Discussion about the current situation with mod copyrights

Recently there has been some turmoil over how to deal with the material (meaning custom graphics, artwork, ideas, music, code and overall effort) beloging to the development of member's personal Cave Story mods. Shining Phantom who is a moderator here has tried his best to regulate the situation but several arguements have taken place regarding this issue and one member made a recent announcement that they wished to leave the community because of these recent outbursts of arguements at the forums. If I may intervene in this a bit as the Forum Administrator as I would prefer for debates such as this to not take place at this community that is designed to have people work together on projects and just have a good time playing Cave Story, Mods, Developments, et cetera.

Now before I begin with this, I would like to say that I appointed Shining Phantom as a moderator here because I know he has helped me out during many instances in which I needed help with such as several forum related fixes. I also knew that he would be active at the forums and would do a good job monitoring the forums and keeping the forum Spam free. The one thing about Shining Phantom that I've noticed is that under the banner of being a moderator here I believe he feels it is his duty to be strict in his approach to guard the integrity of these forums. In these recent issues regarding "theft" of modded works and such, I believe he has felt it has been his duty to try to prevent and solve this issue and as a moderator it is his right to do so. Shining Phantom has done nothing wrong by this, however I believe that this situation of modded work copyrights and such has become too large for just Shining Phantom to handle and in his doing so, the community has become a bit too wound up over this issue and it feels like several rules and regulations have been tightly implemented and regulated.

I would like to tell you my personal stance on how I see this issue and how and what I think we should do about it going forward. However I'm always open to suggestions. Personally I am not a fan of people using copyrighted material without permission, however in the case of Cave Story, the only copyrighted material is in fact Doukutsu Monogatari that belongs solely to Pixel. Edited graphics and mods are indeed the property of one's own work, but legally they are not copyrighted because of the means in which they were distributed via the internet, which means basically it belongs to the Public Domain unless the content becomes officially copyrighted and then released with a copyright statement. So the only real thing that can be done about these types of issues is to either let it ride and just chalk things up as misunderstandings or the sharing of content and information or to flame one another over work that is believed to have been created by someone else. It's a very tough decision to make regarding these issues, but I believe it is in the best interests of everyone here going forward to adhere to the following proposal.

"If you develop a Cave Story mod and use your own content and decide to allow visitors to this site the ability to view and play your mod, then you understand that your mod, effort and artwork therein is at risk of being used by someone else. In the event that you believe someone has taken without permission, ideas, artwork and code from a mod that you have originally created, no one is liable but yourself, the author of the mod who made the decision to allow people to download it in the first place."

Now I know that proposal is fairly blunt and for that I apologize as it pretty is taking the easy road to solving this problem. But, all things aside there are always going to be people who take work that rightfully belongs to someone else and even then some people might not even realize what they are doing or perhaps get confused somewhere along the way as to which work belongs to which person.

The right idea behind this that I would prefer people to take is to ask one another for permission to use their materials belonging to someone else in their own personal mods. However, this approach can be confusing as well and so do credit lists for those mentioning people in their credits against those not mentioned that should be listed. It is a rather touchy subject to solve and it is something that is hard to control and regulate. As we have seen from Shining Phantom's approach it makes the forum rules a lot tighter and not quite as fun or welcoming.

However, basically what the above proposal clause states is that "you are your own liability". Meaning this, if you fear for the content of your work to be unrightfully shared, taken or distributed by other people without permission, perhaps you should not include it in your mod or post your mod publically at all. Even though it is morally wrong for someone to take your work, there is really no legal law that prevents them from doing it and people are going to do it anyways especially if the content you have in your mod is well liked or in demand.

Now Shining Phantom did suggest the possibility of making certain aspects of his personal mod protected, making it impossible to grab screenshots and other little features that might make things difficult for people to take and use without permission. Perhaps this is something you all can look into and discuss as to how to best protect the work you have done for yourselves.

I'm creating this post and this poll as to gather feedback on what should be done going forward based on how the community in general feels about it. Based on what the majority of the communty wants, is the rule of what will be going forward.

Please discuss. And please avoid pointing fingers and arguing with each other on this issue... If you can. : )

-SkyeWelse

 

The right idea behind this that I would prefer people to take is to ask one another for permission to use their materials belonging to someone else in their own personal mods. However, this approach can be confusing as well and so do credit lists for those mentioning people in their credits against those not mentioned that should be listed. It is a rather touchy subject to solve and it is something that is hard to control and regulate. As we have seen from Shining Phantom's approach it makes the forum rules a lot tighter and not quite as fun or welcoming.

Well in my opinion it isn't hard just to ask one question but well...
I choosed this;

Something should be done about those who take work from other people without permission or proper credit, but it should be handled lightly and not strictly. I.E. Asking the person in question to please credit them for the work without hostility.

Allthough I think credit is more important than asking.
We don't have to be too strict but people should credit and ask, I think that's for respect other peoples work

So you don't disagree with that idea?
Well, I can try to make it with assembler, the thing is the game loads bmp's you have to rework that file format, bmp's are easy to get, anyhow maybe you can store them in the exe and then compress it...
I will look into it
It will surely protect people's work so no one can use it without the source files... (so they have to ask before they can use images e.t.c.)

Anyhow thats a way, so they have to ask before they can use it.
Nothing more

Edit: I hope you guys understand.
I don't wanna be a dumbass who don't wants to share anything, but I wan't to know if people wan't to use my images. And I wan't some credit for my (hard) work...

 

It's the internet. It's a given that anything you do is probably going to be stolen by someone at some point. Fussing about it and letting your work be hurt by this fact only hurts you, not the thieves.

If someone worries about their stuff being stolen, it is a sign that they do their work for renown rather than for the love of modding or to entertain others.

 

It's the internet. It's a given that anything you do is probably going to be stolen by someone at some point. Fussing about it and letting your work be hurt by this fact only hurts you, not the thieves.

If someone worries about their stuff being stolen, it is a sign that they do their work for renown rather than for the love of modding or to entertain others.

Why I'm modding? For fun! But it's my hard work, and I think you should respect work so you credit it. And also asking: A modder wants to know where his/her images will be used.
Also work is a bit of a personal thing...
However, it seems the result of this poll will be kinda concisely.

So I think we should left it to the author's how it will be, they release it under rule 1 or rule 2
Rule 1 is you don't have to ask or credit just let it go...
Rule 2 is something like asking and crediting.

So none of the sides have a disadventage... And I think that's best.
And look: How many people are modding and still updating thier mods? 3? 4?
Anyway not much...

 

I don't get this. This is a tiny community, it would benefit everyone if people were a bit more open to the idea of sharing content. After all, it's not like there's is anything to be gained outside of this small group of people by keeping total control of your stuff.
Similarly, any modder who takes almost all their content from other mods without permission will have achieved very little. It won't go unnoticed and certainly isn't any fun for the modder himself.

In this case (CS modding) I see no problem in using other people's material, but common decency dictates that if you can ask for permission you should do so. Not because of some pseudo-copyright law, but because getting into a petty argument about it later should be too damn silly to risk it.

Heck, most of the stuff I do with CS, and see in most other mods, constitutes less modding than using a common map editor for some other game does. When I was making Warcraft III maps a few years back I had a lot more freedom and control than I do now, working with spritesheets and Sue's.

 

I don't get this. This is a tiny community, it would benefit everyone if people were a bit more open to the idea of sharing content. After all, it's not like there's is anything to be gained outside of this small group of people by keeping total control of your stuff.
Similarly, any modder who takes almost all their content from other mods without permission will have achieved very little. It won't go unnoticed and certainly isn't any fun for the modder himself.

Some people don't feel nice if someone uses their hard work without saying they made it or asking it to use it... Think about this

 

Well let's let this poll go for a few more days at least before making any kind of final decision or rule. It seems like right now the verdict of the forum is almost completely split down the middle between choice 1 and choice 3.

I do like the suggestion that Shining Phantom brought up about the original author stating where they stand on this issue, but that still sounds like it could get out of hand, especially if say for example one person who allows their work to be used gets confused by someone who doesn't allow freetakers of their work and blame gets wrongly dished out. That would not be a pretty sight. Though, if we were to go this route I would suggest that a sticky thread or even a website be put together containing a master list of all of the current mods that people are working on, their authors and the position in which they stand as to how they see other people using their content. That would make things fairly simple to look at I think.

But at any rate, being able to somehow protect your mod would be great to have but I definitely want to leave that as an optional feature and not manditory of modders.

-SkyeWelse

 

I do like the suggestion that Shining Phantom brought up about the original author stating where they stand on this issue, but that still sounds like it could get out of hand, especially if say for example one person who allows their work to be used gets confused by someone who doesn't allow freetakers of their work and blame gets wrongly dished out. That would not be a pretty sight. Though, if we were to go this route I would suggest that a sticky thread or even a website be put together containing a master list of all of the current mods that people are working on, their authors and the position in which they stand as to how they see other people using their content. That would make things fairly simple to look at I think.

Thread works better ;D
Well the thing is how confused can you get in a 15 people forum were only 4 people are doing mods?

But at any rate, being able to somehow protect your mod would be great to have but I definitely want to leave that as an optional feature and not manditory of modders.

Yes but it's just some extra work and just setting that author issue rule would be much easier...

Also it wouldn't be right if we set for example rule 2 because 20 people choose rule 2 and only 5 rule 1 but the 5 people are all the modder's who done some work and those 20 people never done something...
Think about it...

 

The ridiculousness comes in when you think you have the right to regulate the work of others. The threat of stealing content is a threat the author has to deal with. Trying to make a list for all mods only complicates the situation even more.

The whole problem arose when one person, Shining Phantom, tried to force his opinion about mod content theft on everyone else. He's perfectly entitled to not releasing or protecting his mod in any way, but that's it. It's not his business how others release their mods, even on the forum, because it's THEIR mod. His opinion is perfectly valid insofar that he worries about mod theft and wants to protect against it. But if someone else takes something from another person's mod, the rules of engagement are set by the original mod creator. We can't take that kind of enforcement into our own hands because it's not our content.

 

The ridiculousness comes in when you think you have the right to regulate the work of others. The threat of stealing content is a threat the author has to deal with. Trying to make a list for all mods only complicates the situation even more.

What you're talking about I never wanted to lol I just wanted to have something that both sites haven't got any disadventures.

The whole problem arose when one person, Shining Phantom, tried to force his opinion about mod content theft on everyone else. He's perfectly entitled to not releasing or protecting his mod in any way, but that's it.

What's your problem? Only because I want people to ask before they use my images? You could read the thread, I gave several reasons why I closed it.

It's not his business how others release their mods, even on the forum, because it's THEIR mod. His opinion is perfectly valid insofar that he worries about mod theft and wants to protect against it. But if someone else takes something from another person's mod, the rules of engagement are set by the original mod creator. We can't take that kind of enforcement into our own hands because it's not our content.

I never said I want to have this as my business I said it's up to the author.

 

The whole problem arose when one person, Shining Phantom, tried to force his opinion about mod content theft on everyone else. He's perfectly entitled to not releasing or protecting his mod in any way, but that's it. It's not his business how others release their mods, even on the forum, because it's THEIR mod. His opinion is perfectly valid insofar that he worries about mod theft and wants to protect against it. But if someone else takes something from another person's mod, the rules of engagement are set by the original mod creator. We can't take that kind of enforcement into our own hands because it's not our content.

Well the situation may have escalated from Shining Phantom, but that isn't the main problem. The actual problem stems from the fact that there is theft, either accidental or intentional, of modded work belonging to other people. Now I don't know who originally started doing this and I don't really care to know. The issue at hand is that somehow something needs to be said or discussed about what should or shouldn't be done going forward in cases like these. Shining Phantom was trying to do the right thing by everyone by trying to take everyone's best interests at heart.

However, what you've just said has merit and something that I would agree with you completely in that the theft of content hurts the creator of the content and thus it should be solely up to the creator to determine what should or should not be done with that.

Now back the polls. This poll isn't designed to associate the new rule/regulation/guideline with the "winner" of the poll. It is mainly there to gain feedback on what should be done. And I would wager that even though the actual modders voting versus those who are not modders voting can at least be lumped into a single category of corelation data "Modders/Intended Modders". I doub't newcomers and people who just play Cave Story without mods would even waste their time to vote on something they know nothing about. So the data should be fairly accurate to look at. And of course comments and discussions are welcome and the best source of new ideas to the table.

-SkyeWelse

 

I don't see anything wrong with having to write up a quick readme with a credits section~ If you don't know where the content came from, just add on to the readme after somebody tells you. Asking permission ahead of time is the best thing, and I don't think many people would say no; but it's polite to ask.

That's my opinion in uncopyrighted works~

 

More than 50% of the Forum thinks the asking and crediting thing is nice... (Exactly: 56.25%)
But this isn't much in a 16 people poll...
So how we deal with it? I'm still thinking the author thing is teh best...