Updated EULA Regarding Porting Content

[eezstreet]

Not sure if anyone noticed, but the Steam version of the game has a new EULA. If you've installed the game prior to the Disney buyout then you have not agreed to this new license by default, since the original EULA does not include a clause for amendments by other entities. Also not sure if this applies to the CD version, my guess is not.

 

Notably, there is a section on "User-Generated Content" which is interesting:

 

User Generated Content

The Disney Services may allow you to communicate, submit, upload or otherwise make available text, images, audio, video, competition entries or other content (“User Generated Content”), which may be accessible and viewable by the public. Access to these features may be subject to age restrictions. You may not submit or upload User Generated Content that is defamatory, harassing, threatening, bigoted, hateful, violent, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, or otherwise offensive or that harms or can reasonably be expected to harm any person or entity, whether or not such material is protected by law.

We do not claim ownership to your User Generated Content; however, you grant us a non-exclusive, sublicensable, irrevocable and royalty-free worldwide license under all copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, privacy and publicity rights and other intellectual property rights to use, reproduce, transmit, print, publish, publicly display, exhibit, distribute, redistribute, copy, index, comment on, modify, adapt, translate, create derivative works based upon, publicly perform, make available and otherwise exploit such User Generated Content, in whole or in part, in all media formats and channels now known or hereafter devised (including in connection with the Disney Services and on third-party sites and platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter), in any number of copies and without limit as to time, manner and frequency of use, without further notice to you, with or without attribution, and without the requirement of permission from or payment to you or any other person or entity.

You represent and warrant that your User Generated Content conforms to these terms and that you own or have the necessary rights and permissions, without the need for payment to any other person or entity, to use and exploit, and to authorize us to use and exploit, your User Generated Content in all manners contemplated by these terms. You agree to indemnify and hold us and our subsidiary and affiliated companies, and each of their respective employees and officers, harmless from any demands, loss, liability, claims or expenses (including attorneys’ fees), made against us by any third party arising out of or in connection with our use and exploitation of your User Generated Content. You also agree not to enforce any moral rights, ancillary rights or similar rights in or to the User Generated Content against us or our licensees, distributors, agents, representatives and other authorized users, and agree to procure the same agreement not to enforce from others who may possess such rights.

To the extent that we authorize you to create, post, upload, distribute, publicly display or publicly perform User Generated Content that requires the use of our copyrighted works, we grant you a non-exclusive license to create a derivative work using our copyrighted works as required for the purpose of creating the materials, provided that such license shall be conditioned upon your assignment to us of all rights in the work you create. If such rights are not assigned to us, your license to create derivative works using our copyrighted works shall be null and void.

We have the right but not the obligation to monitor, screen, post, remove, modify, store and review User Generated Content or communications sent through a Disney Service, at any time and for any reason, including to ensure that the User Generated Content or communication conforms to these terms, without prior notice to you. We are not responsible for, and do not endorse or guarantee, the opinions, views, advice or recommendations posted or sent by users.

There's several key takeaways from this section which differ from the original game's EULA, of which I have bolded:

• User-Generated Content can't be "defamatory, harassing, threatening, bigoted, hateful, violent, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, or otherwise offensive." Of course, this has some room for interpretation - couldn't you argue that all mods for a game such as this are violent?
• Activision's original EULA mentioned that they retain all rights to any "new levels" that you create to Jedi Academy/Jedi Outcast, but this license is a bit more specific - they say they can promote the content or make derivative works, which I think is interesting. The "otherwise exploit" part is a bit scary though, I definitely wouldn't have worded it like that.
• By making your User-Generated Content, it has to be of stuff that you actually own (with a very large exception). Also it says that you can't charge other people for User-Generated Content or for people to help you make User-Generated Content.
• And lastly, there's this clause here, which basically states that you're allowed to port between any Disney Interactive games. It also says that you can create a derivative game from any Disney Interactive game, but that game is also considered a User-Generated Content.

The only problem that I have with this license is basically the exact same issue as the Activision one - what qualifies as a User-Generated Content? How is it defined? That's what I want to know.

[Xycaleth]

• By making your User-Generated Content, it has to be of stuff that you actually own (with a very large exception). Also it says that you can't charge other people for User-Generated Content or for people to help you make User-Generated Content.

This isn't quite correct. From the license:

 

 

You represent and warrant that your User Generated Content conforms to these terms and that you own or have the necessary rights and permissions, without the need for payment to any other person or entity, to use and exploit, and to authorize us to use and exploit, your User Generated Content in all manners contemplated by these terms.

Firstly, the ownership refers to the distribution rights, and not the ownership of the content. Secondly, the payment is referring to the usage and/or exploitation of the content. You can pay someone to create the content, but you cannot charge people to use the content, i.e. it must be freely available. At least, that's my understanding.

[redsaurus]

Is this actually relevant to mods etc. or just stuff submitted to a Disney Service?

[eezstreet]

This isn't quite correct. From the license:

 

 

Firstly, the ownership refers to the distribution rights, and not the ownership of the content. Secondly, the payment is referring to the usage and/or exploitation of the content. You can pay someone to create the content, but you cannot charge people to use the content, i.e. it must be freely available. At least, that's my understanding.

Hmm, the more I look at it, the more it seems there's a double meaning to this phrase:

"you own or have the necessary rights and permissions, without the need for payment to any other person or entity, to use and exploit"

In way one of thinking, it requires that you own/have the rights and you don't need to pay anyone for those rights.

But if you look at the phrase as a whole, it's saying that you are giving people the ability to get that content without payment.

 

Is this actually relevant to mods etc. or just stuff submitted to a Disney Service?

I'm not sure. But if that were the case, this would be talking about a Disney service, which would have its own license and agreement.

Submitting stuff outside of those Disney services is not at all mentioned in this license, so who knows (?)

[Teancum]

And lastly, there's this clause here, which basically states that you're allowed to port between any Disney Interactive games. It also says that you can create a derivative game from any Disney Interactive game, but that game is also considered a User-Generated Content.

I want to let out a HUGE hoo-rah for this one. I really don't care about who owns the rights if Disney Interactive lets us port stuff back and forth. They can own all the rights to my work if I include some of theirs. I'm not in it for the fame anyway. Makes me wonder whether other games have been updated too.

 

When you think about it, it's a really smart clause. It basically is a "you can use our stuff, but then we can use yours" kind of deal, except you relinquish ownership. Which, to be fair, would already apply to 98% of mods out there, since they're Star Wars themed anyway.

[Teancum]

So I checked and pretty much every Star Wars game on Steam has this agreement, so that's good news.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

So...what does this mean exactly? I see everyone is having a great reaction, but I'm a bit in the dark here still.

[Cerez]

When you think about it, it's a really smart clause. It basically is a "you can use our stuff, but then we can use yours" kind of deal, except you relinquish ownership. Which, to be fair, would already apply to 98% of mods out there, since they're Star Wars themed anyway.

Except that in this case, Disney legally takes ownership of what you have created, while in the former case you were using copyrighted IP, but the new work itself was exclusively yours.

 

I agree with @@Teancum that this is the only part of the new agreement that I actually like, and find fair. You can (legally) use our content to create new creative works, but whatever you create will go back to us, since it is content from/for our video game and IP -- that's what it says, basically. Which, for the most part, sounds fair.

 

As for paying someone to create content, I believe @@Xycaleth is right. Disney cannot stop you from paying for other services, only from distributing the content made from/for their IP.

 

What I really don't appreciate is the last clause printed here. 1984, here we come. Screw you, Disney (lawyers). What legal right do you have to monitor and log/track my communications and online activities? I'm a free person, and should be respectfully treated as so. I'm not a slave to a corporation just because I'm using your product, and yes, I do take offence.

 

So...what does this mean exactly? I see everyone is having a great reaction, but I'm a bit in the dark here still.

Not much if you own a pre-Disney copy of the game. If you do buy a new copy, and use it, you will be bound by this agreement, however.

[Teancum]

So...what does this mean exactly? I see everyone is having a great reaction, but I'm a bit in the dark here still.

@@eezstreet broke it down in the first post, so I'll repost what he's written and try to break it down a bit simpler:

 

There's several key takeaways from this section which differ from the original game's EULA, of which I have bolded:

• User-Generated Content can't be "defamatory, harassing, threatening, bigoted, hateful, violent, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, or otherwise offensive." Of course, this has some room for interpretation - couldn't you argue that all mods for a game such as this are violent?
• Activision's original EULA mentioned that they retain all rights to any "new levels" that you create to Jedi Academy/Jedi Outcast, but this license is a bit more specific - they say they can promote the content or make derivative works, which I think is interesting. The "otherwise exploit" part is a bit scary though, I definitely wouldn't have worded it like that.
• By making your User-Generated Content, it has to be of stuff that you actually own (with a very large exception). Also it says that you can't charge other people for User-Generated Content or for people to help you make User-Generated Content.
• And lastly, there's this clause here, which basically states that you're allowed to port between any Disney Interactive games. It also says that you can create a derivative game from any Disney Interactive game, but that game is also considered a User-Generated Content.

• No offensive mods can be made (racist, pornographic, the list goes on)
• Technically Disney Interactive owns the rights to user-made levels, and now they reserve the right to promote them if they want
• You can't charge money for mods, and you need to make your own content (don't steal content from other games)... with the exception of
• We may use any content from games under Disney Interactive (though I'd keep it to Star Wars), but in doing so we give all rights up to Disney as far as ownership goes

[TheWhitePhoenix]

@@eezstreet broke it down in the first post, so I'll repost what he's written and try to break it down a bit simpler:

 

• No offensive mods can be made (racist, pornographic, the list goes on)
• Technically Disney Interactive owns the rights to user-made levels, and now they reserve the right to promote them if they want
• You can't charge money for mods, and you need to make your own content (don't steal content from other games)... with the exception of
• We may use any content from games under Disney Interactive (though I'd keep it to Star Wars), but in doing so we give all rights up to Disney as far as ownership goes

 

Well....*Claps Slowly.* Bravo, Disney. Bravo. That's actually pretty awesome.

[Daedra]

I was hoping this would cover both the WIPs, Teasers & Releases forum and the Requests forum, as I think this is where it is most relevant.

 

I have seen lately that there's been some restrictions lifted on porting from certain Lucasfilm games, including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

 

This would allow for a great many Mods to be completed which have been decaying in the Requests forum for a long time.

 

It may be a good idea to have a pinned list of games that are legal to port from, namely The Force Unleashed from what I have seen so far, in a Thread of the WIPS/Requests forum, or implemented into the JKHub rules.

 

I'm not 100% privy to all of the changes that were made, but I think this could bust open a great number of releases.

[ensiform]

I'm not 100% convinced the changes are actually legal for these ports to run rampant.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

We must be careful. If it's modeling, I'd say add SOME JKA assets such as textures and stuff to the models to make them more of what is known as a "Kitbash" instead of just 100% porting. If it's music, I'm...in a grey area regarding that.

[eezstreet]

Merged thread from Ideas and Issues into this one

 

@, "just port it from X game" is not always the best idea though. Frankly, if I'm being honest, a lot of the kitbashes and frankensteins that have been done lately have been of questionable quality and don't really compare to a hand-crafted model.

[Futuza]

Does this also mean Disney is also free to take mods and incorporate them into their own games (possibly as updates to old games) without needing to even get permission from mod creators? eg: You make a Boba Fett model and they take your model and release it as a DLC.  (Granted I can't see them doing that for this game).

 

Also major lol for that "violent" part.  JKG and Movie Battles II are clearly violating that without any regard.  Guess JKG technically can't support Steam copies anymore...lol.  (As if anyone will pay that any attention).

[eezstreet]

Does this also mean Disney is also free to take mods and incorporate them into their own games (possibly as updates to old games) without needing to even get permission from mod creators? eg: You make a Boba Fett model and they take your model and release it as a DLC. (Granted I can't see them doing that for this game).

 

Also major lol for that "violent" part. JKG and Movie Battles II are clearly violating that without any regard. Guess JKG technically can't support Steam copies anymore...lol. (As if anyone will pay that any attention).

I think they mean ultraviolence a la Hotline Miami where it's almost ludicrous. It wouldn't really be appropriate for a stormtrooper to be bloodily dismembered and have entrails spew out when hit by a flechette gun.

But hey, if someone wanted to make a mod like this and have it feature rampant nudity just to poss Disney off, I'm all for it.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

I think they mean ultraviolence a la Hotline Miami where it's almost ludicrous. It wouldn't really be appropriate for a stormtrooper to be bloodily dismembered and have entrails spew out when hit by a flechette gun.

But hey, if someone wanted to make a mod like this and have it feature rampant nudity just to poss Disney off, I'm all for it.

Didn't know you had a badass dark side, Eez.

[eezstreet]

Didn't know you had a badass dark side, Eez.

Have you not played my first mod (Gunslinger's Academy)? You could literally blow people's heads off with the weapons.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

Have you not played my first mod (Gunslinger's Academy)? You could literally blow people's heads off with the weapons.

Heard about Gunslinger's Academy, but that was YOU that made it!?

[Futuza]

Him and Silverfang ya.

[Teancum]

Merged thread from Ideas and Issues into this one

 

@, "just port it from X game" is not always the best idea though. Frankly, if I'm being honest, a lot of the kitbashes and frankensteins that have been done lately have been of questionable quality and don't really compare to a hand-crafted model.

But on the other hand the number of amazing modelers is low, and each has their own project. The less skillful have a chance to contribute by kitbashing as most people don't have the patience to 'git gud'. Plus the community here is really critical (in a good way) further limiting that patience.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

But on the other hand the number of amazing modelers is low, and each has their own project. The less skillful have a chance to contribute by kitbashing as most people don't have the patience to 'git gud'. Plus the community here is really critical (in a good way) further limiting that patience.

And aren't Kitbashes more in a grey legal area than a ported red area anyways? Sure you can port a model, but if you put parts of a model from JKA onto it, and use textures from JKA on it, it shouldn't be too bad.

[eezstreet]

But on the other hand the number of amazing modelers is low, and each has their own project. The less skillful have a chance to contribute by kitbashing as most people don't have the patience to 'git gud'. Plus the community here is really critical (in a good way) further limiting that patience.

That's very true. However just telling people to have an open season on ported models, or otherwise encouraging the behavior when the results could be a lot better is just...meh. I can accept it if a mod has to use ported materials to finish a feature, but I would consider it an absolute last resort.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

That's very true. However just telling people to have an open season on ported models, or otherwise encouraging the behavior when the results could be a lot better is just...meh. I can accept it if a mod has to use ported materials to finish a feature, but I would consider it an absolute last resort.

Hence why I made the suggestion of using JKA assets and such to finish the models if they were originally ports. Take some of the original limbs off, put some limbs from JKA on in place, put some JK2 or JKA textures on that and then we have a kitbash. I know kitbashes are more of a grey area in the community, but tbh it also helps people become more familiar with modeling and such with blender and other programs so they can get experience so that one day, they can make their own models. Me personally, I don't mind kitbashes and I would rather have them than 100% ported material unless the ported material is ​ONLY used for personal use. But again, that's just me.

[AshuraDX]

I think they mean ultraviolence a la Hotline Miami where it's almost ludicrous. It wouldn't really be appropriate for a stormtrooper to be bloodily dismembered and have entrails spew out when hit by a flechette gun.

But hey, if someone wanted to make a mod like this and have it feature rampant nudity just to poss Disney off, I'm all for it.

So are we gonna do a Pornstar Chainsaw fighting game based at JKA now?