EULA Prohibits Modding

Ye, but as I said... The difference between Microsoft EULA and Uber's and Mojangs pre-2014 is little. The difference in their legal actions is immense. That is just the reality of it.

At the very least, thank goodness nobody reads these things, loki and the few people who do are the only people scared off by this. Everyone else mutually ignores it.

Uber should look into fixing this when it's number in the priority list comes up, and we are talking their priorities not yours. But really, you are arguing the binding EULA wording, and I am arguing actual legal action taken. Now, I am agreeing the wording matter in what they "could" take action against. But I am asking for you to try my arguement, show me some legal action they have taken against someone that was jerkish on their behalf?

I mean, it is like marijuana law in Colorado and Washington. It is legal by state law now. But, it is still against federal law. So, nobody can use it, such a shame, what a waste. Right? Well, technically, yea, but, its not. Because as far as enforcement and action goes, the federal government doesn't take full and widespread action. It is against their law, but they allow it. They do not prosecute it.

But, nobody is stupid enough to break federal law just because they don't enforce it. Nobody makes large businesses for marijuana production and distribution, because that would risk tons of money on possibility of federal action. Except, they do. Because they want to. Because the money isn't siezed by federal government, unless they actually take action on the law. Which they usually dont. So people jump right on in.

Argue with them that their business are at risk by textual law. They will say it was stupid of them to risk it, sure. Then, they will send you a monthly letter, showing off how they werent siezed this month but made this much profit. Month. After month. After month. Because legally they can't do it. But in actuality they do it, everyone knows it, and physically it is okay, even though some official text somewhere says it isnt.

But, let's be useful about this. You seem to know legal stuff although I may be wrong. I seen Mojang's terms of use. I don't think it is smart for Uber to change it until release, lest they leave themselves open to taking a hit before they can release the game and server and such.

On release is a better time for them to change it.

My question to you is, what would you suggest them word the EULA?

So what Mojang does, is they exclusively deny any single developed file for their game to be distributed, even in a mod pack, because if you installed the game you can retrieve the file from your legally obtained game. Any file player made to interact with the game's function is okay, anything player made to plug into the game's function. So basically, files that change the game, are ok, files that include the game in them, are not ok, anything the player makes and distributes is ok as long as it does not function without the game and contains no files made my Mojang staff.

In fact, grey areas, where mod packs do contain a library file Mojang made, Mojang usually bring it to the modder's attention, and usually do not take action, but they pressure the modder by polite request, to work around it in the future, and recommend ways to avoid it needing it. Recent mods have moved away from using specific libraries, by either scripting it on install to request Minecraft's location and pulling the file on install, or by having the mod look for the file in it's location. Most big minecraft mods that used to use minecraft libraries, slowly update to do this instead, and Mojang appreciates it kindly.

Could Uber word it like this?

While it's true that i never read EULAs, it's also true that according to Austrian (and i think also german and some other european countries law) EULAs presented during installation (e.g. only after Purchase) are not legally binding in any way... (Which incidentally means i read the Steam Subscriber Agreement, as it is the only EULA that i'm aware of that you actually have to accept prior to a purchase)

Good thing about client-server games it's fact that protocol cannot be patented or copyrighted. So it's pretty hard to prove any facts of reverse engineering and affect such projects or developers if source code is written from scratch.

There also is countries around where reverse engineering is legally allowed and EULA mean nothing in this case. After all you can't do anything against open source project and this is why all successful server emulators are open source.

But to be fair I all this licensing issue so unimportant and I doubt devs should even spend time on it.

Let me make this clear. What I've been saying is the EULA should be in line with official Uber policy. On that note; I'm also going to bring up it does not mention monetization of video. Consider this bug checking the EULA. What is most likely to happen if it ever was challenged in court. The court would either read down the provisions that prohibit modding and or monetization of video or remove them in their entirety. These are possibilities and courts do stuff like this all the time. Uber can make changes at their pleasure. I'm just trying to show that there are issues here so that they can be resolved.

I have no formal legal training but I do have the ability to read, critically think, and research. Will it comes to contracts they should be put in in a manner that a non-lawyer understands. Otherwise this should not be enforceable that is my opinion on the matter. A lawyer is not required to write a contract. All you need is coequal parties and it is written in a precise clear manner. If the contract is written in a manner that doesn't make any sense and is too complex to court would a null it. Which is why clarity is important also meeting all statutory requirements as well as caselaw requirements. The legal threshold is very low. Essentially writing an agreement on a piece of paper and then signing it meets the requirements. This EULA is specifically tied to United States of America and the State of Washington jurisdictions. So clicking I agree is legally binding because the supreme court of the United States ruled that is required to make a EULA binding on all parties. Compare that to the province of Ontario, Canada where the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 requires a EULA in order to be valid has to be signed with a digital signature. (Your name typed or marked with X.) I believe this is a higher threshold but not that high and is in line with its paper counterpart. All right tangent over.

Mojang's Minecraft EULA when you read it in its entirety it has the same effect as the current PA EULA but allows modding, monetization of gameplay video, etc. Also does not extinguish "fair dealing" or "fair use" doctrine. Then it goes on to say "but only to the extent that the law says so." It makes it very clear that all use is noncommercial in nature. Through their brand and assets guidelines they make it clear. What you can do with assets and brand. One thing that Minecraft EULA should have you agree to is a community guidelines and conduct.

The PA EULA should be worded in such a manner that it's audience can understand it. e.g. nonlawyers primarily people that play video games. This should be common sense but obviously isn't. They also could add a preamble in order to help with the interpretation of the EULA. (Preambles were non-justice but there are persuasive) The EULA should state that modder maintains copyright over their copyrightable work and gives permission from the modder to everybody else to use as well as modify their work or maintain it if abandoned, etc. If if there is going to be monetization of mods occur that should be covered by a separate agreement. g.e. Mod marketplace - The handful of mod that could be.

Yes Uber could do that because you agreed to it. An least Mojang is being polite about it.

For interested parties a discussion on Mod licensing can be found here.

Oh for the video stuff there is a very easy to understand statement:
http://www.uberent.com/canistreampublishandmonetizevideos/

Generally I think there is little risk that whatever is written in the EULA will matter much. 99.9% of the people will ignore it anway and Uber isn't a company that will go around sueing people I think. They have better things to do

All the more reason for their EULA to allow them sufficient legal action without being overly detailed about modding yet.

When it releases, they should definitely consider wording it more like Mojang, and even wording it technical like but having a prologue that summarizes it in a clear to read paragraph.

Why is this thread still going?!

the point I was trying to get across is the current one does not allow modding.

They should really put that URL into the FAQ. the whole thing about the EULA not being read by the majority of people there for it should be ignored is a red herring. As for Uber not going around enforcing it.

Yes

The EULA didn't scare me off. I haven't done any JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in over four years. At the moment I don't have time to get myself back up to speed. Also I made the decision to mod when the
Modding API is little more stable.

yet it is quite true, even for Uber who seem not to really read their own EULA, as you pointed out

It's also, despite being rated E10+, it apparently follows the same laws written for M rated games

To quote the EULA:
"In no event may the Game be used by an individual age 13 or younger. The Game may be used by an individual older than age 13 but younger than age 18 only with express authorization from that individual's parent or legal guardian."

argumentum ad populum

I do not speak Latin.

It is a type of fallacious argument which roughly translates as appeal to the people. I'm more than willing to change my mind if people have a sensible argument. Not everybody does it so it's okay.

I am not arguing against updating the EULA to be more reasonable, but I don't think it'll ever do any damage if it stays like it is. Has anyone ever read the EULA of FA? I wonder how compatible it is with what FAF does today.

If you read through the thread. You'll find that not just you but many people have been arguing the same thing. Which is nobody reads the EULA so it is fine argument. That is different then it should be made more reasonable. The EULA should permit modding at the moment it doesn't that is a major bug with it. I was just beta testing the EULA because it is a part of the game and governs what we can and cannot do with planetary annihilation.

Dammit! You just made me read FA's EULA. does not permit modding but it allows users underneath applicable law allows. So fair dealing, fair use, or any other limitations and exceptions to applicable law. THQ (now Nordic Games) hasn't enforced it in the past good chance a court we decided against them.

edit: added any other limitations and exceptions to applicable law

I'm not a professional computer programmer or a lawyer but I am a computer science student, a World of Warcraft UI AddOn author, and I've followed a fair number of legal disputes involving computer programs. The bolded parts of "You may not distribute, copy, reverse engineer, derive source code from, modify, disassemble, or decompile the Game or any Game software." as I understand them only apply to the game's binary executables and libraries.

There is no need to copy, reverse engineer, derive source code from, modify, disassemble or decompile any of those to create UI mods for Planetary Annihilation. Mods consist of ordinary text files and images in public formats, and they are installed outside the PA game directory. There is no conflict with the EULA.

You missed the more important part for UI modding:

That's practically all modding. No matter how it works.
Also actually accessing the binary file can be interesting as well and since Uber has no DRM in it, there is nothing that should speak against it.

It is not "practially all modding". Well-designed mod systems do not require mod authors to modify files that the game installs. Planetary Annihilation is itself an example of a game that does not require mod authors to modify game files in any way shape or form in order to write mods. In fact, mod authors are forbidden from doing so both technically and by the EULA, as discussed in this very thread.

Whether or not acessing the binary file can be interesting is irrelevant to this thread, because it's not necessary to write mods.

I am modifing game files all the time to mod the game. Only adding your own files may be technical possible, but it is plain insane to not modify game files for tests or the like. Also mods that shadow whole games files basically DO modify them.

I think it is important what is interesting about modding related stuff, cause from what I understand this thread is purely about the question: What should the EULA officially allow us because we will do it anyway because the whole point of PA is to be moddable?

The whole purpose of this thread is to make sure those legal disputes do not occur by getting the EULA in line with Uber's policies on modding and community practice and precedent. I interpret source code as meaning: Any human readable representation of a computer program. Regardless of it being high-level language, low-level language, graphical representation, assembly, interpreted, compiled to object code, byte code, etc. So that would be JavaScript, HTML, and CSS but is not limited to those. You can see why I'm worried about the wording of the license. Under copyright law everything is restricted in less explicitly granted by the copyright holder either written or otherwise. (copyright is a statutory monopoly right.)

The fact that the mods are outside of the main game directory has no bearing on the license. It specifically defines "the game" as Planetary Annihilation computer game and all related software, documentation, files, and derivative works (mods equals derivative works). As cola_colin pointed out there is definitely a in need to allow copy, distribution, and modification/derive source code from the game. The fact is all of this is common practice in PA's modding community which is in violation of the EULA. (It seems that Uber does not intend to enforce the current one but it's better to be safe than sorry.)

Edit: to clarify