Apeiron, mods and fair use

[Rausberg]

Hey, guys!

 

Maybe I should just introduce myself in other section, but there isn’t really much to say, so whatever.

 

I’ve been observing for a while the progress of a few mods here, but never really feel like creating an account up until now. Point is, did you guys saw that KotOR mod (Apeiron) have been shut down? I’m a little concerned that other mods can suffer with this lucasarts politics after studying a little their reasons. Of course their project was very ambitious, but I want to know what you guys think and if this could affect this community as well.

PS: I’ sorry if my English just sucks… I’m form Brazil.

 

Grateful, me.

 

[Circa]

It very well could affect us. It's always been a risk. Mods are not exempt from a cease and desist order. Lucasfilm has the rights to the Star Wars trademarks and copyrights, and can request the removal and cease of usage of their property at any point. A common misconception is that if the property is not being used for profit then it is exempt from this, but that is not the case.

 

I do not think we as a modding community of Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy will be affected though. We are a continuously shrinking community of a game released long ago. No mod is really endangering the potential of any future projects that Lucasfilm has up their sleeve. The reason that projects like Galaxy in Turmoil and Apeiron were shut down was because they gained a huge following and could have potentially taken away future sales of games that Lucasfilm had in development. Galaxy in Turmoil was supposed to be a fan-made Battlefront 3, and was shut down due to DICE's Battlefront reboot on the way at the time. Apeiron is now shut down because Respawn's third person action game is on it's way, and the rumor of Bioware's upcoming Star Wars RPG as well (loose rumors, but still rumors, and this action leads me to believe there is lots of merit to them).

 

People get really pissed when fan-made things get shut down like this, but it's just business. Lucasfilm signed an exclusive contract with EA to make Star Wars video games. Any other third party that tries to do anything outside of that contract, and without permission in general is just asking for legal trouble. It blows my mind that big projects like that don't care, and continue to waste their own time.

 

As a Star Wars fan, it's sad to see fan-made projects put down. But as a copyright holder myself, I can't help but side with Lucasfilm on the whole thing.

[Futuza]

Part of the problem is they flaunted themselves as a new game rather than as merely a MOD for KOTOR, which would remove what little protection they would have from under a KOTOR modding license.

 

As a Star Wars fan, it's sad to see fan-made projects put down. But as a copyright holder myself, I can't help but side with Lucasfilm on the whole thing.

Some of their stuff was BS though, especially the bit about demanding to destroy all the code.  The code has nothing to do with the intellectual property of Star Wars (unless it used clearly violating terms such as "Jedi" or "Star Wars") and could easily be rebranded and worked into a new IP without violating IP, Disney's lawyers went too far with that demand and are not in the right with such claims in my view, especially given that it isn't necessary to protect their property and is a real dick move.

 

In theory, JKHub and JKA modders in general should be protected in most cases provided they follow the original licensing terms provided by the game for modding, but Disney owns the rights now and can change them to whatever they want and I doubt any of us are rich enough (or care enough) to try and fight them in court should they decide that modding any Star Wars game is illegal.

[Circa]

Part of the problem is they flaunted themselves as a new game rather than as merely a MOD for KOTOR, which would remove what little protection they would have from under a KOTOR modding license.

 

Some of their stuff was BS though, especially the bit about demanding to destroy all the code.  The code has nothing to do with the intellectual property of Star Wars (unless it used clearly violating terms such as "Jedi" or "Star Wars") and could easily be rebranded and worked into a new IP without violating IP, Disney's lawyers went too far with that demand and are not in the right with such claims in my view, especially given that it isn't necessary to protect their property and is a real dick move.

 

In theory, JKHub and JKA modders in general should be protected in most cases provided they follow the original licensing terms provided by the game for modding, but Disney owns the rights now and can change them to whatever they want and I doubt any of us are rich enough (or care enough) to try and fight them in court should they decide that modding any Star Wars game is illegal.

Where is this modding license you speak of? I've actually never seen such a thing, though people speak of it a lot.

 

Apeiron actually flaunted themselves as a mod of KOTOR, but is it really a mod when you're using an entirely new engine and assets? It's was basically a new game at that point.

 

Nobody is protected against a C&D though. Technically they can send a C&D for something as trivial as someone painting the Star Wars logo on a bedroom wall.

[RAILBACK]

Hah! A C&D is about all they can do. What are you going to do, sue developers or their parents for money? They don't have any. Take it from a person whos been to court a few times, most judgements are reasonable.

That being said, you should not test the limits of the law. No, I'm not concerned at all about our little diminishing world of JK games @THE HUB. G.L. coined it first: Jedi. The force. Light Saber. Star Wars, etc. He worked & reworked hard for years & years. Amazing creativity.

[the_raven]

As i wrote before, the way i see it, as long as we stick to the original game (actual mods), and don't try selling stuff, we should be fine.

[Futuza]

Where is this modding license you speak of? I've actually never seen such a thing, though people speak of it a lot.

 

Apeiron actually flaunted themselves as a mod of KOTOR, but is it really a mod when you're using an entirely new engine and assets? It's was basically a new game at that point.

 

Nobody is protected against a C&D though. Technically they can send a C&D for something as trivial as someone painting the Star Wars logo on a bedroom wall.

Stuff like this, but looking into it more, looks like KoToR never had anything like that as far as I can tell, so maybe not - I never got into modding KoToR so I'm not an expert on it.

[Langerd]

That is why i left under my mod that i dont want to charge any money from it and it is my tribute to the star wars and jedi academy games. 

Still this wont give me 100% protection from Lucasfilm and Disney to just send me a mail like - stop what you are doing because your aredoing it againts our license. 


It is a shame that project like this are getting blocked. I hate when creators of mods and videos are getting attacked like they are enemies. 
We had a games that we could call games. Now ? We have products. Products that cannot be changed or modified in any way because it is illegal. 

Well we just can hope to make our projects and we wont get these kind of treatment after making a big modification for months or should i say - years.

[the_raven]

It is a shame that project like this are getting blocked. I hate when creators of mods and videos are getting attacked like they are enemies. 

We had a games that we could call games. Now ? We have products. Products that cannot be changed or modified in any way because it is illegal. 

 

Well we just can hope to make our projects and we wont get these kind of treatment after making a big modification for months or should i say - years.

Or we could, you know, return to bootlegging and stuff. Normally it'd be a bad thing, but under these conditions, is there any other choice?