The creator of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod CD Projekt recently hit with a DMCA strike has paused his Patreon page and pulled access to all his mods after receiving another strike from a different publisher.
Looks like the Ghostrunner developers also have an issue with paid mods running off their IP.
There’s a legal aspect where if you don’t defend your intellectual property you may lose it.
You also don’t want to set a precedent because if you let some rando do it, why not let a company do it? Why not let Google do it?
Modding implies toying with someone’s IP, and the basic premise is that you can’t paywall the resulting product. There’s a lot of leeway and you can ask for donations, offer private beta to your patrons etc… it can definitely be cash-flow positive but a straight up paywall is a violation of the social contract that governs the modding scene.
There’s a legal aspect where if you don’t defend your intellectual property you may lose it.
You also don’t want to set a precedent because if you let some rando do it, why not let a company do it? Why not let Google do it?
Modding implies toying with someone’s IP, and the basic premise is that you can’t paywall the resulting product. There’s a lot of leeway and you can ask for donations, offer private beta to your patrons etc… it can definitely be cash-flow positive but a straight up paywall is a violation of the social contract that governs the modding scene.
Another day, another instance of someone confusing copyright with trademarks.