Give Feedback
This is a public announcement to make sure people are aware of the situation and our stance.
In recent months, in some cases years, there have been an increasing amount of people selling and time-gating outfits or releasing special edits (more revealing versions) that make use of the CBBE body mod on sites such as Patreon.
Please note that none of these have our permission to do so as it is and always has been explicitly forbidden in the permission notes of the mod pages:
- Distribution by, or sub-licensing to, parties not expressly given permission is disallowed.
- No file available on this page is to be sold for monetary gain anywhere. Outfits making use of the CBBE body are not to be sold anywhere.
We've already once been in contact with Patreon about it - it's an infringement of copyright law for all parties involved.
Jeir and I (ousnius) were given ownership over CBBE by Caliente some while ago to allow us to work with and redistribute it however we like in the future.
Thank you for having fun with CBBE, BodySlide and Outfit Studio.
It brought us a lot of joy as well and will continue to do so. :)
6 comments
If somebody has an example of person selling clothes please give me an example here or in pm.
Some of them provide the mods themselves, some split up the mods by .esp, meshes and textures and some of them "only" do early access or retextures.
Maybe I just got the wrong guy there, lets check second in list here we go: next person in description mentions pretty much the same thing, but his subscription varies by reward so more you pay more you get. This one looks like selling thing to me. But author mentioned in description of page that he is not selling anything, so maybe these are meant to be reward for people who appreciate his work. This thing may get debatable.
You wrote the rules there, you're the king of these, I have no idea what requirements are needed to get permission for using CBBE body to sell items and I am sure it would be much better if these would get posted somethere. Modding is getting big, people get payed, I find it great. Just an idea of people getting payed for thing they like is amazing, but there are your rules and people got to respect them, aside from CBBE mods I have no idea what person ousnius you're but I advise you to do the right thing in modding sake.
Just like in these games we all here are gathered for, you got to choose and no one knows what consequences are we going to face by the end.
Me? I just don't want to end up paying 30$ for 1 clothes set.
Lets put it into real world terms. I am a tailor. I have a store. I make a bunch of clothing. I do not charge for each piece of clothing, but rather I figure what the cost of my time and materials are and charge people enough money to enter my shop where they can select a piece of clothing I have made that I make a profit. According to you I am not selling clothing but rather my skill at making clothing. Word games aside, while how I charge folks to make a profit may differ from some other shop, the reality is I am selling cloths.
If I am taking other peoples legally protected cloths, materials and patterns, without their permission, and then applying my own creative impulses to them, putting them in my shop and selling them, I am still stealing. However I choose to charge my customers and however much of my own creativity is applied over the original materials.
This has already occurred in real life when Rap singer/songwriters took other peoples music and overlaid their own recordings on top of them. The final product was not the original song but they still got slapped with lawsuits and now they pay the original artists for the right to incorporate/use the original artist's music in their songs, and then only with their permission.
To say they are not selling their songs, but their skill as a songwriter and so are not stealing...well that sounds as ludicrous as saying our fictional tailor is not selling the clothing in his store, but rather his skill to make that clothing.
And however you or I think of it, that is how the legal copywrite system deals with it and that is how Bethesda will deal with it if they see it as an infringement on their profits.
I love modding and I love the folks that work so hard to offer us their remarkable work. First and foremost it is their opinions that matter. If a mod creator says don't use my work in this way, it doesn't matter what that way is. It doesn't matter if that way is legal or not. What matters is that the creator has asked that their work not be used that way. End of story. It is their work and that gives them complete rights as to how it is used.
Sorry for the rant. I would just hate to see Mod Authors stop doing what they do because somebody is trying to make a buck off of their creations.
So this is for people who *gate* their creations (in any fashion; exclusivity or timed release) on Patreon, NOT modders who simply have a Patreon (and do not make any monetary demands regarding their creations). At least, that's my understanding.
What I don't think the people gating their content understand is this could ruin modders earning money on Patreon for everyone, at least if they end up getting Bethesda involved. Bethesda (barring Creation Club) makes it clear that any mod created for their games CAN NOT be monetized. Supporting modders on Patreon that *happen* to make mods is a bit grey area, but most likely safe. Gating your mods, and turNING IT INTO A SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE WILL GET SO MANY PEOPLE IN HOT WATER. (For the record, that is how any decent lawyer would identify Patreon, as you (usually) make monthly payments.
By all means, get money however you can. Modders with money are modders who can continue to pursue their favorite hobby. But please, PLEASE don't accidentally tank the entire donation economy for Bethesda games.
(PSA, I am just some guy on the internet, and you should double check the facts I present if they seem dubious)
Personally, i don´t like the idea of charging mods, when you charge for something you are a pro, so you have to behave like a pro, pro support, pro quality.
And yes, 100% with you on this, don´t thanks bethesda for NOTHING, they are just a greedy company that already tried to kidnap the modding community not once but many times, we already give then money when we buy their buggy games, if someone need a recognition is the heroes like ousnius that make their games playable, in my mod page i always thank ousnius caliente and all the other makers.
Ps: Sorry for any english mistakes, not native language and i wrote in a rush.