Paid Mods

[Googlefluff]

Hello, I've never posted here before but felt it was the appropriate place for this topic. Over on the City Car Driving forums (a little-known Russian game) there's a heated debate going on right now (which I inadvertently started) about paid mods and whether they should be allowed or are even legal. CCD has quite a few paid mods, some being as high as $15 for a single drivable car, which is more than half the cost of the game itself. Has anyone here ever seen paid mods anywhere else and what are your thoughts on the subject in general?

Here are the threads where the proverbial poo is hitting the proverbial fan on this normally very quiet forum:

http://www.citycardriving.com/component ... 7&id=33537
http://www.citycardriving.com/component ... 7&id=33636

[Purno]

It's an interesting development. Well, I guess you can divide modders in two groups; those who mod because they think it's fun to do, and those who mod because they can make profit of it.

Personally, I'm fine with paid mods. Not gonna buy them, but they don't really bother me. (The alternative would probably be that the mods wouldn't be available at all). I do wonder if SCS has a problem with it though, and obviously the car brands being used in those mods. But that's not a matter for me to voice an opinion on.

EDIT: The mod in question does look pretty well-made though. The details on those cars seem pretty good. That's probably a lot of time spent into it (assuming they made the 3D-models themselves).

[ScuL]

This is very common in train and flight simulators. Some mods can cost dozens of dollars sometimes even hundreds.

SCS may open up this opportunity one day by using the Steam Workshop but I don't think that mods will ever be that pricy in this "genre"

[Googlefluff]

EDIT: The mod in question does look pretty well-made though. The details on those cars seem pretty good. That's probably a lot of time spent into it (assuming they made the 3D-models themselves).

That's part of the problem. They didn't make the models themselves, they were from a website that has 3D models you can download, most of which are ripped from other games. Some of these models do cost money however, which is why I'm so torn on the subject of whether they should do it or not.
As for legality, you may have noticed if you read through the threads I linked that I feel a bit (a lot) more strongly on this one. One of the forum members contacted Mercedes-Benz who said outright that is illegal to sell their brand without permission. So basically, they're using models of licensed cars from other games made by people who spent thousands of dollars to license and make said models, then selling it without permission from either the the maker of the model or the company who made the car.
At the end of the day, I don't really care if they keep doing it since, like you, I won't be buying them anyway. I feel like this is the greyest area ever and I still don't know how to feel about it. As for flight simulators, I do actually remember that now that you mention it. The last time I played a flight sim was back in the bad old days of 2010 before I knew how mods worked. Like I said, I'm torn on the subject. I feel like if they made their own models, it would be better, since it would be more of their own work, rather than taking someone else's work and charging people for just putting it in a different game. Don't get me wrong, I know there's still a lot of work that goes into doing that, but most of the work is done by uncredited people who don't get a share in the profits.

[Moh1336]

From a UK legal standpoint if you charge money (or in any way make money from sharing content) the work has to be 100% your own or have written permission from other owners.

If you are releasing anything that contains any one else's work, copyrights, and/or trademarks/logos/brand names without explicit written consent you can be issued with a cease & desist notice or sued. If you are making any money by any means out of such content that contains the above without permission and the companies find out they can sue for damages. Essentially it's no different from a legal standpoint to pirating/sharing music/dvd/games.

So people asking for money for mods, or using paid download links or sponsor ad links, that has someone else's work included without permission (regardless of whether the work is from an individual or corporation) is breaking the law, at least in the UK and USA.