At first I was a bit confused at the whole, “No copyright material allowed” as it had already been established in court years and years ago now that Publishers and Devs are not legally responsible for the shit players make.
Which court? The EU copyright law is about to get much worse for things like this (basically it's saying the platform holders are responsible for it).
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
At first I was a bit confused at the whole, “No copyright material allowed” as it had already been established in court years and years ago now that Publishers and Devs are not legally responsible for the shit players make.
Which court? The EU copyright law is about to get much worse for things like this (basically it's saying the platform holders are responsible for it).
US.
Sorry to hear about the EU.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
At first I was a bit confused at the whole, “No copyright material allowed” as it had already been established in court years and years ago now that Publishers and Devs are not legally responsible for the shit players make.
Which court? The EU copyright law is about to get much worse for things like this (basically it's saying the platform holders are responsible for it).
EU law is the reason every webpage asks me if it's ok they have cookies, so I hate them >-<
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
While I certainly laughed at it this, this is why the stipulation of ownership is a part of the EULA that players have to agree to.
If it wasn’t in there then they wouldn’t own it.
But even with it in there they maybe still don’t own it or maybe they do. That aspect is still very much in legal limbo and no one has tried to challenge it.
EULAs in general are a legal grey area in the US. Some aspects of them have been upheld by courts and other aspects weren’t. Some clauses in EULAs are inline with existing laws or precedents while other aspects literally go against US Federal Law. Not to mention whatever laws various States have. Some clauses are purposely vague and others are purposefully misleading. With other aspects running completely counter to how other products with user agreements are handled. Many EULAs state that they are not responsible if their software breaks your computer. However in most other areas of life this doesn’t work like that. ie: You buy a car part and the car part breaks your car you can sue the manufacturers and potentially even the people that sold you the part.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
Funny joke, but like many funny jokes it really does not accurately describe the situation at all, muddying or ignoring aspects for the sake of the joke.
It's more like buying a canvas from a store, painting a copyrighted image like a recent movie poster or something (possibly by actually photoshopping from the original poster), then sticking that painting in the display window of the shop with a "For free" sticker on it and walking away. ...I can't really think of a proper physical example to exemplify the fact that said painting is also now in infinite supply, but that's a factor as well.
Basically I really don't know who's on the hook if and when the owner of that image walks by that shop and sees hundreds of people walking off with that painting. But something is obviously going to happen. Be nice if the world would finally settle in on a solid answer, but until then it seems nobody is interested in actually dealing with that quagmire.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
While I certainly laughed at it this, this is why the stipulation of ownership is a part of the EULA that players have to agree to.
If it wasn’t in there then they wouldn’t own it.
But even with it in there they maybe still don’t own it or maybe they do. That aspect is still very much in legal limbo and no one has tried to challenge it.
EULAs in general are a legal grey area in the US. Some aspects of them have been upheld by courts and other aspects weren’t. Some clauses in EULAs are inline with existing laws or precedents while other aspects literally go against US Federal Law. Not to mention whatever laws various States have. Some clauses are purposely vague and others are purposefully misleading. With other aspects running completely counter to how other products with user agreements are handled. Many EULAs state that they are not responsible if their software breaks your computer. However in most other areas of life this doesn’t work like that. ie: You buy a car part and the car part breaks your car you can sue the manufacturers and potentially even the people that sold you the part.
^ yeah pretty much this. I'm not sure Blizzard is actually legally allowed to do what they are doing, but at a minimum some kid making Warcraft maps in his basement probably doesn't know this.
I dont think it has been tested. Those pesky IP laws and their differences from common artistic goods.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The kicker is that none of these companies want to be the first to actually have these things go to court. It is largely uncharted waters and there is a real possibility they could lose. Which would be quite bad for them.
At the same time the people they send C&Ds to or sue for obscene amounts of moment (only to offer a very, very generous settlement usually involving having to not pay money) are not in any real position to hire lawyers to fight it. And for those who maybe could, the potential personal damages if they lost are too great to risk trying.
There are advocacy groups out there and policy makers who are trying to set things right or at least actually make things not vague, but y’know how it is.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
The kicker is that none of these companies want to be the first to actually have these things go to court. It is largely uncharted waters and there is a real possibility they could lose. Which would be quite bad for them.
At the same time the people they send C&Ds to or sue for obscene amounts of moment (only to offer a very, very generous settlement usually involving having to not pay money) are not in any real position to hire lawyers to fight it. And for those who maybe could, the potential personal damages if they lost are too great to risk trying.
There are advocacy groups out there and policy makers who are trying to set things right or at least actually make things not vague, but y’know how it is.
Yeah, that's the real stupid part about the whole thing. Legal battles are expensive and most people legitimately would not even be able to fight it (especially considering I have to imagine a big company like Activision Blizzard has really good lawyers). Even a win means you're out a shitton of money in legal fees. It's really kind of a dumb system at times.
I wanted to say that Valve and Blizz put it to the test already, but they settled out of court.
It was at least sticky enough that they had to, which means Valve had enough of a right to the name that a court battle would have hurt them both. Which means IceFrog had enough of a right to the name when he sold it to them.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The crazy thing is that even a win for these companies could be unwanted by them. A win could potentially clearly define what they can and cannot do. As things stand right now I’m pretty sure they prefer the vagueness because it gives them the flexibility to do whatever they want.
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WC3's custom map maker provides a tremendous amount of additional value that you wouldn't get from making the game in Unity. You're using Blizzard's game assets, their online framework, their established playerbase, etc. I don't think it's super unreasonable that they own the commercial rights to it, it's only really meant to be used by hobbyists. If you think you've got a killer idea you're going to want to make money off of, you shouldn't be building it in the creation tools of another game.
WC3's custom map maker provides a tremendous amount of additional value that you wouldn't get from making the game in Unity. You're using Blizzard's game assets, Blizzard's online framework, Blizzard's established playerbase, etc. I don't think it's super unreasonable that they own the commercial rights to it, it's only really meant to be used by hobbyists. If you think you've got a killer idea you're going to want to make money off of, you shouldn't be building it in the creation tools of another game.
that is the exact opposite mindset of how these tools were created
modding and addons used to be a strategy to give a game more life, and more marketability
there are people who own and play WC3 only because custom maps exist, Blizzard already directly profits off the work of these custom maps without a piece of paper that grants ownership to them
they have a right to do it, it's just stupid, and also lazy, and nobody has to be okay with it
Retracted I misread the response. But I would amend my statement that even if they were given to lengthen the games lifespan they were the focal point of the rise of the EULA usage for the in game assets. And so this is just a natural progression to this process for corporate companies in light of what happened to Blizz with prior big happenings.
The kicker is that none of these companies want to be the first to actually have these things go to court. It is largely uncharted waters and there is a real possibility they could lose. Which would be quite bad for them.
At the same time the people they send C&Ds to or sue for obscene amounts of moment (only to offer a very, very generous settlement usually involving having to not pay money) are not in any real position to hire lawyers to fight it. And for those who maybe could, the potential personal damages if they lost are too great to risk trying.
There are advocacy groups out there and policy makers who are trying to set things right or at least actually make things not vague, but y’know how it is.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) comes to mind. If people remember, they fought on behalf of BnetD way back in 2003-2004, although they lost that battle to Blizzard.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
That was the mindset of the users. I would disagree it was the general mindset of the IP creators though.
If the tools weren't included to increase the life span of the game, why were they included?
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
Yeah, I'd imagine a lot of the developers were very pro-modding since they're all likely big geeks too and would love to play some of the stuff the community comes up with. I mean, look at how overboard they went with the modding tools in the SC2 editor even in comparison to what WC3 allowed (edit: and I'm talking features Blizzard themselves didn't even use). I have no doubt that sort of thing is still true, but then, those aren't the people writing the EULAs...
That was the mindset of the users. I would disagree it was the general mindset of the IP creators though.
well, i guess that is technically a disprovable assertion, given that we can't go interview every single person who ever worked at Blizzard, but we do have the word of people like John Carmack, who were influential in the industry at the time WC3 was made, and he would tell you (and has, on the record) that is why these kinds of tools were made, and why he fought for them to be included in Id products well after Id was acquired by Bethesda (who are basically as ignorant as Activision)
Yeah, I'd imagine a lot of the developers were very pro-modding since they're all likely big geeks too and would love to play some of the stuff the community comes up with. I mean, look at how overboard they went with the modding tools in the SC2 editor even in comparison to what WC3 allowed (edit: and I'm talking features Blizzard themselves didn't even use). I have no doubt that sort of thing is still true, but then, those aren't the people writing the EULAs...
I think the disconnect here is that we're all thinking what the creators of the game and the IP in general would want for the assets and tools, but we're seeing what the owners of the IP and the game are doing, and, sadly, those aren't the same people.
I don't think that classic Blizzard would want to crack down on the creative user base or limit what they could do with the tools that they made available. But EA ActiBlizzard's shareholders? Yeah, put the tools out so you can harvest the labor of the creators to keep the game going, but make sure the print says that it's all yours just in case someone creates something valuable.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
Huh, interesting... looking around it sounds like on top of this thing, WC3 Reforged is a buggy mess of a game and a lot of stuff like online ladder are broken now. How do you screw up an asset upgrade? o_O
I just think they realized that the game didnt need the resources that they were providing for it. The population interested was going to be limited to nostalgia tourists and some small others. Despite everything I am still looking forward to jumping in this weekend and playing through the story again. But that will be it. I am not going to do much online. And that population is going to settle back down to pre reforged numbers rather fast I think and what I think they finally accepted.
Warcraft 3 needed a real, modern, online system, for both ladder and custom games
it needed that
graphics was a bonus
they delivered (some) graphics, and they have promised to deliver the online at some arbitrary point in the future. i don't understand why they did things in the order that they did. it was clearly rushed out the door. the murmuring is that they decided to punt on online in December to make sure that the campaign wasn't buggy for their forced release date.
The state that WC3R shipped in has completed killed any enthusiam I might have for a potential D2 remake. If D2R is gonna look like this, don't bother.
If the default isn't for game companies to own the mods made with their editors, then how is ownership assigned?
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
If the default isn't for game companies to own the mods made with their editors, then how is ownership assigned?
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
Historically, law seems to have sided with mod-makers more often than not. Of course the developer of the game owns the rights to their assets, code, etc. but we wouldn't have Valve's Dota 2 if Blizzard owned DOTA just because it was made using their editor.
If the default isn't for game companies to own the mods made with their editors, then how is ownership assigned?
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
Map-creating communities are actually pretty good about crucifying people who do this.
If the default isn't for game companies to own the mods made with their editors, then how is ownership assigned?
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
Historically, law seems to have sided with mod-makers more often than not. Of course the developer of the game owns the rights to their assets, code, etc. but we wouldn't have Valve's Dota 2 if Blizzard owned DOTA just because it was made using their editor.
Well what you'd own is the specific version of the game you made in their custom tools.
Once you port all of that to another engine or what not, they wouldn't own it. I haven't read the EULA, but there 0 chance it says they'd own that version, and you cannot copyright game mechanics, EVER.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
If the default isn't for game companies to own the mods made with their editors, then how is ownership assigned?
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
Map-creating communities are actually pretty good about crucifying people who do this.
Which matters if you want to remain part of the community, but if someone sees an opportunity to steal the next Dota I feel like they won't care about being blacklisted from a forum.
If people remember, Blizzard originally had planned to allow people to sell their custom maps in Starcraft 2, but I think difficulties such as stealing and such was too great and they gave it up.
If you make a Harry Potter game using Mario Maker 2, who owns it? What if it becomes the most popular thing on the Mario Maker online thing? What if you then sell it to a third party yet, let's say it's Microsoft? Let's say Microsoft makes a new engine but copies all the mechanics and features you had done in Mario Maker, and sells it to a ton of people. Who get a cut and how much?
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
Funny joke, but like many funny jokes it really does not accurately describe the situation at all, muddying or ignoring aspects for the sake of the joke.
It's more like buying a canvas from a store, painting a copyrighted image like a recent movie poster or something (possibly by actually photoshopping from the original poster), then sticking that painting in the display window of the shop with a "For free" sticker on it and walking away. ...I can't really think of a proper physical example to exemplify the fact that said painting is also now in infinite supply, but that's a factor as well.
Basically I really don't know who's on the hook if and when the owner of that image walks by that shop and sees hundreds of people walking off with that painting. But something is obviously going to happen. Be nice if the world would finally settle in on a solid answer, but until then it seems nobody is interested in actually dealing with that quagmire.
So if I build Warhammer miniatures and I use the paints they provide and I paint them in the way they are depicted on the box, my creation is their property? Can I no longer sell the Warhammer miniatures?
I think you're more harping on the "you can't use copyrighted stuff in the editor" which is understandable from a litigation standpoint (although still pretty grey in my opinion). My complaint is more the "we own whatever you make with the tools you purchased from us." I don't see how it should give them ownership of the next DOTA any more than Adobe should own whatever people make in Photoshop.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Photoshop and other software packages aren't great analogies because something made with Photoshop stands on its own.
a custom map made with Warcraft 3 always requires Warcraft 3 to run. It's much more tightly tied with the tool and Blizzard's game than a creation in Word or Photoshop or any other analogy that's been used.
This licensing agreement is Blizzard preventing a repeat of DotA.
It kind of reeks of "If you were to make the next DOTA in our tools, we are legally allowed to steal the idea"
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
Funny joke, but like many funny jokes it really does not accurately describe the situation at all, muddying or ignoring aspects for the sake of the joke.
It's more like buying a canvas from a store, painting a copyrighted image like a recent movie poster or something (possibly by actually photoshopping from the original poster), then sticking that painting in the display window of the shop with a "For free" sticker on it and walking away. ...I can't really think of a proper physical example to exemplify the fact that said painting is also now in infinite supply, but that's a factor as well.
Basically I really don't know who's on the hook if and when the owner of that image walks by that shop and sees hundreds of people walking off with that painting. But something is obviously going to happen. Be nice if the world would finally settle in on a solid answer, but until then it seems nobody is interested in actually dealing with that quagmire.
So if I build Warhammer miniatures and I use the paints they provide and I paint them in the way they are depicted on the box, my creation is their property? Can I no longer sell the Warhammer miniatures?
You probably couldn't claim to own their designs, which I think is what's more analogous here. You make up a color scheme and claim you invented your own Craftworld or Marine chapter. What's to stop the next guy from copying you and calling it their own? Angry forumers, apparently? On the face of it that doesn't sound like a ton of legal weight.
It seems to me that a company making a game has all kinds of contracts saying so-and-so will doing such-and-such work, and the end product belongs to the company. What contract or right of ownership does a mod creator have besides their own say-so? If Blizzard or Activision owns the mod then they can do some kind of gatekeeping. If the company sucks, then it could be bad. But without that I think mod creators have basically nothing. I don't think I understand the difference between making a mod under the onus that the game company owns your work, and making a mod with the understanding that anyone can steal it. I thought the big shiny carrot was that a company would see your work and hire you, but it seems like they could do that anyway.
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US.
Sorry to hear about the EU.
EU law is the reason every webpage asks me if it's ok they have cookies, so I hate them >-<
I mean that makes so much sense when you think about it, we see this in everyday life. If you paint on a canvas that you purchased from the store, the canvas maker owns your art. Similarly if you write a book in Microsoft Word, Microsoft now owns that. Your smartphone maker owns all your photos, Crayola owns all of the poorly drawn children's art, etc etc.
While I certainly laughed at it this, this is why the stipulation of ownership is a part of the EULA that players have to agree to.
If it wasn’t in there then they wouldn’t own it.
But even with it in there they maybe still don’t own it or maybe they do. That aspect is still very much in legal limbo and no one has tried to challenge it.
EULAs in general are a legal grey area in the US. Some aspects of them have been upheld by courts and other aspects weren’t. Some clauses in EULAs are inline with existing laws or precedents while other aspects literally go against US Federal Law. Not to mention whatever laws various States have. Some clauses are purposely vague and others are purposefully misleading. With other aspects running completely counter to how other products with user agreements are handled. Many EULAs state that they are not responsible if their software breaks your computer. However in most other areas of life this doesn’t work like that. ie: You buy a car part and the car part breaks your car you can sue the manufacturers and potentially even the people that sold you the part.
Funny joke, but like many funny jokes it really does not accurately describe the situation at all, muddying or ignoring aspects for the sake of the joke.
It's more like buying a canvas from a store, painting a copyrighted image like a recent movie poster or something (possibly by actually photoshopping from the original poster), then sticking that painting in the display window of the shop with a "For free" sticker on it and walking away. ...I can't really think of a proper physical example to exemplify the fact that said painting is also now in infinite supply, but that's a factor as well.
Basically I really don't know who's on the hook if and when the owner of that image walks by that shop and sees hundreds of people walking off with that painting. But something is obviously going to happen. Be nice if the world would finally settle in on a solid answer, but until then it seems nobody is interested in actually dealing with that quagmire.
^ yeah pretty much this. I'm not sure Blizzard is actually legally allowed to do what they are doing, but at a minimum some kid making Warcraft maps in his basement probably doesn't know this.
At the same time the people they send C&Ds to or sue for obscene amounts of moment (only to offer a very, very generous settlement usually involving having to not pay money) are not in any real position to hire lawyers to fight it. And for those who maybe could, the potential personal damages if they lost are too great to risk trying.
There are advocacy groups out there and policy makers who are trying to set things right or at least actually make things not vague, but y’know how it is.
Yeah, that's the real stupid part about the whole thing. Legal battles are expensive and most people legitimately would not even be able to fight it (especially considering I have to imagine a big company like Activision Blizzard has really good lawyers). Even a win means you're out a shitton of money in legal fees. It's really kind of a dumb system at times.
It was at least sticky enough that they had to, which means Valve had enough of a right to the name that a court battle would have hurt them both. Which means IceFrog had enough of a right to the name when he sold it to them.
that is the exact opposite mindset of how these tools were created
modding and addons used to be a strategy to give a game more life, and more marketability
there are people who own and play WC3 only because custom maps exist, Blizzard already directly profits off the work of these custom maps without a piece of paper that grants ownership to them
they have a right to do it, it's just stupid, and also lazy, and nobody has to be okay with it
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) comes to mind. If people remember, they fought on behalf of BnetD way back in 2003-2004, although they lost that battle to Blizzard.
If the tools weren't included to increase the life span of the game, why were they included?
well, i guess that is technically a disprovable assertion, given that we can't go interview every single person who ever worked at Blizzard, but we do have the word of people like John Carmack, who were influential in the industry at the time WC3 was made, and he would tell you (and has, on the record) that is why these kinds of tools were made, and why he fought for them to be included in Id products well after Id was acquired by Bethesda (who are basically as ignorant as Activision)
I think the disconnect here is that we're all thinking what the creators of the game and the IP in general would want for the assets and tools, but we're seeing what the owners of the IP and the game are doing, and, sadly, those aren't the same people.
I don't think that classic Blizzard would want to crack down on the creative user base or limit what they could do with the tools that they made available. But EA ActiBlizzard's shareholders? Yeah, put the tools out so you can harvest the labor of the creators to keep the game going, but make sure the print says that it's all yours just in case someone creates something valuable.
it needed that
graphics was a bonus
they delivered (some) graphics, and they have promised to deliver the online at some arbitrary point in the future. i don't understand why they did things in the order that they did. it was clearly rushed out the door. the murmuring is that they decided to punt on online in December to make sure that the campaign wasn't buggy for their forced release date.
why was the release date forced?
well. this week is earnings week on wall street.
If you say that a user owns their mod once they make any change whatsoever, what stops the next person from making a tiny change to that mod and then claiming ownership over the new creation? The warning in a typical mod's text file doesn't seem any more bulletproof than a Eula.
Historically, law seems to have sided with mod-makers more often than not. Of course the developer of the game owns the rights to their assets, code, etc. but we wouldn't have Valve's Dota 2 if Blizzard owned DOTA just because it was made using their editor.
Map-creating communities are actually pretty good about crucifying people who do this.
Well what you'd own is the specific version of the game you made in their custom tools.
Once you port all of that to another engine or what not, they wouldn't own it. I haven't read the EULA, but there 0 chance it says they'd own that version, and you cannot copyright game mechanics, EVER.
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Which matters if you want to remain part of the community, but if someone sees an opportunity to steal the next Dota I feel like they won't care about being blacklisted from a forum.
So if I build Warhammer miniatures and I use the paints they provide and I paint them in the way they are depicted on the box, my creation is their property? Can I no longer sell the Warhammer miniatures?
I think you're more harping on the "you can't use copyrighted stuff in the editor" which is understandable from a litigation standpoint (although still pretty grey in my opinion). My complaint is more the "we own whatever you make with the tools you purchased from us." I don't see how it should give them ownership of the next DOTA any more than Adobe should own whatever people make in Photoshop.
a custom map made with Warcraft 3 always requires Warcraft 3 to run. It's much more tightly tied with the tool and Blizzard's game than a creation in Word or Photoshop or any other analogy that's been used.
This licensing agreement is Blizzard preventing a repeat of DotA.
You probably couldn't claim to own their designs, which I think is what's more analogous here. You make up a color scheme and claim you invented your own Craftworld or Marine chapter. What's to stop the next guy from copying you and calling it their own? Angry forumers, apparently? On the face of it that doesn't sound like a ton of legal weight.
It seems to me that a company making a game has all kinds of contracts saying so-and-so will doing such-and-such work, and the end product belongs to the company. What contract or right of ownership does a mod creator have besides their own say-so? If Blizzard or Activision owns the mod then they can do some kind of gatekeeping. If the company sucks, then it could be bad. But without that I think mod creators have basically nothing. I don't think I understand the difference between making a mod under the onus that the game company owns your work, and making a mod with the understanding that anyone can steal it. I thought the big shiny carrot was that a company would see your work and hire you, but it seems like they could do that anyway.