Is Your Script a Part of a Compilation Without Your Permission?

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

When the old ign vault was on the go did you have some scripts hosted there? Did you know that it is now part of a compilation on the new vault? Did the poster seek your permission?

 

I only came across this by accident in the last couple of days. Not only did they not ask my permission, they didn't even have the decency to tell me what they had done.

 

If, like me, you strongly object to this behaviour here is a link to the offending page so that you can leave a comment complaining about it. Hopefully something will be done.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

I dont see how is this compilating anything else than compressed rolovault and how it can offend you.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               

Friends,

I know this is maybe not how you may like it to be, but this is how it is. The EULA for NWN is clear:

 

 

 

If this is a PC product, when you install the Software you will be asked to review and either accept or not accept the terms of the EULA by clicking the I Accept button.  By clicking the I Accept button you acknowledge that you have read the EULA, understand it and agree to be bound by its terms and conditions.


...

The Software is licensed and not sold to you and its use is subject to this EULA.  The Company grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive license to use the Software in the manner described in the user documentation.


...

You may not copy, rent, lease, sublicense, distribute, publicly display the Software, create derivative works based on the Software (except to the extent expressly permitted in the Editor and End-User Variation section of this Agreement or other documentation accompanying the Software) or otherwise commercially exploit the Software.


...


EDITOR AND END-USER VARIATIONS

If the Software includes a feature that allows you to modify the Software or to construct new variations (an Editor), you may use such Editor to create modifications or enhancements to the Software, including the construction of new levels (collectively the Variations), subject to the following restrictions.  Your Variations: (i) must only work with the full, registered copy of the Software; (ii) must not contain modifications to any executable file; (iii) must not contain any libelous, defamatory or other illegal material, material that is scandalous or invades the rights of privacy or publicity of any third party; (iv) must not contain any trademarks, copyright-protected work or other property of third parties; and (v) may not be commercially exploited by you, including but not limited to making such Variations available for sale or as part of a pay-per-play or timesharing service.

 

 

By this text, ONLY the terms in the EULA apply, no matter how we may wish it otherwise, and the EULA does not require that anyone seek out the author of a variation that the author has released. Release is the key term here, once you release it you have no further control over the work. ANYONE is free to use a released NWN variant and is under no obligation to track down the author before doing so (in many cases this would be an impossible task).

 

All that said it is considered 'good taste' to at least credit the original author - if not in the work in the documentation. Still, nobody has to track down an NWN author to get permission, ever. Permission is in fact granted when the author released the work.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

That is an incorrect interpretation of the EULA.  The EULA does not represent the entirety of rights that an author is granted automatically through international copyright law.  Authors have full copyright to their work, full stop.  By agreeing to this EULA, you agree not to do specific things (such as selling the mod or putting them on a site that requires a paid membership to access the mods), and you grant Bioware and its parent companies a very small subset of your rights, non-exclusively, which means you still hold those rights. 

 

You are not granting those rights to everyone -- just Bioware.  Nor are you putting your work in the public domain, nor are you giving up all claim on your rights.

 

Now, I would not go as far as requesting that any of my work be removed from a mass backup archive like this, but Tarot Redhand should not be told that he doesn't have the right to do so.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               

That is an incorrect interpretation of the EULA.  The EULA does not represent the entirety of rights that an author is granted automatically through international copyright law.  Authors have full copyright to their work, full stop.  By agreeing to this EULA, you agree not to do specific things (such as selling the mod or putting them on a site that requires a paid membership to access the mods), and you grant Bioware and its parent companies a very small subset of your rights, non-exclusively, which means you still hold those rights. 

 

You are not granting those rights to everyone -- just Bioware.  Nor are you putting your work in the public domain, nor are you giving up all claim on your rights.

 

Now, I would not go as far as requesting that any of my work be removed from a mass backup archive like this, but Tarot Redhand should not be told that he doesn't have the right to do so.

 

The text of the ign eula and tos CLEARLY require you state your posession of the rights to the work  AND that you release the work for distribution and use by others without any further allowance to require others to ask further permission. IT IS GRANTED WHEN YOU SUBMIT THE WORK TO THE OLD VAULT.

 

Simply put, if you don't want others using your work, don't release it (as via any vault). You can still freely use your own work and restrict use of it to yourself by NOT POSTING IT FOR DOWNLOAD on a vault service.

 

 

You may post on the Service only content owned by you (such as your original statements or video clips), content for which you have received express written permission from the owner and content in the public domain (collectively, the “Material”). You assume all risk and responsibility for determining whether any Material is in the public domain. You hereby grant, transfer and assign to Ziff Davis and its successors, assigns and licensees (collectively, “Licensee”) a fully-paid, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right and license to publish, distribute, reproduce, transmit, use, translate, display, perform, modify, revise, create derivative works of and archive the Material, in any form or media now known or hereafter developed (including without limitation in print, magnetic or electronic form), on any number of occasions in any form, and to sublicense third parties (including other users of the Service) to do any of the foregoing with further right of sublicense (the “License”), without compensation to you. You represent and warrant that you are authorized to grant all rights set forth in the preceding sentence and that the exercise by Licensee of Licensee’s rights under the License shall not violate any laws, defame or libel any person, invade any person’s right of privacy or publicity or otherwise violate, misappropriate or infringe the rights of any person (including without limit any copyright or moral right).

 

There you have the crux of the biscuit.

 

Anyone who thinks otherwise might hire a lawyer, but I think that is all for naught.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

The text of the ign eula and tos CLEARLY require you state your posession of the rights to the work  AND that you release the work for distribution and use by others without any further allowance to require others to ask further permission. IT IS GRANTED WHEN YOU SUBMIT THE WORK TO THE OLD VAULT.

Anyone who thinks otherwise might hire a lawyer, but I think that is all for naught.

 

So I take it you now agree that the game's EULA does not take away the author's rights, since you've switched to arguing on the basis of the TOS of the old Vault instead of the NWN EULA?  Do not call the Vault's TOS an "EULA", as that term is a licensing agreement for software, not anything to do with using a web site.

 

I don't know where you see in the TOS section you posted that anyone is granting anyone other than Ziff-Davis, et al. (the Licensees) the right to do anything with the author's work.  They are not.  The rights granted are not exclusive, and the author retains the right to grant permission to others besides the Licensees on a case by case basis.  The right to redistribute or upload it elsewhere in compilations or anything else is not granted automatically to people who merely download and possess a copy of the author's work, based on the TOS you posted, unless the author says so.

 

Hiring a lawyer is not necessary.  It doesn't take a lawyer to understand this stuff.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Thayan]

               

Don't bother trying to reason with this guy Tchos. He is always right and everyone else is always wrong - and he'll make sure everyone knows how superior he really is. This is only be the start of huge protracted outburst from him if you continue trying to explain something rationally.

 

That said, I don't see what the big deal is as all those scripts were uploaded to the old vault and available for public use at that time. Permission was given then. And if there is a readme of comments in the script about how the people who created them wanted to see them used, then that should be sufficient.

 

But that's just my regular Joe 2 cents on the matter.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

I don't think it's a big deal either.  I just don't like when people think they're giving away more rights than they actually are, and try to convince others that they are, too.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               

So I take it you now agree that the game's EULA does not take away the author's rights, since you've switched to arguing on the basis of the TOS of the old Vault instead of the NWN EULA?  Do not call the Vault's TOS an "EULA", as that term is a licensing agreement for software, not anything to do with using a web site.

 

I don't know where you see in the TOS section you posted that anyone is granting anyone other than Ziff-Davis, et al. (the Licensees) the right to do anything with the author's work.  They are not.  The rights granted are not exclusive, and the author retains the right to grant permission to others besides the Licensees on a case by case basis.  The right to redistribute or upload it elsewhere in compilations or anything else is not granted automatically to people who merely download and possess a copy of the author's work, based on the TOS you posted, unless the author says so.

 

Hiring a lawyer is not necessary.  It doesn't take a lawyer to understand this stuff.

 

The EULA limits your rights. The TOS of the vault gives away a large number of your remaining rights to the 'the licensees' which means ALL THE MEMBERS OF THEIR SERVICE. Any one of which is free to download any material you post by your own posting, you grant all these permissions. NOWHERE is there a reservation to have anyone look up the author and ask again, it is conveyed in the TOS of the VAULT. If you release it, it is released. Done.

 

Investing in a lawyer would reveal the truth of this as seen through the eyes of the court, but the text is clear for anyone who can read it - "You hereby grant, transfer and assign to Ziff Davis and its successors, assigns and licensees (collectively, “Licensee”) a fully-paid, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right and license to publish, distribute, reproduce, transmit, use, translate, display, perform, modify, revise, create derivative works of and archive the Material, in any form or media now known or hereafter developed".

 

This is precisely one such case of an archival use.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

The EULA limits your rights. The TOS of the vault gives away a large number of your remaining rights to the 'the licensees' which means ALL THE MEMBERS OF THEIR SERVICE. Any one of which is free to download any material you post by your own posting, you grant all these permissions. NOWHERE is there a reservation to have anyone look up the author and ask again, it is conveyed in the TOS of the VAULT. If you release it, it is released. Done.

 

No, not "done".  It doesn't give away any rights.  It grants, non-exclusively, some few rights.  The author retains them.  They are not given away.  I will not explain that again.  Yes, it puts a limit on your rights, but it does not describe all of your rights that are not being limited, because no contract does that.  Those are described under copyright law.

 

The Licensees on the TOS that have the right to redistribute are not "all members of their service."  It describes who the licensees are, and it's not the users.  They do reserve the right to grant rights to the users, but the part that you did not quote from the Vault's TOS explains exactly what rights Ziff Davis further grants to "all users" of the service:

 

 

You may download, copy and make any personal, non-commercial use of the Content and use that is expressly permitted by the United States Copyright Act of 1976, as amended (“Copyright Act”) and not prohibited by any section of the Copyright Act or by any other applicable law, rule or regulation; provided, however, that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained in such Content; and provided further that you shall not store electronically any significant portion of any Content

 

Thus, the users who download the mods are not granted any rights that are not already permitted under copyright law, and may not do things that are prohibited by copyright law (like redistributing it without permission).

 

In conclusion, stop telling people they're giving up all their rights, please.  This is written in plain language, and anyone can read it for themselves.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               

I disagree.

 

"Users of the Service may use the Content only for their personal, noncommercial use."

 

Which is exactly what the new vault is, and was built with permission as an archive.

 

Here is all of section two 

 

 

from https://www.ziffdavi.../terms-of-useÂ� Â� 

 

 

 

2. Use of Content

You acknowledge that the Service contains information, software, articles, reviews, photographs, audio and video clips, graphics, links, logos, trademarks, the “look and feel” of our websites, applications and software and other material (collectively, the “Content”) that are protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights of Ziff Davis or third parties. All Content on the Service is copyrighted as a collective work of Ziff Davis pursuant to applicable copyright law. You agree to comply with all copyright laws and any copyright notices, information, or restrictions contained in any Content available on or accessed through the Service. Users of the Service may use the Content only for their personal, noncommercial use. Businesses, organizations or other legal entities may not become Members (defined below) and are not permitted to use the Service for any purpose, including but not limited to collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email and unauthorized framing of, or linking to, the Service. Please refer to our Linking Policy for more information on linking and use of Content.

Except as expressly permitted, you may not (i) modify, publish, transmit, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, sell, transfer or in any way exploit any of the Content or Material (defined below), in whole or in part, or (ii) use any robot, spider, site search and/or retrieval application, or other device to retrieve or index any portion of the Service. Content consisting of downloadable software may not be reverse engineered unless specifically authorized by the owner of the software’s patent and/or copyright. You also agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with any security related features of the Service or the Content, including features that prevent or restrict use or copying, or that enforce limitations on use.

You may post on the Service only content owned by you (such as your original statements or video clips), content for which you have received express written permission from the owner and content in the public domain (collectively, the “Material”). You assume all risk and responsibility for determining whether any Material is in the public domain. You hereby grant, transfer and assign to Ziff Davis and its successors, assigns and licensees (collectively, “Licensee”) a fully-paid, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right and license to publish, distribute, reproduce, transmit, use, translate, display, perform, modify, revise, create derivative works of and archive the Material, in any form or media now known or hereafter developed (including without limitation in print, magnetic or electronic form), on any number of occasions in any form, and to sublicense third parties (including other users of the Service) to do any of the foregoing with further right of sublicense (the “License”), without compensation to you. You represent and warrant that you are authorized to grant all rights set forth in the preceding sentence and that the exercise by Licensee of Licensee’s rights under the License shall not violate any laws, defame or libel any person, invade any person’s right of privacy or publicity or otherwise violate, misappropriate or infringe the rights of any person (including without limit any copyright or moral right).

You may download, copy and make any personal, non-commercial use of the Content and use that is expressly permitted by the United States Copyright Act of 1976, as amended (“Copyright Act”) and not prohibited by any section of the Copyright Act or by any other applicable law, rule or regulation; provided, however, that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained in such Content; and provided further that you shall not store electronically any significant portion of any Content.

 

Nothing in there requires the user to seek any permission to use any portion of the released material (that does not include the branding material).

 

It  is impractical to think anyone is going to seek out an original author.

 

If you want copyright information displayed make it part of your work (which it is unlawful to remove). Nobody has done that here to my knowledge.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

When the old ign vault was on the go did you have some scripts hosted there? Did you know that it is now part of a compilation on the new vault? Did the poster seek your permission?

 

 

Do you think that anyone is going to download this "compilation"?  In a sense your work is not really on the new vault.  It does not have its own page or comment section.  What you are seeing with the "compilation" appears to be a work in progress.  Several files were moved over and still need to be sorted through.  As a whole they are unrelated, and it is very likely that anyone who wants one of these scripts will wait until he sees a description of what the script really is.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

I disagree.

"Users of the Service may use the Content only for their personal, noncommercial use."

Which is exactly what the new vault is, and was built with permission as an archive.

 

It's not a matter of opinion, that can be agreed or disagreed with, that "personal use" does not include redistribution.  But the Vault is not at issue -- I accept it as the successor of the old Vault, which is allowed for under the old terms.  Tarot Redhand's issue would be with the individual user who put it in a compilation, which is different from simply mirroring the content as it was originally uploaded.

 

Nothing in there requires the user to seek any permission to use any portion of the released material (that does not include the branding material).

 

It doesn't need to say that in this little contract.  That is what copyright is.  It's the right to decide how, when, and by whom copies of your own work are made.  People who want to use it must get permission from the author, because otherwise they don't have the right to do it, that's all.  It can't be any simpler.  Contracts do not need to include the entire copyright law within them and say "all of these other rights are unchanged".  These terms modify (limit) the rights you already have -- it is not their business nor their right to grant new ones.

 

It is impractical to think anyone is going to seek out an original author.

We're talking about rights here, not whether things are convenient.  If you're done arguing law and rights, and what the terms and contracts actually say, then I'm done, too.  The rest is matters of opinion and common courtesy.

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

@whiZard 133 people already did. It's been available to download since July last year. That is why my very first sentence on the comment on that page says

Having only just discovered this I may well be too late.

​In all that time no announcement was made here about it, let alone to let individual authors know of the downloads existence. If nothing else, that is just plain rude. I am not going to get into an argument about copyright. I'll leave that to wiser beings than I and Rules Lawyers. TBH I do not expect the file to be changed and I am in no way suggesting it be removed at least until all the individual submissions have been re-released. I was just registering (very strongly I admit) my disapproval.

 

​In answer to those who are wondering why I am less than ecstatic about it, it screws up my download count and in these days when virtually no-one posts comments that's the only indication (flawed as it may be) you have of whether it is of use to people or not.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

In all that time no announcement was made here about it, let alone to let individual authors know of the downloads existence.

 

It was announced here, last year.