Terms of Use / We probably, in all reality, do need a copyright

Okay, as we've already figured out that we will likely need copyrights to the game itself, as well as all associated nonsense, this is the space to brainstorm the legal permissions for the terms of use/end user agreement (that thing that everybody skips reading upon installation.)

Ideas so far:
1) Modding allowed so long as it is either for personal use or shared for FREE. (Pay content becomes a problem sometimes with moddable games - it annoys the sims community to death, hopefully as we're indie we won't have that problem.)
2) Something about modders who share on our site agreeing to the possibility of having their work included in an update.
3) It's free. Spread this as far as you like, for FREE. Sharing is encouraged.
4) We are not responsible for computer problems caused by a) having a computer incompatible with this (We're going to provide specs, of course) b) downloading unsupported content that messes with your computer or c) any player's individual actions/shared mods that anyone finds offensive.
5) Distributing "mods" that contains any form of software designed to harm anyones computer is not allowed under any cirrcomstances.
6) Copying this game and include yourself in our credits.txt or similar is not allowed. Do not take credit for our work! The exception is with this line, "Distributor(s): [insert your name here]"
7) The authors of the project may change/update the TOU at any time. (Whether or not you will be warned is going to be discussed...)
8 ) You are allowed to make videos and similar media and put it on youtube or similar sites. We will appreciate if you put a link to [Inset forumsite adress/main site adress here etc] but it is not required. We will not take resposibility of you breaking any rule of the respective website your video or media will appear on.
9) Offensive content produced by our program can be removed from our site by our team at any time. Do not publish offensive content on our official sites.

Largeish portions of this can be covered by a Creative Commons License, which may or may not clear up some copyright bits, as I'm pretty certain it's international. Link that scio found.

Have at it, folks. Agreements? Disagreements? Better/more legal terms? Stuff I haven't covered?

I would say that modders would be more than happy that we would be including their ideas in updates. This seems like a great way to show that we listen to the community. No paid mods would also be great. How would we go about getting trademark, copyright etc?

My work must be credited in a credits.txt. A random person is not allowed to distribute this without me being credited for my work. I think that everyone contributing should write this here.

Maybe you should include

5) Distributing "mods" that contains any form of software designed to harm anyones computer is not allowed under any surcomstances (please, i think i wrote it wrong )

6) Copying this game and include yourself in a credits.txt or similar is not allowed. The exception is with this line
"Distributor(s): [insert your name here]"

7) The authors of this project may change the terms of use at ANY time, you are then given 7 weeks to stop breaking a rule if a rule is added and you are breaking it.

[how awesome isn`t this? the 8 and ) appeared as a smiley..] You are allowed to make videos and similar media and put it on youtube or similar sites. We will appreciate if you put a link to [Inset forumsite adress/main site adress here etc] but it is not required. We will not take resposibility of you breaking any rule of the respective website your video or media will appear on.

9) Offensive content produced by our program can be removed by our team at any time. Do not publish offensive content on our official sites without a proper permission from our web administrators and/or moderators.

I dont have a very good grammar, so i think you guys should probably clean up some of my words.

I agree with what you said and it doesn't matter if your spelling and grammar is not the best. I understand you're from Norway (I think). I'll check your welcome thread in a sec.

Posting upwards + spell check. Spelling/grammar check is more or less my job description, so you don't have to worry about it.

You put 5) better than me. I would have said "Re-distributing this with viruses or malware of any description attatched will get your belgium sent to the frigid depths of the 9th circle of the inferno."
6) We're definitely having the credits as read-only. You'd probably have to break the game to get in, but as these people are modders...

Okay, also on 7, how much warning do you guys think is appropriate?

On 8, I added "our site" because if people are sharing third-party, we can spam them all we like, but breaking into their share and getting rid of it is actually illegal in most civilized internets.
9) I didn't understand the "without moderator permission," because we've already reserved the right to erase their messes. If we deem it inappropriate, we axe it. If we think there's some grey area, we either 1) keep it, because it's really not that harmful 2) ask them to share independently.

We're going to need another TOU for site share, which should most likely require account. We can discuss that when we actually have site-share, and 9 and 8 probably go under that. Also, on-site our options for enforcing these rules range from quiet removals, warnings and the like to banned4lyfe. But we're going to have to hash these out when we actually have a site and have nominated our forum nannies sitemods and the like.

right click > properties > read only = uncheck box

Please dont do it that way

... and this is why I don't program.
Okay, so as read-only is a waste of our time, how about having a line for "this mod developed by (insert official attributions here)?"
However, I'm not certain that this should even go with ourcredits package, as no one modding should be re-uploading the entire game plus their mod, just the overrides/mod itself.
Soo, feasable to let them view the credits but never acess them? I'd assume most company games do that, but then, I can't mod.

I think that everyone involved in the game some how should be mentioned in the credits.

Everyone signed up on the site!

A massive idea people: list? and as all out of nothing we have a 2GB credits file

It is illegal in most countries to remove any credits for a copyrighted software.

specialk2121 wrote:

I think that everyone involved in the game some how should be mentioned in the credits.

Everyone signed up on the site!

Well, not everyone here is the most regular, constructive poster (me for example). I mean some people sign up post two things (in a welcome thread) and never show up again. I think everyone willing to be mentioned in the credits should be mentioned. This way, not everyone will get credited if they did nothing.

COncept artists that provided good information well over 3 lines? I dont like 3 liners..nor2 liners for that matter..

Okay. "Programmer credits list" and "Producer credits list," which we will handle just prior to release. Real names are probably useful for that, but don't flood me with them until we actually have a release, as I won't remember. But at the same time, I'm not publishing you lot as your assorted adorable usernames in a legal document, and I'm not sure it would be binding if I did. At this rate, credits need to be calved off this discussion - I'm migrating them now to a new thread, may everyone forgive me.

[/Credits discussion] move it here.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

My ideas:
1) Modding allowed so long as it is either for personal use or shared for FREE. (Pay content becomes a problem sometimes with moddable games - it annoys the sims community to death, hopefully as we're indie we won't have that problem.)

Simple: we have to release under a Creative Commons Share Alike liscence.
2) Something about modders who share on our site agreeing to the possibility of having their work included in an update.

Ok. We do have one guy who is a law student, and he said he could help us out a lot with legality.
3) It's free. Spread this as far as you like, for FREE. Sharing is encouraged.

#1
4) We are not responsible for computer problems caused by a) having a computer incompatible with this (We're going to provide specs, of course) b) downloading unsupported content that messes with your computer or c) any player's individual actions/shared mods that anyone finds offensive.

Simple enough, we can get the wording right by looking at other software.
5) Distributing "mods" that contains any form of software designed to harm anyones computer is not allowed under any surcomstances (please, i think i wrote it wrong )

Circumstances. Yep, we need to do that.
6) Copying this game and include yourself in our credits.txt or similar is not allowed. Do not take credit for our work! The exception is with this line, "Distributor(s): [insert your name here]"

Again, That goes under #1, the ShareAlike says that you MUST acknowledge the original creators.
7) The authors of the project may change/update the TOU at any time. (Whether or not you will be warned is going to be discussed...)

Ok. We really can't warn them, but we shoudl put up any TOU changes on our website frontpage.
8 ) You are allowed to make videos and similar media and put it on youtube or similar sites. We will appreciate if you put a link to [Inset forumsite adress/main site adress here etc] but it is not required. We will not take resposibility of you breaking any rule of the respective website your video or media will appear on.

Not really needed.
9) Offensive content produced by our program can be removed from our site by our team at any time. Do not publish offensive content on our official sites.

Sounds good.
Have at it, folks. Agreements? Disagreements? Better/more legal terms? Stuff I haven't covered?

Sounds pretty good. We will need to add a lot, but most of it is pretty standard legalese, and I think we can find help for it. Again, the creative commons liscence will help us a ton. The one we should use is here.

Calli had to go to class, and forgot to fully correct her copypasta. Willfix.
Ordering was not by importance, but by when the idea was brought up, scio. Everyone have a look at the license and see if they have any thoughts.