I’d like to briefly address the discussion around the “Cyberpunk VR” mod created by Luke Ross. We have indeed issued a DMCA strike, as it was available as a paid mod (only accessible to Patreon subscribers). This directly violates our Fan Content Guidelines: we never allow monetization of our IP without our direct permission and/or an agreement in place. We were in touch with Luke last week and informed him that he needs to make it free for everyone (with optional donations) or remove it. We are big fans of mods to our games — some of the work out there has been nothing short of amazing, including Luke’s mod for Cyberpunk 2077. We’d be happy to see it return as a free release. However, making a profit from our IP, in any form, always requires permission from
@CDPROJEKTRED
So they offered this guy to make it free with donations, which is reasonable in my opinion, and he said no.
Just a small detail that doesn’t look considered, if you ear only one side of the story.
The "Cyberpunk VR” mod is not actually a "Cyberpunk VR” mod, but a framework that came to support Cyberpunk after many other games (like GTAV). If you’re still okey, bear in mind the same logic may apply to Loseless Scaling (sold for ~7€ on Steam) and 3DSen (sold for ~13€ on Steam) or you need to take VR Injection Framework apart from Loseless Scaling and 3DSen.
3DSen is based on reverse engineering and not IP since it’s not selling the ROMs that come with it. All completely legal to sell and don’t mind buying to support this guy’s reverse engineering and transformation effort. If it was just some stock NES emulator that he was selling, eh, I’d probably just say legal but bullshit.
Lossless Scaling is a tool/actual framework that uses released/open source API calls to apply frame gen to any game, as far as I know and that’s not violating any terms or conditions or IP either.
With this, while I can appreciate that he’s done this for other game, the terms and conditions for them is “don’t use our tools to sell mods”. Do I agree with it? Actually yes, for the most part. I’m of the firm belief that the modding community should be open, I think that these are things that should be done for passion, I like having donations set up, and that we’re lucky that we live in an age that many game companies are kind enough to release modding tools without demanding a license fee. Plus he’s not selling a framework here, he’s selling his framework built with a company’s tools that says “No paid mods because we think the modding community should be open”.
I think that IP is often tricky and I think that this is fine and not a slippery slope argument.
I think there are still misconception: CDProject was smart, albeit dishonest, into presenting the whole thing as “Cyberpunk’s Mod”; so, you (as general and misguided reader) inclined to think the modder took something from CDProject and generate something from thin air… added games are just icying on the cake.
The framework was already setup and working for several games even before Cyberpunk addition.
What is CDProject doing here is just some PR magic to blameshift their actual responsibility: they didn’t ask the modder to remove support for Cyberpunk, they went on and sink down is whole business by addressing directly another company (Patron) which are more “sensitive” to business and discuss less.
Your condescension aside, the fact that his framework worked for several games before this and their publishers/developers were fine with paid mod and if he releases the paid mod to work with BG3 and Larian would be okay with it, none of that is relevant here. So what if his software worked with other games? This particular game says you can’t have paid mods and CDProject was well within their right, and rightly so if you ask me, to make him get rid of it.
As for taking down whole business, once he scrubs his stuff of the CP 2077, he’ll be right back at it again his business is not sunk.
Now as for you argument that this was unnecessarily heavy handed and they should have asked nicely instead? Maybe, but we don’t know what either party said to each other outside of what both sides have publicly release and honestly Luke here sounds like a very unprofessional prima donna with the flare for the ultra dramatic and the only thing that seems to be solid is that they CDProject did ask that for that part of his mod, make it free and use donations instead which I still think is fair, you can release a singular package for the game with donations and have called it good while pay walling the rest who’s developers were fine with a paid mod on their game.
End of they day, even if they were heavy handed, they were well within their rights to take the mod down until their game is not part of their code base and it’s not that slippery slope argument you say it is and we just disagree on paid mods and methods used to remove them.
Similar to something like VorpX, except it doesn’t have a unified front end, so it can’t be called a program, it has to be called a mod package or mod suite. So it falls under different rules for an arbitrary reason.
I get it. It sets a precedent that mods shouldn’t eventually be a capital environment. Mods have always been passion projects and have always been paid for with donations.
If there were a hypothetically good balance, it’d be that the developer gets their initial income for the game, worthy of support for continued good quality games from them. Then, rather then releasing shitty DLC for gamers to waste money on, redirect that towards modders with promotions, reminding the audience that they deserve donations. Leading fundraaising events like “modder packs” that’s nothing but a $5, $10, $15 things to pay for with not content attached, for the audience to buy, where the total kitty is distributed to the modding community for their part of carrying the game on.
The last thing I’d like to see is mod slop because once the precedent is set, given a few years later it’s the norm to only get mods after paying for them. This would ruin modding communities and the longevity of games long after they’re developed.
I don’t know where are you getting the “have always been … and have always been paid for with donations” thing from.
IMHO, its a “recent” thing, folks were doing mods/indie games without getting paid before Patreon/ko-fi/etc. existed. I remember the times when ModDB and IndieDB were popular and so many games in there were completely free. Then Steam Greenlight happened and now everything is early access paid game. Also game demos died.
About the mod slop, its already happening for example in the Minecraft modding, they’re filled (mod listing pages and even some mods themselves) with ads, paid access or forcing you to join the discord.
Other than the option they said they had, which was to give him their permission… they could have chosen that.
They didn’t, and he respected that choice. He is in the process of the week or so of hard work it’s going to take to remove the game. The mod suite is shut down in the interim while he complies.
We hate on Nintendo and Rockstar for DCMA’ing free/open source mods/project, not paid ones. If you’re charging money for a tool, you’re running a business. If your business involves another business’s product, like with AI training or freaking phone cases, legal demands like this become a fair part of doing business.
Granted there is still a power disparity to recognize, even if the guy is a douche. But it’s not unfair in the way DCMA’ing things made freely for the community is unfair.
The moment you slap a Price Tag on it, it’s no longer about “Passion”. I’m okay with the modder having like a Patreon or whatever donations mechanism they’d like. But don’t lock your mod behind it. I can’t stand that nonsense.
I agree that it isn’t just passion, it is his full time job. He clearly has passion for it too, but you can’t make a mod suite this insane on passion alone. This is years of consistent 100 hour work weeks. All dedicated to making these VR mods better than any VR port, or even “built for VR first” games.
And he drops support for the game as soon as asked. Which requires shutting down for a week to disentangle anything related to the one game specifically from the rest of the suite. I can’t say he didn’t complain, but not about the work, just that it didn’t have to go this route, but it did go this route, so he does what he has to.
While the mod is behind payment, the payment is for his work and dedication. If he had to subsist on donations, he wouldn’t be able to put 100 hours a week into it, he would need a job.
Again, the games are fully in their right to pull out, but they also admit that all he would need is their permission, they could choose to go that route, most do.
What if there is so much passion that the mod author works 100+ hours a week on the mod. And the mod he makes is so awesome that people have no issue paying him to do that job. Honestly if every mod was this level of skill and effort, paid mods would make sense to more people. When you think of mods, “passion project” mods may be what comes to mind, that is not what this mod suite is.
This is 35 completely transformed and improved games, better than any other VR games on the market, fully supported in perpetuity, for 10 dollars. With everything he brings to these games, it’s like if 20 mod authors got together and made 20 perfectly interleaved mods that all work perfectly with each other. You don’t find this anywhere else. This isn’t a “mod”, this is unprecedented.
And while the mod is behind the paywall, most of us don’t think of it as paying for the mod, we are paying part of his wage for a day. Many of us just keep an active monthly subscription, but that isn’t necessary for people that just want the mod suite. You can just buy one month if you only want to play one game real quick, or any game that it currently supports. You would only need to update it if either the game updates and that update breaks the game (though you always have the choice of reverting and pausing updates for the game instead) or if he adds a new game that you want to play in VR.
It’s understandable not to like that it costs money, but it is very much the only option.
I agree with you, especially since allegedly this mod doesn’t contain copyrighted materials from the games. Compared to a source engine mod where your code is based on their SDK which is licensed to you under non commercial, I think it’s fair game here.
However I read that the VR mod in question was not in perpetuity and you had to be subscribed to download updates, which tarnishes a bit your point. But continued support may very well be worth a couple money every few months.
Yeah, the main issue is the mods are for a niche of a niche of a niche. Not just the niche of VR, but the further niche of PCVR, and within that, the further niche of people who don’t or no longer get sick from stick-based movement in VR. Each of which cuts the audience about ten-fold.
And then for that tiny audience, he is making what is basically perfect VR mods. Like we couldn’t imagine anyway they could possibly get better, until he figures out a new feature he can add, and then slowly back port to every previous game that can support it.
I very much am a continuous patron of him. For people that just want the mod once for one game, they generally don’t need to pay more than once. And technically when they do, they actually get ~35 games they could also choose to play. But it’s worth more than 10 dollars even for 1 game.
It is a non-standard pricing model, but it is more than fair.
He works his ass off, almost every hour of every day. This is the only pricing model that works for a situation like this.
if i make a game, its gonna be open source. Modders can charge for their mods all they want, as long as they are open source. Earn the fruits of your labor, modding queens and kings, AGPL ftw. Just like elementary os can charge for its binaries, they earn that right
Team Fortress was a mod. Counterstrike was a mod. DotA was a mod. Really depends on what they can do with dedicated effort rather than just simply a passion project.
VR mods, they aren’t really worth it IMO, I even resent the game devs who charge for separate VR releases that they usually don’t even end up maintaining across different VR hardware. IMO the problem with VR is that people try to do too much with it and try to Wii-ficy the experience, and this is at the hardware level given how usually you can’t even use your keyboard and mouse, having to resort to the VR controllers they came with for a much slower and less fluid experience.
Yeah, and these mods were so good that they became their own games.
If you want to do that, you’re a game developer. So license (or develop) an engine, and also pay for all the non-permissively licensed other code you use.
Congratulations, you’re now on a solid base for charging money for your game.
So in other words, “Mods must forever remain a passion” is false, which was the point I was addressing. But it doesn’t even have to be a game, like say, Virtual Desktop, Wallpaper Engine, 3D Mark, etc.
edit: I go on to describe what the developer was actually doing, apparently, so it would not have gone “very differently” as I suggested. Welp, it is CD Projekt RED. They talk the talk, but the devil is in the details with them [See Devotion].
If this developer had released a software tool named, say, VRossify, and it was released as a VR launcher that offered VR for multiple games that didn’t have it, the discussion could be very different. He could sell this and provide the plugins that mod support for each particular game freely. Instead, he released them as paid mods for what the developers are likely also considering, a dedicated VR release. He tied himself to one particular IP each time while trying to monetize it, and that’s basically a sure way to guarantee a loss if it ever got to trial. Ain’t no host that’s going to ignore a DMCA notice in such a clear cut case of IP violation IMO. He’d have to make it clear that it is providing its own platform and not just use it as a excuse to profit off of notable game releases. He could do things like focus on Unreal Engine games, which would net him a good amount of support for games that could benefit from VR.
At the end of the day, though, it’s up to each developer, and he might have to remove games on request from the support of said software tool. Then it might be up to a third party to provide a plugin for said platform, or just replace it entirely if its too basic. At this point,~~ given his attitude I assume he has burned bridges with CD Projekt RED~~ (these are the guys who after Devotion have not allowed future Red Candle Games on GOG even when they’ve notably been on Steam, EGS, and Humble Bundle), but if he had had foresight to present it that way first, it might not have gone the way it has(edit: Na, they decided to be assholes anyway. Guess there wasn’t enough horse bestiality in the mod.)
I think there is nuance, the mod in question is a suite of about 35 mods that is constantly maintained/repaired as games patch and break parts of it, and is so insanely complex and impressive that it is a 100 hour a week job for the guy. That’s not something that can be done for free or for donations, It’s well beyond “a mod”. And each of those ~35 mods is like 10-20 mods in one, the list of features added to each game beyond “just” VR support is lengthy.
And it’s such an impressive thing to use, and is only done for games that have no plans to be made for VR. So it only adds sales to the games themselves. Maybe not alot, but it certainly doesn’t take anything away. Not only does he make the games VR capable, he makes sure they play the absolute best possible in VR, not only performance-wise but play-wise as well.
While they are in the right to ask that their game not be part of it, they lose out by doing so.
Without being able to charge a fixed price, a mod of this insane level of quality, quantity, and detail just wouldn’t exist instead.
People that think he is grifting or ripping people off have not actually tried the mods. It is insanely cheap for what you get. For 10 dollars you get ~35 games not just in VR, but in better VR than any company has done with their actual VR ports, and not by a small margin, not to mention they will keep working, because he doesn’t just put in all the effort to make a perfect VR game out of them once, he goes back and fixes anything that needs fixing for every single game too. Even if you don’t want to try it yourself because 10 dollars feels like too much to charge for an amazing VR version of 35 games, at least watch videos of how much people enjoy and respect his work before assuming he is some kind of jerk.
Only 2 of the 35 games have decided to pursue dmca against it in it’s entire history, it is a choice, they don’t -have- to, they choose to. ToS can always be amended if a use is deemed exceptional and worth supporting. The law, just like everything else, is not actually black and white, there is always nuance and possibility.
For both games that asked, he immediately acquiesced and spent the week or so of work it took/takes to strip out all support for that game. It’s the only option he has, this is his full time job. A fuller-time job than most people do/have.
CDprojekt Red even said all he needed was their permission, they could have gone that route.
You don’t own a game. You own a license to use the game. You don’t own the code or the images or the files. End of story. You don’t get to use those files and images to make something else and sell it. The mod wouldn’t work without the game - there’d be nothing to display in VR. When you mod you are directly using the work produced by others and adding in top of that. Modding exists because companies allow it. Part of that allowance is not being a dick, which this modder 100% was. They didn’t even tell him to take it down, just make donations optional and he threw a hissy fit an refused.
Yeah, there’s plenty of nuance. Nuance showing that the modder is a jackass. Should I remind you this modder did THE EXACT SAME thing with Rockstar as well already.
This guy is just a tool trying to make as much money as he can before moving to another game and doing the same, rinse and repeat. He’s a scammer and a grifter.
Where does all that rage of yours comes from ? You pay for the time of the guy to package the shit. You don’t need to, you can yourself build the mod pack… time and convenience is a product in itself.
If missing turns into a paid industry then game companies will start cracking down on it, because then it becomes profit based on their work that they didn’t earn.
Whereas now when it’s free, it’s just passion projects by hobbyists who really like their game. It boosts their sales but it’s not like there’s extra money to be made in licensing deals.
If you allow what this guy was doing, you pervert that. It becomes an industry. It becomes competition. And it sets a legal precedent that if you let one guy get away with keeping all the money he makes, no one else needs to be held to that standard.
That’s even harder to understand than OP… how is retribution for someone’s time your problem ? Or even the game editor’s problem ?
It’s not like he’s infringing on any IP either since the editor is still selling the game to start with.
And if you are so spririted you can mod on your free time the same functionality can’t you so free it is for you…
You know that building on someone else’s work isn’t necessarily a bad thing right? Entire industries are doing « integration » work which is literally building on top of other’s work to achieve increased functionality. And that’s only in IT… and the legitimacy is very juridiction dependent as well so don’t bring legality into the debate too soon ;-)
Are you having ethical issues with the practice maybe? Do you believe you should get anything for free in software ?
When you say he “did the same thing” with rockstar. What do you think he did?
The mod is for 35 games, yes one other company decided to remove their game from the mod, and luke ross immediately did so… it took about a week of work to remove it while he locked down access to the mod suite at his own expense, sure he grumbled that it was a dumb move from rockstar but we all hoped maybe it meant rockstar was considering their own VR port so it made sense. But they didn’t.
What do I mean? He sold the same mod as a “Rockstar VR mod” behind his shittly little paywall and then their lawyers had to send him a cease and desist for that. And he whined like a little baby then too. He didn’t learn his lesson then and he hasn’t learned his lesson now because this is a cash grab, not an attempt to break into the industry or anything traditionally respected modders aim for.
Look, just because you’re too retarded to understand he broke laws, doesn’t mean he didn’t break laws.
probably cause they are working on their own vr dlc. otherwise noone would ever care. remember the gta mod takedowns before the ass defenitive edition…
The modder in question for this case is not above placing DRM within his paid mods to prevent free distribution. So I’m skeptical of any system of monetization not immediately succumbing to malicious compliance.
Mods are by the community, for the community. If your mod has enough significance that you believe it is worth monetizing - create your own game with the endless amount of tools available with that hallmark feature. (Or actually talk to the devs to work out an official arrangement rather than being a hardass and witnessing the consequences of your arrogance)
Whoa now. Jumping straight to malware payloads is pretty extreme. Has he done such a thing before, or are you just pulling it out of your ass to support your argument?
Alright, after checking Polygon, GamesRadar, and IGN articles, there are mentions of DRM but not the malware payloads (I guess the original article I looked at might have conflated this guy with someone else). I’ll retract that part of the statement.
Bit late but I wanted to thank you for following up. Sorry if I came off as hostile, reading that back after the fact was more harsh than I meant it to be.
Why do people think luke ross is the same person as pure dark? I’ve seen this in other places too.
They are completely different people, they have completely different patreons, and luke ross doesn’t have time to pretend to be a whole different person on top of himself. Is it because both their mods include, in part, the acronym “dlss”? As far as I can tell that is literally the only possible link between them. And technically that’s even a stretch, because luke ross’s mod suite actually adds DL"S"SS, the extra S is for a version that works properly in stereo. Which no one and nothing else has.
While I agree cdpr have acted fine here, it is making me think. Should copy law be updated so that if something like this is considered transformative then it can be monitised, however because it uses another ip a fixed percentage minimum is due to the ip holder. I imagine there are a lot of pros and cons, but it could be an answer to huge corps hoarding and in many cases ruining beloved IPs.
Personally, I don’t see how this guy’s project hurt them in any way, even if he was making money from it. That’s assuming each copy involved a purchase from them (and if not, that would resolve it IMO).
I disagree with the hate paid mods get, at least in the current economic model. Though even if there was a UBI, I think worthwhile work should be rewarded.
I don’t understand how this is legal action? If the project does not contain copyrighted material itself, then how in earth is CD Projekt Red able to take it down? A modder should be able to decide themselves if they charge money or not for a mod, as long as no copyrighted (or other protected) material is included.
Well just the use of the trademark would probably be enough to file a DMCA takedown. But beyond that modding the game entails using its modding tools, which have an EULA, which stipulates no paywalls for mods.
Technically the modder has legal recourse, they could argue fair use and file a counter-notice. Then CDPR would have to sue in front of a court. But given the financial and legal risks it seems unlikely a counter-notice will happen.
Honestly the only real chance is to come to some kind of agreement with CDPR, which they seemed to heavily telegraph is possible in their public message (“we never allow monetization of our IP without our direct permission and/or an agreement in place”).
I see, I didn’t think about the modding tools here. I always thought such clauses in the EULA are there for “good manners”, and not something that can be used in court in example. Lot of stuff in EULAs in general are not legally enforceable.
There are no modding tools. This is done entirely outside the game. But it does still qualify as a breech of ToS. There are alot of options for how to handle it, this is the option they chose.
And he does so by providing a stand-alone binary and providing integration into the games by using their modding tools. At least that was my, admittedly unresearched, understanding of the matter.
If what you say was true it would be an open-and-shut case meaning Ross could have immediately filed a DMCA counter-notice (i.e. legally asserting that no copyrighted material was used) because he wouldn’t have anything to lose. But he didn’t do that. My guess would be because he did in fact use REDmod plugins to make his VR mod binary viable to actually play.
But I’m admittedly guessing here, any source you want to provide to the contrary would be welcome.
Nah, the reason they cited was that he violated ToS for fan created content. Which he did, if his mod counts as fan content. And there is an argument that could be presented that it does. But more importantly, as per patreons policy, as soon as it was reported for dmca take down, it was taken down, and now he has to apply for it being reinstated. And to do so, he basically needs to comply or go to court. Complying is easier. Although since then a second company has done the same, and since Patreons policy is any project being dmca struck multiple times, even if the strikes would ultimately prove fruitless, means the project will be permanently removed from patreon.
So he has taken it down and given everyone a free month for now while he determines what can be done.
I feel like if he had a front-end executable, he would then fall under the same category VorpX does, it’s allowed to cost money despite largely being the same thing.
That does not answer the core question I have. The project itself seems to be a mod and not violate any copyright, as far as I know. So assuming that, how is it legal to take it down? Companies the hoster of the mod, not the modder itself (also applicable to videos on YouTube in example) will take anything down without hesitation and questions asked, if it is a DMCA request. That does not mean its legally correct at that time and must be investigated.
So my question is, how a end user agreement can be a reason to DMCA, if the modder itself does not agreed to the EULA in example. How is it, that a company can decide if and how a product from a hobbyist is monetized, if it is not their product?
In example, do you think YouTube should be able to shutdown all third party YouTube players, because they sell the software? That would be a similar situation with this DMCA takedown.
I see, but that is not what I was asking. I know that DMCA makes it easier to takedown, because the companies (like the website that hosts the files) has to take it down immediately no questions asked. I know that, my question is how this is legally right to do in this case. I am not arguing if it should be, I am asking how this is even a takedown that is requested? Because the EULA of a company is irrelevant, as it is not part of the mod itself.
I assume this part, at least it’s the first one that gives them an excuse:
Don’t create, use, make available… software that interact with or affect our Games and/or Services in any way (including any unauthorised third party programs that collect information about our Games and/or Services by reading areas of memory used by our Games and/or Services to store information).
The DMCA allows the hosting service to be exempt from any legal damages if they follow up on DMCA takedowns. It would take winning or losing a lawsuit to determine how valid or invalid the argument is, not winning or losing an Internet argument, so I can only point out why it’s possible.
There are a lot of people abusing DMCA takedowns on YouTube, have you not heard about it before? Look up copyright trolls DMCA on YouTube if you want more info on it.
There are a lot of people abusing DMCA takedowns on YouTube, have you not heard about it before? Look up copyright trolls DMCA on YouTube if you want more info on it.
This is what I am actually asking. Does CD Projekt Red abuse the DMCA system here?
It is indeed against their ToS, they do have this option. They also cite themselves that all he would need is their permission, but they didn’t go that route.
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So they offered this guy to make it free with donations, which is reasonable in my opinion, and he said no.
Given that, I’m okay with this DCMA.
Just a small detail that doesn’t look considered, if you ear only one side of the story. The "Cyberpunk VR” mod is not actually a "Cyberpunk VR” mod, but a framework that came to support Cyberpunk after many other games (like GTAV). If you’re still okey, bear in mind the same logic may apply to Loseless Scaling (sold for ~7€ on Steam) and 3DSen (sold for ~13€ on Steam) or you need to take VR Injection Framework apart from Loseless Scaling and 3DSen.
I think you’re missing some nuance here.
3DSen is based on reverse engineering and not IP since it’s not selling the ROMs that come with it. All completely legal to sell and don’t mind buying to support this guy’s reverse engineering and transformation effort. If it was just some stock NES emulator that he was selling, eh, I’d probably just say legal but bullshit.
Lossless Scaling is a tool/actual framework that uses released/open source API calls to apply frame gen to any game, as far as I know and that’s not violating any terms or conditions or IP either.
With this, while I can appreciate that he’s done this for other game, the terms and conditions for them is “don’t use our tools to sell mods”. Do I agree with it? Actually yes, for the most part. I’m of the firm belief that the modding community should be open, I think that these are things that should be done for passion, I like having donations set up, and that we’re lucky that we live in an age that many game companies are kind enough to release modding tools without demanding a license fee. Plus he’s not selling a framework here, he’s selling his framework built with a company’s tools that says “No paid mods because we think the modding community should be open”.
I think that IP is often tricky and I think that this is fine and not a slippery slope argument.
I think there are still misconception: CDProject was smart, albeit dishonest, into presenting the whole thing as “Cyberpunk’s Mod”; so, you (as general and misguided reader) inclined to think the modder took something from CDProject and generate something from thin air… added games are just icying on the cake.
The framework was already setup and working for several games even before Cyberpunk addition.
What is CDProject doing here is just some PR magic to blameshift their actual responsibility: they didn’t ask the modder to remove support for Cyberpunk, they went on and sink down is whole business by addressing directly another company (Patron) which are more “sensitive” to business and discuss less.
Your condescension aside, the fact that his framework worked for several games before this and their publishers/developers were fine with paid mod and if he releases the paid mod to work with BG3 and Larian would be okay with it, none of that is relevant here. So what if his software worked with other games? This particular game says you can’t have paid mods and CDProject was well within their right, and rightly so if you ask me, to make him get rid of it.
As for taking down whole business, once he scrubs his stuff of the CP 2077, he’ll be right back at it again his business is not sunk.
Now as for you argument that this was unnecessarily heavy handed and they should have asked nicely instead? Maybe, but we don’t know what either party said to each other outside of what both sides have publicly release and honestly Luke here sounds like a very unprofessional prima donna with the flare for the ultra dramatic and the only thing that seems to be solid is that they CDProject did ask that for that part of his mod, make it free and use donations instead which I still think is fair, you can release a singular package for the game with donations and have called it good while pay walling the rest who’s developers were fine with a paid mod on their game.
End of they day, even if they were heavy handed, they were well within their rights to take the mod down until their game is not part of their code base and it’s not that slippery slope argument you say it is and we just disagree on paid mods and methods used to remove them.
This needs to be far more visible
No it doesn’t.
How is the VR Mod listed? Does it use other trademarks/copyrights to advertise or sell this product?
Cyberpunk 2077 VR Mod
Or is it listed generically as VR Framework Mod for games.
Generically, as a framework for 35 games.
Similar to something like VorpX, except it doesn’t have a unified front end, so it can’t be called a program, it has to be called a mod package or mod suite. So it falls under different rules for an arbitrary reason.
Good
I get it. It sets a precedent that mods shouldn’t eventually be a capital environment. Mods have always been passion projects and have always been paid for with donations.
If there were a hypothetically good balance, it’d be that the developer gets their initial income for the game, worthy of support for continued good quality games from them. Then, rather then releasing shitty DLC for gamers to waste money on, redirect that towards modders with promotions, reminding the audience that they deserve donations. Leading fundraaising events like “modder packs” that’s nothing but a $5, $10, $15 things to pay for with not content attached, for the audience to buy, where the total kitty is distributed to the modding community for their part of carrying the game on.
The last thing I’d like to see is mod slop because once the precedent is set, given a few years later it’s the norm to only get mods after paying for them. This would ruin modding communities and the longevity of games long after they’re developed.
I don’t know where are you getting the “have always been … and have always been paid for with donations” thing from.
IMHO, its a “recent” thing, folks were doing mods/indie games without getting paid before Patreon/ko-fi/etc. existed. I remember the times when ModDB and IndieDB were popular and so many games in there were completely free. Then Steam Greenlight happened and now everything is early access paid game. Also game demos died.
About the mod slop, its already happening for example in the Minecraft modding, they’re filled (mod listing pages and even some mods themselves) with ads, paid access or forcing you to join the discord.
Donations are donations, though.
If you’re coming across mods locked behind donations, they’re not donations. Perhaps this is your confusion.
If you want to reference the old days, you should no doubt remember old PayPal buttons in kod descs.
Content locked behind Patreon is not accessed with donation. It’s literal purchase.
A small check for moral consistency: what about Loseless Scaling and 3DSen?
I mean, that’s pretty much fair game at that point. It’s literally in the EULA. They really had no other option.
Other than the option they said they had, which was to give him their permission… they could have chosen that.
They didn’t, and he respected that choice. He is in the process of the week or so of hard work it’s going to take to remove the game. The mod suite is shut down in the interim while he complies.
We hate on Nintendo and Rockstar for DCMA’ing free/open source mods/project, not paid ones. If you’re charging money for a tool, you’re running a business. If your business involves another business’s product, like with AI training or freaking phone cases, legal demands like this become a fair part of doing business.
Granted there is still a power disparity to recognize, even if the guy is a douche. But it’s not unfair in the way DCMA’ing things made freely for the community is unfair.
The moment you slap a Price Tag on it, it’s no longer about “Passion”. I’m okay with the modder having like a Patreon or whatever donations mechanism they’d like. But don’t lock your mod behind it. I can’t stand that nonsense.
I agree that it isn’t just passion, it is his full time job. He clearly has passion for it too, but you can’t make a mod suite this insane on passion alone. This is years of consistent 100 hour work weeks. All dedicated to making these VR mods better than any VR port, or even “built for VR first” games.
And he drops support for the game as soon as asked. Which requires shutting down for a week to disentangle anything related to the one game specifically from the rest of the suite. I can’t say he didn’t complain, but not about the work, just that it didn’t have to go this route, but it did go this route, so he does what he has to.
While the mod is behind payment, the payment is for his work and dedication. If he had to subsist on donations, he wouldn’t be able to put 100 hours a week into it, he would need a job.
Again, the games are fully in their right to pull out, but they also admit that all he would need is their permission, they could choose to go that route, most do.
Good. Mods must forever remain a passion project and not something incentivized by money.
I dream of a world where people can follow their passion without having to worry about where their next meal will come from.
What if there is so much passion that the mod author works 100+ hours a week on the mod. And the mod he makes is so awesome that people have no issue paying him to do that job. Honestly if every mod was this level of skill and effort, paid mods would make sense to more people. When you think of mods, “passion project” mods may be what comes to mind, that is not what this mod suite is.
This is 35 completely transformed and improved games, better than any other VR games on the market, fully supported in perpetuity, for 10 dollars. With everything he brings to these games, it’s like if 20 mod authors got together and made 20 perfectly interleaved mods that all work perfectly with each other. You don’t find this anywhere else. This isn’t a “mod”, this is unprecedented.
And while the mod is behind the paywall, most of us don’t think of it as paying for the mod, we are paying part of his wage for a day. Many of us just keep an active monthly subscription, but that isn’t necessary for people that just want the mod suite. You can just buy one month if you only want to play one game real quick, or any game that it currently supports. You would only need to update it if either the game updates and that update breaks the game (though you always have the choice of reverting and pausing updates for the game instead) or if he adds a new game that you want to play in VR.
It’s understandable not to like that it costs money, but it is very much the only option.
I agree with you, especially since allegedly this mod doesn’t contain copyrighted materials from the games. Compared to a source engine mod where your code is based on their SDK which is licensed to you under non commercial, I think it’s fair game here.
However I read that the VR mod in question was not in perpetuity and you had to be subscribed to download updates, which tarnishes a bit your point. But continued support may very well be worth a couple money every few months.
Yeah, the main issue is the mods are for a niche of a niche of a niche. Not just the niche of VR, but the further niche of PCVR, and within that, the further niche of people who don’t or no longer get sick from stick-based movement in VR. Each of which cuts the audience about ten-fold.
And then for that tiny audience, he is making what is basically perfect VR mods. Like we couldn’t imagine anyway they could possibly get better, until he figures out a new feature he can add, and then slowly back port to every previous game that can support it.
I very much am a continuous patron of him. For people that just want the mod once for one game, they generally don’t need to pay more than once. And technically when they do, they actually get ~35 games they could also choose to play. But it’s worth more than 10 dollars even for 1 game.
It is a non-standard pricing model, but it is more than fair.
He works his ass off, almost every hour of every day. This is the only pricing model that works for a situation like this.
if i make a game, its gonna be open source. Modders can charge for their mods all they want, as long as they are open source. Earn the fruits of your labor, modding queens and kings, AGPL ftw. Just like elementary os can charge for its binaries, they earn that right
Team Fortress was a mod. Counterstrike was a mod. DotA was a mod. Really depends on what they can do with dedicated effort rather than just simply a passion project.
VR mods, they aren’t really worth it IMO, I even resent the game devs who charge for separate VR releases that they usually don’t even end up maintaining across different VR hardware. IMO the problem with VR is that people try to do too much with it and try to Wii-ficy the experience, and this is at the hardware level given how usually you can’t even use your keyboard and mouse, having to resort to the VR controllers they came with for a much slower and less fluid experience.
Yeah, and these mods were so good that they became their own games.
If you want to do that, you’re a game developer. So license (or develop) an engine, and also pay for all the non-permissively licensed other code you use.
Congratulations, you’re now on a solid base for charging money for your game.
So in other words, “Mods must forever remain a passion” is false, which was the point I was addressing. But it doesn’t even have to be a game, like say, Virtual Desktop, Wallpaper Engine, 3D Mark, etc.
edit: I go on to describe what the developer was actually doing, apparently, so it would not have gone “very differently” as I suggested. Welp, it is CD Projekt RED. They talk the talk, but the devil is in the details with them [See Devotion].
If this developer had released a software tool named, say, VRossify, and it was released as a VR launcher that offered VR for multiple games that didn’t have it, the discussion could be very different. He could sell this and provide the plugins that mod support for each particular game freely. Instead, he released them as paid mods for what the developers are likely also considering, a dedicated VR release.
He tied himself to one particular IP each time while trying to monetize it, and that’s basically a sure way to guarantee a loss if it ever got to trial. Ain’t no host that’s going to ignore a DMCA notice in such a clear cut case of IP violation IMO.He’d have to make it clear that it is providing its own platform and not just use it as a excuse to profit off of notable game releases. He could do things like focus on Unreal Engine games, which would net him a good amount of support for games that could benefit from VR.At the end of the day, though, it’s up to each developer, and he might have to remove games on request from the support of said software tool. Then it might be up to a third party to provide a plugin for said platform, or just replace it entirely if its too basic. At this point,~~ given his attitude I assume he has burned bridges with CD Projekt RED~~ (these are the guys who after Devotion have not allowed future Red Candle Games on GOG even when they’ve notably been on Steam, EGS, and Humble Bundle),
but if he had had foresight to present it that way first, it might not have gone the way it has(edit: Na, they decided to be assholes anyway. Guess there wasn’t enough horse bestiality in the mod.)So are we hating on these guys the same way we hate on other companies that do the same thing? Like Nintendo or Rockstar?
No. We’re just going to make excuses?
Never change G*mers. You hypocritical brainwashed troglodytes.
I think there is nuance, the mod in question is a suite of about 35 mods that is constantly maintained/repaired as games patch and break parts of it, and is so insanely complex and impressive that it is a 100 hour a week job for the guy. That’s not something that can be done for free or for donations, It’s well beyond “a mod”. And each of those ~35 mods is like 10-20 mods in one, the list of features added to each game beyond “just” VR support is lengthy.
And it’s such an impressive thing to use, and is only done for games that have no plans to be made for VR. So it only adds sales to the games themselves. Maybe not alot, but it certainly doesn’t take anything away. Not only does he make the games VR capable, he makes sure they play the absolute best possible in VR, not only performance-wise but play-wise as well.
While they are in the right to ask that their game not be part of it, they lose out by doing so.
Without being able to charge a fixed price, a mod of this insane level of quality, quantity, and detail just wouldn’t exist instead.
People that think he is grifting or ripping people off have not actually tried the mods. It is insanely cheap for what you get. For 10 dollars you get ~35 games not just in VR, but in better VR than any company has done with their actual VR ports, and not by a small margin, not to mention they will keep working, because he doesn’t just put in all the effort to make a perfect VR game out of them once, he goes back and fixes anything that needs fixing for every single game too. Even if you don’t want to try it yourself because 10 dollars feels like too much to charge for an amazing VR version of 35 games, at least watch videos of how much people enjoy and respect his work before assuming he is some kind of jerk.
Only 2 of the 35 games have decided to pursue dmca against it in it’s entire history, it is a choice, they don’t -have- to, they choose to. ToS can always be amended if a use is deemed exceptional and worth supporting. The law, just like everything else, is not actually black and white, there is always nuance and possibility.
For both games that asked, he immediately acquiesced and spent the week or so of work it took/takes to strip out all support for that game. It’s the only option he has, this is his full time job. A fuller-time job than most people do/have.
CDprojekt Red even said all he needed was their permission, they could have gone that route.
You don’t own a game. You own a license to use the game. You don’t own the code or the images or the files. End of story. You don’t get to use those files and images to make something else and sell it. The mod wouldn’t work without the game - there’d be nothing to display in VR. When you mod you are directly using the work produced by others and adding in top of that. Modding exists because companies allow it. Part of that allowance is not being a dick, which this modder 100% was. They didn’t even tell him to take it down, just make donations optional and he threw a hissy fit an refused.
Yeah, there’s plenty of nuance. Nuance showing that the modder is a jackass. Should I remind you this modder did THE EXACT SAME thing with Rockstar as well already.
This guy is just a tool trying to make as much money as he can before moving to another game and doing the same, rinse and repeat. He’s a scammer and a grifter.
Fuck him.
Where does all that rage of yours comes from ? You pay for the time of the guy to package the shit. You don’t need to, you can yourself build the mod pack… time and convenience is a product in itself.
If missing turns into a paid industry then game companies will start cracking down on it, because then it becomes profit based on their work that they didn’t earn.
Whereas now when it’s free, it’s just passion projects by hobbyists who really like their game. It boosts their sales but it’s not like there’s extra money to be made in licensing deals.
If you allow what this guy was doing, you pervert that. It becomes an industry. It becomes competition. And it sets a legal precedent that if you let one guy get away with keeping all the money he makes, no one else needs to be held to that standard.
That’s even harder to understand than OP… how is retribution for someone’s time your problem ? Or even the game editor’s problem ?
It’s not like he’s infringing on any IP either since the editor is still selling the game to start with.
And if you are so spririted you can mod on your free time the same functionality can’t you so free it is for you…
You know that building on someone else’s work isn’t necessarily a bad thing right? Entire industries are doing « integration » work which is literally building on top of other’s work to achieve increased functionality. And that’s only in IT… and the legitimacy is very juridiction dependent as well so don’t bring legality into the debate too soon ;-)
Are you having ethical issues with the practice maybe? Do you believe you should get anything for free in software ?
Pretty harsh, and pretty correct.
When you say he “did the same thing” with rockstar. What do you think he did?
The mod is for 35 games, yes one other company decided to remove their game from the mod, and luke ross immediately did so… it took about a week of work to remove it while he locked down access to the mod suite at his own expense, sure he grumbled that it was a dumb move from rockstar but we all hoped maybe it meant rockstar was considering their own VR port so it made sense. But they didn’t.
Is that what a jerk does?
I think you have no idea what luke ross does.
What do I mean? He sold the same mod as a “Rockstar VR mod” behind his shittly little paywall and then their lawyers had to send him a cease and desist for that. And he whined like a little baby then too. He didn’t learn his lesson then and he hasn’t learned his lesson now because this is a cash grab, not an attempt to break into the industry or anything traditionally respected modders aim for.
Look, just because you’re too retarded to understand he broke laws, doesn’t mean he didn’t break laws.
Confirmed, you have no idea what luke ross does. You read one uninformed headline, and then read another uninformed headline.
probably cause they are working on their own vr dlc. otherwise noone would ever care. remember the gta mod takedowns before the ass defenitive edition…
Maybe they could do a model where the mod is free but updates or builds for the first 3 months are behind a totally optional donation fence.
…you are aware of the perverse incentives that kind of system would bring right?
“Here’s alpha 0.01. It gets to the title screen.”
“If you donate here’s version 2.00 to download with experimental (wink) features such as actual playthrough complete testing.”
Sure if the code is open you can just build it yourself. And if 2.00 builds go open in a time window it’s just time gating.
But your right the incentives are to keeping pumping out a parade of changes to make donating seem worthwhile to get early access
The modder in question for this case is not above placing DRM within his paid mods to prevent free distribution. So I’m skeptical of any system of monetization not immediately succumbing to malicious compliance.
Mods are by the community, for the community. If your mod has enough significance that you believe it is worth monetizing - create your own game with the endless amount of tools available with that hallmark feature. (Or actually talk to the devs to work out an official arrangement rather than being a hardass and witnessing the consequences of your arrogance)
Whoa now. Jumping straight to malware payloads is pretty extreme. Has he done such a thing before, or are you just pulling it out of your ass to support your argument?
It’s a bit of telephone, I got that segment from an article discussing the topic. Let me see if I can locate it.
Alright, after checking Polygon, GamesRadar, and IGN articles, there are mentions of DRM but not the malware payloads (I guess the original article I looked at might have conflated this guy with someone else). I’ll retract that part of the statement.
Bit late but I wanted to thank you for following up. Sorry if I came off as hostile, reading that back after the fact was more harsh than I meant it to be.
I don’t mind - clarification requests are something I’m always glad to answer :)
Why do people think luke ross is the same person as pure dark? I’ve seen this in other places too.
They are completely different people, they have completely different patreons, and luke ross doesn’t have time to pretend to be a whole different person on top of himself. Is it because both their mods include, in part, the acronym “dlss”? As far as I can tell that is literally the only possible link between them. And technically that’s even a stretch, because luke ross’s mod suite actually adds DL"S"SS, the extra S is for a version that works properly in stereo. Which no one and nothing else has.
Pretty gonk move
I don’t get that, schluppi. You think mods should be in the realm of monetisation?
Nah i meant a pretty gonk move on the modders part
Ah fuck sorry
Ah no worries I often leave my statements too open ended and get blasted like this 🙃 used to it lol
While I agree cdpr have acted fine here, it is making me think. Should copy law be updated so that if something like this is considered transformative then it can be monitised, however because it uses another ip a fixed percentage minimum is due to the ip holder. I imagine there are a lot of pros and cons, but it could be an answer to huge corps hoarding and in many cases ruining beloved IPs.
Personally, I don’t see how this guy’s project hurt them in any way, even if he was making money from it. That’s assuming each copy involved a purchase from them (and if not, that would resolve it IMO).
I disagree with the hate paid mods get, at least in the current economic model. Though even if there was a UBI, I think worthwhile work should be rewarded.
They should hire this guy.
Then the mod suite would only be allowed to support 1 game. Not much of a suite.
They could have chosen to give him permission to continue, in their own words, they didn’t choose that.
I don’t understand how this is legal action? If the project does not contain copyrighted material itself, then how in earth is CD Projekt Red able to take it down? A modder should be able to decide themselves if they charge money or not for a mod, as long as no copyrighted (or other protected) material is included.
Well just the use of the trademark would probably be enough to file a DMCA takedown. But beyond that modding the game entails using its modding tools, which have an EULA, which stipulates no paywalls for mods.
Technically the modder has legal recourse, they could argue fair use and file a counter-notice. Then CDPR would have to sue in front of a court. But given the financial and legal risks it seems unlikely a counter-notice will happen.
Honestly the only real chance is to come to some kind of agreement with CDPR, which they seemed to heavily telegraph is possible in their public message (“we never allow monetization of our IP without our direct permission and/or an agreement in place”).
I see, I didn’t think about the modding tools here. I always thought such clauses in the EULA are there for “good manners”, and not something that can be used in court in example. Lot of stuff in EULAs in general are not legally enforceable.
Yeah true, but actually proving that in court costs time and money. And once you get a DMCA takedown notice you are forced to fight it or comply.
There are no modding tools. This is done entirely outside the game. But it does still qualify as a breech of ToS. There are alot of options for how to handle it, this is the option they chose.
There are, called REDmod: https://www.cyberpunk.net/en/modding-support
From what I understand the Cyberpunk VR mod is partially made up of REDmod plugins and partially of stand-alone binaries, but not sure on that one.
Sorry, meant no modding tools from any one specific game involved in the luke ross mod, he supports 35 games with it.
And he does so by providing a stand-alone binary and providing integration into the games by using their modding tools. At least that was my, admittedly unresearched, understanding of the matter.
If what you say was true it would be an open-and-shut case meaning Ross could have immediately filed a DMCA counter-notice (i.e. legally asserting that no copyrighted material was used) because he wouldn’t have anything to lose. But he didn’t do that. My guess would be because he did in fact use REDmod plugins to make his VR mod binary viable to actually play.
But I’m admittedly guessing here, any source you want to provide to the contrary would be welcome.
Nah, the reason they cited was that he violated ToS for fan created content. Which he did, if his mod counts as fan content. And there is an argument that could be presented that it does. But more importantly, as per patreons policy, as soon as it was reported for dmca take down, it was taken down, and now he has to apply for it being reinstated. And to do so, he basically needs to comply or go to court. Complying is easier. Although since then a second company has done the same, and since Patreons policy is any project being dmca struck multiple times, even if the strikes would ultimately prove fruitless, means the project will be permanently removed from patreon.
So he has taken it down and given everyone a free month for now while he determines what can be done.
I feel like if he had a front-end executable, he would then fall under the same category VorpX does, it’s allowed to cost money despite largely being the same thing.
Software DRM legal threats preceded DMCA takedowns, but DMCA takedowns make them easier to execute.
That does not answer the core question I have. The project itself seems to be a mod and not violate any copyright, as far as I know. So assuming that, how is it legal to take it down? Companies the hoster of the mod, not the modder itself (also applicable to videos on YouTube in example) will take anything down without hesitation and questions asked, if it is a DMCA request. That does not mean its legally correct at that time and must be investigated.
So my question is, how a end user agreement can be a reason to DMCA, if the modder itself does not agreed to the EULA in example. How is it, that a company can decide if and how a product from a hobbyist is monetized, if it is not their product?
In example, do you think YouTube should be able to shutdown all third party YouTube players, because they sell the software? That would be a similar situation with this DMCA takedown.
I’m telling you what the law has historically been, not arguing with you about what it should be.
I see, but that is not what I was asking. I know that DMCA makes it easier to takedown, because the companies (like the website that hosts the files) has to take it down immediately no questions asked. I know that, my question is how this is legally right to do in this case. I am not arguing if it should be, I am asking how this is even a takedown that is requested? Because the EULA of a company is irrelevant, as it is not part of the mod itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
The ones you agree to when you install the game, like CD Projekt RED’s EULA.
https://store.steampowered.com/eula/1091500_eula_0
I assume this part, at least it’s the first one that gives them an excuse:
The DMCA allows the hosting service to be exempt from any legal damages if they follow up on DMCA takedowns. It would take winning or losing a lawsuit to determine how valid or invalid the argument is, not winning or losing an Internet argument, so I can only point out why it’s possible.
There are a lot of people abusing DMCA takedowns on YouTube, have you not heard about it before? Look up copyright trolls DMCA on YouTube if you want more info on it.
This is what I am actually asking. Does CD Projekt Red abuse the DMCA system here?
Depends on your take on the law I cited.
It is indeed against their ToS, they do have this option. They also cite themselves that all he would need is their permission, but they didn’t go that route.
DMCA notices are just a strongly letter from an attorney, that they record sending to you for when they really sue you should they choose to do that
It doesn’t need to be legal: Patreon, like Valve and any other big company, deem request from other companies as top priority over any commoner.
Patreon think “we may have extra business with CDProjeck, but mod authors are nobody that need to work for free at best”.
So they know who need to be sacrificed.