#ip_rights_violations

1 messages · Page 65 of 1

dull moon
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you're not wrong. it could be a source for abuse. but what other ways (atm) do moders have to counter such violations?

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dmca the workshop item

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cool...

mortal needle
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If it's against the law, use the law, if it isn't, there isn't anything you can do about it.

dull moon
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then it will appear on a google drive / dropbox

C&D

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then it appears on a selfhosted server

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again, C&D to the hoster

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and so on

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no fun, i tell you

mortal needle
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Then what's the difference between someone altering your content to remove the blacklist?
It's exactly the same thing.

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Theft is inevitable.

dull moon
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well, if there was just a build in DRM system.....

mortal needle
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But that is exactly what happens with game piracy.

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People will just remove the DRM

dull moon
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sure, but the initial hurdle would be way higher, therefore blocks the majority of script kiddies

mortal needle
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If they are script kiddies then they'll probably just use a public release without DRM/BL anyway.

dull moon
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it's ofc an uphill battle for sure

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nevertheless, modders need more ways to counter violations more quickly and effectively.
the newly introduced feature (for BI) to ban repeat offender from publishing to the workshop was a step in the right direction

mortal needle
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But then this goes back to your other statement on how it just keeps appearing on a different platform.

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The issue is probably more around the DMCA safehabour platforms.

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Because they are shielded against DMCA's they see no reason in changing the DMCA system.

dull moon
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the current system (arma) has too many holes

mortal needle
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The workshop was released in 2011, unless the ban tool is specific to Arma 3, that's 10 years it took for Valve to allow developers to ban people from uploading to the workshop.

dull moon
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this is why i wish for a BI internal solution for the next arma title

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more control

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more and better ways to moderate

mortal needle
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That would be BI at risk unless they become a DMCA safehabour platform, in which case you end up in almost the same situation.

dull moon
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That would be BI at risk
why?

strange elm
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it would be cool if they had an internal solution which would also block external mods, so people dont have that loophole after they get removed from teh arma workshop

mortal needle
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They would be liable for the copyright infringements on their platform.

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Unless the do the same DMCA system which valve does.

dull moon
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why not have mods registered to the platform with creator information ect, and a hash check of the database for new uploads?
let's take CUP for example.
registered to the platform as the original creator.
checkbox "do you allow reuploads" > NO
some kiddie wants to upload a modpack that includes CUP
pre upload hash check
content already on the platform, no reuploads
upload denied

gray siren
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changes some code and bame your plan ruined

mortal needle
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I edit some files > hash is now different > still copyright infringement.

dull moon
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what ever mechanism. this was just an example. multi layer checks could also be done

gray siren
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it not going to happen

mortal needle
gray siren
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Why would BI waist time on this when the current system is perfect for them

mortal needle
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The guy got banned because of the hash of an empty file

dull moon
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i'm well aware of the fact that no system is perfect

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but something MUST be done

gray siren
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mod reuploads and what not are not a big concern for BI. So just deal with the current system.

dull moon
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i'm no IT expert by all means, just a guy with ideas

gray siren
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why MUST some thing be done

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is some one dying?

mortal needle
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So BI would create a system which would require more employees, spending more time, to allow users to upload content that they can already do without BI having to spend any money, on the Steam workshop.

dull moon
gray siren
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yeah BI is fine with current set up

dull moon
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works for ylands

strange elm
gray siren
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maybe for arma 4 if you want your mod safe you can go the GM route and have the mod be come a DLC

mortal needle
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And then you run into issues where big mod A allows re uploads, mod B doesn't, so files from A that are in B get flagged.

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Now you've got another problem.

dull moon
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And then you run into issues where big mod A allows re uploads, mod B doesn't, so files from A that are in B get flagged.
Now you've got another problem.
as said, i'm no expert at all. there are people with bigger IT brains than me.

gray siren
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@strange elm Who do you mean by we?

dull moon
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modders

gray siren
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modders are not BI

mortal needle
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You'd run into an issue where uploading a mod requires the server to go through all uploaded files to check for re uploads of others content.

manic laurel
strange elm
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modders and whomever from BI that does go through the workshop

manic laurel
dull moon
mortal needle
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But as the number of files increases so does the number of hashes.

dull moon
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and since BI kind of relies on modders... well...

gray siren
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BI is company if it makes money good if it costs money bad. They not going to spend a bunch of money to make a internal sytem

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and modders mod now

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are you going to stop modding

manic laurel
soft egret
dull moon
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BI is company if it makes money good if it costs money bad. They not going to spend a bunch of money to make a internal system
yes. and most, if not all success BI made, was with modders. protect your best income and PR source

manic laurel
strange elm
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one thing i think BI needs toconsider with arma 4 is to remove the function of "load local mods" which would limit the system to only run mods that are verified from the workshop

manic laurel
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therefore, it is a non-cash-weighable value but still a value

gray siren
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and making a system than bans people because of a hashtag is worse

dull moon
mortal needle
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There isn't much that BI is doing for modders at the moment, other then the newly introduced workshop ban system.

gray siren
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and no BI wont remove loacal mods as a opstion

hallow idol
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Not every modder wants their mod on the workshop, so removing loading local mods is by far the worst idea I've heard for this

manic laurel
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also, local mod testing

strange elm
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how so, why wouldnt they want to be on the workshop? because they are illegal?

hallow idol
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Or Unsung?

gray siren
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you cant see private mods

hallow idol
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Or all the other mods that still aren't on the workshop - to many to list

strange elm
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RHS and Unsung are on the workshop xD

dull moon
hallow idol
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I guess you are new, from ~2 years ago

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Because both of those weren't always on the Workshop

gray siren
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you all so know there are third part launchers that can launch arma with mods. So dissabling local mods wont fix your issue

dull moon
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don't get personal please

manic laurel
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^ can we not turn that into a d.. contest…?

hallow idol
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Sorry if I made it sound hostile

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Point still stands

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and what Lou said - imagine if testing mods before uploading them couldn't be done

gray siren
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yeah for a long time RHS was only arma aholic and unsung

strange elm
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i consider armaholic different than let say other groups just hosting there mods since they had been removed fromt he workshop armaholic is atleast somewhat official

gray siren
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how can you tell witch is witch

dull moon
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i just would love to see that BI invites a good portion of representatives of the modding community to discuss future ways and possibilities, better than it is now

soft egret
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Just because somethingis popular doesn't make it official.
Armaholic is also hosting lots of content without permission.
Whats popular, they grab and put on their to get the google results and site visits.

hallow idol
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RHS and Unsung hosted on their own websites if I remember correctly

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Disabling local mods - now we are speaking about ACTUALLY killing the modding community

dull moon
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i agree on that. that's a nogo

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this is essential for modding

hallow idol
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Well, it's also impossible to disable

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Steam workshop is just a folder

strange elm
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i mean maybe make an internal sandbox source to allow mod testing before upload?

hallow idol
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You copy-paste a mod into the folder and BAM - a workshop mod

manic laurel
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yeah well, disabling local mods is (unfortunately) a no-go
unless
allowing local mods, without network abilities

then
uploading (private) to workshop to playtest in MP

then release it

hallow idol
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For this to work - steam would have to change, and that isn't happening

dull moon
hallow idol
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Or as said before - people just upload a mod only they can see (one of the 3 visibility options)

manic laurel
strange elm
gray siren
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again wont work. if you played older arma games you will know that to mod arma is really easy. drop files in to data and play

hallow idol
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I am talking about Steam and how the workshop works

soft egret
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This discussion has already happened half a dozen times in the past.

hallow idol
faint nacelle
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@gray siren Instead of always being agains modders rights how about you also try to support the people who make free content instead of always fling poop at them

gray siren
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i love moders

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where have i flung poo

faint nacelle
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you are always against modders protecting their work blobdoggoshruggoogly

gray siren
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i have yet insult a mod on the work shop other than SWOP

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i am against bad protecstion

hallow idol
gray siren
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i am against systems that wont work or will do more harm

hallow idol
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What would be better protecting work - why do modders not use EBOs?

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I actually don't know, is that a BI only thing?

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Since I'm yet too see a mod that uses EBOs instead of PBOs

mortal needle
gray siren
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as i said in arma 4 why does BI not let big mods have there mods become "DLC"

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even free DLC

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Like GM

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this both promotes good mods

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protects them

dull moon
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similar to DCS?

gray siren
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yes

dull moon
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but free?

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hmm...

gray siren
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up top modder

dull moon
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not the worst idea actually

gray siren
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maybe a donation sytem

dull moon
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which could be abused

gray siren
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maybe

strange elm
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can you imagine the storm that would be caused if someone made there mod paid DLC, only to find out later that it contains illegal content?

dull moon
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my stance (and CUP in general) : leave money out of modding

gray siren
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but eather way it changes the files to a EBO and are far harder to rip

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so free is fine

mortal needle
soft egret
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DLC's go through a legalization process, where each asset is checked

gray egret
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So some people want to make mods for a mod illegal. Removing private mods or disabling networking. That is something

soft egret
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but that checks for trademarks and stuff. Not for whether the same model appears in some other of the tens of thousands of PC games that exist out there

manic laurel
hallow idol
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Oof my comment, no talking about EBOs I assume 👀

soft egret
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If you continue talking about circumventing copy protection, I'll go by the #rules which say its a instant permanent ban

dull moon
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but then again, the "free DLC" way is nothing less than what i suggested previously: a registered mod

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¯_(ツ)_/¯

hallow idol
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I said it's not perfect, but it is better than PBOs

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Didn't think that would be #rules related, sorry(

soft egret
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Would be good to have something like a "seal of approval". Where people check mods and certify they are clean.
But doesn't really protect you against theft, but tells you which mods are safe to use. So players can choose to stay away from shady things
maybe even combine that with a list of known bad mods.
Just a place where players can inform themselves of whats illeal and should be stayed away from

strange elm
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seal of approval would be cool and helpful, but i dont see how it would stop mods if can still upload locally

dull moon
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Would be good to have something like a "seal of approval". Where people check mods and certify they are clean.
But doesn't really protect you against theft, but tells you which mods are safe to use. So players can choose to stay away from shady things
maybe even combine that with a list of known bad mods.
Just a place where players can inform themselves of whats illeal and should be stayed away from
you know how much the casual gamer/user likes to read stuff 🤣
make it a video with clickbait thumbnail

soft egret
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If bad mods have no audience, they'll disappear quickly.
But that won't ever happen, there are always people who don't care and want their content

manic laurel
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and "mass-upvoting" of sorts

hallow idol
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No way to stop 'illegal' mods without cancerously handicapping people or banning everybody manually
So like @soft egret said - best is to educate and clearly mark things for the general masses

gray siren
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@dull moon the difrence is file type. The DLC mods would be a EBO and far safer from your kid in school. DLC mods all come with a understanding that the mod works and is not a broken mess

dull moon
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DLC mods all come with a understanding that the mod works and is not a broken mess
which would kill a lot of modding workflows

gray siren
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be like RHS have a RHS mod and a RHS dev mod

dull moon
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we do that also

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still...

gray siren
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if you push some thing to the public it should be a finished piece of work

strange elm
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im a hl2 source baby, mods should be free, DLC only occcurs if its a substantial thing that adds more than just a few uniforms, most our DLC's have eithere a mission or a cmapaign along with all of the asstets it brings

hallow idol
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There are requirements made by BI, but that doesn't mean those can't change in the future, especially for the new game - as @gray siren says

dull moon
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(in arma)

faint nacelle
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Free DLC is not really possibly if any checking etc work is involved. Somebody has to pay that

gray siren
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i mean not all "DLC" mods need to free and DLC sized mods can cost money

hallow idol
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True, at the very least the steam page costs already, what.. 100$?

dull moon
faint nacelle
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yep

hallow idol
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What about the ADR-97 mod

faint nacelle
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made by BI developers

hallow idol
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Exactly - instead of DLC - which you said wouldn't work - make these "aproved" mods published w them too

gray siren
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@dull moon yeah i agree but there is a difrince bewteen say a mod where 80% of the stuff works and a mod where 20% of the stuff works

manic laurel
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muting that channel for 2 hours

hallow idol
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Have a separate category in workshop with mods there that are apload with the "workshop BI devs" included

faint nacelle
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ADR 97 isnt really prime example since its obsolete now and integrated into the main game

hallow idol
faint nacelle
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that would create a misconception that BI provides technical support on mods

gray siren
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who reads that

carmine folio
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Did I just accidentally start a DMCA war of Arma discord?

hallow idol
dull moon
hallow idol
carmine folio
dull moon
hallow idol
faint nacelle
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no

hallow idol
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e.g. RHS winning MANW

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Or that doesnt count?

faint nacelle
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no

gray siren
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Maybe BI can support modders by say giving aproved mods a heads up on game updates so when the game updates the mods update

faint nacelle
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we already have that

hallow idol
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That is already done - dev build of the game

dull moon
faint nacelle
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dev and RC branch

gray siren
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i mean that is support

faint nacelle
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its for everybody, its not just for mods

hallow idol
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Dev build is available for all

gray siren
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aaa

faint nacelle
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and its not support in sense of solving mod user problems with mods

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which is what a user would expect from an "official" mod

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which is why its not really realistic approach

hallow idol
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true, sadly

faint nacelle
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and unpaid modder cant also be required to maintain their mod if they lose interest

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which anything "official" would very likely require

hallow idol
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especially with the change of the 'work flow' as bohemia sets deadlines

faint nacelle
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well you cant put deadlines on a unpaid modder hobbyist either

dull moon
hallow idol
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won't work out well*

faint nacelle
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well that is what I mean

gray siren
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what about putting the approved mods in there own groups
So you have most popular, most downloaded, most recent and then a new tag BI approved mods
BI approved mods get to front page of work shop and they are a EBO

hallow idol
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Smth that easier catches the eye

faint nacelle
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That would require eithe BI to share the EBO tools or have someone EBO the mods when needed.

hallow idol
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Well, even without the EBO step - just the separate section on the workshop would already be an improvement, no?

gray siren
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has i said would have to get uploaded like GM

strange elm
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i have a feeling that if we are just giving mods golden sticker of approval and not necessarily regulating, most people will just overlook that sticker and continue doing what they are doing.

faint nacelle
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yeah it wont really stop any of the abuse

hallow idol
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Yeah, it won't stop abuse at all

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This is about Dedmen's train of thought

faint nacelle
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and generic user does not really even think or care about such

hallow idol
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To educate the masses that don't know the difference between bad and not-bad mods

hallow idol
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Especially since Arma has a bigger boomer population who actually looks and reads at those things, compared to e.g. Gmod

gray siren
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i mean lots of kids play and they love playing on those life severs

hallow idol
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But thats separate from the point

gray siren
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any case i am all for something that means i wont find all the arma life cars marked as terrian when i am looking for a new map

hallow idol
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Since altis-lifers can't be reasoned with or educated)

strange elm
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what Altis life needs is a good full scale military invasion by the best milsim groups out there, total occupation... keep them in line 😉

gray siren
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i got banned from one for running over a rebel

strange elm
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sorry if thats offtopic.. just a funny image to think about back on subject i stop xD

hallow idol
strange elm
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🤣 true

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20+ amphibius troop transports suddenly disapear at once as they are nearing the Kavala coastline

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anyway lunch time yall keep it civil was a good read glad folks are thinking about this stuff though

brisk nexus
serene current
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There is modded Altis Life

brisk nexus
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There has been, but it always dies within a week or so lol

brisk nexus
crystal talon
soft egret
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You mean.. like CDLC's just free?

crystal talon
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In a sense, though I guess when you say it that way it would cut into the profit margins.

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I have no clue how they handled the DayZ page here, it says Community-Made Mod right on the tin

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would also be nice if CDLC could use the Steam Demo functionality instead of requiring a workshop upload for compat patches

echo orchid
spark bay
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Why would we want mods to be released like they are some full game or something

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The solution is a workshop moderation which seems not possible but who knows, maybe in the future.

crystal talon
crystal talon
spark bay
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And who decides which mods get uploaded like this?

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They would also need to follow some rules when it comes to quality

crystal talon
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I'll see if I can find how Valve handles it for their games

faint nacelle
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Id wager the rules for such are very different for Valves on products

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and that kind of mods for Source engine are basically standalone games wrapped around a standalone release of Source engine

carmine folio
#

I am really starting to get boring, I know...

Buddy of mine sent me a template for the new AoW dress uniforms, so can we retexture them while they're still in EBO phase or not?

faint nacelle
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Retexturing does not require any of the original files since its just basically your new texture+config patch addon . so yes you can retexture it

carmine folio
#

Thanks

echo orchid
tulip nexus
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I believe he means having some free Arma 3 mods appearing in the Steam store's Arma 3 section alongside DLC, rather than in the Workshop. For a while DayZ mod was in the Arma 2 section of the steam store like BAF, PMC etc. but for free. It was a gateway for people trying to play DayZ by looking for it on Steam, to find and purchase Arma 2.

paper prawn
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Bohemia owns DayZ mod... that was the difference

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Wasn't there til they bought it

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I think a lot of good mod devs would be quite annoyed at BI if they started picking and choosing mods to appear on their Steam page - not that I believe for one moment that BI would do that

echo orchid
spark bay
keen trout
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Mods are (partly) intended for third party community "games" made using Valve's engines, as they need to depend on the Source SDK which is included in base runtime instead of an actual Valve game

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but it of course works for other things as well

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Workshop is for specific game content created by third parties

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I'VE MADE A MOD FOR A GAME. HOW CAN I GET IT ON STEAM?
If your content is intended for a game's Workshop, follow the directions from the game's developers to learn how to upload that content, as each game may have a slightly method for doing so.

spark bay
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The issue I see is how do you handle dependencies? If you put for example CUP as free mod in the store, CBA would need to be there as well otherwise it will not work.

faint nacelle
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Should probably be continued there.

manic laurel
wary hollow
earnest mirage
wary hollow
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Makes it a lot easier rotatingparrot

worldly meteor
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Is it an IP rights violation to bundle someone elses mods onto your own mod on the steam workshop?

tall oxide
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Yes

spark bay
worldly meteor
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Okay, I have ran into something. Someone is saying that they have the consent of the mod authors to bundle everything and that they have a disclaimer for it but I don't see that anywhere. Also they are saying they have written consent but when asked about it they are saying 'the unit is 5 years old' so they can't remember what's in it and whatnot. But the mod is less than a year old.

spark bay
#

ip violation

worldly meteor
#

It's for a unit I was joining but now the whole thing seems kind of shady. They also said that they have 'copyrighted the mod' and 'if you look into the mods, like open the PBO's then a tracker will activate and send my ip and a flag saying that the mods have been opened' The whole thing seems kind of shady to me.

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Or copyrighted some mods in it? I'm not entirely sure.

spark bay
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can you send the link?

soft egret
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"open the PBO's then a tracker will activate and send my ip" they can't do that. Its a lie

worldly meteor
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Yeah I thought so.

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Sure.

#

They said

"Also it was made unlisted on 2020 until then it was on a google drive
[20:25]
We put it on steam workshop coz it was easier"

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"Also it’s not an IP violation coz the only our tracker activates is if someone tried to disassemble out mod which therefore violated the copyright
[20:11]
As I said I spent a decent amount of money and time in court for the copy right
[20:11]
Remind to explain in depth when. I get back"

I feel like I'm being had.

#

Like that's not how copyright works, even if there was a tracker right?

#

Copyright just protects people from trying to pass off IP as their own, right?

spark bay
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holy cow

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that mod pack is 36 gb

soft egret
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"As I said I spent a decent amount of money and time in court for the copy righ" no thats a lie

rapid cypress
soft egret
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@river spear is there a way yet to ask the crawler to please schedule a re-scan of a workshop item? it has 404 for the above, probably because it was recently changed from private to public

spark bay
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Pbos inside the mod

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for 2-5 xtra

soft egret
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@worldly meteor no they don't have permission

spark bay
keen trout
#

JSRS 🙃

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oh look, it's everyones favourite mod, KA weapons 😄

soft egret
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Well that mod will have a DMCA banner on it as soon as I can get the SHA1 hashes for the TFAR files 👀

keen trout
#

maybe I should just make a steam workshop manifest as a service 😄

rapid cypress
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I wonder if it'd be possible to make a service that dmcas stuff for people, as in the mod owner transfers certain rights to someone and that person/service then dmcas stuff for them think

keen trout
# 
"filename": "Addons\\tfar_core.pbo",
"size": "1080334",
"sha_content": "fa5d5471056426435377c1317443f606a4694339",
worldly meteor
#

Alright, so the guy is saying that he is certain that he got permission from all of the mod authors. Is he just doubling down?

manic laurel
#

also, Steam forbids reuploads, so there is that too
drop the convo, he's empty

worldly meteor
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When I said 'I can make a collection that includes all of these mods if that seems like too much work for you' he said "It's easier this way because then Arma and the server don't have to load as many mods" That doesn't make a lick of sense to me, like it's still loading the same amount of content. Would this make any difference or is he just trying to explain it away?

#

Because of the Sunk Cost Fallacy?

manic laurel
#

only one entry, but still as much data

#

forget about what he says, he clearly has no idea / wilfully dives deep down

worldly meteor
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Yeah, he was going on that it has much less server strain and doesn't fuck with modloading order to have just one instead of ~180

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Okay, yeah. I thought it all sounded a bit shady.

manic laurel
#

even if he were right, that does not make it any less illegal/forbidden 😄

#

1/ I don't see the RHS team (nor any other) saying "sure, just pack our stuff"
2/ Steam EULA forbids uploads if you are not the author (therefore forbids reuploads)

so loads of 🐄 💩 as usual

worldly meteor
#

Yeah figured.

mortal needle
rapid cypress
#

Tru

mortal needle
#

And they aren't exactly cheap, especially for something which produces no profit.

faint nacelle
#

I believe you don't have to be an attorney to offer that kind of service, but it may help to have the legal experience.

vivid scarab
#

Huh, looks like VME PLA ran into some issues judging by pook's comment on the BI forums.

rapid cypress
#

Got a link 👀 ? @vivid scarab

vivid scarab
faint nacelle
#

@drowsy hound you could perhaps message Dwarden about the matter

soft egret
#

Yes. Message Dwarden

carmine folio
#

So interesting question

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the creator/owner's permission does not allow someone else to reupload their work on Steam.

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this is pretty iron clad

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but if I have a MIT license from the owner which would allow me to re-distribute software even for profit

#

can I personally modify this mod add it to my own game and private server then share it with other private individuals?

dull moon
#

there is still the EULA / ToS of the platform one wants to distribute the "derivative"

carmine folio
#

yea but I'm not uploading to the steam workshop

#

so I'm not using their service to distribute and I am modifying my private game (which is allowed) using software that I modified myself (under an MIT license)

spark bay
#

Why are you asking if you know that already

carmine folio
#

Cause I would rather not get hit with some hidden rule

#

on bohemia's or steams part

spark bay
#

There are no hidden rules.

rustic copper
#

Steam Workshop doesn't allow it, but if the license allows it you can host it elsewhere

carmine folio
#

okay sounds good to me

rustic copper
#

although from a legal standpoint it's always a good idea to ask for permission anyway and discuss the limitations the original creator may have

hot kestrel
rustic copper
#

Because Disney hasn't taken action yet. However BI may (or may not) take action themselves.

carmine folio
rustic copper
#

Licenses can change or be revoked at any time, so don't be too sure of that...
Trust me... been there, done that

carmine folio
#

Well that's just childish if you change your license

spark bay
#

Not really.

#

You have the right to do that.

hot kestrel
spark bay
hot kestrel
#

Also, how do weapon mods fit into this? Since, well, the weapons being modeled are (in a lot of cases) real weapons made by real companies...

hot kestrel
carmine folio
# spark bay You have the right to do that.

You actually don't redistribution license changes don't apply to previous versions. Something that has been fought in court and lost. If you give me permission on that version I have it.

spark bay
#

I have not said that

#

I only said you can change your license

carmine folio
#

The implication I got from @rustic copper is people try to retroactively apply their license changes to previous versions of software which is in my opinion childish.
"oh your using my stuff, revoked"

#

which if that happens lol it would be an open shut case in a lawsuit. Been there done that

ember field
#

yo what happened to VME?

dull moon
#

we don't know yet

ember field
#

DMCA i suppose

#

my unit were going to use VME for a new campaign tomorrow aswell

#

perfect timing

dull moon
#

so please, do not jump to conclusions

ancient flax
wheat wave
#

Trademarks are not ok, service names are ok

#

You can call an m4 an m4 cause thats the military designation

#

You cannot call it Colt m4 cause thats a trademark

#

Same with m1151 vs humvee

#

Or uh1 vs bell uh1

#

Etc

#

Also you can still depict them as they are an artistic representation rather than a blueprint to reverse engineer the real thing

#

Also there was the court ruling with GM vs Activision which i think Activision won on grounds of the humvee being common knowledge and historically relevant in the depiction of modern war iirc

#

You can find articles that explain it Better

hot kestrel
#

Oooh that's really interesting, I didn't know you could do that! Thanks for the information! 😄

eager ravine
# hot kestrel So if no one takes any action, then mods that use stolen property like the SW an...

If you report them to the ip holder or the email at the top of this channel, then they can be addressed. But unless the mod directly steals assets from other games(which is usually both illegal and against the Steam workshop rules), it's not always illegal. This is because the owner of the IP can choose to selectively waive certain rights. Microsoft does this under their game content usage rules, I've linked them below so you can read them for yourself if you're interested, but essentially, it gives a limited use license that allows people to create mods and other derivative works as long as they follow the rules, although Microsoft can change those rules whenever they want, or retract permission without giving a reason.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules
Disney (mainly in relation to star wars mods) has been discussed many times in this channel, a part of the disney usage rules (https://disneytermsofuse.com/english/#Submissions-User-Generated-Content-DMCA-Takedown-Notices) was brought up earlier this month that seemed to allow star wars mods, that sparked a long discussion which I'll sum up by sending you here -> #ip_rights_violations message,
as far as I'm aware BI hasn't come back with an answer yet, but until then, BI's stance on illegal content is to take it down when the rights holder submits a DMCA (#ip_rights_violations message).
TLDR ->#ip_rights_violations message

faint nacelle
#

@eager ravine MS does not allow use of assets from their games, but making of likenesses is tolerated

#

so ripping is still a bit nono

#

You can't reverse engineer our games to access the assets or otherwise do things that the games don't normally permit in order to create your Items.

eager ravine
faint nacelle
#

alright all good then! 👍

wary hollow
spark bay
# 
HOW TO SAVE THE MOD AS LOCAL MOD TO PREVENT FUTURE REMOVAL:
1. Subscribe to this workshop
2. after you subscribed, open your steam/steamapps/workshop/content/107410 folder and search for the folder "2430089147"
3. When you found the folder "2430089147" , right click and copy it somewhere else and rename it to "@Luke Cars V3"
4. Now you have a backup of Luke Cars V3. If this item gets removed, you can copy "@Luke Cars V3" folder to your arma 3 folder, and launch it as local mod with the launcher.

Source: https://lukemods.jimdofree.com/

I take no responsibility for any game errors. Credits goes to Luke. No support from my side as im not a modder, just a reuploader.

Unbelievable...

#

If I had to say something, ppl like this would get their access removed immediately

manic laurel
wary hollow
limpid mirage
#

What’s this channel for?

dull moon
#

Read the channel description 😉

hot kestrel
faint nacelle
#

I suppose someone is going to lose the workshop rights soon

rapid cypress
#

Lets hope so

scarlet patrol
#

why was the original removed?

faint nacelle
#

Kickass got his workshop rights removed for long time IP theft

#

Id wager that rippled to many other mods too where he was part of

scarlet patrol
#

oh didn't know he was involved with that one aswell

faint nacelle
#

Luke cars probably has had similar issues

#

that UGV I dont know of. But It could be taken from some other game too

#

unfortunately most car packs are not really self made models.

glass yacht
#

type-22 was a really popular workshop mod a while back

faint nacelle
#

looks like its original work

#

I wonder what happened there

paper prawn
faint nacelle
#

could be yes

random marsh
#

Why would people reupload KA weapons? They're shit.

mortal dust
faint nacelle
#

people think there are no consequences

mortal dust
#

It's a shame though that Steam only allowed one report per Steam Workshop item, so if someone updates it with a thumbnail with inappropriate content, you can't do anything about it.

pastel bane
fathom bone
sick latch
#

what would be right way to credit authors if you are given permission to do whatever with their files? Would i just fully credit them in a sort of credits.txt in the modfolder?

soft egret
sick latch
rapid cypress
#

Chinese government deleting Arma mods?
The very popular VME PLA mod has mysteriously disappeared from the workshop a few hours ago. On top of this, the old non supported versions from years ago have also disappeared without a trace.

To add to the mystery, the VME PLA mod website has also gone offline. Only giving a database error and some Chinese text basically saying "sorry for the error" if you attempt to visit it.

EDIT: The Armaholic version is thankfully still available. The lead developer of the mod, @hcpookie has released an official statement at BI Forums confirming that he did not pull the mod, instead it was removed by Bohemia Interactive for being "Arma 3 incompatible" due to "various reasons".
(Forum post here: https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/192618-from-china-virtual-military-engineers-vme-pla-mod-for-arma3/?page=26)

I strongly encourage communities and servers using this mod do immediately acquire a back up of the mod from Armaholic as to not lose any work / missions due to missing dependencies.

The real question is, are we looking at Chinese government interference here?? Valve is playing nice with China, even creating a whole new platform (Steam China) for them. Pulling a few PLA mods doesn't seem that far fetched...

EDIT 2: In light of the recent development, it should come as no surprise that Bohemia Interactive recently received funding from Tencent Holdings Ltd. which is a massive Chinese corporation.
Link for source: https://www.bohemia.net/blog/bohemia-interactive-minority-investment-tencet

Link to the now defunct workshop page of the mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1562282342

dull moon
#

maybe @hollow rain can shed some light on this

faint nacelle
#

@rapid cypress lets not jump into conclusions here.

#

While I too am curious about what the deal is, its not really something we as the public are entitled to be informed on. Whatever has happenend is between BI/Steam and the mod makers

rapid cypress
faint nacelle
#

ah

paper prawn
#

I was wondering

#

I mean, I joked about the same thing in the MILSIM discord I'm in... but yeah... Then again, all their download/web sites are down so... 😉

#

Definitely PLA Tencent... 😜

jagged tide
#

That mod seems to be back now, I guess China went capitalism? 😛

hybrid tide
#

I think some people need to get out more and take off the tinfoil hat once and a while

jagged tide
#

Lockdowns all over seem to increase the sale of tinfoil 😄

gray siren
#

it more than likely a standard false DMCA or mass report

faint nacelle
#

negative.

#

has been already confirmed elsewhere as a side effect of contributors getting hammer

#

no conspiracy to it. Id wager it will be fixed eventually.

gray siren
#

aaa so splash damge from the rail gun. mmmm

rapid cypress
#

mod is back apparently btw

carmine folio
manic laurel
carmine folio
#

well then

carmine folio
carmine folio
carmine folio
#

why don't you just let people have their little weapons pack?

#

it's not like they're stealing anything

#

or making money

#

probably just like 4 dudes that play arma every saturday

paper prawn
#

Because if someone wants to push a point they can sue Bohemia and Steam for what's on the ARMA workshop

#

And 🤣 25k people playing ARMA in the last 24 hours

#

And 11k right now

#

Average player count is more than at any time since May last year

shut ore
paper prawn
#

Darth Mouse...?

shut ore
#

Great explanation

paper prawn
#

So you think that KA Weapons shouldn't have been taken down?

#

Cause that's what I was responding to... and the comment I responded to said "it's not like they're stealing anything"... and yes, KAW did steal stuff

shut ore
#

Ka weapons did have stolen assets but the explanation "take it down or BI is gonna get sued" is pretty dumb

#

I shouldn't have brought this up was discussed plenty already tbh

paper prawn
#

What I said was Because if someone wants to push a point they can However, the reason for the new modus operandi is that for years people have been asking, if not begging for Bohemia to have some control over what's on the workshop... and now it seems that they do

dull moon
#

why don't you just let people have their little weapons pack?
it's not like they're stealing anything
or making money
probably just like 4 dudes that play arma every saturday
it's about common law and order

#

not fun

hasty gale
#

the community has also lost a lot of modders from people constantly stealing their mods and claiming it as their own/not being credited for the work they spent days on and/or getting bug reports for fixed/deprecation issues that they spend hours trying to fix just to conclude there is no issue with the upto date mod

heavy moon
soft egret
soft egret
shut ore
#

Stop twisting my words ka weapons should and has been removed I have no promlem with that the reason that the guy gave in his messages just really agitated me

#

I've never said it should stay or that the removal of ka weapons was wrong

carmine folio
rapid cypress
#

and laws still apply blobdoggoshruggoogly

carmine folio
#

you can steal an infinitely copyable thing you're not making money on

dull moon
carmine folio
#

I can't understand the to copyright a free thing

manic laurel
#

then learn?

carmine folio
#

if it was a product being sold I could see why people throw a fit over it

dull moon
rustic copper
#

Just because people don't make money from it, still doesn't mean it's not theft 🤷‍♂️

carmine folio
#

the laws are laws, but it's pretty stupid that people act like they're making... idk real tangible things that make money

#

you can steal a pair of shoes

#

you can't really steal a file

rapid cypress
#

you can't really steal a file
Now thats a big argument you're getting into there heh

rustic copper
#

and that's why copyright exists, to protect things which can be copied

#

hence the name copyright

#

🤯

midnight crystal
soft egret
#

Next thing people gonna tell you cannot "steal" a doctoral thesis, because its just a piece of text that anyone can copy.

#

Oh also pirated movies are not a thing then, because its just a file and you cannot steal files

#

Oh pirated games of course also not, because they are just files and you cannot steal files

#

Man what a terrible world we live in where everyone can just take eachothers things and slap their own name on it with no means to protect your own works.
If only there was some kind of law that would prevent that

fallen sandal
#

And that applies to anything that doesn't necessarily hold 'direct' monetary value.

gray siren
#

i mean if you steal the piece of paper or disk with the Thesis on it is theft

#

if you make a unlawful copy then it is a unlawful copy

soft egret
# carmine folio it's a free mod for a video game

You mean... The free mod for a video game, that stole content that another game maker has paid thousands of dollars to make for their paid game.
The free mod that now gives that expensive content for their game, for free to anyone in that competitors game?

Hey, someone paid thousands of dollars into making that stuff and needs to sell their game to get that money back, but someone else is just giving that expensive stuff away for free that you worked hard on.

What's the problem right? How can there be any problem, its free, there can't be problems caused by free things!

gray siren
#

any case the only thing cracking down on steam work shop will do is force big groups to just use third parties

manic laurel
#

and be less visible

fallen sandal
#

lol, like armaholic?

rapid cypress
gray siren
#

workshop is very new. there was no steam when i joined my first arma group aka flash point group

#

@rapid cypress i am not breaking any laws

vivid scarab
#

It's ten years old now - it's not really new anymore, imo.

spark bay
#

Reminds me of the German Bundeskanzler saying "Internet is uncharted territory" a few years ago 😄

gray siren
#

@vivid scarab time it is relative. 10 years in the PC world is ancient

#

point is KA weapons is a trash mod with 80% of the stuff in it being garbage. only 20% was worth a dam and i suspect the 20% was stuff not stolen.

rapid cypress
gray siren
#

they should of but i suspect people only want it for the broken ass guns

carmine folio
# soft egret Man what a terrible world we live in where everyone can just take eachothers thi...

That’s literally how business works...
You pay people for their time then you own the means of their production to resell.

In the case of software there is no law what so ever against me taking your idea and coding it myself. So long as I don’t commit the ridiculous act of stealing your code, your idea, concept and business model are all up for grabs.

So I can just see what your doing, hire some peeps to do the work for me and then boom I own my own version of your product.

strange elm
#

so something thing that grinds my gears about stolen assets, one, most of the time they are private which if its genuine, why hide it from the public ( i know not all private mods are bad, its just suspicious for both the mod and the authors character.) two... ive come across some of these private mods, and people literally tried to sell me the access to them, three communities hold these mods privately to promote people to join there clan to get access to the mods which does nothing tobenefit the arma community, only that persons community, and lastly some of these well known "developers" if i can even call them that, ask for "Donations" which they dont show were that money is going to, for all we know they are just monetizing themselves from stolen files and the fact that we call them "stolen" even the people defending stolen files, its means theft which is not a good thing. sorry for long post just my take on it.

soft egret
carmine folio
soft egret
#

We were talking about Kickass ripping models from other games

fallen sandal
#

It has been discussed before that Fair use does not apply to Steam workshop mods iirc

carmine folio
carmine folio
strange elm
faint nacelle
heavy moon
#

and it has to be demonstrated to be used in the above ways,. copying someones work for the sake of it is none of the above.

manic laurel
carmine folio
#

I’m aware of the policy

#

I just think it’s weird

stiff jasper
#

during last 10 years PC world had like two or three revolutions in just one branch of pc technologies

carmine folio
soft egret
#

"using a fair use license" what is that?

#

Being allowed to use MIT licensed content, doesn't mean that fair use is involved in that

carmine folio
#

There’s a mod

#

Lol I can’t post a screenshot

#

But I have his MIT license

#

And me modifying this mod and re-uploading it is against this policy

faint nacelle
#

Fair use has nothing to do with MIT license

manic laurel
carmine folio
#

Yea it means what you can do without getting permission
If the software is licensed it expands your rights

faint nacelle
eager ravine
#

🤦‍♂️

faint nacelle
#

@carmine folio you should really read about it

manic laurel
faint nacelle
#

before you make a fool of yourself

eager ravine
#

Fair use doesn't mean you can do whatever you want lmao

manic laurel
#

leave your pre-made thoughts and document yourself indeed

#

for information's sake

fallen sandal
#

Where do we draw the line on what is educational use though? Just curious

carmine folio
#

Okay well I can’t post a screen shot of what I’m what I’m talking about so okay

manic laurel
faint nacelle
#

@fallen sandal Arma can not be used for educational purposes

#

by its EULA

manic laurel
fallen sandal
#

Yeah I already thought that haha

soft egret
strange elm
#

so here is a curious thought, when we are going through the workshop and finding Re-uploads of mods with stolen content and that person is also trying to teach others how to bypass the sytem, would it be realistic to report that steam profile to steam for theft?

fallen sandal
#

lol if that were the case the internet wouldn't exist anymore haha

manic laurel
carmine folio
manic laurel
#

that's not a screenshot 😄

carmine folio
#

No I found an article instead

faint nacelle
# 
In order for you to do any of these things, you MUST either get permission from the copyright owner or make your own determination that you can use it under the fair use doctrine. The validity of a fair use claim depends on the context of its use. You may determine that your use is also fair use, but only you and an attorney can make that evaluation. If you download, copy, modify, reuse, remix, or redistribute "all rights reserved" content without permission of the copyright owner, and if your use is found not to be "fair use," then you may be liable for copyright infringement.```
#

read the article pls man

carmine folio
#

Yes and he gave his permission on the GitHub?

manic laurel
#

here is a screenshot yeah (ninja'd but IDC)

unknown.png
soft egret
manic laurel
soft egret
fallen sandal
#

Unless you have permission to upload, right?

#

@manic laurel

carmine folio
#

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Seth Duda

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

eager ravine
#

oh boy here we go again

fallen sandal
#

That's a lot of text lmao

carmine folio
#

That’s on his software

soft egret
#

And "fair use" also doesn't get your around the limitations of the steam workshop.
Just because you make a educational porn video doesn't mean you can upload it to youtube and violate their EULA claiming "fair use". Because they don't allow porn.

carmine folio
#

That’s all I’m talking about

manic laurel
carmine folio
soft egret
#

Yes. But you are talking about "fair use" which is not the license

carmine folio
#

I’m saying steam is abnormal

soft egret
carmine folio
#

Okay man, there’s the license I’m referring too that’s it.

soft egret
#

And

But the community also seems to be really against fair use.
Again. "fair use" doesn't apply here.

eager ravine
#

Fair use or some license does not let you dictate what a private company allows on their service

soft egret
#

You say "fair use". People tell you "fair use doesn't apply" and you reply with "but MIT license"
two different things.

fallen sandal
# manic laurel no, never - Steam's EULA

alright, I didn't know that, not that I do so myself though. But I guess it's fine if someone uploads a mod with the permission of the author, and also adds him to the author tab on Steam Workshop?

manic laurel
#

he has to transfer ownership

soft egret
fallen sandal
#

I mean, if you add a co-author they have to accept it explicitly. So no foul games possible

manic laurel
#

hm, maybe co-author is right

faint nacelle
#

you would still have to make a contribution to the reupload if I recall right

carmine folio
#

Man I’m just point out, that license outside of steam, would allow me to modify and redistribute. Forget fair use I don’t understand that I guess.

Steam has the right to say no you can’t do that. But I’m not doing anything abnormal by modifying a block of code with permission.

faint nacelle
soft egret
carmine folio
fallen sandal
#

Yep that sounds decent!

faint nacelle
#

but Dudas license is very edge case

#

very few mods are made open like that

carmine folio
#

Yes I admit that but I do know what I’m talking about, we do it all the time at work. I’m just not in the legal department

#

Again I get that, but it’s just odd that there are such strict rules on steam. Cause legally I’m in the clear

faint nacelle
#

if you make changes in the code you could even upload it to steam in this rare case where the mods license allows it

soft egret
#

MIT license gives you sufficient permission to upload content to the workshop (provided you are a contributor).
Not all licenses do that though.
For example APL-SA gives you permission to modify/share, but not use commercially (thus you cannot upload to steam and give steam the right to do so)

faint nacelle
#

you would just have to list duda and youself as contributor

fallen sandal
#

What license applies when you do not specify one?

faint nacelle
#

nothing is allowed

soft egret
#

no license == all rights reserved

carmine folio
heavy moon
#

no licence == no licence to do anything with.

fallen sandal
#

Our mod is public on github though, does the same apply there?

soft egret
#

open source on github doesn't imply that any license is applied to your code

carmine folio
soft egret
#

I also have stuff on github with no license, or explicit "all rights reserved"

carmine folio
#

No license definitely does not mean can do whatever

heavy moon
#

a licence is your terms for people using your software,. if it has no licence then the most restrictive terms apply.

soft egret
heavy moon
#

people often conflate no licence as being free because it suits their rhetoric, but that could not be further from the truth

fallen sandal
shut ore
manic laurel
#

I will re-check. I am not always here either

fallen sandal
#

But you need to be able to prove that you have authorisation, at any point in time, under any circumstances.

carmine folio
# soft egret Because they are a platform that needs to protect itself. On your own, on your o...

I have no plans to violate policy that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I just think it’s very strange that even with permission you can’t do that.

I guess most people would not have the understanding that you need that block of text to be considered “licensed”

And like you say this is not at all like fair use.

It’s just odd because I can take that code the mod maker wrote. Using his license I can modify and redistribute to my player base on third party distribution (assuming it’s not against their policy) and put it up on my server.

All fine, but the moment I put it on the workshop, bam IP violation.

fallen sandal
#

Euhm yeah

#

Because the workshop is commercial

#

Your server is considered private, as long as you don't make any revenue from it iirc

#

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, not an expert at all

spark bay
#

Private is your hard drive

carmine folio
#

So under that license you would be able to profit from a modification so long as you give credit

#

But that’s specific to this case

#

And does not always apply

manic laurel
faint nacelle
#

mods cannot be monetized

heavy moon
#

as soon as you share anything to anyone it is no longer private.

faint nacelle
#

the tools to make them are non commercial

carmine folio
fallen sandal
#

Right, thanks for correcting me on that one, wasn't entirely sure :p

faint nacelle
#

well sure you can sell code as long as its not in a pbo

carmine folio
#

Right I’m with you there

#

But it’s again tricky

#

Honestly selling mods is not something I’m interested in

#

😂😂😂

#

So idc

#

I would give all my shit away for free

#

Arma community needs more collaboration not less at this point

faint nacelle
#

reuploading is not collaboration though

#

and mods are far more than just code

#

or can be

carmine folio
#

I wouldn’t know, this one in particular is just an AI mod

faint nacelle
#

indeed

carmine folio
#

And I wanted to expand it a bit so we could use it more easily

#

But alias I’m fucked

faint nacelle
#

no you can do that since the license allows it

carmine folio
#

Dude, we just talked about this I’m not the mod owner

#

So I can’t

#

😂

manic laurel
#

you can, just not upload it to Steam iirc?

faint nacelle
#

no even steam upload should be possible if both Duda and himself are set as the contributors

carmine folio
#

I mean yea but ew steam workshop or nothing

faint nacelle
#

since he contributes to the addon

manic laurel
#

the thing people do not consider very often is how they can offer work for the author to upload, too 🙂

faint nacelle
#

true

carmine folio
#

The author has made it clear the mod is now dead

#

I tried contacting him on discord

#

Well I joined his discord

#

Was pretty dead

fallen sandal
#

Well things come and go that's just how it is

carmine folio
#

This is all fair but I’m a software engineer so like I saw an opportunity to do stuff
Could have forked a branch

#

But because of steam I didn’t want to do it
And tbh guys most people will just straight up not use mods unless they are on the workshop

#

So it’s a lot of effort

fallen sandal
#

Might not be a bad idea to educate yourself thoroughly on the policies and licenses if you are a sw engineer.

manic laurel
#

from what has been said, you can make a "v2" and list him as author as well 🙂

carmine folio
#

It’s when I’m told oh yea even with that permission you can’t do xyz

carmine folio
#

I thought that would count as violation

fallen sandal
#

No because when you list him as author with the workshop author/contributors functionality they will have to explicitly accept it. If they didn't know anything they will not accept it. So it's best to have permission (either explicitly or through the license) before you actually start putting hours into modifying or creating a mod.

soft egret
#

oh oof.
Arma tools don't allow commercial use. How can you upload that stuff to steam while they require permission to use it to promote their commercial platform?
Ah.. BI probably has agreement with steam or smth

#

Arma 3 Publisher (The steam upload tool) is also "non commercial use only" so.. Yeah they need to have an agreement with steam

carmine folio
#

Okay but I have that not just permission in the word of mouth form I have public declarations for public use

#

Of that version that can’t be retroactively redacted

#

So if I fork this
And work on it but give him credit saying I’m working off his license

soft egret
#

yep. In that case you can

fallen sandal
#

well yeah you can use that

carmine folio
#

My mind is fucking blown cause I’ve literally been told at every turn this is not possible
😂😂😂

#

But I guess I wasn’t explaining myself correctly

fallen sandal
#

iirc you need to have an MIT license on your project as well

carmine folio
#

Correct

#

And give him credit as original author

manic laurel
carmine folio
#

Yea I didn’t understand it, I’m my head fair use was like, literally just that. Not a separate legal definition

soft egret
#

better safe than sorry.
Better first tell people "no except..." and then explain in detail.
Instead of telling people "yes except..." and them then already leaving and not listening to the rest

carmine folio
#

I could tell you didn’t understand what I was trying to say 😅

carmine folio
fallen sandal
carmine folio
sand zealot
#

This server has plenty of stolen content reuploaded to the steam workshop, which I'm fairly certain is against the EULA for steam, correct?

manic laurel
#

oh, I know that name

#

Hi @half crescent 👋

soft egret
#

Nodus life, I also know that name 👀

#

weird.. @stoic beacon's TFAR animations, but no TFAR? Thats unusual

vocal gyro
#

why is KA Weapons illegal btw?

chilly silo
#

Read up - but in short lots of content ripped from other games.

dull moon
#

notorious and repeated IP and copyright violation

vocal gyro
#

thanks for the TLDR

fallen sandal
spiral minnow
hot kestrel
rustic copper
#

If you know what is in it and who it belongs to you can tell them 🤷‍♂️ Because I recognize the objects

#

like... I just checked the last 2-3 pages with recent uploads on SW and already found a bunch of mods which for 99.9% certainty contain reuploads

vivid scarab
#

I've found the most frequent offenders are foreign language mods, weirdly enough.

#

Does Steam not have a language requirement for Workshop uploads?

dull moon
#

everyone is "foreign" when they are not from your country

#

idk what you want to achieve with that

gray siren
#

@vivid scarab languag requirement? Are you for reall. You do know some of the biggest Arma communties are Slavic groups. So guess screw them and there Russian mods

echo orchid
brisk nexus
hallow idol
hallow idol
gray siren
#

agreed Czech mods only

hallow idol
#

Through most, if not all, don't use the workshop (anymore) unlike andrewza said

gray siren
#

i mean i did say you don't need the workshop

#

if railgunning ruins groups they will just stop using the workshop

#

there are plenty of other opstions

rustic copper
#

"other options" will still have to obey laws, so DMCA's can still happen 🤷‍♂️
Already took down several rips from non-workshop sources

strange elm
#

railgunnings will continue until mod integrity improves

gray siren
#

good luck DMCAing my harddrive

faint nacelle
#

If only people were decent enough to respect each others work and rights instead of being "me me me, I just wanna have fun"

obtuse junco
gray siren
#

i play games to have fun

strange elm
#

you can have fun with a modpack that contains no illegal content....

faint nacelle
#

It is well enough possible to play games for fun without doing anything wrong

manic laurel
shut ore
faint nacelle
#

stealing stuff isnt the point of it?

shut ore
#

the point of the game not to have fun then?

faint nacelle
#

no the point of the game is to have fun

spark bay
#

Fun yes, but not at the cost of others.

faint nacelle
#

the game does not steal anything

gray siren
shut ore
spark bay
#

Nope

strange elm
spark bay
#

Ppl invested their time, it's their creations, if you cannot respect that, then get out.

manic laurel
faint nacelle
#

I think you both are again trying to sneakily get people to agree that stolen mods are ok

shut ore
#

wut

#

never said that but ok

gray siren
#

how does it cost others? i mean this is theorical all my workshop mods are very legal but how is me using lets say KA costing others

manic laurel
#

again, really?

spark bay
#

Sorry but this is getting old

manic laurel
#

read up, we are not having this debate again. and if you are trying to, you are booted out.

spark bay
#

it has been explained many times before. If you refuse to learn then there is nothing we can do.

gray siren
#

i mean there nothing you can do. thats what i am have been saying. The current sytem does not stop "bad mods" it just moves them off the workshop but they still arround and kicking.

spark bay
#

so what's your point again?

#

We should leave it as it is just because we can't solve it 100%?

gray siren
#

no find a better opstion

spark bay
#

This is the best option at the current time

#

And finding better solutions is an ongoing progress.

manic laurel
spark bay
#

Educating ppl here about licensing is one of these methods

#

railgunning mods another one

manic laurel
#

the sweet and the stick.

shut ore
#

but you aren't rail gunning your shooting the creator and then blowing up their house

spark bay
#

Creator?

#

The ppl who got railgunned are not the creators

gray siren
#

i mean has the railgunning actually stopped any mods yet

shut ore
#

all the mods a creator makes are deleted even if they themself arent stolen or have anything stolen in them

manic laurel
gray siren
#

witch mods?

faint nacelle
gray siren
#

KA and and SWOP are still very much a thing

spark bay
soft egret
manic laurel
shut ore
#

but it shouldnt be up to the modmaker to prove he is innocent

soft egret
#

A repeat car thief also goes to prison despite him owning one legit car

manic laurel
faint nacelle
#

I believe he is referring to mods that say KickAss was a contributor to

#

aka "splash damage"

gray siren
shut ore
manic laurel
#

must have been a reason, Steam doesn't ban on simple request 🙃

gray siren
#

you know you can lie to steam

soft egret
#

TFL is gone

manic laurel
#

@gray siren what is your point?
not doing anything unless 100% effective?

spark bay
#

He doesn't know, we don't know

soft egret
#

Okey IIIE is still up on one platform. Still illegal content

strange elm
#

i dont understasnd why we are fighting on this hill... illegal mods gets railgunned on steam, aswell as DCMA'ed on alternate sources, and anyone who promotes and redistributes illegal content gets reported for theft. end of argument id say.

manic laurel
#

and posting link to illegal content is against the #rules too 🙃

crystal talon
#

is the maintainer of Armaholic on here?

gray siren
soft egret
crystal talon
#

fun

vivid scarab
#

Mistakes will ultimately happen - Steam's CS and BI are both reasonably easy to get in contact with if you get blind-sided unfairly. If.

manic laurel
#

so there is no point chatting about this matter any further, thank you all.

#

@shut ore anything to say? 🙂

shut ore
#

pretty sure my emote did

crystal talon
manic laurel
#

!ban @shut ore 30d failure to follow moderator's instructions, flaming

edgy coralBOT
manic laurel
spark bay
#

Uhh, what did he do 😄

soft egret
manic laurel
crystal talon
#

Yeah I get that

vivid scarab
#

Where are Armaholic's servers even situated?

crystal talon
#

Just wondering why it hasn't been blacklisted on the forums and such, or even allowed on here

spark bay
gray siren
#

what does flaming mean. not joking i dont know what flaming is a rule vilostion?

spark bay
soft egret
manic laurel
#

flaming = adding fuel to the fire, not bringing arguments, ad hominem attacks, etc

gray siren
#

thanks

vivid scarab
spark bay
#

Reuploads of 177925 files will be looked for according to your filter settings.

crystal talon
#

D3S, NIArms, CBA, CSW, etc

gray siren
#

that a big mod

spark bay
#

That#s nothing

#

We had a 56gb mod recently

crystal talon
#

yet another filthy life server

vivid scarab
#

I think the largest I've seen was -

#

Yeah, that one.

spark bay
#

@crystal talon How did you check that so quickly?

crystal talon
spark bay
#

that one crashed 😄

crystal talon
#

don't turn on deep scanning

spark bay
#

Yep. Works now!

crystal talon
#

deep scanning might work if you add some filters to it

#

but it isn't going to work for literally thousands of files

soft egret
#

User has 4 more 2.5GB+ packs on their workshop

crystal talon
#

🔨

vivid scarab
#

KA in there too.

river spear
#

@crystal talon The site uses WebAssembly, so your browser is doing some of the work in parsing the returned data and such, which is why it might get hung up on too much data

#

But soon enough I'll be able to package this as a desktop app so it runs at full speed without this limitation and also add some more goodies, like being able to compare only 2 items with one another

#

If anything, please let me know if you have any ideas regarding the tool so I can write them down

crystal talon
#

Remind me to throw money at you when you release it

#

and output to spreadsheet

#

could DM my current setup if you'd like

spark bay
#

Sounds awesome @river spear

obtuse junco
#

It is okay to republish missions with changes like Antistasi where the creator allows you to change things like make it work for different factions and stuff like that, right.

faint nacelle
#

yes as long as you put the original creator as contributor too

fallen sandal
#

@obtuse junco Consider doing a PR on the official project

heavy nacelle
worn sleet
#

No the owner just takes whatever he pleases and puts it on there

fallen sandal
#

Is there a way to dmca Armaholic reuploads?

sinful geode
#

Their disclaimer page says:

Armaholic.com endeavours to respect all applicable copyrights and will not host any content that it's discovered contains any part which has been used without permission or modified in any illegal or unapproved method as per the terms of service of Bohemia Interactive and their tools.
If you find any such files we ask you kindly to contact us about it so we can take the appropriate steps.

fallen sandal
spark bay
heavy nacelle
#

"which has been used without permission" oh so you mean all of Armaholic then. I havent given them permission to redistribute my mods. They Just appeared on Armaholic a couple of days after I launched them on SW. Nobody asked, nothing.

#

If I wanted my mods uploaded to that ancient relic I would have made an account and done it myself.

spark bay
#

You cannot upload stuff yourself there IIRC.

#

I can't even edit my mod description without pming the owner

soft egret
spark bay
#

Was the same with PlayWithSix

#

They upload my mod also, even managed to set an incorrect version number.

soft egret
#

Their TFAR also has a invalid version number

dull moon
#

happened to everyone (wrong version numbers / PWS)

carmine folio
#

Armaholic also has a distribution license that places addition restrictions on distribution and use. Those restrictions breach some open source licenses such as GPL. Its terms of service (https://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=39) restrictions breach most mod distribution licenses.

burnt oak
#

Armaholic sets the version number by themselves if there is none attached to the "release".

fluid elbow
heavy nacelle
#

I thought there wasnt a need to write that down. I thought if it didnt say anything you can asume its not wanted.

#

If I dont specifically tell you that I dont wanna borrow you my car. Would you then Just asume its okay and borrow it?

manic laurel
#

that's what I don't get; if they are so eager for views, they can simply link Steam releases/updates, no need to host 🤷‍♂️

dull moon
#

and don't throttle the DL

#

ffs

#

this is what's killing AH slowly

carmine folio
#

Also the convivence of the Steam Workshop, load this HTML and click start. Makes modding more user friendly. 🤷‍♂️

spark bay
#

For me the biggest advantage of Steam over armaholic and other platforms is, that I am always in controls. I can update description, images etc whenever I want and don#t have to write some dude to do it for me.

vivid scarab
#

That's such a bizarre relationship.

strange elm
#

i absolutley hate having to download externally, and then figuring out how to export to my files everytime, so normally i try to stick with steam workshop. i would have to say my only complaint about steam workshop is downloading dependencies, i wished there was an option to download a mod from the workshop, and then click "and all of its dependencies rather than going through each and everyone individually. i guess the only way to do that would be todownload the main mod and then let the launcher grab the rest of them. idk.

paper prawn
#

The advantage of the workshop is for the majority of players who would be incapable of downloading a mod and installing it to play on a server... Armasync's really good to help with that as an alternative but again, most players on public servers would be bothered with that. There's a very good reason that for my main public ARMA server I only use mods that are supported on the Workshop and by Maca's A3Launcher...

carmine folio
#

I find even Arma3sync is slow. You're just never going to be able to compete with steam with its servers all around the world. Players in Europe can download the same mods of a EU local server at the same rate as a North American player with no service interruptions or slow down.

Armaholic used to have extremely strict IP violation rules when it was the spot for mods but like you say that has disappeared.

crystal talon
#

Arma3sync is as slow as whoever is hosting the repo

#

though it tends to be an overall PITA to work with

keen trout
#

Just have geographic mirrors of your arma3sync repo shrump

paper prawn
#

Definitely helps to have a dedi with good network bandwidth

spark bay
#

And ppl with know-how to set it up 😄

paper prawn
#

I got that covered myself 😉

carmine folio
#

We wrote our own replacement for swifty and armaholic in go, has none of the setup pain but it still only as fast to download as the host although you can use as s3 or such and get similar scale if you want to.

#

The main trade off is cost v flexibility and control. If you host your own repository then you choose how mods get updated, but then you also become responsible for pushing the bytes. Since we do a bunch of dev on public mods we beta them before release and prefer mod releases not to break our game, so we version control and test updates. But most communities these days are going to just choose the workshop.

carmine folio
#

Workshop = free
Workshop = easy to use
Workshop = has most of the mods anyways

#

For most ppl that’s enough lol
Arma is already incredibly complicated. It’s more like a piece of configurable software that it is a game.

paper prawn
#

My bambi server only uses mods that are both on the workshop and A3Launcher (the 3rd party app)... then when I rope them in I can drag them to my more hardcore Epoch server 😉

heavy nacelle
#

Good old a3 sync, the number one choice for a mod ripping community 👍

fluid jewel
#

what the hell does a3sync have to do with mod ripping

heavy nacelle
#

But ofc its also used for legit private unit mods, which makes perfect sense. I was mostly taking the piss and baiting.

fluid jewel
#

I feel like the workshop would be much better suited for more things if it had some kind of option to turn off automatic updates

#

so instead of updating automatically, it could be set to notify you of updates and then you can chose to update at any time

#

I've seen too many cases of some mod updating right before a planned event is supposed to happen and it just breaking everything

#

we had a joint event with a group who was relying on workshop mods and some mod updated like an hour before the event which put like a 4 hour delay on the whole thing

#

our group also has a number of optional mods that are allowed on our server and that also gets annoying when one of those mods updates and there's not enough time for our moderators to update the keys

#

those problems are why a3sync and swifty are good

heavy nacelle
#

Yeah I agree, the mod updates right before an event can be really annoying.

fluid jewel
#

some creators also do their updates in really confusing ways

#

like they push an update that just removes certain vehicles because they felt like removing them

#

and now whoever made a mission that used those vehicles gets screwed over

#

or add experimental WIP features that don't really work very well

rustic copper
#

But Auto-Update does ensure that everyone has the same version, especially when mod creators don't include any versioning... Which will break more than just "we all need to update our mods quickly"

#

That said; workshop makes it relatively easy to just re-upload stuff, but is manageable to DMCA.
External tools/sites are a pain for mod creators, and as far as I can see usual a source of bad and ripped mods...

carmine folio
# rustic copper That said; workshop makes it relatively easy to just re-upload stuff, but is man...

I'm gonna preface this with I don't condone these actions but like what legal basis do modder's have for a DMCA claims?

I read Bohemia's licensing terms and mods cannot be sold or used for commercial use ie charge you to play with my mods in any way shape or form, without bohemia's permission. Which essentially means that the mods in the hands of a modder outside of bohemia's permission have no monetary value. Licensing is meant to protect people from theft of digital profits. How can you steal something if it has no value?

https://www.bohemia.net/community/licenses/bohemia-interactives-tools-end-user-license

On top of all that Bohemia actually owns all of the modding content, not the modders themselves. They could at any point decide that mod is no longer the modders and add all the content into the game.

Has their ever been a court case where a modder took someone to court over their mods being "stolen"?

tulip nexus
rustic copper
#

Not to mention that DMCA has nothing to do with the tools used, but with the ownership of the content (models, scripts, textures).

carmine folio
#

Do we know what happened to VME_PLA yet?

keen trout
carmine folio
#

What do you mean by that?

faint nacelle
#

Kickass was a contributor, Kickass was yeeted, and everything he was part of got hit.

#

Issue is now resolved too

carmine folio
#

I see it on the workshop, great. Benefit and drawback of using your own repository, you can wait for this stuff to resolve a little if its a mistake but you still have to remove it and some point and this was going to be a pain given we have gear mods based on it.

faint nacelle
#

From user point of view it is a bother. From maker point of view its a welcome change so that going against the rules now has consequences.

#

Kickass was fully aware what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately some legit mods were also affiliated with him.

hallow idol
#

People discussed this 'collateral damage', and where told off as trolls and encourages of "stealing" mods by some individuals, as they claimed "It's impossible, will never happen"

#

And then it happened, not even a week later iirc

faint nacelle
#

So?

hallow idol
#

So not everybody who questions your (plural) world view is a troll and "mod stealer")

#

Maybe if the discussion wasn't shut down - it would've been a known fact that e.g. VME would get DMCA'd insta-deleted because KA got banned, and Pook could've been informed about it and made the necessary changes in time

carmine folio
#

realy encourages modding if every mod you make gets removed if you affiliate with a mod that gets removed for actions that might not have been your own

faint nacelle
#

You can choose who you work with

hallow idol
#

as I doubt pook had much fun dealing with that, as well as the communities that used it

faint nacelle
#

Probably not.

hallow idol
carmine folio
hallow idol
#

Through I'm happy that he didn't get upset about something small, and got the mod back up

#

Hopefully it doesn't discourage him in the future

carmine folio
#

I think if BI came and nuked mine I wouldn't bother fighting it, I mean fundamentally I shouldn't have to defend my work in this way against a company making mistakes, I would just stop publishing completely. Someone else nukes your work and there was no discussion about it beforehand, yeah no I am leaving and never coming back after that.

hallow idol
#

Well, I doubt leaving completely, most likely just using other means like discussed above - A3Sync, Armaholic, etc

carmine folio
#

I asked if others were interested in our (better) swifty replacement and there wasn't a lot of interest in an open source one so I just moved on. We would still do development for ourselves we just wouldn't share it, the juice has to be worth the squeeze on anything you might support and if BI is coming after you accidentally then yeah its not going to get shared

#

One of the consequences of "guilty by association" is no one in the modding community can accept patches from individuals whom they don't know their potential history, which given the information asymmetry makes open source in Arma mods now really dangerous and a route to getting your mod removed. So I think we will now adopt no external contributions and take everything closed source instead to protect ourselves from BI's potential guilty by association enforcement style. Only way to be sure.

faint nacelle
#

Since steam has now rolled out these admin tools, let's hope they also refine them to be more precise.

soft egret
# hallow idol Maybe if the discussion wasn't shut down - it would've been a known fact that e....

Its not supposed to happen. It was an accident, and frankly its a mistake in Steams "new" moderation tools that the person using the tools didn't know about.
Noone deliberately took down VME_PLA

And now all people trying to paint like it was deliberate and people who said that wouldn't happen being liars.

"to protect ourselves from BI's potential guilty by association enforcement style" That style doesn't exist. its a bug in steam's tools.

carmine folio
#

As I have said I will not defend our work from BI's accidents, you nuke it we just don't publish. Would be wise to take serious action to avoid such accidents in the future. This incident is very concerning and given it is the type of accident that can happen I suspect removing outside contributions to our mods is warranted at this stage to ensure we don't become associated wrongly. I suspect most mod teams would prefer to do the same than get accidentally caught up in BI's shoot first no questions asked enforcement actions. This is not a good look for BI bug from Steam or not.

soft egret
#

Again, Steams accident, not BI's

#

it was a unkown unexpected behaviour of a button that said it did something different than what it did.
That is now known so it will be taken into account

#

"BI's shoot first no questions asked" thats not how it works

#

A known repeat offender (for years and years) has been banned and his stolen content was taken down.

That steam also took down everything he was listed as "contributor" when pressing the "take down this users uploads" button wasn't expected.
Its still a new feature that appeared last week and doesn't really have any documentation.
And the problem was fixed immediately when BI found out about it.

#

BI isn't blindly shooting at people for no reason.
And if you didn't do anything wrong nothing will happen to you

Stop trying to paint it as if it were anything different, its not.

chilly silo
#

As usual some people are trying to start a narrative that does not exist. So few actually look or ask for facts anymore.

#

Even before anyone asked the question of what actually happen the "story" was already doing the rounds. Its a sad indicator of the times we are in.

soft egret
#

If you want to say "many modders will stop modding and publishing content because one repeat offender was shut down and due to a unexpected bug someone elses mod was temporarily mistakenly taken down but immediately reinstated when it was noticed"
Then okey, but think about all the modders that have already stopped because of the ongoing issue of people stealing stuff and BI not doing anything about it.
Now after people threatened to stop modding they finally do something, and people again threaten to stop modding becaues BI does something. Make up your mind please

heavy nacelle
soft egret
#

"On top of all that Bohemia actually owns all of the modding content, not the modders themselves." thats nonsense and wrong.

carmine folio
#

Its the collateral damage that is the issue here. Getting it wrong by doing nothing and getting it wrong by walloping innocent parties both have negative impacts

soft egret
#

"Licensing is meant to protect people from theft of digital profits."
I think you mean copyright? and no, copyright doesn't require something to be sold for money.

carmine folio
#

It is the specific nature of how they became collateral damage. I think it just means we shouldn't take contributions anymore as we can't sufficiently vet contributors, no open source project can.

soft egret
chilly silo
soft egret
#

Noone ever wanted to take down things just because someone contributed to it
"no open source project can" thats absolute nonsense.

carmine folio
#

OK I'll take your word for it but we are definitely on high alert and if it happens again we will adopt policy to defend ourselves, staying on the right side of "the law" is very much our intent

soft egret
#

It was a one-time accident, related to someone being listed as contributor on the workshop.
That says absolutely nothing along the lines of "all open source projects need to shut down and stop letting people contribute"

You're trying to paint it like a sandcorn in a gear is the same as a broken motor. Absolute nonsense

carmine folio
#

No I am painting it as I see the consequences to us and the way we work. If BI were to continue enforcing with guilty by association we will choose those associations a lot more carefully, specifically only vetted contributions and at that point open source doesn't make any sense for us anymore.

soft egret
#

"If BI were to continue enforcing with guilty by association"
And for the 10th time now. That doesn't exist.

#

Please stay at the facts.

#

At no point in time ever did anyone intend to take down VME_PLA because some bad guy was associated with it.

chilly silo
#

There is "No Guilty by Association" policy. Dedmen already explained it VMEPLA was an unintended accident. The exact way the new moderation tool works was not understood or expected.

#

Why are you trying to push this narrative? Why do you feel so threatened?

carmine folio
#

So VME_PLA does contain ripped content then?

soft egret
#

No

#

Not aware of that

carmine folio
#

So it was removed because?

soft egret
#

The button in the steam moderation tools that says "set all this users uploads to private"
didn't only set all that users uploads to private (which was the expected behaviour), but also all mods where he was listed as contributor

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Lesson learned what that button does, won't be pressed anymore

carmine folio
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How long was VME_PLA gone, quite a few days? What took so long correcting the mistake?

soft egret
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Noone actually messaged Dwarden about it

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Multiple people told hcpookie to ask Dwarden. He didn't.

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When I messaged Dwarden about it, it was the first time he heard of it and a few minutes later it was back up

carmine folio
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Concerning.

soft egret
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Yeah. People prefer spreading rumors instead of getting a problem fixed.

chilly silo
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why? Because Pookie didnt talk to someone?

carmine folio
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Do we even get notice from Steam via email or such when such action is taken? I assume we do but perhaps not.

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Or he may be applying the same policy we would, leave it alone and walk away.

chilly silo
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Given he posted on the forums when he was made aware he was not applying your policy.

soft egret
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"Do we even get notice from Steam via email"
See VME_PLA thread on BIF, yes. Email

chilly silo
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He opened a steam ticket and waited

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You are making this out to be something it was not.

If you are on the receiving end of a DMCA or Moderation strike Steam notifies you why. Assuming you are the account holder.

It likely informed Kickass. But because of the poor tool design probably didnt tell Pookie as he was not the intended target.

You have the option to ignore the ticket or reply. It takes 24-48 hours depending on Steam CS workload.
There no conspiracy, not enforced delay.

in the case of VME, ad Dedmen has repeatedly explained, the "Kickass" ability to upload to the workshop was restricted due to repeated infractions and proven repeated use of ripped content. So it would be justified.

The problem was that the new "Tool" that allows that option had an unintended consequence. It seems who ever wrote the tool did not think about the Contributions feature. It was an oversight. Poor code design or lack of understanding about how the Workshop is used.

No conspiracy, no malicious and insidious IP policy. Just an problem with a tool.

carmine folio
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I am just trying to take appropriate action and explaining how I see the problem and what I would do in response to that. I have taken BI's word for it that they will not do this again and it is a one off error. Still a little worried the error wasn't spotted when it happened or that prompt resolution was unclear to the mod author but BI wont be pressing that button again so its fine. I have no further issue unless it happens again.

chilly silo
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But that is it. There is no problem anymore so why constantly rehash it. The issue with the tool is now known and i presume fed back to Valve. Its unlikely to happen again in the same way.

And not to rubbish Pookie, but if hed have followed advice and spoken to Dwarden might of been cleared up much faster.

Again lessons were learned.

carmine folio
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Is there a viewable copy of the email that was sent?