Bethesda Softworks - Stolen Mods Complaint

[Silver]

Some Mod authors are complaining to Bethesda that their mods are being use without their permission. Bethesda is recommending mod creators file a DMCA takedown notice which goes against how the mod community usually deals with such issues.

How to officially file a complaint notice if all or part of your Mod is uploaded to Bethesda.net without your permission

gstaff
gstaff Employee Jun 6, 2016 5:39 PM

A number of you have reported instances of users uploading Mod content that allegedly does not belong to the Mod creator. We take these reports seriously and want to protect copyright holders and authors of the Mod content shared on Bethesda.net.

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we request that anyone who believes their content was wrongfully uploaded to Bethesda.net formally submit a DMCA takedown request. Please Note: These reports should only come from mod authors and other copyright holders who believe their content was stolen.

To report these DMCA violations, please follow the steps from Section 17 of our Terms & Service and send requests -- completed as detailed below -- to our email address copyrightabuse@zenimax.com. In order to make this process smoother, we will be working on ways to streamline this process.

[...]

Following GStaff's recent post on reporting stolen content we seriously need more answers than a token lawyer's response to a legitimate community concern. Is more information going to be posted soon about what Bethesda hope to do about this serious situation, or was that response all we're going to get?

I ask because it seemingly sets an awful precedent, and seemingly reverses well over 14 years of commonly accepted (and strictly enforced, I'll add) etiquette within "your" very own community.

The inherent problem is in the first two lines:

A number of you have reported instances of users uploading Mod content that allegedly does not belong to the Mod creator. We take these reports seriously and want to protect copyright holders and authors of the Mod content shared on Bethesda.net.

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we request that anyone who believes their content was wrongfully uploaded to Bethesda.net formally submit a DMCA takedown request. Please Note: These reports should only come from mod authors and other copyright holders who believe their content was stolen.

The first line talks about users (many of whom are not the original authors) reporting stolen content, and that you take these reports seriously. That's good, that's how it should be. The second line talks about mod authors using DMCA reports to report stolen content.

The first line is about community enforcement; where the community has come together to report to you that content has been stolen, against a mod author's express and written permissions. In these instances, you're expected to analyse the reports yourself, confirm that content has indeed been stolen and act accordingly to remove said content and reprimand the violator. You by no means need to be as strict as the Nexus in terms of reprimanding the violator. How you discipline is your prerogative, of course. But the key point is, the community (not just the wronged mod author) reports the content to you, and you handle it in a timely manner.

The second line presents a major caveat, removing the community element from your reporting system and relying on the original mod author/copyright holder being made aware of their content being stolen and jumping through legal hoops to have their work removed. This is a major difference from the system mentioned above and is a serious break away from what the community has stood for and has come to expect.

I won't even go in to how disappointing it is that an official mod distribution platform can be created without serious consideration for how it'll be moderated.

Because the post from GStaff was obviously written by a lawyer type who couldn't give a rats arse about this community, what it's stood for and how it's operated these past 14 years, I wanted to see if we could get some actual answers and try to understand if this is the only way Bethesda are going to deal with stolen content, or whether this a stop-gap measure until you can bring your moderation tools up to scratch (and my god, do they need to be brought up to scratch). If DMCA reports are the only reports you're going to action. That's bad. That's really bad. The inherent problem is that GStaff's post didn't mention anything other than using DMCA to report stolen files. So here are the key questions before everyone loses their marbles and goes (more) mental at you:

• Are DMCA reports going to be the only method for reporting stolen content? If yes, why?
• If no, what plans have you got in the pipe-work to help rectify this issue, both on the front-end for people reporting the content, and on the backend to bring Bethesda.net in to the 21st century/the digital age where your moderation is much closer to being global, rather than working on US Eastern office hours, 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday? Your site is global, your community is global, your moderation should be global too!
• Is there any point in people using the current report system on Bethesda.net to report stolen content when the stolen content isn't theirs to begin with?
• Please can we have an update on what measures are being taken to help improve the moderation on the site?

More information.

 

[Silver]

Thanks Drithius for bringing this news to our attention.

 

[KaosWarMonk]

Another nail in the coffin? A coffin built, I might add, by Bethesda themselves.

 

[Couchpotato]

I have personally seen a few mods be deleted off the internet by their creators because of this. One of them was a famous expansion called Wyrmstooth.

 

[SonOfCapiz]

Mods are the only reason I even consider Bethesda games anymore. They started with the crapstorm that was paid mods in the Workshop, promised they'd look into making it better and the result is basically to tell mod authors "it's your problem, deal with it yourselves. But since we're such nice guys, here's how you do it"?

 

[domein]

Mod author can be a 12 year old boy from provincial china village, they really expect him to come to US and file DMCA takedown request?

 

[Ripper]

Mod author can be a 12 year old boy from provincial china village, they really expect him to come to US and file DMCA takedown request?

Yes, it's nonsense. It's just their way of washing their hands of responsibility.

Bethesda have never shown much concern about modder's issues before, and probably only commenting now because they have a stake in it with their own platform, and an eye on paid mods.

I was one of the guys that setup the STEP forum for Skyrim modding, and we contacted them several times about these kinds of issues and legal questions. Never got a single response.

 

[lostforever]

How can you solve this issue of other people using your mods or parts of your mods and call it theirs? I don't think you can....

I know it sucks but what can one do? I don't believe we want Bethesda or somebody else to police the mode community.

 

[Ripper]

How can you solve this issue of other people using your mods or parts of your mods and call it theirs? I don't think you can….

I know it sucks but what can one do? I don't believe we want Bethesda or somebody else to police the mode community.

The problem has largely been policed by the community itself, not by any legal enforcement. All the respectable modding platforms will refuse to host any mod that can be shown to rip off another modder.

All I'm saying is that Bethesda has always essentially taken a position of ,"No comment, sort it out yourselves," when it comes to mods and rights. Now all of a sudden they're talking about fricking DMCA takedowns.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

Mod author can be a 12 year old boy from provincial china village, they really expect him to come to US and file DMCA takedown request?

If the boy likes to travel around the world, sure.

 

[lostforever]

The problem has largely been policed by the community itself, not by any legal enforcement. All the respectable modding platforms will refuse to host any mod that can be shown to rip off another modder.

All I'm saying is that Bethesda has always essentially taken a position of ,"No comment, sort it out yourselves," when it comes to mods and rights. Now all of a sudden they're talking about fricking DMCA takedowns.

I think modding should be under some sort of open source license such as GPL etc. This way most people who take/steal others works in their own mod will actually acknowledge where they came from rather than saying nothing at all now.

I don't believe its realist for modders to expect other to not use their mods. It just not possible on the internet... so this way at least you get some acknowledge...

 

[Ripper]

I think modding should be under some sort of open source license such as GPL etc. This way most people who take/steal others works in their own mod will actually acknowledge where they came from rather than saying nothing at all now.

I don't believe its realist for modders to expect other to not use their mods. It just not possible on the internet… so this way at least you get some acknowledge…

I've always been in favour of that model. One of the major characters in the TES modding scene was Wrye (the author of the powerful Wryebash modding tool.) He described the modding world as being like a cathedral - that we are working towards building a greater, shared whole, and that arguing over who controls each piece is pointless. Some of us agreed with him, but the majority of modders were much more interested in personal ownership.

I would definitely support a GPL model for modding (along with the convention of acknowledging your sources.)

I had a long discussion with Kyrer about the rights around mods. We took different views on the legal situation, but the question won't really be resolved until/if its tested in court. In the era of unpaid mods, it was unlikely to ever go that far, but once the paid mods get going, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Interesting, but rather sad for the modding community.

 

[screeg]

Bethesda's response to this response: *Yawn*

 

[Thrasher]

If Bethesda owns all mods, how can they be stolen?

 

[Ripper]

If bethesafda owns all mods, how can they be stolen?

Bethesda doesn't actually own the mods - they are just granted rights to do what they want with the mod if you've used their creation kit, and they say that modders may not sell their mods.

It's a really complex legal question, and no definitive precedent has been set, as far as I know. Their position used to be that the Nexus couldn't allow modders to profit from their mods, and then they changed their position to allow for voluntary donations, but not sales. The owner of the Nexus has said that he has simply abided by Beth's wishes, since he didn't want to risk facing their legal juggernaut.

If it did ever go to court, it would boil down to two arguments. Beth could say that mods, by their very definition, are modifications of their IP, and thus any profits derived from them are theirs, because they are legally "derivative works". The opposing side would say that although their content modifies Beth's work, it contains a substantial amount of their own original work, which should not automatically pass into Beth's control. Until a precedent is set, it's unknown territory.

 

[Bedwyr]

Bethesda doesn't actually own the mods - they are just granted rights to do what they want with the mod if you've used their creation kit, and they say that modders may not sell their mods.

It's a really complex legal question, and no definitive precedent has been set, as far as I know. Their position used to be that the Nexus couldn't allow modders to profit from their mods, and then they changed their position to allow for voluntary donations, but not sales. The owner of the Nexus has said that he has simply abided by Beth's wishes, since he didn't want to risk facing their legal juggernaut.

If it did ever go to court, it would boil down to two arguments. Beth could say that mods, by their very definition, are modifications of their IP, and thus any profits derived from them are theirs, because they are legally "derivative works". The opposing side would say that although their content modifies Beth's work, it contains a substantial amount of their own original work, which should not automatically pass into Beth's control. Until a precedent is set, it's unknown territory.

Thank you for exposing this.

Honestly it's a mess and will remain a mess because of the previous informal nature of the arrangement. It's partly Bethesda's fault, but I don't get too hard on them because it's more their failure of imagination to both predict the rickety nature of mod dependencies and authorship. Mostly this is on the community.

There will also not be court cases. The harm done to individuals is minor. The only way it would be worth any attorney's time is to get some kind of class action certification and, well, the authorship mess of the informal community is a major barrier.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for DarkOne, however, because there's no such thing as mod policing by Bethsda outside of the DMCA process. Bethesda *can't* do informal internal policing because by license under the EULA, authorship is outside their concern. It is literally not their problem. The only way they can make it their problem is by by establishing the authorship relationship formally and *then* taking action. The method to do that under US law is the DMCA assertion. Without it, Bethesda would be taking on themselves to assert ownership on behalf of someone else *which they cannot do*.

I'm sorry, but the community complaints are rooted in fantasy, not real life practice and law.

 

[Saxon1974]

If you create a mod and out it out there then kind of hard to police it other than word of mouth.

I just don't want good mods to disappear or I will no longer play Bethesda games

 

[Thrasher]

Bethesda doesn't actually own the mods - they are just granted rights to do what they want with the mod if you've used their creation kit, and they say that modders may not sell their mods.

It's a really complex legal question, and no definitive precedent has been set, as far as I know. Their position used to be that the Nexus couldn't allow modders to profit from their mods, and then they changed their position to allow for voluntary donations, but not sales. The owner of the Nexus has said that he has simply abided by Beth's wishes, since he didn't want to risk facing their legal juggernaut.

If it did ever go to court, it would boil down to two arguments. Beth could say that mods, by their very definition, are modifications of their IP, and thus any profits derived from them are theirs, because they are legally "derivative works". The opposing side would say that although their content modifies Beth's work, it contains a substantial amount of their own original work, which should not automatically pass into Beth's control. Until a precedent is set, it's unknown territory.

Well if they can do with them whatever they want, and others can't profit form them, that sure sounds like ownership to me. What else would ownership entail?

 

[Ripper]

Well if they can do with them whatever they want, and others can't profit form them, that sure sounds like ownership to me. What else would ownership would entail?

That's exactly what I've argued before. The legal question, though, is whether they are right about about modders being forbidden from profiting from the work; the question of whether mods would be legally considered derivative works.

There's a really good academic assessment of the situation here, if you're interested enough for a longish read. It illustrates the grey area, and also shows some reasons why I tend to think it would come down on Bethesda's side.

It also makes a very good point, which would be Beth's trump card, if it came down to it. All Bethesda would have to do is use their DRM to protect the way mods can be implemented, and restrict the mods to their own platform and conditions. Then, any attempt to bypass this would be considered a circumvention of protection, and deemed illegal under the DMCA. That would be far more clear cut than any copyright/fair use arguments.

 

[Drithius]

I'm sorry, but the community complaints are rooted in fantasy, not real life practice and law.

How is theft of hundreds, thousands of hours of work and Bethesda's lackadaisical attitude towards it rooted in fantasy? If a better system to police and moderate this isn't set up, this will kill the modding community and, by association, a large part of Bethesda's staying power in between their Gamebryo_07 renditions.