Mods, legally speaking, can NOT be claimed by eleon under EULA unless they adjust their EULA to state as such CAREFULLY. Mods use an openly and available api BUT Eleon didnt write the MODS. They wrote the API (Arguably) and provided dll's to interact with it. BIG difference. Why do you think ark pays modders? Its because they got sued for that same crap. Many devs that said the same thing have been. THIS NEEDS TO BE CLEAR!!! Why? Because it impacts the rights of modders when they provide or use or distribute their code. Why? Because if the modder POSTS a mod or code in GIT HUB... And someone else uses that source WITHOUT agreeing to your EULA what then? Licensing matters. As for charging for mods... Im not against him charging for his mods as they take a lot of time, and talent, to make. Lets face it... Its not like EAH is open source is it? NO. And they once charged for it as well. It was very reasonable I subbed to xango's mods. As long as he adds stuff every month its totally worth it. The market can play out on that. Its fair. Besides. EAH was written by reverse engineering things in Empyrion. THEN it was commercially available. You guys allowed that. In this forum. Then Distributed it within your game for free (Which TBH was out of necessity because the game is just THAT unstable in MP). You already gave permission for a lot of stuff just by doing that. Whether you realize it or not your "legal Recourse" is shaky at best because of that. You guys cant just "Pick and Choose" who your EULA applies to or not once the cat is out of the bag. Im 100% certain I still have the receipt AND the key LOL.
This isnt about us claiming a mod. This is about Xango saying he CAN claim copyright due to the fact we added the Detector. What he cant. Since the API isnt his to begin with. Our ToS states this clearly that Eleon Game Studios OWNS anything you do in the game since the game IS from Eleon Game Studios. Also as said were NOT against people asking money for it. We just dont like it this is done on OUR platform EAH got NEVER sold on our forum. They sold it on THERE website. They gave support on our forum. What ASTIC is doing for his mods on our forum aswell. What is fine for us If this was a support post. You would NEVER have heard us in it.
I would say if they ran support from here, that allowed them to make their product as that acted as advertising. Im 100% sure i got the link to HWS from here, and then purchased it from that site. Xango just doesnt have a website playing middle man. Half dozen of one, 6 of another lol. Not trying to argue any... Just saying its a click of difference. See this brings up something interesting though. You ARE saying his idea was okay to use... And fair. So what protects any of us from Eleon profiting on ideas that aren't theirs? What protects our mods? Kind of makes the "No public Roadmap to keep people from stealing eleon Ideas" silly considering. For that matter... What protects HWS from me copying them as from what i understand... Eleon owns their ideas NOT them. Just curious.
I am not a lawyer (and hopefully the following does not sound to harsh), but in case we choose to create a feature, featureaddition or similar that migh or might not be part of a certain mod, we do not have any obligation to ask you or any mod creator for permission to do so, nor does the fact that we are adding a feature that might be similar or identical to a feature in the mod automatically grant the chance for the mod creator to gain payment or any other service in return. This accounts for mods, tools, blueprints, scenarios or any other "Content" that is not usable without the game. On the other hand, we allow monetarization of videos and game content - if you can find someone that pays for stuff that only works in our game, we are ok with that. Every player can make its own decision what he wants to pay for or not. If you need to protect your "idea" in an dispute with another mod creator that does the same, this is a matter of b2b rules between you two. We will neither intervene nor pick a side, as we only offer the technical platform and have no obligation to mediate or to solve your monetarization disputes
It would be nice to see a section of mods approved by the dev team. I know there is a list of mods that is kept somewhat updated, but it would be nice to see a section of mods that the dev's approve of, and are potentially included, much like EAH is now.
Just read the EULA posted at http://empyriongame.com/terms-of-service-eula/ It doesn't say anything about mods.
All graphics, text, user interfaces, trademarks, logo, artwork, sounds, music, and computer code (“CONTENT”) An mod is content aswell
You got already the allowance for promoting your Mods on the Empyrion Forum https://empyriononline.com/threads/mods-going-public-october-first-2020.95925/#post-420035 And still you try to argue with the Devs/Admin/Mod about it?
Would you continue to make mods if the devs were telling you "all your mods belongs to us". The patreon only has 1 subscriber and he doesn't even run an Empyrion server. I have no reason to continue making Empyrion mods.
From my experience with mod makers and the Game Companies who had to "live" with it... There are two who spring to my mind (as I have played those for some Years)of having incorporated the 'mods' into their own game engine while the Mod-Creators did not get any credit for it: The Elder Scrolls Online - "Add-On"-Website https://www.esoui.com/addons.php World of Warships - Aslain to name one of them https://aslain.com/index.php?/topic/2020-download-★-world-of-warships-★-modpack/
Eleon does not technically own the mods. But if you create a specific feature for or as a mod and Eleon adds the same or a similar feature, Eleon does not have the obligation to offer you any kind of compensation. You still own your mod before and after. But you cannot own a feature idea as all features that rely on code that is run in the game is actually ‚content’ only Eleon can own based on the Eula. That is the point I was addressing. Everything else is pretty much said
