Squirrel_killer- Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 So I was sitting around and talking with a friend and we got talking about how legal game modding was. We looked it up and we came to some weird conclusions on the legality of the situation. From what we can tell modding a game is a grey zone. It turns out that if you crack the game to allow someone to play for free, it's illegal. If you are selling the mod for a profit without licensing from the original game developer, it's illegal. If you mod a console (XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, etc.), it's illegal as of yet since you are circumventing copyrights and T&C on the hardware and firmware to do so in all current consoles. This could change if a modding friendly console was released. If you mod a game without some form of permission from the developer, it's illegal. Looking really illegal, eh? Well turns out that it is only illegal under these conditions. If the game developer gives an open license to mod away it is perfectly legal so long as you stay with in their terms. Which makes sense because the Steam store is filled with mod dedicated sections and many companies encourage modding. So what are your guys opinions? Is modding legal? Illegal? Or just a confusing grey area which really needs some proper laws put in place for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartanyanni Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 DAT flame bait. Honestly, it's not a hard conclusion to jump to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torezu Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 This again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squirrel_killer- Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 It is a common topic of debate, and I always find in most forums everyone is so misinformed it turns into a flame war, so I wanted to post some facts and get some opinions here, hoping most people will avoid making a cyber ass of themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torezu Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 Did you happen to do a basic search before posting this? It's been done to death, perhaps not in the very recent past, but certainly not that long ago. Add to that the fact that you will have difficulty finding anyone that will say modding itself is illegal, and will instead find people saying using others' mods without permission is illegal, and your post is starting to look more like flame bait by the minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squirrel_killer- Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 Did you happen to do a basic search before posting this? It's been done to death, perhaps not in the very recent past, but certainly not that long ago. Add to that the fact that you will have difficulty finding anyone that will say modding itself is illegal, and will instead find people saying using others' mods without permission is illegal, and your post is starting to look more like flame bait by the minute. Well that isn't my intent to work as flame bait. However I spent a few hours on this with a friend yesterday, but I honestly can't remember every little detail since after working through British, American, Japanese, Canadian, and French laws on this issue your head gets a little sore. So I condensed what I found above. Mind you this is an excellent form of flame bait for someone who is stupid enough to purposely do so. If you find it an issue that much I'm sure it would take me like 3 seconds to edit the posts away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Maiden Posted March 23, 2013 Moderators Share Posted March 23, 2013 Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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