kryptopyr

I am pointing him towards laws and Terms of Service agreements. These are objective, factual matters, and not subjective positions. I see no reason to coddle people who are blatantly supporting piracy and illegal actions. Please note that I have not called him names or personally insulted him. However, right and wrong can be objectively defined in this case. I have tried my best to politely and respectfully point this out without shying away from the truth of the matter. Stealing is a crime; it is not an opinion. I find it very troubling that STEP does not see this distinction. We are not debating the merits of a texture or mesh here. We are talking about theft and piracy. Frankly, it is not the mod pirates that are doing the most harm to mod authors and the modding community. If the handful of pirates received the proper outraged response for their actions, then they would be forced to slink off to their own lonely corners of the internet. It is the much larger body of mod users, who aren't actively stealing the mods but who are expressing their support for the pirates, that are giving these criminals strength. And it is that larger group that is currently doing far more harm to the community. I will likely never mod another Bethesda game again due to such widespread public expressions of support for pirates and disrespect for mod authors. I went into modding feeling great about sharing my creations. Now, I feel assaulted by the very community I thought I was helping. It's hard to find an analogy to accurately portray just how awful and depressed I feel about all of this (not this thread in particular, but the general situation within the modding scene). The people who are encouraging the piracy and supporting these criminals are a direct part of the problem. Stating that you don't think it is wrong to steal mods and disregard mod authors wishes is the same as stating that it's okay to disobey the law. You can't make statements supporting theft and claim that you aren't part of the problem.

@GamerPoets Beautifully said. +1 @MonoAcciniter The entire "giant" thing was in direct reference to the original quote you mentioned and was solely intended as a reflection on how I feel the quote should more properly be interpreted. I figured that the reference was obvious, and I'm sorry if you read more into it than was intended. @SynthetikHD You are both ethically and legally wrong. That's why people here are disagreeing with you and downvoting you. Just because you don't seem to understand that what you are proposing is wrong, does not magically make it right. I would suggest taking some time to read up on copyright law (Nolo has a good book on the subject) where most of your examples have been fairly clearly addressed. If you do, then you'll also discover why your examples do not apply properly to modding and are not particularly relevant to it. For example, Da Vinci has been dead for 500 years. His work is legally considered public domain in all countries. If you happen to find a mod author who has been dead an equally long time, then yes, you can feel free to use their mod without issue. Again, I recommend reading up on copyright laws. Definitely read the TOS for Nexus and Beth.net. Of course, you'll probably just say that you don't think any of these countries, companies, or websites have the right to ask you to adhere to their laws / TOS since that seems to be the broader gist of your argument, but you are not likely to find any support for such views here.

"Loaning" implies knowledge and consent of the person you are loaning from, without those it is stealing, plain and simple. Newton's "standing on the shoulders of giants" comment would apply more appropriately to learning from other mods and taking what you learn to create a new mod of your own. Many mod authors release their script sources for this reason. Others contribute to the wiki page or answer questions on the forums. That's what it means to "stand on the shoulders of giants." Study a mod to learn how to do something, then create something new and unique. Don't copy what has been done before. Merely copying a mod or making a couple minor changes does not even bring you eye-level with the giant who created it. Scientist's are just as possessive about their intellectual property and individual work and research as any artist. Do you think many scientists would be grateful to someone who steals and publishes their research somewhere without their permission? Hell no! The history of science is filled with many bitter rivalries due to stolen research. You're drawing a false distinction between the sharing of scientific knowledge and the sharing of artistic knowledge (and modding knowledge). Just as the collective body of scientific knowledge has expanded over the years, artists have also shared their techniques and methods with one another, which has lead to the continual progress and advancement in art throughout the centuries. In the same way, the general body of knowledge about modding continues to grow and expand as mod authors continue to contribute their individual discoveries to this public knowledge.

You can't generalize the motivations of mod authors. We all have different drives and desires that keep us going and encourage us to continue modding. However, I think it is this very clear lack of respect that really aggravates many mod authors. You think those few hypothetical hours that you put into updating the mod were tedious? Well, guess just how many hours of tedious work the original mod author went through in order to create that mod in the first place, then to share it for free for others could use it? The vast majority of mod authors are happy to share their work. In my experience, if you ask respectfully, they will almost always give permission to modify or adapt their work. However, there are too many users out there who have little to no respect for the amount of time mod authors devote to making and supporting their mods. Many users seem to think "it's been freely given, so I can do with it whatever I want," but that is wrong (both legally and ethically). Mod authors are, broadly-speaking, incredibly generous people. They give much of their time freely to contribute to others' enjoyment and to provide updates and technical support for their mods and the games themselves. But no one likes to feel like they are being taken for granted or disrespected. That's never a good feeling, and it can taint the entire process. The more pervasive this attitude becomes, the more it is driving mod authors away from modding. So yeah, if you lack respect for the decision made by a mod author and release their mod after they have explicitly told you not to, then you may personally get away with it without any penalty, but your attitude and behavior would be contributing to the erosion of mod authors from the modding community. You would be placing yourself as part of the problem. Instead, why not spend that same amount of time making a mod that is uniquely yours and contributing positively to the community?

If they are simple mods, then just remake them yourself. Just because you can't use the file from the original mod, doesn't mean you can't take the idea and recreate it from scratch as a new mod. With some mods "making them again from scratch" is certainly a prohibitive amount of work, but if you're talking about fairly simple mods, then I don't see the problem. This is essentially what I did with WAF and CCO (though those particular mods were somewhat time consuming to remake). I wanted to keep using the mods, but they needed to be updated and the original author was no longer around. So I took a few months to personally check each and every weapon and armor record in the CK, and re-made the fixes myself without relying on any of the work from the original mod. As long as you're doing the work and making the mod from scratch without any of the original assets, then you should be fine.

Oh, definitely. That's certainly a fair use regardless of who controls the copyright. Mod Picker would be completely within their rights to post reviews and any information like that about any mod. That clearly falls in the category of fair use and would never be considered copyright infringement. It would be like Bethesda trying to tell a website that they weren't allowed to post a review of Skyrim or provide any sort of description of the game.

Regardless of what rights Bethesda has to a mod, how does that relate to Mod Picker, STEP, or general mod users in any way whatsoever? Even if you want to assume that Bethesda has full and total rights over everything a mod author makes (which they don't), those rights do not, in any way, extend beyond Bethesda. It certainly does not translate into "the mod author has no rights over their mod" or "everyone on the internet has the right to use a mod however they see fit." I'm a bit worried because that seems to be the implication behind some of these statements. I'm looking forward to Mod Picker. Though I certainly see it more as a resource for mod users than mod authors, but if it cuts down on the constant stream of questions and comments I get on my mod pages by even a small percentage, then it has my approval. Frankly, I think the Mod Picker team was probably right in choosing to respect the wishes of mod authors who want to opt out. They did not need to do this, and it was a choice made (as far as I can tell) to appease some mod authors on Nexus who are completely against the project. Ideally, yes, it would have been nice if there hadn't been the need to make this concession. But their relationship with Nexus is much more important to the long-term goals of the project then any small harm done to the functionality of the site by a handful of mod authors choosing to opt out. The best aspects of this community, such as it is, operate on mutual respect. One of the reasons I have such high hopes for this project, and truly believe that it might achieve what it sets out to do, is because I feel like it's being run by people who do have a very high regard for all members of the community, which includes both mod users and mod authors, as well as guide authors, utility creators and other contributors. I think there's a good chance that Mod Picker will become a go-to site for mod users to get compatibility and other first-order information about mods. If that becomes the case, then mod authors who opt out will simply not benefit from the additional exposure and user assistance that Mod Picker could provide. In turn, mod users won't benefit from the compatibility and shared trouble-shooting data for the small percentage of mods that have opted out. But so what? So there will be some mods where users will simply need to go through the exact same steps they do now in order to search out the answers to their questions. If Mod Picker makes it easier and more convenient to troubleshoot compatibility and load-order issues for 80% of mods, isn't that a whole heck of a lot better than anything currently available?

This is absolutely correct. There is a huge difference between granting Bethesda a license to use your work and giving up your rights to that work. No, Bethesda could not release an EXACT copy of Falskarr. They would be opening themselves up to a lawsuit from the mod creator. Seriously. This is why writers and movie studios often avoid fanfiction sites like the plague. A writer who owns the original copyright to a book can be sued if they were to publish a fanfiction written by another person, even if it was based on their own work and uses their characters. As has been mentioned, copyright law is one huge gray area. Now the CK's EULA does presumably give Bethesda more rights to use mod content than a writer has over fanfiction, but in practice mods tend to fall in the same sort of legal category as fanfiction. And there is way too much unique content in Falskarr for Bethesda to claim it all based on the CK's EULA. It would be unprecedented for a court (at least in the United States) to rule in Bethesda's favor in a case like that and allow them to distribute an exact reproduction of Falskarr without at least compensating the mod creator in some way.

Oops, it looks like I was wrong. I guess I was thinking of the Update Potion Weights option. I did add an extra check to the iNeed compatibility, but it runs automatically 60 seconds after the initial check. CACO doesn't add ingredients to any of the iNeed food lists, though they should be in the "ignore" list, so iNeed shouldn't be asking about them.

No, iNeed should recognize most items. iNeed should definitely be recognizing all of the vanilla food items. CACO should not be interfering with that function since it does not overwrite iNeed's formlists. CACO adds its food via script to iNeed's lists, so if the script ran correctly, then most of CACO's foods should also automatically be recognized by iNeed. If for some reason the script failed to run, I've added a MCM option to manually update the iNeed lists with CACO's food items (it's under either compatibility or troubleshooting).

onem4nb4nd, I think your patches are still important for players. I recognize that many people do like the Radiant and Unique Potion meshes, so I think it's great to have that option available. I wasn't trying to replace your patch with the new ones I uploaded, but I did want to add individual support for a couple of the STEP mods that I was missing. For people using STEP with RUPP, your patches certainly remain the best option. My objection is simply that the testing instructions in the OP specifically direct mod testers to use your patch while testing CACO, and I feel that CACO should be tested independently first. Your patch DOES change and overwrite some of CACO's features. It does not just merge unrelated edits made to the same records, but it directly overwrites changes that CACO explicitly makes. I'm not opposed to what your patches do, and I'm not saying that people shouldn't use your patches with CACO or even that STEP shouldn't use your patch. I just don't think the patch should be used during the initial testing of CACO. I would recommend disabling Radiant and Unique Potions Poisons and Booze.esp during the initial testing of CACO, just as the instructions state to disable 101BugsHD. Both mods are part of STEP Extended, but CACO replaces both of them. After testing CACO, STEP may decide to keep one or both of these mods, of course, at which point patches will be needed for them.

What!? Not provide a detailed and far-too-lengthy explanation for some incredibly minor detail? Just who do you think you're talking to??? I'm still planning to add the peas to CACO, along with those other food meshes you helped me with. Hopefully I can get that done for the next update. I felt that all my time and priorities for this last update were focused mainly on bug fixes. I want the next update to be very feature-rich.

Thank you. I'm still a texture noob, but I thought these turned out okay. The difference in the wall is because the plugin adjusts the position of the mark slightly; the wall texture is exactly the same in both pictures. I know I should have found a different example where the position of the mark didn't change, but I was I running short on time and felt it was good enough to demonstrate the texture differences on the mod page. I knew someone here would probably jump on me for it, but I haven't had a chance to redo them. Too busy working on updates for CACO and CCOR. :P

Discussion thread: Shadowmarks Improved - with Player Homes and DLC support by kryptopyr Wiki Link This is an updated and renamed version of my older mod "Shadowmarks for Player Homes." The plugin features of this mod are now included in Thieves Guild Requirements, but the new shadowmark textures aren't included in the Thieves Guild Requirements download. As far as I know, there aren't any other mods that address these textures. Better Shadowmarks and the Unofficial Patch both fix the normal maps but don't touch the textures. I recommend using these textures alongside Thieves Guild Requirements (or the Shadowmarks Improved file) since both of these plugins include a few changes that also help to improve the appearance of the shadowmarks.

I updated the patch collection found on the mod page to include separate patches for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2 and Invisibility Glitch-Eyes Fix. If you'd like me to include a merged patch specifically for STEP, I can do so; just let me know which patches you'd like me to include in the merge.