The creator of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod CD Projekt recently hit with a DMCA strike has paused his Patreon page and pulled access to all his mods after receiving another strike from a different publisher.
Looks like the Ghostrunner developers also have an issue with paid mods running off their IP.
This seems like a good idea, but a related question I’ve been wondering about is, what is the best way to anonymously run a software project facing this type of threat model, when you also want that software to be accessible to people? Does anyone know about any tips or resources for this? Is there some kind of darknet github? How do you do social media or collect donations/payment? Also, are there any good examples of projects that did this right?
Realistically impossible. If you want to actually make any real amount of money, have any real reach or have an actually functional product.
Which end of the day is the entire point for the assholes pay walling mods. They arnt part of the community they are trying to profit off the community.
A donation jar, a side patreon, merch there are endless ways to monitize your work. But trying to do it in the shadows just because you know your being a shit stain, is never goanna work out well.
No one’s forcing you to share your mod, if you think you deserve money or you won’t release it. Then just don’t release it.
Paid for mods have never, will never, and can never. Be a good idea or healthy for a modding community.
I feel like there are also other potential reasons to want to publish software anonymously though, even if monetization is not the goal. For instance, to keep it game related, there have been plenty of noncommercial fan projects that get shut down mainly just because the companies that own the IP are run by assholes.
How comes paid mods work out fine in sim racing then?
Assetto Corsa has tons of paid mods, along with tons of free mods, and the game developer Kunos is one of very few profitable game devs in sim racing. Why haven’t paid mods ruined the modding scene and bankrupted the company?
It’s not about bankrupcy, it’s about setting rules about their property. Some rights are enshrined in laws; derivative works are fair use. are mods fair use? nobody knows. but not if you charge for it, that requires licensing. no one wants to see precision laws being written about this, so everyone has to play by the developer’s rules. realistically that guy wants money from CDPR assets and CDPR said no you can’t do that.
Kunos giving modders the right to use their name freely does not mean CDPR has to. That’s what holding an IP means, you set the rules. and CDPR says if you use our name it cannot be paywalled media.
The parent comment says: “Paid for mods have never, will never, and can never. Be a good idea or healthy for a modding community.” So how does this follow from what you wrote? Sounds like it depends on the particular dev and game whether paid mods are a good idea or not.
Because they exist in a grey area of copyright. It’s not precisely defined, and so it’s a honor system.
Paid mods, simply by existing, threatens the honor system. You keep touting Kunos and profits. what relevance is profits in this? Honoring CDPR’s wishes and applauding Kunos’ leniency still work in this system. What is not is someone pointing at that generosity and demand that it is the default. Those paid mods threaten to put other game modders existence into legal jeopardy because people who keep arguing just because one company is generous other companies must also give away their rights.
now that it is involving dmca if pursued further it’s write new laws or court case.
This seems like a good idea, but a related question I’ve been wondering about is, what is the best way to anonymously run a software project facing this type of threat model, when you also want that software to be accessible to people? Does anyone know about any tips or resources for this? Is there some kind of darknet github? How do you do social media or collect donations/payment? Also, are there any good examples of projects that did this right?
Realistically impossible. If you want to actually make any real amount of money, have any real reach or have an actually functional product.
Which end of the day is the entire point for the assholes pay walling mods. They arnt part of the community they are trying to profit off the community.
A donation jar, a side patreon, merch there are endless ways to monitize your work. But trying to do it in the shadows just because you know your being a shit stain, is never goanna work out well.
No one’s forcing you to share your mod, if you think you deserve money or you won’t release it. Then just don’t release it.
Paid for mods have never, will never, and can never. Be a good idea or healthy for a modding community.
I feel like there are also other potential reasons to want to publish software anonymously though, even if monetization is not the goal. For instance, to keep it game related, there have been plenty of noncommercial fan projects that get shut down mainly just because the companies that own the IP are run by assholes.
How comes paid mods work out fine in sim racing then?
Assetto Corsa has tons of paid mods, along with tons of free mods, and the game developer Kunos is one of very few profitable game devs in sim racing. Why haven’t paid mods ruined the modding scene and bankrupted the company?
It’s not about bankrupcy, it’s about setting rules about their property. Some rights are enshrined in laws; derivative works are fair use. are mods fair use? nobody knows. but not if you charge for it, that requires licensing. no one wants to see precision laws being written about this, so everyone has to play by the developer’s rules. realistically that guy wants money from CDPR assets and CDPR said no you can’t do that.
Kunos giving modders the right to use their name freely does not mean CDPR has to. That’s what holding an IP means, you set the rules. and CDPR says if you use our name it cannot be paywalled media.
The parent comment says: “Paid for mods have never, will never, and can never. Be a good idea or healthy for a modding community.” So how does this follow from what you wrote? Sounds like it depends on the particular dev and game whether paid mods are a good idea or not.
Because they exist in a grey area of copyright. It’s not precisely defined, and so it’s a honor system.
Paid mods, simply by existing, threatens the honor system. You keep touting Kunos and profits. what relevance is profits in this? Honoring CDPR’s wishes and applauding Kunos’ leniency still work in this system. What is not is someone pointing at that generosity and demand that it is the default. Those paid mods threaten to put other game modders existence into legal jeopardy because people who keep arguing just because one company is generous other companies must also give away their rights.
now that it is involving dmca if pursued further it’s write new laws or court case.
So your answer to why paid mods can’t exist is because CDPR made it so.
Threaten what exactly? They don’t ‘threaten’ jack if CDPR say they’re okay with mods. You use circular logic in your argument.
I’m not an expert, but I2P and Tor should allow people to host things anonymously.
Monero can be used as an anonymous payment method.