So... LEKMod opened up a Patreon

[pineappledan]

LEKMod has started a patreon to raise money for continued work on their multiplayer civ V mod. For those not in the know, LEKmod is an offshoot of the older NQmod which is a complete overhaul mod that prioritizes civ V multiplayer balance.

The modders have lifted dozens of entire custom civs (design, code, art, dialogue) from the civ 5 modding community without attribution, permission, and definitely not compensation. Though they aren't selling their mod -- so this might not technically run afoul of Firaxis' End User License Agreement -- this is pretty obviously a bad look. Some civ V modders are trying to document and itemize everyone who had their work appropriated in order to present a unified case to Paypal/Patreon against hosting the campaign.

Thought I would bring this to people's attention in case people were interested.

Link to LEKMod Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/lekmod

List of civs in LEKMod
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yy9z-pe9D4S_poTCRzLxmWCalY3QAo2MhGbuV17HmYM/edit

 

[cpm4001]

It's a little late but I wanted to mention that, as a modder myself (though for Paradox games, not Civ), I find this sort of thing completely unacceptable. Just got done arguing with the guy responsible for the Patreon in BabaYetu_'s Twitch chat and he clearly doesn't get why this is problematic, so given that...anything I can do to help out?

 

[Asterix Rage]

That's true LEKMod's people laugh a lot about civ5 modding community !!!
Here

 

[cpm4001]

That's true LEKMod's people laugh a lot about civ5 modding community !!!
Here

Yep! I brought that whole thing on by raising the point in chat and am pretty disgusted with the responses.
Incidentally it looks like I can bring in support from non-modders in other gaming communities if that would help. Pretty clear at this point we need to shut this Patreon down.

 

[pineappledan]

It will mean more coming from the aggrieved parties. No one in the VP community is affected, to my knowledge, but solidarity with the original artists, and a distancing from the lekmodders is important, if only to distance ourselves from this behaviour.

a lot of VP mods borrow liberally from the same modders that LEKmod pulls from, but in a much more forthright and proper manner.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

Popular mods on games like Rimworld have a Patreon, in fact, if you were to open a Patreon i would seriously consider donating. The problem here is that they're taking material (code, art) that other people developed

 

[pineappledan]

Definitely, and lots of civ 5 modders have patreon accounts as well, but those modders are doing original work, not doing a wholesale asset flip.

if you were to open a Patreon I would seriously consider donating.

If I opened up a patreon, I would get a lot of criticism from people whose assets I borrowed under a different pretext, and they would be right to criticize me. I do some original coding/text/art work, but not nearly enough that I could avoid accusations of appropriation.

That's why this LEKmod business concerns me; they are poisoning the well, and ruining the goodwill that a lot of my own work depends on.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

Sorry i wanted to say if vox populi have an official patreon i would consider donating. Typo.

But we agree, it's not that Patreon is bad per se, it's that this it's appropriation of other people work. Do you have creative commons license in your work? Because i am pretty sure that just by placing that the whole legal process will be easier

 

[Recursive]

Sorry i wanted to say if vox populi have an official patreon i would consider donating.

VP devs work for free.

If you insist on making donations, please do so to a charity of your choice.

 

[HungryForFood]

Just want to point out that VP is built on whoward's DLL, so a VP Patreon will not be right either. Not to mention contributions (code, art) from other modders as well.

Personally I mod because it is fun, having money come into it would turn it into a job.

 

[Milae]

I would have thought you aren't even allowed to make money from modding a game since the company still owns the copyright and stuff.

Though I'm not against people making money on principle since many modders do a lot of good work. But yea it ain't good if they are getting paid for things they are taking from others and not even crediting them.

 

[Snipergw]

The Patreon model of "it's just a charity donation!" is incredibly insidious for fanworks, especially since it's on a subscription model. Even just the idea of a structured way to hustle income from derivative works feels very wrong to me, but once a community gets around to accepting it, "early access of new versions for patreons" (that stay in "testing" for months) is close at hand.

I do support something like a ko-fi link on a profile, as long as it's not plastered everywhere. I've given a few cups here and there to quality creators I respect in the past. On Patreon you are selling something, however. Dodgy.

 

[EnormousApplePie]

Hello, I am the lead developer for the Lekmod project. I have read peoples concerns regarding Lekmod's use of a Patreon and accepting donations as a whole, and concerns about permissions for artwork and the like.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the permission, and assets used problem. The mod started out as a different version of the original NQ mod early on, made for teamer gamemodes. After, Lekmod got converted back for general multiplayer use, and kept up development for it. Since about a year ago, I used art, and some dialogue, to improve the existing added civilizations (currently, the actual effect of civlizations are about 90% original, and some abilities are kept because they fit rather well). At this point, and still for a long while after, the mod was only played rather in-group, the NQ group (steam group) for multiplayer games. It was just only me that used my own spare time to improve something that basically a couple of people that know eachother well played together with. However, after a while it started blowing up outside the group, folks like the Yogscast started using it for their civ 5 games, and from there spread to other communities. Now obviously, simply giving credit to the people that made the assets that I used wasn't going to enough, so recently (this would be in december of last year) went around to ask official permission for assets used. However, this process is taking me a bit, which is my fault.

Keep in mind, this entire mod project is made out of good will, and there is no ill intent towards any of the mod creators, in fact, I wish to get things right on this issue, request official permission, and if I do not get it, simply remove the items of which I have no right to use them. This should have been done earlier, and I am completely in the wrong. I cannot say much more than that.


On the second note about donations/patreon ect.

I still believe, as I have discussion with some people before, that this is a matter of opinion, and I do not think my answer will satisfy everyone.

Simply put, I request donations for my time put in to the development of the mod, as it is a continues development cycle. I do not request donations for the content itself. I believe that to be a significant difference. A difference enough to ask for donations.

I hope that at least clears up a bunch of concerns people may have. I would like to end my comment with again stating that there is no harm intended with any of this, just some mistakes that can be made right.

If you have any more questions you could ask them here, or check out the lekmod main page to find our contact information.

 

[InkAxis]

Hello, I am the lead developer for the Lekmod project. I have read peoples concerns regarding Lekmod's use of a Patreon and accepting donations as a whole, and concerns about permissions for artwork and the like.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the permission, and assets used problem. The mod started out as a different version of the original NQ mod early on, made for teamer gamemodes. After, Lekmod got converted back for general multiplayer use, and kept up development for it. Since about a year ago, I used art, and some dialogue, to improve the existing added civilizations (currently, the actual effect of civlizations are about 90% original, and some abilities are kept because they fit rather well). At this point, and still for a long while after, the mod was only played rather in-group, the NQ group (steam group) for multiplayer games. It was just only me that used my own spare time to improve something that basically a couple of people that know eachother well played together with. However, after a while it started blowing up outside the group, folks like the Yogscast started using it for their civ 5 games, and from there spread to other communities. Now obviously, simply giving credit to the people that made the assets that I used wasn't going to enough, so recently (this would be in december of last year) went around to ask official permission for assets used. However, this process is taking me a bit, which is my fault.

Keep in mind, this entire mod project is made out of good will, and there is no ill intent towards any of the mod creators, in fact, I wish to get things right on this issue, request official permission, and if I do not get it, simply remove the items of which I have no right to use them. This should have been done earlier, and I am completely in the wrong. I cannot say much more than that.


On the second note about donations/patreon ect.

I still believe, as I have discussion with some people before, that this is a matter of opinion, and I do not think my answer will satisfy everyone.

Simply put, I request donations for my time put in to the development of the mod, as it is a continues development cycle. I do not request donations for the content itself. I believe that to be a significant difference. A difference enough to ask for donations.

I hope that at least clears up a bunch of concerns people may have. I would like to end my comment with again stating that there is no harm intended with any of this, just some mistakes that can be made right.

If you have any more questions you could ask them here, or check out the lekmod main page to find our contact information.

It's good to hear the other side, thanks for responding.

I was wondering, what are your current plans? If you are still taking donations, have you removed the parts that don't have permission?

Also I want to preemptively say please be civil everyone.

 

[Recursive]

Just want to point out that VP is built on whoward's DLL, so a VP Patreon will not be right either. Not to mention contributions (code, art) from other modders as well.

Personally I mod because it is fun, having money come into it would turn it into a job.

I agree with this, I don't think it would be ethical considering how many people have contributed to the project. The money would have to be divided among contributors and that would create the task of evaluating how much each contributor's work is worth. Add to that headaches involving permission and legal questions and it would completely ruin the fun of developing for VP. Better to keep it a free project without all the hassle!

If someone wanted to give me free money I certainly wouldn't refuse - I'm not the Civ 1 AI - but I wouldn't accept it in the context of my work for VP, that wouldn't be right since I'm not the only person who worked on VP.

I don't personally care whether or not people ask for donations if they're developing original content, but there are definitely legal questions when it comes to derivative works. I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment further on that front.

Hello, I am the lead developer for the Lekmod project. I have read peoples concerns regarding Lekmod's use of a Patreon and accepting donations as a whole, and concerns about permissions for artwork and the like.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the permission, and assets used problem. The mod started out as a different version of the original NQ mod early on, made for teamer gamemodes. After, Lekmod got converted back for general multiplayer use, and kept up development for it. Since about a year ago, I used art, and some dialogue, to improve the existing added civilizations (currently, the actual effect of civlizations are about 90% original, and some abilities are kept because they fit rather well). At this point, and still for a long while after, the mod was only played rather in-group, the NQ group (steam group) for multiplayer games. It was just only me that used my own spare time to improve something that basically a couple of people that know eachother well played together with. However, after a while it started blowing up outside the group, folks like the Yogscast started using it for their civ 5 games, and from there spread to other communities. Now obviously, simply giving credit to the people that made the assets that I used wasn't going to enough, so recently (this would be in december of last year) went around to ask official permission for assets used. However, this process is taking me a bit, which is my fault.

Keep in mind, this entire mod project is made out of good will, and there is no ill intent towards any of the mod creators, in fact, I wish to get things right on this issue, request official permission, and if I do not get it, simply remove the items of which I have no right to use them. This should have been done earlier, and I am completely in the wrong. I cannot say much more than that.


On the second note about donations/patreon ect.

I still believe, as I have discussion with some people before, that this is a matter of opinion, and I do not think my answer will satisfy everyone.

Simply put, I request donations for my time put in to the development of the mod, as it is a continues development cycle. I do not request donations for the content itself. I believe that to be a significant difference. A difference enough to ask for donations.

I hope that at least clears up a bunch of concerns people may have. I would like to end my comment with again stating that there is no harm intended with any of this, just some mistakes that can be made right.

If you have any more questions you could ask them here, or check out the lekmod main page to find our contact information.

While I don't have a stake in this and I'm not making accusations, based on your statement here - if I were in your shoes, I would take down my donations page until I had obtained proper permission to use all of the assets I was offering to others in my mod (alternatively, I would remove the assets from the mod until I had obtained permission to use them in a profit-making context). Speaking for myself, I don't mind anyone using or building on my contributions to VP, but I would mind if someone had used them to make money without asking, especially since I'm not charging for them myself.

I understand the content isn't being sold and the donations are for your time, but to use an analogy, if you created a free board game for everyone and a second person was asking for donations for their work in mixing parts of your game board and cards with their own work and offering it to others without asking or crediting you, would you be happy with them? Just my own view, but I don't think that would be right, or respectful to the people who created the original work.

You do acknowledge this in your statement and I believe you when you say that you aren't acting with malicious intentions towards anyone. This would be my own advice on how to fix the situation.

 

[EnormousApplePie]

Hello again. I have taken the opinions of people here, and from some of the mod authors themselves, and have come to the conclusion that monetizing Lekmod the way I do it currently doesn't seem to fit well with the modding community of this game. I agree on some parts but disagree on some. However, no matter what my opinion is on this, I must respect the people that obviously put more time and more effort into making the modding community as it is today.

That being said, I will most likely end up closing down my patreon page until everything that I use that isn't my own has to proper permissions to monitize it the way I want it to be.

 

[raystuttgart]

That being said, I will most likely end up closing down my patreon page until everything that I use that isn't my own has to proper permissions to monitize it the way I want it to be.

But if I see it correctly that Patreon Page is still active.

How could you possibly have asked everybody for permission?
And did they really all give you the permission to use their assets when being monetized via Patreon?

------

I am interested in the opinions about this topic because several players of our mod also offered to become Patreons.
However, I also see the issues with monetizing work that other modders created for free in other mods.

However I do not really feel comfortable with it for 2 reasons:
1) Our mod uses lots of assets from other modders. So there may be moral issues with it also causing nasty discussions in community.
2) I see potential legal issues with it. Because if I understand the licenses of Firaxis and 2K correctly no modder can make money with a CivBTS/Civ4Col mod.

Because our mod (WTP for Civ4Col) most definitely uses assets of modders that clearly stated:
"You may use my assets in your project but only if your project is not monetized in any way."

-----

I am also aware however that Patreon could potentially be used to benefit mods and community.
But I am also pretty sure that we modders would start arguing and it would thus cause harm to modding community.

 

[Zanteogo]

Though I have no interest in getting involved in whatever the issue is or isn't here, a warning, this is the kind of stuff that set back the Skyrim mod community.

Skyrim mod'er where cool using their own time putting out mods for free for years. Some would get a donation here or there, but for the most part it was done with the understanding that you are doing this for free.

Once paid mods raised their head, creators that were cool with creating for free, and up to that point, didn't mind much if others used their work and built on it, had an issue. When the paid Skyrim mod fiasco imploded the first time, many creators walked away from the moding community and took their work with them. To this day some insanely good Skyrim mods have been lost to us.

Just a warning.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

To this day some insanely good Skyrim mods have been lost to us.

Damn, I left at a good time then, right before all that nonsense occurred. I will riot if "Dongs of Skyrim (16k textures)" isn't salvageable...