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some concerns about the community


hishutup

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Mator keeps posting some good info that seems to contribute to the discussion over on the nexus but they keep deleting posts. I don't really have time to follow any sort of controversial discussion, but I'll leave this here so people can freely and openly discuss things.

 

Anyhow, I don't plan on deleting anything unless its obviously spam, so discuss this topic from the nexus to you hearts content, but please follow the STEP Community Citizenship

 

Heres some screencaps if the original topic gets deleted.

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Page 3 from April 8th, 2017 @ 1612 PST

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vdXoW.png  vdYCP.png

 

Here's the post that initially made Dark0ne decide he wanted to arbitrarily restrict all further posts I made in the thread:

 

 

vcDDs.png

 



Here's Dark0ne's reply:

 

 

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Here's the post that I later made that they kept deleting:

 

 

 

 


To be deemed fair use requires fulfilling four requirements when a case is being considered.
  • the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  • the nature of the copyrighted work;
  • the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  • the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

With MXR's video being monetized, he'd have blatantly failed at the first requirement.

 
That's false.  All of those aspects are weighed in determining whether a use is fair, but failing one does not make something instantly not fair use.

Here's a direct quote from U.S. copyright law:
 

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
 
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
 
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.



Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

You can further read any number of online sources about fair use, e.g.
https://www.adweek.com/digital/fair-use-youtube/
 
I highly recommend watching this video to understand what fair use is:
 


 
See 4:21 for a DIRECT contradiction to what you said, @AGreatWeight.
 
The video was posted on the official YouTube blog, which provides good context on it:
https://youtube.googleblog.com/2011/05/cis-fair-use-legal-experts-answer.html
 
I also filled out a fair use checklist relating to MxR's video, which clearly demonstrates how/why it would be considered fair use:
https://puu.sh/uXzpi.pdf



Here's my reply to Hishy's post, also deleted:

 

 

 

 

 


Would you agree that any game review, commentary or critic is fair use?
I believe it is becoming well established that any sort of review or critic is well within fair use as far as youtube is concerned.
 
Is a game review and a mod review any different?
 
Should they be treated differently, if so why?
 
For my copyright interests, I like Leonard French because he is everyone's favorite copyright attorney.

 
I don't think all game reviews, commentary, and criticism is fair use by definition, but I think the argument for them being fair use is very strong.  It's true that legally that Fair Use is an affirmative defense and the "burden of proof" is in proving the use is fair.  That does not mean, however, that we cannot make estimations about what is fair use or take a stance against hyper-restrictive individuals who would enforce their copyright against legitimate, transformative, fair usages of their works.

If anything there are less grounds for litigation against mod review video than against a game review, as a mod is itself a derivative work on the game.  How the mod appears and is experienced by the user is determined by the game's code, so Bethesda (the ones who own the Gamebryo engine) have a far stronger case than the mod author does.
 
Leonard French is a cool guy, really smart.  I definitely think if more people in this community actually educated themselves about fair use by listening to what experts have to say they would realize the folly of Tarshana attempting to assert legal authority to remove mod review videos upon the basis of copyright infringement.

 



Here's what I said to The Vampire Dante's post about deleting my posts:

 

 

 

 

 


@matortheeternal
 
RE: Post deletion.
 
It was stated earlier that any posts by yourself in this topic would be removed. Which they have been.
 
Quote for reference:

 


I hid Mator's post, Qwertzy. He's just trying to pathetically get a rise out of me and I'm not going to stoop to his level. Any further posts he makes in this thread will be removed as well. Can't be bothered to deal with his silliness anymore.

 
I don't care about Dark0ne's ultimatum.  No part of the post you keep deleting warrants deletion.  It is educational and an important point to make.  If you truly want to silence me and the truth about copyright and fair use you'll have to ban me.

 


 

 

My Motivations

 

 

I've been supporting and participating in Nexus Mods for almost 4 years now.  I've hosted my mods here, I've participated in the community, and I've purchased Nexus Premium.  I really like the Skyrim modding community.  In the last year, my experience dramatically changed, as did my perspective of the Nexus and Dark0ne.  Prior to this last year, I honestly hadn't interacted with Dark0ne much, and thus had basically no opinion of him or how he ran his site.  Through my project, Mod Picker, I have had to interact more closely with Robin.  My interactions have not been pleasant, and have led me to believe that his decisions regarding the community are not in the community's best interest.

I believe that Nexus Mods can, and should be, a central hub for video game mods.  Unfortunately, my interactions with Robin have dramatically impacted this perspective.  I now question whether or not Robin and his team have the ability to make the correct decisions for Nexus Mods as a business, community, and platform.  I raise these concerns as often as is appropriate because I want Nexus Mods to succeed.  I see the Nexus moving in a negative direction, and I bring attention to this because it is important to me.  Unfortunately, Dark0ne does not honestly share or acknowledge these concerns, even when they are brought up by other members of the community such as in Nilanius's topic.

 

In short, the reason why I call him out is because, by my perspective, he is in the process of destroying his platform.  He has shown time and time again that he sides with the most conservative, restrictive mod authors on this site.  This undoubtedly has and will continue to alienate users and mod authors who wish to participate in a more open and welcoming community.  One that doesn't support mod authors suing YouTube content creators for reviewing their mods, among other things.

 

 

Edited by Mator
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I will say that something like "Needless to say, Dark0ne and Nexus Mods have been losing my respect over the past year.  Now that they've gone as far as blanket censorship against me I think it's time to take further action.",
is a comment that I can see the nexus deleting for sure.
I don't disagree with what youre saying but I definitely don't agree either.
 
If you don't agree with what service the nexus is providing then its probably time to find some place new to lurk and post your files.
The problem with doing so is the discover-ability isn't there, but things are a little but different since you have mod picker. 
Currently, I use the Nexus service is to download, track and discover mods. Mod picker adds something new to the mix that solves the discovery problem. If it allows me to discover and track all mods then I'll probably switch to only use the Nexus for downloading mods.
 
 

Just looks like a big pissing match, if you ask me. :^_^: I'll post the info for them to all make up their own minds.

I agree, but I find some humor in how the Nexus outright delete the posts rather than giving them a public warning.

I cannot recall a time where somewhere like step or reddit outright delete posts other than straight spam.

 

 

 

I work all day now, I don't have time to keep up on this stuff. The first thing I saw was how the moderation was being done and I didn't agree with it, so I started this thread for anyone and everyone to contribute to.

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And that's the problem. Nexus has a bit of a monopoly when it comes to mods. Likely because it is the best and most rounded platform for authors to use.

 

I will say that DarkOne has never been that "into" the community. He's a business man and runs Nexus as a business, for the most part. From what I've seen, he's never been in touch with the overall community and really only listens to a small handful of authors when it comes to community dealings. He will, nearly 100% of the time, side with the author in most dealings of disputes to avoid any legal concerns. You can't really blame him for that. He's just protecting his business.

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I will say that something like "Needless to say, Dark0ne and Nexus Mods have been losing my respect over the past year.  Now that they've gone as far as blanket censorship against me I think it's time to take further action.",

is a comment that I can see the nexus deleting for sure.

I don't disagree with what youre saying but I definitely don't agree either.

 

If you don't agree with what service the nexus is providing then its probably time to find some place new to lurk and post your files.

The problem with doing so is the discover-ability isn't there, but things are a little but different since you have mod picker. 

Currently, I use the Nexus service is to download, track and discover mods. Mod picker adds something new to the mix that solves the discovery problem. If it allows me to discover and track all mods then I'll probably switch to only use the Nexus for downloading mods.

Sure, that's fine.  I'm willing to recognize that my verbiage might demonize the Nexus a bit, but that doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is questionable.

 

I like having my stuff available on the Nexus, not sure if I'm quite ready to pull my files.  I'm considering it though.

 

 

And that's the problem. Nexus has a bit of a monopoly when it comes to mods. Likely because it is the best and most rounded platform for authors to use.

 

I will say that DarkOne has never been that "into" the community. He's a business man and runs Nexus as a business, for the most part. From what I've seen, he's never been in touch with the overall community and really only listens to a small handful of authors when it comes to community dealings. He will, nearly 100% of the time, side with the author in most dealings of disputes to avoid any legal concerns. You can't really blame him for that. He's just protecting his business.

Agreed.  I totally recognize why he makes the decisions he makes, and how he thinks that he is making the best decisions for his business.  That said, I don't agree.  I think that "siding with the author" 100% of the time will ultimately lead to a very restrictive community, and a restrictive community is alienating both to mod users and authors.  That is ultimately bad for Nexus Mods as a business, because it leads to fewer mods and fewer people modding their games.

 

I feel like it's a common theme.  I feel like Dark0ne doesn't see the big picture of how his decisions affect Nexus Mods and the modding community as a whole.

Edited by Mator
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And that's the problem. Nexus has a bit of a monopoly when it comes to mods. Likely because it is the best and most rounded platform for authors to use.

 

I will say that DarkOne has never been that "into" the community. He's a business man and runs Nexus as a business, for the most part. From what I've seen, he's never been in touch with the overall community and really only listens to a small handful of authors when it comes to community dealings. He will, nearly 100% of the time, side with the author in most dealings of disputes to avoid any legal concerns. You can't really blame him for that. He's just protecting his business.

I don't blame him either but things are regressing hard when it comes to copyright.

I don't really have the time or sources to research this sort of stuff to the extent that I'd desire.

I did see arthmoor's response and I'd like to respond to him but the internet isn't the best place to research this sort of stuff and I don't think a link to a video of an actual copyright attorney or a link to some webpage is sufficient.

Ideally, I'd ask a lawyer, but that would be a hefty fee that I cant pony up at this point in time.

 

Youtube is always dealing with this and its becoming more and more established that fair use is a thing, but these issues of the 2010s are really weird(copyright and social issues).

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Personally I would prefer that Bethesda (and other developers) would simply say, "you don't own your mods. we do. share them freely or don't share them at all". This would solve all the copyright issues around modding and promote an open modding community.

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I believe that would be oversteping things a little bit.

What if I make a mod by creating and editing the binary of plugins(xEdit) this method doesnt work.

Well, all mods are derivative works of the base game so they could do it on those grounds alone. The only mods that this might not apply to are mods which use no vanilla assets. This mean your mod wouldn't even be able to use any records from the vanilla masters, else, even when using xEdit, the terms would still apply. They could get around this by placing in the requirement that all mods must contain the vanilla masters, else they can not be distributed. It would be fully within their rights to do this.

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Personally I would prefer that Bethesda (and other developers) would simply say, "you don't own your mods. we do. share them freely or don't share them at all". This would solve all the copyright issues around modding and promote an open modding community.

I also don't think they legally could do that (it's overstepping their legal authority).  They might have been able to get away with it had they stated it from the start, but I don't consider it likely.

 

What they could do, however, is add terms to the CK EULA that state that the author cannot restrict redistribution or modification of their mods (sort of like how they restrict mod authors from using mods commercially).  I still don't think they should do this, because being open is a choice that has to be made, not a rule to be enforced.

Edited by Mator
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You're not going to get anywhere arguing with them. I've wasted far too much time at that over the past months trying.

 

A quick glance at Arthmoor's posts on the matter show he doesn't have an honest bone in his body (he keeps saying Mator called him a terrorist, that I said he killed puppies, etc.). The only way we win is preventing the influence of the MA forums from spreading elsewhere. The less mod authors who think it is acceptable (or better yet nessecary) to file DMCA's and spend there time trying to tear down other people's work, the better.

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Well after seeing the replies, behavior of their moderators, I've concluded that the moment a nexus competitor surfaces, I am jumping over to them. Meantime I am just going to use Nexus to download mods. And I tend to find most of my mods through review videos and lets play videos that also have pre-start videos listing the various mods that are used. And mod authors like the one that started this whole mess, have a special place on my blacklist. Never will I download a mod from that author.

 

For the most part, Nexus has lost someone that did care for the community. But Nexus also has no other real competitors. A lot of mods aren't on Steam Workshop, and honestly, just don't work right. And the adult site I get some mods, don't carry mods like what I use. So there's literally no other options out there at the moment.

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I will say it's absolutely ridiculous, imo, that anyone would go through the hassle of a take-down of any such content in the modding community. All this from a difference of opinions...pretty childish any way you look at it.


But Nexus also has no other real competitors. A lot of mods aren't on Steam Workshop, and honestly, just don't work right. And the adult site I get some mods, don't carry mods like what I use. So there's literally no other options out there at the moment.

There's Moddb and TESAlliance, but they're small fry compared to Nexus. Steam Workshop is a platform no one should ever touch, imo.

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