal copyright is valid".

this is basically all I wanted, which is apparently in place already. the internet lawyers are already here in force so I'm out, but as far as I'm concerned this question is now answered. the answer is "follow the license. which is CC BY-NC 4.0 unless stated otherwise."

[DaveMcW]

Sorry Freakachu, you and ssilk are both wrong. drs9999 is right.

Actually, in the very same thread slpwnd also said:

Thanks for the input. So I thought a bit about this. If we require mods to specify licenses then there will be an issue with material that mods "adapt" from the game itself. Our Terms and Conditions (http://www.factorio.com/terms-of-service) in the Intellectual Property section explain in plain (and hopefully clear) language the situation regarding the game and its assets itself.

Now, if we would like to do this properly, we should start by putting together a license for the game content itself (namely the images and sounds). The Factorio code itself is proprietary and it will stay like that for now. However the content of the base mod is not. We tolerate and even encourage people to make mods using assets from the game (tinting, combining assets, etc.). That is completely ok. However we don't want the assets to be used outside of "the free mods domain area" obviously. So we would need to put this formally into the license and then require any work that uses this content (i.e. sprites) to include this license. Because if we just make creative commons the default license, then mods that just tint or include sprites from the game "relicense" these for use outside of Factorio domain.

So for me that means that there is still no "you have to put in a license otherwise cc-whatsoever applies"

[SHiRKiT]

Ok, so we have come to a halt. The Factorio devs don't want impose something. They could enforce that every mod published on the forums is property of the Factorio team, but they are not responsible for any damage done by the mods.

I think it would be easier to create a standard in the forums:
- Create a sticky post on the modding area clarifying:
+ Every mod must have a license
+ Every modpack must have links to the mod's website
+ And whatever thing comes next.

If we can, as a TEAM, create this sticky, I think everyone would be happy. Now please, please people, don't fight like Minecraft did into copyright, these are mods, they are supposed to ADD FUN, not to bring HEADACHES.

[LoSboccacc]

Why not just license the base mod as gpl2 and be done with it? All mod are derivative works anyway and proprietary licensed mod are really smelly to me anyway

Note that you can still monetize your mod even if licensed under gpl. People already mentioned ad.fly, for example. That wouldn't be incompatible with the gplv2

[Freakachu]

Sorry Freakachu, you and ssilk are both wrong. drs9999 is right.

Actually, in the very same thread slpwnd also said:

Thanks for the input. So I thought a bit about this. If we require mods to specify licenses then there will be an issue with material that mods "adapt" from the game itself. Our Terms and Conditions (http://www.factorio.com/terms-of-service) in the Intellectual Property section explain in plain (and hopefully clear) language the situation regarding the game and its assets itself.

Now, if we would like to do this properly, we should start by putting together a license for the game content itself (namely the images and sounds). The Factorio code itself is proprietary and it will stay like that for now. However the content of the base mod is not. We tolerate and even encourage people to make mods using assets from the game (tinting, combining assets, etc.). That is completely ok. However we don't want the assets to be used outside of "the free mods domain area" obviously. So we would need to put this formally into the license and then require any work that uses this content (i.e. sprites) to include this license. Because if we just make creative commons the default license, then mods that just tint or include sprites from the game "relicense" these for use outside of Factorio domain.

So for me that means that there is still no "you have to put in a license otherwise cc-whatsoever applies"

I'm going to go with the person who I know is a forum moderator and in contact with the devs, whose word carries actual weight on this. I'm not going to bother with pointless arguing.

[ssilk]

Hm. I need to clear up a bit. First: I initiated this thread, to make things clear and transparent, so that we need not to discuss this endless. I'm just the moderator, which wants, that in his responsibility everything is as correct as possible. Sorry, if anyone gets pissed off, but I think I'm old enough to say that this discussion is needed.

Second: Maybe I misunderstood a bit.

I really have overseen the post, drs9999 mentioned.

Let's look again in the right context:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p48968

Thanks for bringing this topic up guys. We talked about this with kovarex and the solution you proposed of mandatory license specification with fallback to default license sounds good.

So to sum up:

• Every mod would be required to specify a license.
• Default license (if no license is specified) would be http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0.
• License information would be required to be present in info.json.

This means for me, that this default license is stated. Correct me, if I'm wrong!

Then in the same thread splwnd in https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p49122 as answer to bobbingabout's quite useful input; I don't repeat this quote here - I try to shorten it up to "We need an own license to allow usage only in the Factorio context, because Creative Commons will allow too much".
Correct me also, if this is wrong.

And now I think what I said in https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =20#p58180

- This can be said by them, cause the modders use their forum for distribution. (think of Apple selling Apps, the App-creator needs to accept the copyright terms of Apple; this is about the same reason)

is not fully correct. I think this was not thought like so. I think I understood now, how it was thought, see above. Indeed the mods have by default this license, because they use the base mods license, which is CC but which needs to be changed.

Or?

I'm really not sure. Till yesterday I thought everything is clear and now I think this is standing only on one leg...

I still think this needs to be cleared up, but currently I think I'm a bit overstrained with it.

Hm, forgive me, but I think I need a bit time to think about this.

[CreeperDaReeper]

As said previously, Minecraft went through, and still does, have issues with this topic. For those familiar with Starbound, they figured out an efficient solution rather quickly. When someone uploads a mod to the Starbound forums, they have to choose between 3 options for two different IP sets. 3 choices dealing with mod packs and 3 choices dealing with the parts of the mod as individual pieces. The following are some examples.









These two lines appear at the bottom of EVERY mod's first post. As far as I know, the lines are chosen when the thread is made / mod is uploaded, and can be changed at any time.

Hope this helps!

[drs9999]

I'm going to go with the person who I know is a forum moderator and in contact with the devs, whose word carries actual weight on this. I'm not going to bother with pointless arguing.

Well and I quoted a dev

@ ssilk
I interpret slpwnd 2 posts differently. For me they mean, that yes there has to be something, but isn't fixed yet, because it needs further (internal) discussions.

So yes, I'm confused, too. Would be good to know what's the real status quo...


@CreeperDaReeper
I like that. Simple. Easy. Beautiful.

[AlphaRaptor]

I do not check the modding board regularly and now I found some "modpacks".
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=7368
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=7216
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=6910
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=7206

My opinion to them:
I think they are a good idea, but there are copyright laws. It would be ok, if
- they split between packaging of the original mods and their own patches (if they have any). That are two things! *
- really checked, if the license allows it. I'm not sure, if the authors of all mods allow this kind of redistributing. I didn't say, that the modpack-authors didn't check it, but I would feel much better with it.

Additionally I would also prefer to have all links to the original post of the mod in the article. This will allow the players to search for important updates! Discussion wanted.

Again: I don't want to forbid this, I just would feel much happier, if I can be more sure, that a modpack doesn't hurt copyrights.

* It is technically also not a big problem to make a mod, that patches another mod, just need to set the right dependencies in info.json file.

Thank you for Posting this , i know now what i have to do.

I thank you , sir

[ssilk]

So yes, I'm confused, too. Would be good to know what's the real status quo...

I have been going in contact with the devs about this.