If it all worked out fine in the end, then both mods would be available - not just one or the other.
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Why is the other one now not available? And hadnât it not been updated in two years?
Some mods donât need constant updates, and as to the why itâs not available, that falls under the same category as above. If you want to know, youâd have to ask the author.
So, you basically made a bold statement and are not able to back it up. Thank you for your contribution.
All of her mods have been taken off the Steam workshop. I subscribed to her candle mod. Now I canât access the modâs page even though it shows up in my subscribed mods list.
Usually when a mod author takes down their mods, their intent is for people to not use their mods anymore. You can follow that intent by deleting the mod, or continue using it until its not useable anymore. There is no other recourse.
- Copyright protects an item of value, such as authorship of website copy, novels, or music.
- Copywriting is the process of creating something of value that an organization can use to promote the product/service, grow the business, and/or even make it more efficient or business-optimized.
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Maybe, but âUKâ copywrite law also covers the right to display content, our laws are a lot stricter. (RA author is a UK citizen by the way)
Any legal professional (or those with legal experience) learn to advise their clients to keep their mouths shout. If in doubt, just donât say anything, no matter the case.
Why?
Because itâs the safest approach. It is, of course, possible to communicate honestly, empathically and convincing about a current legal issue. And Iâm sure it happens. In 1 of 10 cases or so. The other 9 cases got fâed up somebody being blunt, honest, apologetic or whatever at the wrong time and with the wrong people.
So⊠lawyers tell their clients to just shut up.
The issue if a modder used copyrighted material or not isnât a murder case. But still, a reasonable legal department would advise to not discuss the case in public unless thereâs a very, very good reason for that. Forum outrage by maybe 20 or so people and their alt accounts is not a very, very good reason.
And if you donât have access to a legal department (which may even be the case in Funcomâs case, theyâre a pretty small operation), the âright to remain silentâ is even more important.
Donât have access to a doctor? Donât try operating on yourself. Maybe take an over-the-counter-pill, but if that doesnât work out, wait for a professional to take a look at the issue.
Donât have access to a lawyer? Same rules.
For the matter at hand: Even just saying that somebody may possibly have commited copyright violations or insulted somebody or whatever is a legal gray area and may put you in legal jeopardy. In some jurisdictions, itâs allowed, in others it isnât. Who could say which court might declare itself having jurisdiction?
i think you may have missed the point of Lucidiqueâs post. they were poking fun of your misuse of the word âcopywriteâ
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Indeed.
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Oh, itâs 1 am, gimmie a break lol
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Yes however Funcom is in Norway. From what I understand was parts of RA and another mod were used while blocking part of their content without the creators permission. Plagiarism is a crime.
Honestly, she had every opportunity to have her mods up in some fashion, and made the active decision to get rid of them.
The reason given?
I donât feel like being kind.
Copy and pasted from her announcement. So, as I said, everything worked out just fine, and everything lost is actively being replaced by other mod authors.
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As a mod author (for other games) I can say that it would be pretty disheartening to work hard on something, have someone come along later and decide they like parts of what I did and then just somewhat recreate it with different code and different UI, particularly if this new mod also adds other things that are unique but incompatible with mine, essentially making mine obsolete.
Canât say I have ever pulled my mods without good reason (rerelease with better code so old is discontinued, but not just because I stopped playing) but mods are the intellectual property of the mod author and thatâs within their rights to do so.
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Before you guys armchair lawyer anymore, you might want a little information about the accusations and how mods typically interact with one another before you go further. Especially when you through out things like copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
There were claims of plagiarism on the aforementioned mod author a couple of months ago. Talking about the specific mod in question (RA) the Tot! Custom mod was showing things the mod author of RA did not wish to be shown. The thing is, the mod was designed to show everything merged in with the datatables.
Which many other mods do. Pippi, Tot! Admin, RA, IQOL, etc.
For example when I add a new weapon to the database. It will show up in item lookups in Pippi, Tot! Admin, Thrall Wars, etc. When I add new warpaints, skin colors, hair colors, faces, hair styles, and such, it will appear in RA and IQOL as well as Tot! Custom.
Ideally when you are working on something and donât wish for the public to see it. You do not wish to cook it with your mod.
Where that gets a bit fuzzy is I donât think the items in question were in the datatables, but were simply floating in a folder waiting to be called by the mod controller. Iâm not 100% sure on this, and only the mod author of RA can verify that. Meanwhile the Tot! Custom mod was still able to see it (since its loaded into memory on Conan Exiles startup) and allowed users to use it. Mind you they had already downloaded it with the pak. If you want to talk about legality of this, then you have to do an order of operations. If someone is allowed discretion in a file they give to users (which I donât think is a law anywhere), then Funcom through Conan Exiles made the files in question viewable to other mods, and those mods made the file viewable to the users.
But at no point in time was there a decrypting of a pak file, contents copied, then redistributed in other mods. That never happened. The content in the RA mod was distributed by the workshop page (now taken down) of the RA mod.
When Funcom stepped in, there was numerous complaints because of how the mod author of Tot! Custom handled its interactions with others. Modders had requested they not use or view their content. Which meant he had to code his mod to block that content specifically. Meanwhile he had blocked content specifically to ensure mod compatibility with other mods. This caused some issues as since certain features were blocked, users would complain to those mod authors about the features not working and it made a troubleshooting headache. So complaints were made there as well.
Funcomâs mistake is for trying to attempt to police this mess. You canât police mod compatibilities and mod author drama. Theyâll be there day and night trying to untie the mess of drama and BS that users, authors, and trolls will come up with. Its best of them to stay out of it, let the players decide which mods they want to use, and for the mod authors to police their own troubleshooting.
As for legalities, let the governments people pay taxes to sort that out.
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You might be interested to know that, despite his typos⊠@EZee_AP up there is Hades 
I never used either mods so I donât know the intricate details, but based on all the public posts Iâve seen Iâm slowly piecing together the puzzle. Keep in mind, I havenât seen anyone actually type these out as Iâm not in either of those discords, and on these forums everybody was sort of âbeating around the bushâ with it so me being an intelligent being (just like the laundry detergent that can identify your stains) here I am reading between the lines:
- RA had its own customization system that applies the relevant assets to characters, but it also had its own art and assets included.
- Tot!Custom mainly consists of the customization system and relies on other mods to add their assets
- Tot, using various purpose-built diagnostic mods figured out what makes the RA mod tick and with his mod, disabled the customization system of RA so that the assets bundled within RA can be applied with his own customization system.
I believe Iâm not too far off with the above, so based on that, maybe you can come to a better conclusion whether thatâs an okay thing to do or not⊠I guess opinions will vary.
(mine is that if the above is indeed the case⊠then I agree that itâs a bit sketchy and should only ever be done with the permission of the other author)
I completely disagree with this⊠In fact, my opinion is that the reason things got this far is because Funcom let itâŠ
Personally, I think part of the userbase fueled these way more than the actual creators⊠and had quite a significant role in escalating it to this pointâŠ
I also think that Funcom fully realized that they shouldâve acted sooner, which is why theyâre actually trying now.
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Your assessment is correct as far as I know.
And they whiffed. Causing a wrongful takedown on the workshop. The only thing the mod author had to change is to let mod incompatibilities be incompatible so that features werenât blocked. Which⊠well all things considered just made less work for them in the longterm as the reasons behind the issue to begin with has exited the modding scene entirely. Turned out to be a ton of work on various sides with no net benefit to the community in the end.
Oh yes⊠1000% correct here.
If mod users could just stay in their lane, let modders mod, and stop causing drama, then no disagreements or whatever would have ever happened.
Iâm adding more from her post, to include the context you failed to include:
âŠthe recent behavior from mod users is so hurtful that frankly I donât feel like being kind.
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I wasnât referring to that part though when I said theyâre trying, but the actions they took after it was investigated and decided⊠(also, I wouldnât call the above âwrongfulâ, itâs just that they couldâve simply concluded the investigation much faster and just tell him to remove that âfeatureâ instead of dragging it out)
Not even referring to the new CoC, but rather to them actually showing up in the modder discord afterwards and having a conversation and taking feedback onboard, which as far as I know is a first in a very long time.
Weâll see where it goes though and if it was just for show or not, I know a lot of people donât have high hopes, but itâs not like we have anything to lose by giving them another shot to try 