With all these Mods, what License are they under??

[Bill3000]

Ah, cool. So people who make mods don't even own them. Nice.

I stick with my "people don't care" comment.

...well, they might care now.

 

[Gooblah]

Ah, cool. So people who make mods don't even own them. Nice.

I stick with my "people don't care" comment.

...well, they might care now.

Well, ori raised a good point about the modding community.

If anything, Firaxis should change it to say that any derivative of this work shouldn't be marketed for profit or sold in any form unless explicit written permission is gotten from Firaxis (or something along those lines).

 

[Bill3000]

If anything, Firaxis should change it to say that any derivative of this work shouldn't be marketed for profit or sold in any form unless explicit written permission is gotten from Firaxis (or something along those lines).

Nope, can't be sold, period.

(b) You will not use or permit third parties to use the Software Utilities and the Customized Game Materials created by you for any commercial purposes, including but not limited to distributing, leasing, licensing, renting, selling, or otherwise exploiting, transferring or assigning the ownership of such Customized Game Materials;

 

[holy king]

so rhye didnt see a single cent for his mod in bts?

 

[Faladhrym]

so rhye didnt see a single cent for his mod in bts?

maybe cause my english isn't that great, but all it says (I think) is taht rhye's can't sell is mod to us or other companies... but I'm pretty sure he's not forced to "give" the mod to FIRAXIS... cause FIRAXIS made money with FFH, they even advertised it in the trailers I think so they'ld basically be exploring rhye's mod, there should be some law preventing that right? surelly FIRAXIS gave something in return

 

[Cor'e =)]

Yes yes yes... What a cruel fate mods have!

Spoiler :

END-USER VARIATIONS: So long as You fully comply, at all times, with this License, Infogrames Interactive grants to You a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive right to: (i) use the Software's toolset feature to create Your own Civilization III: Play the World modules ("Modules"), and (ii) create Your own modifications to work with the Software (e.g., custom data files not created using the toolset) (the "User Conversions", and together with the Modules, the "Variations"). Your rights to create Variations are subject to the following restrictions: (1) Your Variations must only work with the full commercial version of the software game Civilization III: Play the World; (2) Your Variations must not contain modifications to any executable file; (3) Your Variations must not contain any libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene, or other illegal material, material that is scandalous or invades the rights of privacy or publicity of any third party, or contain any trademarks, copyright-protected work or other property of third parties, or contain any viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information; and (4) You may not rent, sell, lease, lend, offer on a pay-per-play or timesharing basis or otherwise commercially exploit or commercially distribute Your Variations (including, without limitation, hosting pay-per-play servers, hosting pay-per-download web-sites for Variations including sites that charge for bandwidth use, and independently selling Variations online, at retail, mail order, etc.). We may take any action with respect to your Variations if we believe it may create liability for us or may cause us to lose (in whole or in part) the services of our ISPs or other suppliers.
Without limiting the foregoing, You expressly acknowledge and agree that in no event shall You have the right or license to make any modification (whether using the toolkit or otherwise) to any portion of the Software for the purpose of creating any data file, executable, or other derivative work that is intended to operate in a stand-alone mode, with any pre-release or beta version of Civilization III or Civilization III: Play the World, or any software program other than Civilization III: Play the World. You acknowledge that Infogrames Interactive owns all right, title and interest in and to any and all Variations.

DISTRIBUTION AND SERVING OF MODULES AND USER CONVERSIONS: So long as You fully comply at all times with this License, Infogrames Interactive grants to You the limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive right to: (i) distribute Your Modules or User Conversions by means of providing a copy of the actual Module or User Conversion code to other users (e.g., via ftp, email, disc copies, etc.) (collectively "Distribute"); and (ii) to allow other users to play Your Modules by means of hosting Your own Civilization III: Play the World server whereby You retain sole possession of Your Module (collectively "Serve") (Serving User Converions[sic] is not possible).

INFOGRAMES' USE OF VARIATIONS: If You Distribute, or permit others to Distribute, Your Variations, You acknowledge that such Distribution by You shall in no way limit Infogrames Interactive's right to use and distribute such Variations by any means, and to make such modifications thereto as Infogrames Interactive deems are necessary to package, combine, and otherwise distribute such Variations. Infogrames Interactive will make a reasonable effort to provide credit to You in the event it uses or distributes Your Variations, but You acknowledge that identifying You and/or other Variation creators may be difficult, and any failure by Infogrames Interactive to provide credit to any person shall not be a breach of this License and shall in no way limit Infogrames Interactive's rights to use and distribute any Variation.

REVOCATION OF RIGHTS: Infogrames Interactive may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke Your right to make Your Variations publicly available (whether You are Distributing or Serving), provided that Infogrames Interactive shall not revoke Your right to Distribute a Variation if Infogrames Interactive is, at the time of such revocation, using or distributing such Variation.

Infogrames Interactive grants to You a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive right to make mods for their games, but not sell Your mods in any way. (I have no wish to debate on this point).

Any mod's code is no argument, Firaxis owns it because it is for their game, same terms as above. (I also have no wish to debate this issue).

Basically, the mod's art works are also owned by Firaxis if it is a derivative of Firaxis' game art; meaning if you modded their art work it will end up being their art work legally.

But it is not clearly defined who owns a mod's ORIGINAL art work, will Firaxis own the art because it was used it in a mod of their games, or not? An artist/writer may very well care, since they'll never own it again or be allowed to use it again without license, nor will anyone else, permission granted or not from the artist/writer.

Will CivFanatics take ANY steps to inform a mod maker about this (e.g. in a FAQ or Forum Sticky) and give an upload entry for a mod maker to say that the mod has original works in it thus protecting the modder's implicit copyright? Should a fan site ignore any modder's rights to the total benefit of a commercial game maker?

 

[Maniacal]

Since mods are made free to use, and all most people ask if you use their original work in your mod is to be properly credited in a readme file, this is common knowledge and nobody really cares. I highly doubt Firaxis really cares either.

 

[Fetus4188]

If there's anyone here with meaningful insight on this issue it would be Kael (of FFH) who has mods dealing with large amounts of custom content from CFC and outside artists, he (and his team) also worked with Firaxis on a BtS scenario. Additionally his FFH2 mod has been featured in PC gaming magazines.