The netiquette in the sim racing modding community is always a much discussed topic. What mods are legal, what is allowed to be converted and what are the no-nos?
While almost all forums and sites have established a set of ground rules, some modders feel that these are not going far enough given the fact that there are still plenty of ripped mods floating around.
United Modders of RacingGames have put together a set of new rules, hoping to establish a new standard in the community. Their idea consists of the following key points:
- No mod may contain work without the written permission of the original creator. Regardless if it’s work from a modder, a game developer or whomsoever.
- No mod may be used for commercial purposes without the written permission of the creator. A commercial purpose is given if some site, league, etc. earns and/or giving away money by using a mod. As for mods that simulate trademarked cars or series it should be clear that these NEVER EVER should be used for commercial purposes.
- No more logos/texts etc. on uploaded screenshots. The screenshots belong to the creator and not to the site hoster. Of course a site can add it’s logo/text on the screenshots they made themself.
- Scratch-made, conversion, composite, it doesn’t matter, it should be mentioned where the material is coming from and respect should be given to everyone who helped to create the product, either by creating or by giving permission.
- Modders should work together to use a uniform structure for their mods like a read me template, clear directory structure, installer etc. to make things easier for the end user.
The people behind this are well known members of the community, including CTDP. Their full statement can be found here, make sure to leave this guys some feedback on their idea.
Rasmus
June 5th, 2009 at 01:08
Great idea, and nicely written. Hopefully this get to be an all-round community standard.
acti0n
June 5th, 2009 at 01:29
I think its a nice idea but its going to far…
AeroMechanical
June 5th, 2009 at 01:48
This seems sort of like a United Nations resolution. Read into that what you will.
I applaud their determination to put things clearly in black and white.
UncleChuckle
June 5th, 2009 at 01:56
The sort of people rule 1 is aimed at won’t give a damn about the rules anyway, so it’s pointless. People ripping off mods will still happen. End of story.
Like the rest though. Tagging images you have no right to is pathetic, so I like that. Also like the no commercial use.
Rule 1 aside it’s all great I think. One thing that made the Quake community so good was when you downloaded a map or whatever, you had a standard file telling you everything you needed. Files always installed the same way etc… So this is a magnificent idea.
I think they need to add “no putting out endless previews unless a mod is 90%+ finished.” I mean for gods sake when I got rFactor 3 years ago, there are mods previewed and promised “real soon now” that are STILL not out. (And are still being developed. They aren’t dead.) Cut down the hype. You don’t need to stroke your egos. Say have a structure for announcements. No mod is announced until at LEAST 50% complete. I’m tired of seeing endless car renders and screenshots for mods that have yet to see the light of day and in some cases never will. They don’t NEED to be hyped. When the mod comes out, it will sink or swim on it’s own merits regardless of the number of renders and screenshots you put out before hand. And some of the best mods have received almost no hype at all.
That rant aside, I think this is all excellent and can only do the community good.
GeraArg
June 5th, 2009 at 02:09
Is FREE content made by people if they occupy free time of your lives to make the mods…………..
If you don´t wait for a free mod, make your own mod and finalize within a week
Montoya
June 5th, 2009 at 02:13
I couldn’t disagree more. No one forces you to enjoy previews but many people (including me) enjoy them. You can’t tell modders that put all their time into a free product that they aren’t even allowed to show it off.
A steady stream of previews shows followers that the mod is alive and well and prevents questions like “is this mod dead”, “what’s left to be done” and whatnot. Plus, it helps building anticipation if you can follow a mod coming along from first renders to a working product.
Sodapop
June 5th, 2009 at 02:25
Plus what else is Montoya going to fill this space with? His Cease and Desist letters?
Bjorn
June 5th, 2009 at 02:32
The United Modders statement I think is a great initiative and if the communities get even remotely close to these rules it’s a useful effort.
Oh you’re a bitter man, aren’t you?
I couldn’t disagree more! the number of screens and renders has nothing to do with the statement from United Modders
What the ef is up with the no-announcement-before-50%-done?! Damn!
You can just look away from the renders and screens, it’s not that difficult.
It makes the anticipation of the mods better.
Take CTDP as an example they have a devblog which I take a look at EVERY SINGLE day to look up what they’re doing and it’s a real treat that they care to tell us sim-racers wat they’re up to.
PvtStash
June 5th, 2009 at 03:09
Is this going to end up like the round table idea that briefly surfaced and then sunk without a sound? This idea has been floated a few times and although I applaud the effort I have serious doubts as to it’s effectiveness. You can’t force people to do what you want via the net, force requires a physical presence. I would imagine the same people who couldn’t care less now will continue to care even less with the formation of this panel. They were making illegal mods before and they will be making illegal mods after to, simple fact of life I am afraid. I hope some sort of success comes from this, rF in particular does need some tidying up.
I think in the end it will come down to the personal ethics of the individuals concerned, while these ethics may not be to your and my standards, they are someone’s. And even if we don’t agree we should show maturity and realise that it’s someone else’s opinion and is just as valid as ours.
Paul Cowan
June 5th, 2009 at 03:41
Sounds like someone trying to impose “Scene” rules.
UncleChuckle
June 5th, 2009 at 07:23
Well clearly I’m in the minority. Fair enough. I just get tired of seeing preview after preview after preview for mods that seemingly never appear. So many mods turn out to be vaporware.
As for modders putting all the work in… Surely they’re going to get the credit they deserve when the mod is released.
Whatever. My wifes grandmother just died so I’m no mood to debate something which is, in the grand scheme of things, extremely trivial. Nothing like death to give you some perspective…
the.cosmic.pope
June 5th, 2009 at 08:23
We (RLD) left feedback for this idea when we were approached with it. Whilst I admire the dive and the goal that CTDP is trying to achieve, the problem is that half of these teams in the group ARE the problem. There is stuff in well know mods by “respected” teams that is stolen and proven to be, yet it is ignored because of the status of the team.
A fantastic idea. Flawed because of how corrupt the community is.
smashingpunk007
June 5th, 2009 at 08:24
LMAO at #1 :”No mod may contain work without the written permission of the original creator. Regardless if it’s work from a modder, a game developer or whomsoever.:”
Does this guy or group of guys really think game developers will give you the right to convert their models into other games, LOL hilarious. People like him don’t understand that the only time a mod becomes illegal is if someone is profiting off of it. I remember some devs of NFS sayig that they really didn’t care about their models being converted and seen in other games as long as no one is making a profit off of them.
Every game that supports mods has mods with stolen models from NFS, GRID, TOCA, GTA, WR2, JUICED,TDU, etc the list goes on and on. A lot of the guys who do the whining download these “illegal” mods anyways, and then point the finger. Especially in the rfactor community where tons of the content comes from Simbin games. Rfactor would be seriously lacking content if all converted material was banned.
My views on mods has always been this, once you release it publicly let the public do what they want to it. This is the way all game companies are, once they release their games they can do very little to stop someone from converting their models into another game.
Why should modder’s have any more privileges than game developers? Once you release a scratch built car, there is no doubt that it will be converted to GTA and NFS, amongst other games whether you give permission or not. And if you are really worried about someone using your scratch made models, then don’t release them publicly at all, instead sell them on turbosquid and be done with it.
Sorry for the rant but this topic has been debated over and over and over again. Has it stopped the so called “illegal” mods. No. Will it stop the mods. No. Why people who keep writing these rules don’t understand that is beyond me.
erale
June 5th, 2009 at 08:31
Of course we can’t prevent people from ripping off other games/mods. But we take their platforms for showing “their work”. A lot of the big community sites host mods with ripped content. Just because we can’t directly stop people in ripping content doesn’t mean we’re helpless.
Remove that content from your site if someone proves that it’s ripped. Don’t applaud them for ripping off other peoples work.
Recently I noticed a WIP mod on RFC which uses stuff from other mods including my work. I can’t speak for the other authors but I wasn’t even asked for permission. So I wrote RFC a mail to remove that mod but as yet nothing happend. Didn’t even get an answer.
That’s exactly what we meant with point 1. We can’t stop dubios individuals ripping off stuff but the hosters can take the attention by removing these mods from their sites.
BSR-WiX
June 5th, 2009 at 08:55
Nice idea , but highly unrealistic. You cant create world peace with a statement. to people who allready dont give a S… it will not matter what we say or do. The best way to counter attack is to reward the people who do mod by the rules.
PS: RFC is filled with illegal mods. how about the GTR2 rfactor ports. The converts without referal to the original… the WIP pages of illegal conversions …and so on.
In the end some people just care about on thing .. Download …use and throw away. Lets just ignore them and hail the ones that do play by the rules. because as long as there are legal mods , there will be illegal mods.
scca1981
June 5th, 2009 at 09:29
I’d like to see people spend more time racing/modding/painting and less time bitching.
klaasvh
June 5th, 2009 at 16:01
I really like the idea and I hope some good can come out of it. As stated before it’s impossible to stop individuals from ripping off other people’s work.
Most of these people have absolutely no respect for the work done by modding groups or game developers. And then there’s the standard defense of; it’s not illegal, I don’t make money of it” which shows of even less respect.
The uniform structure for mods idea sounds promising though. It would really make things easier, especially for people who are new to the game. I doubt any of the people who rip off other’s people work care will care though.
If there’s anything I’d like to see it’s more cooperation between modding teams. Every modding team of individual modder have their qualities. If information, working methods, or even complete models can be shared I’m sure mods can be completed faster and have more quality.
I guess this will be difficult because different modders have different opinions on how something should look or feel but what’s the point of having several versions of the same car? How simple would it be, for example for every mod to have the same helmet model (or a variation of it) so you can use your personal helmet design in every mod you use? Same goes for sounds, parts of the physics models, trackside objects etc.
Howie47
June 5th, 2009 at 16:16
Is this a defensive mood by UMRG because of their development of mods like, “F1″? Are they trying to suggest that they are righteous in all their modding? Well maybe they are. I don’t know if they got permission from the owners of F1 to make a mod, that will help sell a certain upcoming game. Maybe they did. I hope they get away with it.
I hope they’re not being (self-righteous) toward other modders, to do so.
I think “UncleChuckle”, is allowed to express his complaint about being teased by modders with their endless unfulfilled promises. “Put up or shut up”. Might be an applicable saying here. Just my two cents.
LensFlare
June 5th, 2009 at 16:25
Man, someone is always “profiting” off it. Who? The devs of the game it’s converted into. And the games from which it’s taken (or stolen, use the word you like), if they are still on the market, are losing sales everytime their content is converted to another game.
For example, take the GTL conversion to rFactor (Historix mod), take the Nordschleife from GTR-Evo conversion to rFactor, the Radical conversion to GTR2, and the list goes on and on.
Arnold Carter Wong
June 5th, 2009 at 18:51
I would say more quality scratch-build mods may kick the illegal stuffs. Personally I don’t like to see people to edit my cars or twist them with no-quality modifications as most of those guys who edit the cars are without any real 3D modeling skills.
Limiting the modders working structure is not realistic too. As most of us may not suit the others’ working structures. For those readme files, most of the players are just ignoring them, so this would not be a solution.
SLN
June 5th, 2009 at 18:56
Yup, and then they swamp all the discussion places with questions about how to install it
.
noikeee
June 5th, 2009 at 21:11
This is nothing but a list of common sense guidelines that the honest people already follow, and that the dicks will keep on ignoring.
I’m not sure the community needs even more bureaucracy, it’s honestly already quite a bit of a pain in the ass when you’re trying to mod something which involves work from other people. Going to contact someone for including their work in your mod is a lottery, they can turn out to be the most honest straight-forward guy in the world or a complete drama queen. Lots of drama queens around these days, I guess it’s the natural immaturity involved in gaming communities.
All of this has been debated over and over and over again. How about if they all declared they’re going to start focusing on building the cars, and having more fun for themselves driving the damn cars, instead of losing so much time arguing?
Husky42
June 5th, 2009 at 21:51
Interesting comment, but I wonder just who is behind it in terms of each member.
the.cosmic.pope hit the nail on the head.
And this is just like the Round table at RSC.
This was for the “exclusive modders” to eliminate conversions and tighten security on their projects.
People have to understand, some people just do not care and no matter what is said or proposed the end result is null.
Let me use Payware from Flight Sims for an example.
I am a member of and involved in a group that contributes to the “piracy” of payware. There are payware groups we target due to there general attitude. There are groups we do not for the same reason.
I’ll Rip and re-post alphasim products all day long.
But you will never find me sharing or distributing something from Aerosoft.
I think it go’s the same way for many people in the Race sim community as well.
Attitudes are everything.
That doesn’t mean i go and rip or distribute everything, in fact quite the opposite.
But I do download it.
xilix
June 6th, 2009 at 05:45
Oh no, you have to ask for permission, god forbid you don’t get what you want, when you want it. Jeez, what is the world coming to.
Mojo66
June 6th, 2009 at 14:54
Rule #1 completely ignores the fact that countless mods got and will get modified for league business. It also ignores the fact that mods might get abandoned by the author, while the community still has an interest in it.
I’m with the FSF and TPB: Free software for everyone!
Howie47
June 6th, 2009 at 16:09
As the Captain in the, “Pirates of the Caribbean” said: “The pirate code is just a general guide, not a law”.