Updated Terms Notice & Privacy Policy

[GoSlash27]

Whoops, nevermind. Just got the pop-up.

I'm cool with the forum rules for the most part. The stuff I don't agree with... I guess it's immaterial what I think.

Best,
-Slashy

[AngryBadger]

Well, I agreed to it.  There's helpful stuff on the forums when I need it, plus I want 1.4 and the expansion.  I'll be positive and hope everything will go better than expected.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

15 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

When it comes to mods, unless you upload a mod to a service they maintain, they have 0% claim to the mod or it’s copyright.

As such for anyone worried about them stealing your code/mod, simply maintain it on a third party site like git hub and you are good to go. 

I'm not a lawyer but I disagree.

According to that agreement if you write a mod for 1.4 they own it. Even if its just on your hard drive.

But like I said its boilerplate the same is true if you write an MS Office app.

I just found this:

Quote

EQUITABLE REMEDIES

You hereby agree that if the terms of this Agreement are not specifically enforced, Licensor will be irreparably damaged, and therefore you agree that Licensor shall be entitled, without bond, other security, or proof of damages, to appropriate equitable remedies with respect any of this Agreement, including temporary and permanent injunctive relief, in addition to any other available remedies.

That's especially troubling.

You're agreeing that they don't even have to show proof of damages? That's outrageous.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[theonegalen]

I also just clicked accept on the terms I saw. However, the terms I saw had nothing in them that was objectionable, just a bunch of stuff about not posting anything that would break laws or defame anyone and such. There was mention of Take Two in there, so I assume these are the new terms for the forums.

[swjr-swis]

Just now, Derb said:

A plain text translation is a legal answer. Lawyers don't communicate to clients solely in legalese.

Interesting then that other companies see more and more fit to add 'plain text' or 'tl;dr' explanations along-side their terms to communicate with their customers. Apparently, it is in fact possible to clearly state the interpretation intended without necessarily running a legal risk.

[Gorman]

I don't understand why people's noses are getting bent out of shape over this. This kind of thing happens all the time in the corporate world. Rarely a month goes by without me getting an email notifying me of a change of the EULA for some service or other that I use. Why don't people reserve judgement until they actually do something which is objectionable first, then people can just walk away from the product. Also, I am not a mod author or anything like that, but if I were to make a mod, I would be over the moon if Squad took it over and incorporated it into the main game. It wouldn't bother me if I got credit or not for it, I would just be happy the stock game got better because of me.

[Delay]

14 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

more and more

More and more... but not all of them.

[MechBFP]

20 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I'm not a lawyer but I disagree.

According to that agreement if you write a mod for 1.4 they own it. Even if its just on your hard drive.

But like I said its boilerplate the same is true if you write an MS Office app.

I did forgot to mention that it does depend on the licences the mod author uses as well. Obviously if they use a GNU type license then whoever can do whatever with it as they please.

Also who owns the mod depends on what software you used to make it. For example if you wrote C++ code in Notepad then Microsoft technically owns it lol. 

But as long as you don’t use anything provided by T2, they definitely don’t own it, no matter what their silly EULA says. Basic copyright/intellectual property rights override that (assuming you used software to create your mod that doesn’t claim rights over it)

Edited March 6, 2018 by MechBFP

[MaxwellsDemon]

This is a whole lot of ado about very little.   Company legal departments try to stake out their territory as big as possible to lay the groundwork for potential future actions, regardless of whether the company itself will ever actually take those actions; they're just trying to establish their claim (and, the more cynical might say, trying to justify the existence of the legal department).

I can almost guarantee that the worst fears of people stirred up about this will never come to pass.   I can also almost guarantee that the majority of the employees at the company themselves are privately rolling their eyes at the legalisms emanating from the legal department.

Companies that attempt to micromanage what their customers do rapidly find themselves out of business.  As we say at our firm, "If we don't take care of our customers, rest assured, someone else will."

Relax, and enjoy launching.   

[MechBFP]

28 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I just found this:

That's especially troubling.

You're agreeing that they don't even have to show proof of damages? That's outrageous.

The thing is that statement is completely meaningless. You HAVE to prove damages in court, plain and simple.  

I can make a contract saying a bunch of ludicrous stuff too, but it is never going to be enforced by the courts. 

The only reason those statements are there is in the event the law changes and there is a 1 in a billion chance it is applicable. 

This kind of meaningless crap in contracts is why I hate them with a passion. 

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

So: "No, I can't accept the new EULA and may have to stop updating/playing KSP altogether"

not only that, but I will never be buying or even installing a demo of a Take Two product, ever.

 

[swjr-swis]

3 minutes ago, Delay said:

More and more... but not all of them.

A few examples, which may or may not convince anyone that it is quite possible for even multinationals to add plain text explanations or summaries of the terms. If they can do so without undue legal pitfalls, mayhaps smaller companies with much less legal exposure could do so as well.

 

 

• Dropbox ToS: "When you use our Services, you provide us with things like your files, content, messages, contacts and so on ("Your Stuff"). Your Stuff is yours. These Terms don't give us any rights to Your Stuff except for the limited rights that enable us to offer the Services."  Holymoly it doesn't get any more plain text than that. And that isn't even a summary or explanation - it's the actual main text of the terms.
• LinkedIn User Agreement: "You own all of the content, feedback, and personal information you provide to us, but you also grant us a non-exclusive license to it."  An example of the side-by-side plain text summary form.
• eBay Privacy Policy: example of the tl;dr format giving plain(er) text summaries at the top that link to the full text of the policy articles.
• Twitter ToS: "You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your photos and videos are part of the Content)."  Main body of the text. Funny how even this company can manage to be clear and concise without legalese about something as simple as 'who owns or retains rights to what you post here'.

[qzgy]

This is unrelated to the proper ToS and so on, but community guidelines...

Was 2.2p always there?

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

2 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

The thing is that statement is completely meaningless. You HAVE to prove damages in court, plain and simple.  

Nothing in a contract is meaningless.  If you agree they've been damaged, you agree they've been damaged. 

Neither of us are lawyers, I don't want to fight with you.

You seem to think their lawyers have spent a lot of time drafting all that, and trying to get us all to agree with it for absolutely no reason? It's all unenforceable and  meaningless??

I disagree.

[MechBFP]

Just now, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

Nothing in a contract is meaningless.  If you agree they've been damaged, you agree they've been damaged. 

Neither of us are lawyers, I don't want to fight with you.

You seem to think their lawyers have spent a lot of time drafting all that, and trying to get us all to agree with it for absolutely no reason? It's all unenforceable and  meaningless??

I disagree.

I am not a lawyer but I do have education in contracts and how the courts handle them as a part of my job, so I’ll leave that up to whoever is reading this to decide who is right. 

Also yes, that is what’s contracts are like. I know it seems stupid but the point is to cover all your bases for now and in the foreseeable future. 

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

4 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

I am not a lawyer but I do have education in contracts and how the courts handle them as a part of my job, so I’ll leave that up to whoever is reading this to decide who is right. 

How about a pro se defense in a ten-year lawsuit over a contract? I won.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[Delay]

@swjr-swis None of these are video game companies or publishers like T2. Can you please mention something remotely close to what we have here?

Edited March 6, 2018 by Delay

[swjr-swis]

14 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Was 2.2p always there?

Good question. I don't know for sure, and because they don't retain (or link?) older edits, we can't really check. But the gist of that article has been posted by mods before.

[GoSlash27]

16 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Was 2.2p always there?

qzgy,

 I seem to remember it being there. I don't remember "flat Earth" being off- limits, but I'm kinda glad it is now. The entire subject makes my butt tired

Best,
-Slashy

[swjr-swis]

1 minute ago, Delay said:

None of these are video game companies or publishers like T2. Can you please mention something remotely close to what we have here?

Why would it need to be so specific? Do texture PNG fies fall under different copyright provisions than picture/photo/art PNG files? Are 'Dropbox user files' or 'Twitter user videos' going to be treated differently in court than 'Take Two user files/videos'? Is that seriously what you are suggesting?

[Derb]

3 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

qzgy,

 I seem to remember it being there. I don't remember "flat Earth" being off- limits, but I'm kinda glad it is now. The entire subject makes my butt tired

Best,
-Slashy

I know that one was specifically there for sure yesterday.

Can we discuss "flat-Kerbin" tho?

Edited March 6, 2018 by Derb

[Delay]

Just now, swjr-swis said:

Why would it need to be so specific? [...] Is that seriously what you are suggesting?

I'd love to see a mod for Ebay, then. Or a video or livestream of a person using their services, no, solely DEDICATED to showing that.

[swjr-swis]

3 minutes ago, Delay said:

I'd love to see a mod for Ebay, then. Or a video or livestream of a person using their services, no, solely DEDICATED to showing that.

A 5 second search for Firefox add-ons for 'eBay' yielded 197 results.

A 2 second search on Youtube for 'How to use eBay' yielded 8630000 results.

Do you want to know more?

 

[Delay]

@swjr-swis That is sufficient, I'd say.

I'm also in a situation in which I can't say anything other than that, otherwise that would be moving the goalpost, and I don't want that.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Delay

[severedsolo]

34 minutes ago, qzgy said:

This is unrelated to the proper ToS and so on, but community guidelines...

Was 2.2p always there?

Asking for release dates for KSP was always forbidden. The one about not pressuring content creators is new though. Kind of. It was a thing when 1.1 came out, then they rescinded it again.