Bethesda Softworks - Stolen Mods Complaint

Some Mod authors are complaining to Bethesda that their mods are being used 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.

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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?