Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[Lisias]

On 11/25/2024 at 6:17 PM, Mr. Kerbin said:

If I name a star Debdeb and it’s planets Gurdamma, Donk, Rask and Rusk, etc (the planned planets from KSP2) , will I be banned or sued?

Theoretically, the owner of the IP can sue any of us for any reason they would like, like picking our noses while playing. If the Clerk will file it, or the Judge will not dismiss it, it is a completely different history.

So, a better question would be "would the new IP owner request me to take down my mod if I do it?", and the answer is... maybe, but I don't see why they would do it as long you don't charge money for the add'on and make clear that KSP2 "owns" the names you are using - i.e., you acknowledge the trademarks and don't claim they are your own. The absolute majority of cases I had see about were about defending the trademarks - the companies are compelled to sue you because otherwise they risk losing their rights. But with you acknowledging they are the legal owners of the names you are using, you remove this variable from their equation.

Unless when led by pathological narcissists (some are, unfortunately), Companies only sue people if they are going to lose something if they don't, or if they are going to gain something if they do. Keep this in mind, and you will dodge a lot of legal bullets in the future by preventing them from being fired at first place.

You would be using these material in the claim of Fair Use (or Fair Dealing in UK, or whatever) - but this part you don't need to state on any document, it's necessary and sufficient that you state correctly who owns what, and this is enough. In legalese, less is usually more.

Modding in general are a somewhat gray area - we here on KSP¹ were incredibly lucky on being part of a development process where modding were not only encouraged, but actively promoted by the (at that time) IP owners. We have even (mostly) clear rules about what is permissible or not around here.

To the best of my knowledge (and this is the time in which the Law demands me to say "I'm not a lawyer, please seek professional counseling to confirm my opinions"), you should be fine by doing it, as long:

• Do not even imply,  by omission or whatever, you "own" any involved Copyrights and Trademarks. Make clear who owns what. It's the reason I spam my repositories with a file called NOTICE.
• Promptly comply with a rightful take down notice from the IP owners.
  • You are entitled to ask for proof of ownership, but usually you will know they are the owners because they will hire a lawyer to reach you.
  • You are also entitled to fight back, but...
    • What you would gain by doing it? What you would lose by not doing it?
      • Always answer to yourself these questions before attempting anything legal.
• Don't devalue yourself neither. Even if the "worst" happens, you can relaunch later your add'on changing the names.
  • You will still own anything you create yourself, you are only liable by using what others created themselves.

Copyrights, Trademarks et all are a royal pain in the cheeks. It's unfortunate we, pro bono authors, have to deal with this crap, but... Life is what life is.

Don't hesitate to ask for further information - or even evidences to confirm anything I said. In fact, I strongly encourage you to doubt anything and everything and ask (perhaps privately) for evidences (what I will gladly oblige).

Cheers!

Edited November 26, 2024 by Lisias
The day they outlaw tyops will precede the day I will go up the river...

[PDCWolf]

19 hours ago, Lisias said:

So, a better question would be "would the new IP owner request me to take down my mod if I do it?", and the answer is... maybe,

Edit: The comment chain was edited and cut short by mods so the point is worthless since it is incomplete.

Edited November 27, 2024 by PDCWolf

[Mr. Kerbin]

And the idea, sort of.

Pretty much recreating them into KSP.

[Lisias]

45 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Names are not protected in this way. I could develop a first person shooter where the main character is Jebediah Kerman, and so long as he isn't a little green astronaut man from a planet called Kerbin, it's fair game.

If they are trademarked, yes they are. Try to sell something with the name "Mickey Mouse" nowadays (I only know a single case of success, to tell you the true). I had seen lawsuits about names before - but, as I had said before, Companies can sue us by picking our noses while playing if they find a way to profit from it, so some of that lawsuits I'm aware could be just legal trolling (it happens).

Copyrights and Trademarks are two completely different things, anyway.

 

42 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

And the idea, sort of.

Pretty much recreating them into KSP.

In a way or another, I still suggest to handle the case as they would be protected this way. There's nothing to gain in doing it or not, but there's potentially something to lose by not doing it. You are dealing with their IP in a way or another: if the names are not defensible, they will use something else that is.

 

45 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Finally, there's the case for referential material (as how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl has an easter egg with a dead Freeman and a note talking about how he had to trade his crowbar for a can of spam after leaving black mesa) and fair use, where the former is definitely applicable even though the later might not.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Valve choosing not to exercise their rights doesn't means they don't have such rights

See the Mickey Mouse example above.

Edited November 26, 2024 by Lisias
brute force post merge

[PDCWolf]

18 hours ago, Lisias said:

If they are trademarked, yes they are.

Edit: the comment chain got edited and cut short by mods, so this point is worthless

Edited November 27, 2024 by PDCWolf

[Lisias]

15 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Which is not the case here for what's being discussed. This is not a trademark issue, this is a copyright issue.

No. It IS a potential trademark issue. The user is not asking if he/she can use the assets from KSP2 (what would be a copyright issue). The user is asking about using the names (what's not a copyright issue - but can be a trademark issue).

Additionally... Please remember: USA is a Common Law ruled country, the current IP owner is a USA Company, we don't know if the next IP owner is also a USA Company, and the trademarks on a Common Law country works differently from a country ruled by the Roman Law.

You don't need to register a mark to own it on USA, you are exercising the so called "Common Law Trademark", and this is defensible on a Court of Law.

As I said before, Copyrights, Trademarks et all are a royal pain in the cheeks.

 

Edited November 26, 2024 by Lisias
Better phrasing.

[Gargamel]

@Mr. Kerbin, as I mentioned above, nobody on the forums is part of the PD/TT legal department.    They have no idea what you will or will not be sued for.    And we do not need another argument by a of group armchair lawyers disrupting another thread.   
 

The simple advice to make your mod, as long as you don’t use any of the assets from KSP2, you can make whatever planets you want.  If you’re really paranoid about the names, then don’t name them the same, make some small changes so they’re not copies.  

Edited November 26, 2024 by Gargamel
typo

[Mr. Kerbin]

1 minute ago, Gargamel said:

@Mr. Kerbin, as I mentioned above, nobody on the forums is part of the PD/TT legal department.    They have no idea what you will or will not be sued for.    (snip)

The simple advice to make your mod, as long as you don’t use any of the assets from KSP2, you can make whatever planets you want.  If you’re really paranoid about the names, then don’t name them the same, make some small changes so they’re not copies.  

Thanks. 

[Lisias]

Moved to :

 

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Please use this thread for asking forum questions. 

[AlamoVampire]

I was wondering if these 502 errors are connected to a weird error message i got for the forums earlier on my iphone xr (current ios on safari) that stated it lost connection or some such because and i quote: “the server never stopped responding.”

idk if its relevant or not but i thought id ask if anyones seen such a message or think it could be linked?

043011302024

[AlamoVampire]

Just checking in to see if theres any thoughts on my question from a few days ago

041812042024

[Vanamonde]

I have not seen that message. Sorry for the slow reply. It's been hard to catch the forum operating long enough.

[AlamoVampire]

New wrinkle ios18.2 may be making the forum harder to use via safari on iphone xr. I had to reload the page to get the submit button to actually submit.

133512172024

tho not on this reply, possible one off glitch?

Edited December 17, 2024 by AlamoVampire

[Deddly]

There are a lot of symptoms to the problems we are having on the forum, @AlamoVampire. It can sometimes manifest itself in the way you describe, and sometimes when you finally get it working you can see you've posted the same thing multiple times (once for each refresh). Although that doesn't seem to have happened this time, so not always. 

Other people experience other problems, but they are most likely all linked to the same root cause.

[Lisias]

16 hours ago, Deddly said:

There are a lot of symptoms to the problems we are having on the forum, @AlamoVampire. It can sometimes manifest itself in the way you describe, and sometimes when you finally get it working you can see you've posted the same thing multiple times (once for each refresh). Although that doesn't seem to have happened this time, so not always. 

Other people experience other problems, but they are most likely all linked to the same root cause.

It was this double posting that made me consider the hypothesis I explored on this post.

The double posting, at least when I got it, was due doing a Page Reload with a 502 error page with retransmission of the post request. If by doing it, you get two identical posts once Forum is normalized, it means that the first attempt had, indeed, posted normally and it was the response that got lost.

If the post was successfully processed, then Forum was working normally and then the problem should had been in the infrastructure where Forum "lives", that would be losing the response before it reaches CloudFlare.

Then I'm monitored Forum in two different Continents just to see if anything changes, and I realized that different CF subnets would be working or borking independently. Heck, if on a given instant a subnet borks but another one works, it's because Forum itself is working fine otherwise both subnets would be borking at the same time.

This ruled out Forum from the equation, and the rest was merely creating hypothesis and applying the Occam's Razor on them to see what remains.

In time, since yesterdays' late night I'm not getting such pesky errors anymore (knocking the wood).

=== POST EDIT ===

Nope, 2 hours later and they are back.

=== POST POST EDIT===

No 502 anymore 15 hours after this post, 13 after my last POST EDIT.

Edited December 19, 2024 by Lisias
POST POST EDIT

[Gargamel]

On 12/18/2024 at 3:57 AM, Lisias said:

It was this double posting that made me consider the hypothesis I explored on this post.

The double posting, at least when I got it, was due doing a Page Reload with a 502 error page with retransmission of the post request. If by doing it, you get two identical posts once Forum is normalized, it means that the first attempt had, indeed, posted normally and it was the response that got lost.

If the post was successfully processed, then Forum was working normally and then the problem should had been in the infrastructure where Forum "lives", that would be losing the response before it reaches CloudFlare.

Then I'm monitored Forum in two different Continents just to see if anything changes, and I realized that different CF subnets would be working or borking independently. Heck, if on a given instant a subnet borks but another one works, it's because Forum itself is working fine otherwise both subnets would be borking at the same time.

This ruled out Forum from the equation, and the rest was merely creating hypothesis and applying the Occam's Razor on them to see what remains.

In time, since yesterdays' late night I'm not getting such pesky errors anymore (knocking the wood).

=== POST EDIT ===

Nope, 2 hours later and they are back.

=== POST POST EDIT===

No 502 anymore 15 hours after this post, 13 after my last POST EDIT.

It’s been a bug for as long as I can remember that if you are posting the first post of new page, it can easily multi post as you keep clicking “post” as you aren’t given the normal response from the page, ie loading the new page.  

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, Gargamel said:

It’s been a bug for as long as I can remember that if you are posting the first post of new page, it can easily multi post as you keep clicking “post” as you aren’t given the normal response from the page, ie loading the new page.  

But still, is a bug that happens due a different response from the server. If there's a response, it's because the server received the request.

On my specific case, I had sent the request with the post; got a 502; then retried; then came a page with two identical posts. This means that the first post was received by Forum, it was the response that got lost in the process.

If Forum received the first post, it was alive and well and, so, whatever happened on the response, it probably wasn't "his fault", but whatever is responsible to deliverer that response to me!!