Updated Terms Notice & Privacy Policy

[njbrown09]

I own 3 copies of ksp (dont ask why) on steam. I just submitted a negative review. ALL of you should do the same. We won with GTAV, we can win with KSP

[Kerbart]

39 minutes ago, Pixel Kola said:

Title says it all. We have been sold down the river in the pursuit of $.

Please do elaborate how "we have been sold." For a minute I was scared to find my house sold by Squad but after checking, my name is still on the title. My son also roams around the house, unaware that he has been sold on a questionable slave market in Libya. 

To what extend have we been sold? To who? For how much? 

 

3 minutes ago, njbrown09 said:

I own 3 copies of ksp (dont ask why) on steam. I just submitted a negative review. ALL of you should do the same. We won with GTAV, we can win with KSP

If you even read the news you'd know that "all of us" leaving negative reviews would achieve this:

 

That's right. Absolutely nothing.

[njbrown09]

2 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Please do elaborate how "we have been sold." For a minute I was scared to find my house sold by Squad but after checking, my name is still on the title. My son also roams around the house, unaware that he has been sold on a questionable slave market in Libya. 

To what extend have we been sold? To who? For how much? 

 

If you even read the news you'd know that "all of us" leaving negative reviews would achieve this:

 

That's right. Absolutely nothing.

It worked with GTAV.

[Kerbart]

1 minute ago, njbrown09 said:

It worked with GTAV.

Like I said. Read the news.

You are aware that Steam has algorithms in place to counter grieve-voting, right?

EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/JimSterling/comments/7mncuw/steam_no_longer_displays_the_amount_of_negative/

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Kerbart

[njbrown09]

Just now, Kerbart said:

Like I said. Read the news.

You are aware that Steam has algorithms in place to counter grieve-voting, right?

I am indeed. The backlash caused take two to retract their cease and decist and step back.

[Ace in Space]

5 minutes ago, njbrown09 said:

We won with GTAV, we can win with KSP

And what exactly do you intend to "win"? What battle is being fought here? What exactly are you protesting? If it's just "the EULA is super scary and restrictive now!" I'm afraid I have to tell you that the EULA was scary and restrictive before. It was just worded slightly differently. The EULA is no more draconian than it was before. All EULAs are draconian. They're just covering their butts legally.

[njbrown09]

Just now, Ace in Space said:

And what exactly do you intend to "win"? What battle is being fought here? What exactly are you protesting? If it's just "the EULA is super scary and restrictive now!" I'm afraid I have to tell you that the EULA was scary and restrictive before. It was just worded slightly differently. The EULA is no more draconian than it was before. All EULAs are draconian. They're just covering their butts legally.

Take two. They have a history of pursuing modders. If we tell them to back tf off, they will listen.

[Ace in Space]

Just now, njbrown09 said:

They have a history of pursuing modders. If we tell them to back tf off, they will listen.

Now, I don't play GTAV, but I can't help but feel you're comparing apples to oranges.

First of all, as far as I'm aware, mods are not a super-central pillar of GTAV like they are in KSP. Secondly, in the release post for this patch, they even said that they appreciate the role of modders in the community and will continue to support them. Does that sound like something they'd say if they planned to start suing the pants off modders? Third, I don't think "telling them to back off" is necessary - see point one. Mods are central to this game. They are well aware that trying to shut that down would absolutely kill the game. Fourth, this is nothing really new - almost all, if not all, games out there have some kind of "just so you know, we own all your mods and we can sue you if we feel like it" type clause in their EULA, even if they have a strong active modding community, because such things are necessary to cover the company's butt, legally speaking.

The modding related changes in the EULA are most likely there because someone on their legal team thought of some loophole whereby, under the old conditions, either they could get sued, or someone could do something like (and I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure if this was ever possible, but it's an example) making a massive overhaul mod and then selling it and making thousands of dollars off it. Basically, it's there in case a legal issue comes up and they need to be able to point at their EULA to protect their butts.

[Starman4308]

1 minute ago, njbrown09 said:

Take two. They have a history of pursuing modders. If we tell them to back tf off, they will listen.

You realize the original issue was that that mod permitted breaking DRM, and Take Two had every legal and ethical right to send the C&D? I see that less as a triumph of the gaming community, and more a company forced to back down because of a manufactured PR storm of ill-informed and poorly justified rage.

Regardless, one key thing: they still haven't done a single thing. The EULA sounds scary, but it's always been scary.

[Hyomoto]

Really?

GTAV is a massively popular cash cow for Take Two.  The mods they attacked were direct competitors that threatened their bottom line.  Whether or not I respect them, and I don't, for going after the modders is irrelevant (and not for reverence of modders either, but in the corporation v user I tend to vote user).  Kerbal Space Program is not a billion selling cash cow fueled by in-game sales.  Not last I checked.  Now, according to Steam Spy it is a decent seller, pushing quite a few more copies in the last three months than I would have guessed.  So my question is who exactly are you trying to strong arm?  Any fan of the game should be fully aware of it's troubled development, mismanagement and wholly unexpected ability to continue to be developed.  I don't keep up on this, so it may have changed, but last I knew Squad was woefully understaffed.

It's like watching someone attack a small dog because it barked at them.  Who is your grand villain?  The Squad people think of as it concerns KSP is a small group, not some large evil corporation.  And KSP has been both fan and mod friendly, having one of the more robust and dedicated communities I've ever seen.  Flipping out over a EULA that has been there for a while now is expected to some degree but I always ask this question: when does a developer get a little leeway from people like you?  EA is one of the most hated publishers in the world, and has been instrumental in the slow degradation of quality in AAA games as well as a huge advocate for pushing additional revenue models.  KSP has been on the market for many years and is Squad's only game funded entirely by new sales.  Maybe I just don't know how to function but they aren't exactly fitting the bad guy mold.

[Camacha]

As we've all seen, the forum comes with new terms and conditions. This seems to be the result of Take-Two Interactive taking over. This has implications and this thread is intended to discuss these, as it's not always easy to interpret things for what they are.

The most notable difference seems to be that the forum is now subject to US law, rather than the (I think) Mexican law it was subject to before. Considering various data laws in the US, this is means significant change in your position as a visitor. How do you guys feel about that? What guarantees can those running the forum give, other than the standard nothing is our fault these boilerplate terms and conditions entail?

[stibbons]

1 hour ago, njbrown09 said:

I own 3 copies of ksp (dont ask why) on steam. I just submitted a negative review. ALL of you should do the same. We won with GTAV, we can win with KSP

Win what? What are you hoping to achieve with a negative review? What rights are you losing with the new EULA that you had before?

[DoctorDavinci]

@njbrown09 To add to what @Hyomoto mentioned above ...

According to contract law a company MUST seek to protect their IP or risk losing their rights to said IP (IP being Intellectual Property) ... This means that if T2 did not go after the mods and modders who were circumventing their online system then T2 would have relinquished sole claim to said online system

This means that if they allowed the manipulation of their game code in an online environment that falls outside of simple addons and what they intended to allow (addon being skins and simple things that add to the game without changing the backend code) then the modders that were doing said manipulation of the backend code could then claim GTAV online (or a portion thereof) was a product of their efforts and in such case they could take T2 to court for a potion of the proceeds generated by GTAV online

See the problem there?

Edited March 7, 2018 by DoctorDavinci

[Vanamonde]

More overlapping threads have been merged. 

[Diche Bach]

4 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I may be in error, but my understanding is that if you buy software and download it digitally, you are not buying a physical copy of the software but a licence to download and use it. This makes it not a product, but a service. There are relevant issues affecting the music and video industries. If you did not buy a hard copy of the game on physical media, you don't own the game or any copy of it that you possess.

As I said, I may be wrong, but this is my understanding.

I think it is the case that none of us "own" any of the software we have purchased. The intellectual property (IP) owners own it. This is akin to saying "none of us own the Grapes of Wrath," or "none of us own Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." You may have a COPY of the Grapes of Wrath on your shelf, but you do not actually own the piece of literature. Effectively you own a license to that copy of the IP, which affords certain uses, including reselling the book/record, quoting from it (as long as properly attributed), or various other "fair use" uses. There is much you can do with it over which the IP owner has little or no legitimate oversight much less authority, but if you were to use your copy to transcribe or scan the story into digital form, and then post it to a website where you used that copy of the work for some personal gain, one would be guilty of copyright infringement.

Quote

Some copyright owners use EULAs in an effort to circumvent limitations the applicable copyright law places on their copyrights (such as the limitations in sections 107–122 of the United States Copyright Act), or to expand the scope of control over the work into areas for which copyright protection is denied by law (such as attempting to charge for, regulate or prevent private performances of a work beyond a certain number of performances or beyond a certain period of time). Such EULAs are, in essence, efforts to gain control, by contract, over matters upon which copyright law precludes control. ^[1] This kind of EULAs concurs in aim with DRM and both may be used as alternate methods for widening control over software.

In disputes of this nature in the United States, cases are often appealed and different circuit courts of appeal sometimes disagree about these clauses. This provides an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, which it has usually done in a scope-limited and cautious manner, providing little in the way of precedent or settled law.^{[citation needed]}

The impression I have, is that the state of actual software distribution is far ahead of where legal precedent lies. Thus my argument that "it is probably illegal, but hasn't been contested."

[Starwaster]

8 hours ago, Deddly said:

EDIT:

I guess you missed the outcry before they clarified that

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

YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME!

[Redneck]

I dont know about you guys but at this point we have 19 pages in this thread with a bunch of legal crap that i dont plan to follow anyways. Oh sure ill check the checkboxes and go through all the hurdles but to me it means nothing and i am going to keep playing MY game like i always have despite the power/money grab from these people. I dont know but this kind of crap was never around here back in 2011-2012 when i first started. It was just a guy (Harvester) making a game and sharing with people as he went along developing a game he envisioned based on what he learned from Orbiter space flight simulator. And look at it now. Man I just want to have fun playing a game ive been playing for 7 years. Check this, check that, agree to this, agree to that.......ANYBODY HAVING FUN YET???????????????whoooo hoooooo 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Redneck

[Just Jim]

Well, the day came and went, and nothing happened to my Emiko thread... 

I'm just gonna keep on writing... 

[Superfluous J]

The first thing I did after testing on Steam was to copy 1.4 into my default KSP directory. It works fine. Actually, Fair Use allows it and DRM doesn't stand in the way, so really I'm perfectly within my rights to do it.

- "Breakin' the law breakin' the law."

"Actually you're obeying the spirit, if not the letter of law." -

- "..."

- "!"

- "!!!"

- "Obeyin' the spirit if not the letter of the law, obeyin' the spirit if not the letter of the law."

[Punslinger]

14 hours ago, Daishi said:

I'd just like to know why they've now suddenly given themselves very clear rights to do as you've said, at the expense of our own.

Because this is the generic EULA that T2 uses for all their games.  Look at the parts that refer to things like multiplayer ("online services"), which literally does not exist in KSP.  They switched to this EULA because their legal department doesn't want the headache of wrangling separate EULAs for every game they sell.  Not because they are secretly hatching nefarious plots against modders from their underground volcano lair.

Also, they aren't giving themselves rights to do anything with your mods, because they can't.  Your mods were created outside KSP, they are not derivative works, so there isn't any claim T2 can lay to them.  The "you give us a license" clause is referring to things like screenshots, .craft files, and missions made with the upcoming expansion.  And it's not there so T2 can steal All The Stuff while cackling maniacally.  It's there so that any mission/craft-sharing service can legally function without being sued by somebody looking to win a payout by claiming T2 is making copies of their work without permission.  The forum has similar terms, because every time somebody loads this thread, T2/Squad is creating and distributing copies of everything posted here.  Without a license to do so from the people posting, they'd be open to a lawsuit if somebody decided they wanted some easy money.  (This is also why those terms for the forum don't apply to offsite links, such as to mod repos on GitHub.  T2's servers aren't hosting that content, so they aren't copying it, so the EULA doesn't apply.  Otherwise, any company whose website was linked to from there would have a field day suing T2 for claiming a license to use their property.)

14 hours ago, Daishi said:

Why is it so vague and seemingly untailored to how KSP is used?

See above.

14 hours ago, Daishi said:

Why can't Squad comment and reassure us?

1. Because they are not lawyers and cannot give legal advice.  (Neither can I, BTW.  This is just educated guesswork by a layman.)

2. Because they did not make this change.

3. Because the legal team that did make this change would almost certainly tell T2/Squad to say nothing.  Anything you say with regard to a contract has to be very precisely worded, otherwise it can be exploited by somebody looking for a loophole.  Suppose Squad says, "Yeah, that's just a CYA, we'll never sue modders."  And then some modder tries to sell a mod based on slightly-reworked stock assets.  T2/Squad goes to sue them, and the modder says, "Ah, but you said you'd never sue your modders!"  Would a judge toss the lawsuit on that claim, or would a jury be swayed by that reasoning?  Probably not, but that's not a chance any reputable lawyer will ever take.  Not when IP worth millions of dollars is at stake.

Or to put it another way, Squad decided that their relatively informal promise of free DLC waaaaay back at the beginning of KSP's history was sufficiently binding that they're going ahead and making the Making History expansion free to people who bought the game before May 2013.  Yes, the Squad devs are cool people who keep their word.  But it's also very likely that the T2 legal team decided that there'd be sufficient risk of a lawsuit if the company did anything else.

Look, I'm really looking forward to the Universal Storage revamp, and I don't want to see it disappear into the maw of the Kraken just because of a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theorists decided to scare modders into hiding.

[drhay53]

review bombing is stupid

[The_Rocketeer]

3 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

I think it is the case that none of us "own" any of the software we have purchased. The intellectual property (IP) owners own it. This is akin to saying "none of us own the Grapes of Wrath," or "none of us own Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." You may have a COPY of the Grapes of Wrath on your shelf, but you do not actually own the piece of literature. Effectively you own a license to that copy of the IP, which affords certain uses, including reselling the book/record, quoting from it (as long as properly attributed), or various other "fair use" uses. There is much you can do with it over which the IP owner has little or no legitimate oversight much less authority, but if you were to use your copy to transcribe or scan the story into digital form, and then post it to a website where you used that copy of the work for some personal gain, one would be guilty of copyright infringement.

Again, it's my understanding that the terms of sale (and the actual thing sold) differ substantially depending when you bought a product and in what medium. Licensing a song on iTunes and buying a vinyl record of the same song carry completely different entitlements. The difference is owning a copy that belongs to you, vs owning a licence to have copy that does not belong to you but that you are allowed to possess and use by the IP owner.

You might be right locally. You might even be right more generally, and I'm out of date, but you haven't put down any evidence yet that demonstrates this.

8 hours ago, radonek said:

I don't think that calling "service" does make one exempt from law. It even admits that much… in a way:

Of course not, but it does mean that they're not selling a product, and again as far as I'm aware product law and service law just ain't the same thing.

[Eskandare]

22 hours ago, Ger_space said:

The TOS and privacy policy only are only valid when using online services of Take2. The mods are not submitted here, so they don't apply. (even screenshot are hosted on sites like imgur.com so that should be a non issue. 

The normal EULA of Take2:
1. It cannot be applied to old KSP versions retrospectively. So everything done until now is fine
2. Changing the old KSP EULA to the default Take2 EULA: Very difficult or next to impossible on existing installations (and would never hold up in curt ), because you cannot revoke a sold copy and say you now only own a license with this terms. 

3. If the Parttools get the default Take2 EULA with 1.4: (that would be the worst case) 

• All mods that only dll are fine because they don't use Parttools
• KSP 1.4 uses a new unity3d version which has improvements in the asset bundle management. I'm not even sure if we need the PartTools in the future for 3d models anymore. I'm very sure that we will find a way to load up the models in our own way so we will not be affected by this
• KSPedia: I never created pages for it, but I guess it might be difficult not to use parttools for it. But maybe the pages can be inserted with pure c# code. 

 

From my perspective the sky is not falling, but It could bring some challenges. 
I did't found a license for the XCOM2 modding tools. The only license I found was the Steam Workshop license, which is OK. 

HA! I use old part tools which are under old the EULA. and my next mod uses KSP_wheel so I don't need the 1.3/1.4 wheel code.

[Deddly]

10 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

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. "

Ah right, in that case I understand what the concern was all about. The add-on rules have not been changed since November 2017, and the only change back then was to add 1.1 about including other licensed work with your add-on. But you weren't to know that until agreeing to the terms. Yes, I can see that must have been disturbing.

 

10 hours ago, basic.syntax said:

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. 

Heh, I never noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out - I will pass that along

[Ace in Space]

@Punslinger Okay first of all, I love your name.

Second, I think you've put it best. You conveyed more clearly what several of us were trying to say than anyone else. Well done.