Updated Terms Notice & Privacy Policy

[LordFerret]

15 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

It's because you're sitting on a flat-Earth chair. You need one of those chairs that shape-fits the butt... with a cushion.

[MechBFP]

37 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

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

Nice! You should understand the importance of contra proferentem then. 

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

16 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Nice! You should understand the importance of contra proferentem then. 

yes but there is nothing vague about this:

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.

/ I should be working. I don't have time for this. Sorry.

[GoSlash27]

All,
 The forum guidelines in the Announcements sub- forum are still the old version. The ones in the FAQ bar have been updated. The only difference between them is that references to "Squad" have been changed to "Take Two".

There are no material changes in the forum rules. What was permissible yesterday is permissible today.

 Note that this only applies to the forum guidelines, *not* the ToS or privacy policy.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited March 6, 2018 by GoSlash27

[The_Rocketeer]

FWIW, any ambiguety challenged in court would tend to favour the consumer, at least in UK and EU Law.

This website makes an interesting and relevant read:

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning/past-campaigns/legal/unfair-terms-in-consumer-contracts.html

From above reference:

"In Britain, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 say that terms in consumer contracts must be in 'plain and intelligible language'. The regulations also say these terms must be accessible, which means they must use clear design and typography. Consumer contracts are those between a member of the public (a consumer) and a firm that is selling or supplying a product or service to them. If a consumer challenges a term, and it is found to be unclear or ambiguous, the court must interpret it in the way that best favours the consumer. The Office of Fair Trading regularly warns firms to change such terms before they are challenged in court.

Similar regulations apply to all countries in the European Union."

[scimas]

I'm extremely disappointed in how @SQUAD or T2 have handled the updated terms situation. As soon as I opened the forums today, I was greeted with the "accept these terms or you don't get access to the forums" page (yeah, I hadn't logged out last time). The perplexing thing about that page is that it links to a lot of pages on the forum to elaborate on certain points, WHICH IT WONT EVEN ALLOW ME TO ACCESS BECAUSE I HAVEN'T AGREED TO THE NEW TERMS. Seriously, I had to open a 'private browsing' window just to access the pages I was supposed to read in order to agree to the updated terms. Good job, squad!

[Theysen]

5 minutes ago, scimas said:

WHICH IT WONT EVEN ALLOW ME TO ACCESS BECAUSE I HAVEN'T AGREED TO THE NEW TERMS.

This. It is quite funny when you are told to seek further information and read them carefully but a hyperlink directs you to the same page again because that content is on a forum page itself.

And no, saying you could have logged out or tried a private window shouldn't be the correct way of 'handling' that issue. Just a heads up to the design scheme if you update the terms in the future again.

[MechBFP]

53 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

yes but there is nothing vague about this:

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.

/ I should be working. I don't have time for this. Sorry.

How exactly do you expect the court to define “appropriate” without damages?

The only instances this would apply would be if you made a profit off of their IP (like selling mods), and then T2 could claim you owe them the profit you made without having to prove they were damaged by it (which most of the time they wouldn’t be in the legal context). 

As such I don’t see the issue. That is pretty standard stuff. 

Edited March 6, 2018 by MechBFP

[klgraham1013]

5 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

 

You two actually thought you had to do anything to accept a legally binding contract?  That's cute.

By simply using this forum, you've agreed!  Seems reasonable, right?

I actually had to accept the terms by read and clicking things!  I was wrong!

Edited March 6, 2018 by klgraham1013

[severedsolo]

20 minutes ago, Theysen said:

And no, saying you could have logged out

I couldn't even log out. It was all encompassing.

[scimas]

41 minutes ago, Theysen said:

And no, saying you could have logged out

 

20 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

I couldn't even log out. It was all encompassing.

This, there isn't even a link on the page to log out, I would have had to clear the browser cache, cookies or something for it to log me out automatically.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Troublemaker!    

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, scimas said:

@SQUADThe perplexing thing about that page is that it links to a lot of pages on the forum to elaborate on certain points, WHICH IT WONT EVEN ALLOW ME TO ACCESS BECAUSE I HAVEN'T AGREED TO THE NEW TERMS.

Are you referring to the links at the bottom of the page - these ones?

Quote

Other posts to read: outside of the rules it is also good to keep up to date with the forums Good Conduct Guide, the Positive Forum movement, the official list of Common Suggestions, the technical support forum, unofficial Planned Features list, the Challenge Guidelines, and the relevant sticky topics in the many and varied sub-forums before posting.

None of those are rules you must read and agree to in order to access the forums.

Or do you mean at the top of the page?

Quote

Please note that the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (collectively, the "Terms") were updated on March 6, 2018. Please read the agreements

Those links lead off-site, and I'd be very surprised if they didn't work without first agreeing to the guidelines.

 

Also, just to confirm that the forum rules that you all just agreed to haven't changed - they just refer to TakeTwo instead of Squad.

 

EDIT:

3 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

• 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.

I guess you missed the outcry before they clarified that

They previously also had an "All Your Stuff Are Belong To Us" clause.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Deddly

[Hans Dorn]

Other:

I'm rather angry right now because I was forced to accept the EULA to enter this forum.

Seriously?

 

I'll probably get the DLC for free, but Squad can keep it, as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

[Hans Dorn]

They should've hidden the whole nuisance behind a link

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Well, new Forum terms points at the existing "license yer mod" FAQ.  So, that pretty much ends my concerns really.  It needs a bit of inference, but if they're still saying license your work, then the terms we were worried about probably aren't a concern.

[Guest]

It's happening.

[TheKSPBeginner]

15 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

If anyone is interested I translated the Terms of Service into English. Or at least tried to.

If you read that, it's important that you know this is what they could do, and is most likely designed to prevent actual infringement rather than to steal users' work. If TT stole a mission report and made it into a novel or movie or something without credit/payment, all we forumers have to do is complain to the press or post our outrage to reddit and it will probably explode. TT probably knows better than to do this, for the public backlash would be tremendous and they would become rather disliked.

So while it is what they could do, they most likely will not ever need to. I may attempt to translate the Privacy Policy as well.

Thanks

[luizopiloto]

Well... I don't think Take Two will do bad things to the community, specially the modders, because all we have right now is what keep this game/community alive...
mods, videos, streams, craft sharing... this is part of the game... remove one and everything will be ruined... ಠ__ಠ

[memes in space]

godspeed fellas. free speech is dead and Take 2 killed it.

[radonek]

It's not only forums, Steam just tried to force new ToS to let me play 1.3.1. It also said that I have to read it in entirety, so I did… umm, no, it wont fly launch. I don't mind overly broad protections that much if there is no reason to believe they will be enforced in bad will. But not the spying chapter.  Note that game itself was not updated to neforce it - yet. I guess it's time to make a copy of current binary while it works.

This also brings interresting questions to me - IANAL but several parts of this is against consumer law in my country, and some of it probably in whole EU. (And before somebody comes up with "smart" answer, any legalese aimed at looping around law is illegal too.)

[Diche Bach]

Like everyone else, I didn't read them. My main concern is:

For many of us, we purchased the game long ago. However, because of how Steam now functions (auto-updates cannot be permanently shut off, but rather only set to occur only when game launches), none of us have the unfettered capacity to use the software according to the original ToS we agreed to when we purchased it.

I suspect that this is illegal on the IP owners part: changing ToS for a product after the point of sale and in concert with a system of distribution that "requires" updating to the most recent version.

It would need to be challenged in court, and that would require truckloads of time and money and perseverance, but I suspect if properly contested it would be found to be illegal.

There are of course ways around all of this. The Steam client-server handshake can be legally fooled I reckon. Short of that, a third-party launcher can be used to effectively avoid EVER having the game application "phone home," thus it is possible for end users like us to (a) agree to the ToS; (b) for a product we do not technically own [the latest updated version]; (c) and which is intended by the IP owner to replace the ToS for the product we DO own (the original version we purchased), which creates all sorts of question marks.

Meanwhile the pirate sites are still up and running strong as ever. It never ceases to amaze me how much time and effort these corporate entities will expend on forcing the users who are willing and eager to pay them for licensed product and yet they apparently cannot find the shared interest with any other IP owners to go after the crack sites where ALL their products can be procured illegally. Some of those sites have been running continuously for years, probably even decades in some cases . . .

Edited March 6, 2018 by Diche Bach
klingonese poetry

[Stone Blue]

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

Are you referring to the links at the bottom of the page - these ones?

I would say no, this one is more concerning:

" 5. Miscellaneous 5.1 Add-ons A more detailed set of rules regarding add-ons and add-on licensing can be found here and must be followed at all times. "

[The_Rocketeer]

15 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

none of us have the unfettered capacity to use the software according to the original ToS we agreed to when we purchased it

Hate to break it to you, but you never really did. There were always clauses that allowed the terms to be amended in such a way that would force you to either accept those amendments or stop playing. Continuing to play under the old terms was not and never has been an option.

Edited March 6, 2018 by The_Rocketeer

[basic.syntax]

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

Are you referring to the links at the bottom of the page - these ones?  None of those are rules you must read and agree to in order to access the forums.  Or do you mean at the top of the page?

lol. I just went through this as well. Not the top, or the bottom - the links inside numbered sections of the guidelines are to forum posts, and inaccessible until you agree. It feels like a shrink-wrap software license agreement in the pre-internet days, where all the fine print was inside the box, but you had to break the seal to find out what it said.  Not being able to access those informational links makes a poor user experience, but, like you say - nothing at those links has changed.  Still, I think the linked posts should get copied outside of the forums, to static pages on the main KSP website. 

I also lol'd at the words "2014temp-version" in this older link in section 5.1 - but it is automatically redirected to this current link, clearly not "temp," anymore. Updating that "temp-version" link to its redirect, would add some polish to the guidelines. 

Edited March 6, 2018 by basic.syntax