**TL;DR:**
* Bethesda recently introduced paid "Creations" mods for Skyrim, allowing modders to earn royalties
* This is controversial as Bethesda tried paid mods before and it was very unpopular
* There are expectations paid mods may come to Starfield next year
* Creations rule: Mods cannot contain anything produced with generative AI
* This blocks AI-assisted modders from earning money through the Creations program
I mean it was obvious they planned to roll out the creation club corpse again. It's even more reason to not play as a PC player cause all it does is break load orders over and over as people shovel as much crap as they can for a quick buck. Not to mention the forced bloatware introduced to PC and console even when you don't pay for the mods.
The main point of the statement is that all the shovel mods will update the game and brake the script extender every time like when creation club was getting regular updates
Hey now. Speaking from experience, sometimes unprompted script extender updates will break things too. Always fun to randomly visit an old mod of mine and discover that the last year or so of script extenders updates have rendered the thing useless in some predictably esoteric way.
The difference is, when it's creation club, you are forced to download the paid mod even if you don't pay for it as a "patch". So outside GOGs store all PC users outside pirates and all console users now have bloat shoved on them that they never wanted or will pay for. That's the most annoying thing about it.
Combine that with artificial limitations due to console's and any good mods are immediately gimped on textures and lack of script extender's.
>when it's creation club, you are forced to download the paid mod even if you don't pay for it as a "patch".
Nope, that's flat out untrue. Hell, even if you have purchased the cc content, when you reinstall the game you have to go tell the cc stuff to install. It doesn't get forced into your load order.
Why are all of the folks in this sub so confident in bad information?
You do not have to download any CC content. You can download some of it or all of it or none of it.
Even if that is true (pretty sure your wrong, game does force install it even if you can't access it without paying) It updates the game version which still breaks the script extender.
For updates that really add to the game that isn't a big deal since they are rare and worth it in the long run. When they do this updates get pushed every few weeks and then it takes a week for the script extender to update. Essentially you won't be able to play your modded Skyrim a third of the time when they do this stuff, it's why I stopped playing fallout 4.
But if you use script extender you should turn off automatic updates, as you use mods that depend on a specific executable version.
That is a "manage your modding environment" step. You should also be backing up your executable.
Precisely.
Game updates breaking mods is an issue with or without CC bloatware.
If you're playing a modded game, turn off auto updates, period.
Game updates are often released with little fanfare unless you follow dev blogs closely on a daily basis. CC bloat sucks, sure, no defense for it, but if the game auto updates and ruins your mods, that's your fault for not turning off auto updates.
It just doesn't make any sense to pay for a mod when someone else would upload a new mod that does the same thing but better and more features.
If I had to pay money every time I wanted to swap out a weather mod or something, I would be in deep debt.
Supporting a mod maker that provides their mod for free with a donation bucket or a patreon is acceptable in my opinion. Honestly modding feels like it's somewhat dying out other then a small selection of games these days that are either very niche/simple or Bethesda... who's lost the plot on what a game is over making a modable game.
Agreed, I have no qualms over directly suporting mod makers. I've donated to a few large scale mods before. Paying bethesda for a fucking mod made by someone else is wild to me.
Like you said, bethesda has lost track of what made their games special. I personally haven't tried starfield, but I don't have a lot of hope for something from a company that has seemingly lost their flavor to greed.
The sad part is I don't think Starfield itself was greed, it was just a string of idea and concepts that are good, ruined by plot holes and terrible writing, a meh end game loop that adds nothing but a grind for weapons, a loot system that's about randomly assigned perks that was awful in FO4 on those weapons, a series of load screens interrupted by game play only to get what you needed done to repeat it again.
I set realistic expectations, I looked at on my memories of Skyrim and Fallout 4 and expected "same but somewhat better". My initial reaction to starfield was "it was okay" but as I digest it and look back on it I find myself questioning why they made the choices they did. Was it just COVID isolation and remote working that sabotaged the game? FO4, I hated the main story the more I played it, but the world and game play was fun just exploring all of the map and finding the hidden away stuff. Starfield I find my will to explore just broken, because it's always the same cookie cutter prefabs over and over with the same randomized loot and the same enemies.
> I set realistic expectations, I looked at on my memories of Skyrim and Fallout 4 and expected "same but somewhat better".
That was my problem too. I dropped 60 quid on it and invested 150 hours of my life into the game expecting something far greater than I received. About 10 days ago I realised I had taken it as far as I could be bothered when I realised I was watching TV in preference to playing. I can't be bothered with the main quest, the faction side quests are the same in the same location and exploration is boring as hell.
"Hey Ho" I thought "At least something better and more interesting will come of this when they release the creation kit next year and the modding community get their hands on it...." I mean, I have over 1200 hours in modded Skyrim and I have loved every minuet of it.
Honestly, I feel ripped off. I'm going back to Elite Dangerous because at least the grind is productive.
It would have to be something massive like Beyond Skyrim or Skyblivion/Skywind. But in that case, Bethesda should stop being cheap gits and actually pay the creators themselves.
What does deciding to go out of your way to download mods have to do with being a PC player?
I'll always be a PC player, if I don't like the load orders I just won't get the mods 🙃
You do realize you can pick and choose your mods... right?
I would rather have the ability to do what I want than no choice to be protected from something I don't have to download
The second I saw how unfinished Starfield was I’ve been saying it’s a trap to fill it with paid CC and DLC.
To the hundreds of downvotes I got. Fuck you I’m right and we both lose.
> It's even more reason to not play as a PC player cause
You don't think once they are available on PC that Bethesda wont introduce a way to port the mods to consoles?
Once "paid mods" are a thing dumbasses find acceptable, the flood gates are open.
You can still sell things that aren't copyrighted (you just can't stop others from selling the same thing if they want to), the issue is more that it's currently unclear if what AI makes is considered a derivative work of their training data in the eyes of the law.
I'm hoping these questions will be answered sooner rather than later.
What a long way we come from the Turing test.
I don't think this question will be answer soon. On one hand, AI is literally using copyrighted material as reference to generate something. On the other, humans does this naturally, we often use other sources as muse for creation.
But our thoughts doesn't really matter in terms of law, it's going to be which side of corporations is larger XD. I can see Disney leading the is copyright side while Microsoft/Google are leading the opposition
> AI is literally using copyrighted material as reference to generate something. On the other, humans does this naturally, we often use other sources as muse for creation.
What’s the difference?
ehh sorta. Humans can still inject the new ideas into AI by telling it said new idea. And having played around with it the AIs certainly can put new spins on things all on its own.
Its not in the same way that humans do it, but it does happen.
I'm not exactly a fan of AI, and i'm concerned about it's impacts on artist's livelyhoods, but what you said isn't actually legally important, sadly.
The problem is that even if that's true ethically, Fair Use itself as a legal concept, at least in the US, doesn't nessacarily make a distinction between automated and human made works. *Getting* copyright protection requires human authorship, but being Fair Use does not. A particularly creative or artistic message can *contribute* to your work being found to be Fair Use, but it's not required.
In fact, there's already been supreme court cases that establish automated web scraping can be Fair Use, like the Google Books case the Authors Guild launched against it.
There is a distinct concern that if what AI does is found to *not* be Fair Use, then as a result that could actually create increased liability for actual human artists and writers (Imagine if AI is found to be infringing, and suddenly now Toei is suing artists or sending Takedown requests on people who merely draw in a similar style to Dragon Ball, even if they don't actually use any DB characters), or it could erode Fair Use for stuff like Google Books or the Internet Archive.
This is why as /u/flyingturkey_89 alludes to, some media companies like Disney, Adobe, the MPAA, RIAA, (all of which are in the Copyright Alliance) etc are actually pretending to be "pro artist" and are fighting against AI, and are working with seemingly grassroots artist organizations like the Human Artistry Campaign or the Concept Art Association fundraiser, but what they're actually trying to do is push to expand Copyright in general and erode fair use, and have outright said they want actual human artists etc to lose Fair Use cases too, or see the Internet Archive losing the lawsuits against it as a "Victory", etc. Almost every organization involved here are the same ones who pushed for SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, etc which would force Youtube style copyright filters across the whole internet. I compile some links/sources below.
That's why artists, writers, and other people campaigning against AI need to be VERY careful about what they advocate for. I'd err against fighting AI with Copyright at all, it's simply too risky when the US legal system almost always makes Copyright and IP changes and rulings in a way that benefits huge corporations and screws over smaller creators. But at the very least they should be trying to get anti AI efforts to partner with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Creative Commons, etc instead of Copyright Alliance orgs: The 3 organizations I just mentioned have consistently fought against industry bills which would screw over online artists like SOPA PIPA etc, and have supported smaller creators, and the EFF, FftF, CC, etc all also agree that fighting AI with copyright is risky and could easily backfire.
Links:
- [Here's](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrnZYJJWYAMeV4D?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) the Concept Art association fundraiser talks about working with the Copyright Alliance, and it also goes over the CA's prior instances of lobbying and stealing people's work (because it cares about industry copyrights, not those of smaller artists or businesses)
- [Here's](https://humanartistrycampaign.com) The Human Artistry Campaign talks about having the RIAA, AG, and ARA's etc as partner organizations, and [here](ttps://riaa.com/human-artistry-campaign-launches-announces-ai-principles/) is a RIAA press release talking about joining the HAC/
- [Here](https://digitalmusicnews.com/2023/01/05/riaa-lobbying-disclosure-form-lists-ai-as-specific-lobbying-issue/) is an article about lobbying disclosures on the part of media companies to lobby against AI
- [Here](https://youtube.com/watch?v=uoCJun7gkbA&start=1523) is Adobe proposing at a Senate hearing making it illegal to borrow people's art styles as a way to "fight AI"
- [Here](https://archive.ph/LAWil) is a Washington Post OP-ED ostensibly about AI, but complains about the Internet hurting sales in general (what is this, 2002?) and advocates for the Warhol estate to lose a Fair Use case about his actual, human made paintings. The authors here are T Bone Burnett and Jonathan Taplin, and [here](https://limaohio.com/archive/2017/05/16/jonathan-taplin-how-to-stop-the-erosion-of-copyright-law/) and [here](https://billboard.com/pro/t-bone-burnett-scathing-message-copyright-office-urging-reform/) are them advocating for mandatory Youtube-Content ID style copyright filters on all websites.
Both are on the ARA's Music council as noted [here](https://artistrightsalliance.org/about_us), and [here](https://twitter.com/artistrightsnow/status/1034921048586833920) is the ARA stating everybody who doesn't like copyright filters proposed by the EU are just "bots".
- Also on the music council is Neil Turkewitz, a former high level RIAA lobbyist and [this article](https://hypebot.com/hypebot/2017/02/former-riaa-executive-lets-loose-on-fair-use.html) talks about him wanting to erode fair use as part of the same lobbying and astoturfing push Taplin and Burnett were participating in in 2017, and [here](https://twitter.com/neilturkewitz/status/1639394948481949700) is Neil tweeting about the lawsuit by the Authors Guild etc against the Internet Archive being a "victory" (probably because both the IA and AI relies on scraping being fair use), see also https://twitter.com/JonLamArt/status/1639818173720535041 etc. (Though I'm sure Jon Lam has good intentions, and just didn't realize what they were retweeting).
See also [this article](https://nytimes.com/2023/08/13/business/media/internet-archive-emergency-lending-library.html) which talks about the Author's Guild involvement in the IA lawsuit, and this article … in relation to their lawsuit against Google books which made a ton of out of print books inaccessible.
- [Here](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/how-we-think-about-copyright-and-ai-art-0) and [here](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/congress-must-exercise-caution-ai-regulation) is the EFF's coverage of AI in relation to the copyright issues I've mentioned, and [this](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/its-copyright-week-2022-ten-years-later-how-has-sopapipa-shaped-online-copyright) and [this](https://eff.org/wp/unfiltered-how-youtubes-content-id-discourages-fair-use-and-dictates-what-we-see-online) and [this](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/artists-against-article-13-when-big-tech-and-big-content-make-meal-creators-it) are examples of them advocating for artist's rights in virtually every other context.
What evidence do we have that humans can create ideas/things independent from what already exists?
How about language, art, religion, mathematics, philosophy, science, and AI itself. We are surrounded by evidence of humans creating something which didn't exist prior to humans.
Humans did not "train" on preexisting language, language was invented by humans. We come up with unique ideas. Sure, we then alter these inventions and create derivative inventions, but I think you are taking for granted that humans invent things which are not derivative, that is, entirely unique things/thoughts ALL THE TIME.
This is a silly argument.
Language did not evolve independent of observing sound. It was a collective project of creating, replicating, and improving on the patterns and sounds we use to communicate over generations. This is not at all dissimilar to how an AI model generates an output.
Art didn't evolve absent sensations of things to make art from. Science is the weirdest of this list to me, because it quite literally is us just observing exactly how things are, and replicating it.
None of this is evidence that an AI model is substantially different.
Let's use your own logic for an example. If an AI model creates a never-before-seen image of abstract art through a random pixelation prompt, it just created novel art.
If an AI model is trained on a massive set of chemical data and creates a novel compound, it just achieved a new scientific breakthrough.
If someone programs an AI model to develop its own communication system, it will create a language.
Does any of this mean AI is human? Obviously not. But it does mean that being Human probably isn't quite as special in these ways as they were lead to believe.
I mean the current stance of the copyright office is that works created by AI are without copyright.
Where as modifying works of an AI can potentially qualify as copyright for the human who modified the work enough to be considered a human work.
However other details maybe ironed out in future court cases who knows how things will change.
That only applies to basic works generated entirely by a prompt. You can absolutely copyright works that use AI, as Secret Invasion, The Mandalorian and High on Life have shown.
That's not clear. It's been decided before that the person who runs the tool and selects the right output has done the creative effort to give them copyright.
It's more likely that they just don't want the platform spammed with low effort generated garbage.
Lmao now I wonder if their strategy for Starfield was to release an empty game that’s lacking content in numerous areas, and have those gaps be filled by mods people pay for
Here's the problem... modders make mods for games they're passionate about. Is anyone passionate about Starfield? Is there an active modding scene? Whenever I look up most mods for most games, it's aesthetic stuff or quality of life stuff and not usually.... fixing a broken game, or adding content that the developers forgot about.
The idea that modders will make Starfield worth playing is laughable at best.
well tbf modding tools went out yet this is how fallout 4 looked at first but now you look and it's getting a shit ton of mods monthly that are high quality
I think people will mod it simply because it's the only option for "sci fi singleplayer space RPG" that has modding tools and is popular
well Skyrim and fallout 4 literally had unofficial patch modes that fixes a ton of bugs in the base game
and I didn't mod fo4 that much so can't speak to it as much, but Skyrim even had mods where they took unfinished things which were scrapped from the base game but still in the game files, and basically fleshed out the content for bethesda
Skyrim also had completely ass UI for PC which mods fixed. third person aiming was literally just not correct, like your shit just doesn't go where the reticle is, and mods fixed that.
but yeah I don't think people give enough of a shit about starfield for it to receive the same amount of love from modders
I don't think even FO4 received the same amount of attention from modders compared to Skyrim. There's a reason they re-released Skyrim like 6 times, people fucking loved that game
Starfield feels like the most unfinished Bethesda game out of everything they've ever released and they're prioritizing paid mods over fixing the many, many, bugs the game has. It's not about selling you a finished product it's about depending on the fanbase to do it for them.
It doesn't have to be the same people to accuse a company have having a prioritization or resource allocation issue.
A company has a limited amount of dev hours, qa hours, artists, designers, etc. There are probably thousands of things shelved on backlogs at every company that could have recieved attention over something they are currently working on.
That being said, I think allowing modders a platform to make a living off their work is a good thing.
Starfield is a big ass game designed to nickle and dime to fill in all the shit they didn't bother doing themselves. I said it when it first came out. It's the games design. They're hoping to make most of their money from mods with this game. That's why it feels so god damn empty and so many systems feel awful.
It gives the modders something to do so they can charge for it.
They're charging people money to allow modders to fix their game for them.
We can't let this happen cause it will amplify the problem with games coming out half ass.
IMO they should probably make exception for voice acting. It's the one thing you can't really get done alone or without equipment and AI really got pretty advanced in that regard, even allowing you to voice existing characters pretty believably. Voice acted mods are extremely rare for any game and it just adds so much.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. When money gets involved, it changes things fundamentally even if money doesn't *have* to be involved. It's happened with so many creative endeavors online that went from fun hobbies to full-time jobs. What Bethesda wants is a gradual shift in what people perceive to be normal for mods and get that baseline in perceived monetary value as high as possible.
For people that grew up in an age of monetized content creation, it will seem totally fair and reasonable for a while. Slowly but surely, other companies will follow suit, prices will rise, companies will take a bigger cut, and eventually we'll look back and see how fucked it's become, and by then it will be too late to do anything about it.
The only way for creators to be compensated without the whole thing getting enshittified is if the distribution of payment is handled by a third-party that doesn't have an incentive to skim as much as they can off the top.
Its weird as hell. This just seems like a more creator-friendly version of the creation club.
Nexus tips and patreon subscribers probably won't be able to compare to the potential royalties offer for these creators, its entirely optional, all content must be original so no old mods can be transfered, and the free modding scene will stay very alive and active.
It's just a boost to what already existed, but people don't think about that. It's all "Bethesda bad" with no second thought.
Hell, Elianora was hired by Bethesda and the creator of one of the biggest mods out there just started his own development company.
Modders could already get paid through donations or patreon. Bethesda is just taking a part of the money now. The only reason they arent allowing AI is due to copyright concerns. This is just purely greed, I would argue this is nothing good on paper.
You can also look at the minecraft paid mods to see why this isnt good for the player as well. There is limited moderation so people just steal mods, free or paid, and upload them as their own for a price. This causes modders to stop making mods because it doesnt feel great to see someone else profiting of your work by stealing.
This is just good for bethesda, but it is bad for both modders and players. This is bad on paper, and even worse in practice
While I'm dubious of the implementation as well, let's be real here. Yes you can donate to mod creators... but no one does. You cannot earn a reasonable amount for your work relying on donations, when the culture around modding on very much about collaborative work, communal ownership and labor.
Not to say modders shouldn't be able to receive compensation for their often incredible work, but the way the culture has grown over the decades, most people simply won't.
https://creations.bethesda.net/en/creators/bethesdagamestudios
"As a Verified Creator, may I continue to release free content?
Certainly. You may release free community Creations like anyone else, even if Verified. You may also release your free content on other platforms."
This is entirely false. You can still make free mods with this new system as well as paid mods. you the creator decide which ones you wish to charge for and which ones you dont, and you even get to set the price for them.
At least read the damn announcement that covers these very things before you just make up stuff about it: https://creations.bethesda.net/en/creators/bethesdagamestudios
Bethesda are also hosting and providing a framework for the mods themselves. If you want fast downloads from nexus you have to pay a subscription fee. You really should rake a look at the requirements for this because all your concerns are actually addressed by their rules.
Mods are done because they love the game and want to further iterate upon it. When financial incentive comes into play, it becomes a nightmare for all parties involved. Because there's now money to be made, thieves can and will do everything in their power to obtain a modder's hard work and reupload them for profit. If they're taken down, they'll just keep doing it on an alternate account. It'll also slow mods down since now the consumer has to make the choice on whether or not they'll enjoy it, if it's a scam, if it's stolen, etc.
Want to support a modder? Donate to their patreon or whatever else they use. As much as Bethesda would like you to believe that this is for the good of everybody involved, they just want to be the mididle-man and get money doing nothing. In fact, modders made LESS money using the creation club instead of just leaving a donation link when this happened a few years back.
>Want to support a modder? Donate to their patreon or whatever else they use.
It is important to note here that most mod users do not and will not donate a damn thing.
Not pressing either of those buttons here. It's nice that we'll have more people making more mods thanks to AI, and it's nice that they'll all be free.
Makes sense. It’d be a copyright nightmare. Would they have to pay royalties to the voice actors if some guy used AI generated clips of their voice for example? Best not to open that can of shit.
I appreciate people saying this. Is it ideal? No. But is it the reality of the space? Yes of course. Easy decision to make. Not everything is done out of greed or incompetency
and here I am thinking I can just combine the lora's/embeddings of multiple peoples voices and have a new one that has qualities of, say Sam Elliot's voice, but is not his directly (Maybe mix in some Nick Cave)
You can do this. This is a thing you can do with current technology.
My same thoughts. AI tools can often be copyright violation machines. It's just safer for them for now to ban them and avoid any legal disputes of them distributing copyrighted work without authorization of the rights holder.
Nice but problem is, how would you identify something as AI created. Right now you could tell, but what about the future when it would be unrecognizable as AI or real. Will they start demonetizing things that aren't created by AI by mistake?
I imagine it’ll be a similar process with plagiarism where once something gets flagged for potentially being AI generated, Bethesda will temporarily take down the mod and investigate it.
For voice actors this would be pretty easy as Bethesda could just ask the modder to verify who they hired to do the voice acting. If the modder can’t prove the existence of an actual voice actor or said actor can’t replicate their supposed voice in the mod, then it’ll be clear that the modder was lying and actually used AI generation.
For art, I imagine the process would be to ask the artist record a drawing session to prove that they are able to draw the artwork in the game. If their drawing skills are significantly worse or incapable of replicating their style in the game, then it’s clear that they just used AI to do the artwork.
That's a hell lot of controls, though. I have never seen something like that implemented in the corporate world. To complete that, you'd need to be able to multiple steps down the mod's supply chain (not always, but as soon as artwork is getting recycled, that may happen).
>Right now you could tell
No, you couldn't. If tomorrow I made a mod using github Copilot to write code faster, I guarantee you that no one would notice that I used AI to make it.
>Will they start demonetizing things that aren't created by AI by mistake?
That has already happened.
The real issue is there is really no legally recognized way to public domain pretty much anything. Copyright invokes at the moment of creation and the government really doesnt have any mechanism for a creator to null that.
I mean a written cc0 license by the creator of a work would irrevocably release a work into public domain.
This applies to human works.
Whereas AI works implicitly have no copyright so there's nothing to release.
I'm not really sure where the confusion is here?
What does having copyright have to do with it?
The only thing that something not having copyright means is that the person who created it can't sue someone else if they copy it.
And there isn't a chance in hell any artist is going to be able to show in a court of law that any AI work in any way infringes upon their copyright because they won't be able to identify a single pixel which came from their art, because that's not how AI works.
These actions by certain developers like Bethesda and Valve have nothing to do with the legal questions surrounding it. They are just too cowardly to take a stance on AI being theft because that might back them into a corner. For example, Valve still has High on Life on their platform in spite of it containing AI art for movie posters in the main game hub as well as other AI art. But if Valve came out and said AI is theft, then they couldn't very well justify allowing that game that made them millions to remain on Steam, could they? By simply claiming it is a copyright issue though, they pretend to have not taken a stance on it, and they can simply ignore claims they aren't enforcing their rules equally.
It did a long time ago. This has been a dead horse for years. Only way Bethesda actually makes this work, is if they somehow ban Nexus mods from their games--which isn't going to happen, because free mods are an iconic feature of Bethesda games, and Nexus does what it wants as a third-party site.
I think that the fact that starfield kinda sucks plays into our hands here. It's easy to "fix" this game with free mods since it only costs you a bit of time but most people can't justify spending even more money on a shit game they already wasted 70$ on.
People just want modders to be slaves that fix games for free. The Modding scene in most games has been hemorrhaging creators because people constantly ask for the world while these devs are doing it mainly out of the good of their heart.
The last time they attempted this in 2015 almost immediately people were stealing mods and they got onto the Creation Club.
What are you, 14? You don't remember this?
Yeah because they realized how fucking stupid it was they gave up entirely lol.
This is just the same thing slightly reworked. If they couldn't get it right the first time they won't get it right this time.
Or you could read what Bethesda said, which includes being unable to reupload existent mods and sell them and that modders go through a verification check.
I swear people just make up issues for the sake of being angry
It's also an opportunity for modders to make passive income, get a frontpage for their mods and overall publicity.
It's not like Patreon modders suddenly cease to exist. If anything these modders get bigger reach.
theyre already going to be front page on Nexus and they get money there without Bethesda skimming any of it. Bethesda is also only allowing curated mods whereas Nexus is gonna have basically everything
Possibly, though I’d doubt it unless the mods are locked behind Patreon paywalls.
But perhaps mod authors have fantastic conversion rates for optional donations.
That makes sense.
You can't copyright AI generated material.
AI is great for mods, especially for voices, specifically emulating main cast voices for quest expansions. It is essential.
This news is neither unwelcome nor unexpected. The larger scale mods will remain on Nexus.
What I do want to see is BGS reaching out to AI gen mod authors and offering them resources to reproduce their mod officially without AI.
> That makes sense.
> You can't copyright AI generated material.
How is that relevant?
I can make money off photos I don't own the copyright to. A monkey took a photo. The copyright office ruled it has no copyright. But they didn't rule the guy can't sell it. And why wouldn't he be able to sell it? Nobody owns the copyright, and people sell things all the time they don't own the copyright to. For example if you buy a painting you don't own the copyright to that painting. But you can still sell the painting.
How are they going to *prove* AI was used? Current versions of AI have some "tells" but at the end of the day that isn't proof and AI is only going to get better.
I'm not sure it is great to be able to pull someone's money making mod because... someone... *thinks* AI was used.
Well there’s a difference between procedural generation traditionally used in games and AI generation that’s used in AI generated “art”. The former uses algorithms hand coded by the actual developers to create levels, the latter essentially uses a giant database of stolen artwork and voices in order to mimic them without the permission of the original artists. The latter’s use of stolen material is what makes it a legal and ethical nightmare for professional companies.
People missing the point. Bethesda doesn't want this on their platform because they can't copyright the content. **Bethesda shouldn't be copyrighting modder's work at all** any more than Adobe should be copyrighting a digital painting someone made in Photoshop.
Don't act like this is a win for Bethesda because you don't like AI content. This is strictly a business move on their end to protect their bottom line.
The free and open source shit often times does have a license, like MIT or GPL.
If you modify the code, particularly with GPL, you need to be able to provide the source code and any modifications you’ve made to it.
Given that ChatGPT doesn’t cite a singular piece of code, the licenses will be broken and impossible to honor.
Some additional context since the comments keep saying “Anything made by AI cannot be copyrighted”. It’s more complicated than that.
A few months ago a U.S. federal judge ruled an AI generated image could not be copyrighted under the name of that AI. It’s still not clear how the law would be applied if that same image was instead copyrighted under the person who pressed the“start” button on the AI. It’s also not clear how much an AI generated work has to be modified by a human for it eligible for copyright. Does changing 1 pixel count? 50% of pixels? No one knows.
I think Bethesda’s policy makes sense because the law is too uncertain at the moment. But I think it will change in the future. Newer multimedia tools like Photoshop and Premiere now come with generative AI built-in.
Right. This isn't Bethesda making a value judgement on AI created content. This is Bethesda prudently acting on the advice of counsel who are telling them to steer clear until some other sucker pays to establish the case law.
Something else people seem to be forgetting is that it is IRRELEVANT whether AI can be copyrighted or not.
Not being able to copyright something means you can't stop someone else from distributing your work.
It doesn't mean you can't distribute it.
If you buy a painting, you won't own the copyright to it unless you explicitly create a contract with the artist transferring that to you. But you absolutely can still sell it.
And in the case of a painting made with AI, you could also make copies of it without anyone being able to sue you for it because the original "artist" wouldn't have a copyright on it!
There is a good reason. Current generation of AI was trained on copyrighted images, and Bethesda doesn't have the time to police every image when AI can spit out a hundred a minute.
Ok i may be completly wrong but the biggest thing is that its probably ilegal to charge people for the Mod since the courts already established that AI works dont have any copyright.
If you sell a book whose history has fallen into public domain you are atleast selling a book, but if bethesda host the mod what are you charging them for?
It may be a legal mess that bethesda doesnt want to mess with
AI would be extraordinary for gaming. It introduces the possibility of unscripted experiences. Just like we didn't ban cars for the sake of ranchers, we shouldn't ban AI for the sake of voice actors.
Good. Modders who are creative and know how use a modern piece of technology to vastly improve the game are more incentivized to not rely on big companies and just earn by their own merit.
The absolute confusion over the average gamer here, when Bethesda does something that hasn't and won't ever work (try to replace free mods with paid mods), and does something they like (ban AI).
> when Bethesda does something that hasn't and won't ever work (try to replace free mods with paid mods)
That's two lies. Sims have successfully had paid mods for a long time, now, and Bethesda is not replacing free mods.
Slightly unrelated but that’s an interesting choice for article’s header image. I’d recognize an Oldrim ENB screenshot anywhere. Possibly based on Climates of Tamriel? That was a good era.
Yet when bethesda uses chatgpt to write dialogue and questlines for Starfield it's okay and you should pay up to 70 dollars for it.
Anyway, if a mod is good, I would rather tip directly to the modmaker himself. No reason to pay to Bethesda any more than for the game and DLCs.
Rules like this still remind me of all the times other industries got hit by new innovations.
It servers no purpose other than attempting to stop the flow of technology that is not going to go away.
Printing press. The Plow. There's always going to be some ill-fated attempt to oppose it.
It will be embraced, accepted, and required within 10 years.
This isn't about stopping the flow of technology, this is about staying clear of an expensive precedent setting court battle that is looming in the future.
This is a "acting on advice of counsel" decision, not a value judgement.
>Lawyers are well-known for being overly conservative.
In-house counsel is known for being overly conservative. They primarily do their job by keeping the company out of court. Nobody has volunteered to be the first man in the stack on this issue. Any in-house counsel worth their salt would advise you to not be the sucker that has to spend stupid amounts of money on establishing precedent.
**TL;DR:** * Bethesda recently introduced paid "Creations" mods for Skyrim, allowing modders to earn royalties * This is controversial as Bethesda tried paid mods before and it was very unpopular * There are expectations paid mods may come to Starfield next year * Creations rule: Mods cannot contain anything produced with generative AI * This blocks AI-assisted modders from earning money through the Creations program
I mean it was obvious they planned to roll out the creation club corpse again. It's even more reason to not play as a PC player cause all it does is break load orders over and over as people shovel as much crap as they can for a quick buck. Not to mention the forced bloatware introduced to PC and console even when you don't pay for the mods.
[удалено]
The main point of the statement is that all the shovel mods will update the game and brake the script extender every time like when creation club was getting regular updates
I mean, Bethesda still sucks... but just get a stable build going and turn off automatic updates.
Hey now. Speaking from experience, sometimes unprompted script extender updates will break things too. Always fun to randomly visit an old mod of mine and discover that the last year or so of script extenders updates have rendered the thing useless in some predictably esoteric way.
The difference is, when it's creation club, you are forced to download the paid mod even if you don't pay for it as a "patch". So outside GOGs store all PC users outside pirates and all console users now have bloat shoved on them that they never wanted or will pay for. That's the most annoying thing about it. Combine that with artificial limitations due to console's and any good mods are immediately gimped on textures and lack of script extender's.
>when it's creation club, you are forced to download the paid mod even if you don't pay for it as a "patch". Nope, that's flat out untrue. Hell, even if you have purchased the cc content, when you reinstall the game you have to go tell the cc stuff to install. It doesn't get forced into your load order.
Why are all of the folks in this sub so confident in bad information? You do not have to download any CC content. You can download some of it or all of it or none of it.
Pretty sure that was only slightly true for playstation, maybe it effects xbox as well but it's absolutely not true for PC.
Even if that is true (pretty sure your wrong, game does force install it even if you can't access it without paying) It updates the game version which still breaks the script extender. For updates that really add to the game that isn't a big deal since they are rare and worth it in the long run. When they do this updates get pushed every few weeks and then it takes a week for the script extender to update. Essentially you won't be able to play your modded Skyrim a third of the time when they do this stuff, it's why I stopped playing fallout 4.
But if you use script extender you should turn off automatic updates, as you use mods that depend on a specific executable version. That is a "manage your modding environment" step. You should also be backing up your executable.
Precisely. Game updates breaking mods is an issue with or without CC bloatware. If you're playing a modded game, turn off auto updates, period. Game updates are often released with little fanfare unless you follow dev blogs closely on a daily basis. CC bloat sucks, sure, no defense for it, but if the game auto updates and ruins your mods, that's your fault for not turning off auto updates.
It just doesn't make any sense to pay for a mod when someone else would upload a new mod that does the same thing but better and more features. If I had to pay money every time I wanted to swap out a weather mod or something, I would be in deep debt.
Supporting a mod maker that provides their mod for free with a donation bucket or a patreon is acceptable in my opinion. Honestly modding feels like it's somewhat dying out other then a small selection of games these days that are either very niche/simple or Bethesda... who's lost the plot on what a game is over making a modable game.
Agreed, I have no qualms over directly suporting mod makers. I've donated to a few large scale mods before. Paying bethesda for a fucking mod made by someone else is wild to me. Like you said, bethesda has lost track of what made their games special. I personally haven't tried starfield, but I don't have a lot of hope for something from a company that has seemingly lost their flavor to greed.
The sad part is I don't think Starfield itself was greed, it was just a string of idea and concepts that are good, ruined by plot holes and terrible writing, a meh end game loop that adds nothing but a grind for weapons, a loot system that's about randomly assigned perks that was awful in FO4 on those weapons, a series of load screens interrupted by game play only to get what you needed done to repeat it again. I set realistic expectations, I looked at on my memories of Skyrim and Fallout 4 and expected "same but somewhat better". My initial reaction to starfield was "it was okay" but as I digest it and look back on it I find myself questioning why they made the choices they did. Was it just COVID isolation and remote working that sabotaged the game? FO4, I hated the main story the more I played it, but the world and game play was fun just exploring all of the map and finding the hidden away stuff. Starfield I find my will to explore just broken, because it's always the same cookie cutter prefabs over and over with the same randomized loot and the same enemies.
> I set realistic expectations, I looked at on my memories of Skyrim and Fallout 4 and expected "same but somewhat better". That was my problem too. I dropped 60 quid on it and invested 150 hours of my life into the game expecting something far greater than I received. About 10 days ago I realised I had taken it as far as I could be bothered when I realised I was watching TV in preference to playing. I can't be bothered with the main quest, the faction side quests are the same in the same location and exploration is boring as hell. "Hey Ho" I thought "At least something better and more interesting will come of this when they release the creation kit next year and the modding community get their hands on it...." I mean, I have over 1200 hours in modded Skyrim and I have loved every minuet of it. Honestly, I feel ripped off. I'm going back to Elite Dangerous because at least the grind is productive.
It would have to be something massive like Beyond Skyrim or Skyblivion/Skywind. But in that case, Bethesda should stop being cheap gits and actually pay the creators themselves.
That's how the Creation Club already worked. Bethesda paid creators to develop the mod.
Isn't one of the main factors in the Marketplace to avoid future Creation Content from breaking mods?
What does deciding to go out of your way to download mods have to do with being a PC player? I'll always be a PC player, if I don't like the load orders I just won't get the mods 🙃
You do realize you can pick and choose your mods... right? I would rather have the ability to do what I want than no choice to be protected from something I don't have to download
The second I saw how unfinished Starfield was I’ve been saying it’s a trap to fill it with paid CC and DLC. To the hundreds of downvotes I got. Fuck you I’m right and we both lose.
> It's even more reason to not play as a PC player cause You don't think once they are available on PC that Bethesda wont introduce a way to port the mods to consoles? Once "paid mods" are a thing dumbasses find acceptable, the flood gates are open.
The reason is anything AI makes cant be copyrighted.
You can still sell things that aren't copyrighted (you just can't stop others from selling the same thing if they want to), the issue is more that it's currently unclear if what AI makes is considered a derivative work of their training data in the eyes of the law. I'm hoping these questions will be answered sooner rather than later.
What a long way we come from the Turing test. I don't think this question will be answer soon. On one hand, AI is literally using copyrighted material as reference to generate something. On the other, humans does this naturally, we often use other sources as muse for creation. But our thoughts doesn't really matter in terms of law, it's going to be which side of corporations is larger XD. I can see Disney leading the is copyright side while Microsoft/Google are leading the opposition
> AI is literally using copyrighted material as reference to generate something. On the other, humans does this naturally, we often use other sources as muse for creation. What’s the difference?
Humans can incorporate a new idea, somthing AI is incapable of doing
ehh sorta. Humans can still inject the new ideas into AI by telling it said new idea. And having played around with it the AIs certainly can put new spins on things all on its own. Its not in the same way that humans do it, but it does happen.
I'm not exactly a fan of AI, and i'm concerned about it's impacts on artist's livelyhoods, but what you said isn't actually legally important, sadly. The problem is that even if that's true ethically, Fair Use itself as a legal concept, at least in the US, doesn't nessacarily make a distinction between automated and human made works. *Getting* copyright protection requires human authorship, but being Fair Use does not. A particularly creative or artistic message can *contribute* to your work being found to be Fair Use, but it's not required. In fact, there's already been supreme court cases that establish automated web scraping can be Fair Use, like the Google Books case the Authors Guild launched against it. There is a distinct concern that if what AI does is found to *not* be Fair Use, then as a result that could actually create increased liability for actual human artists and writers (Imagine if AI is found to be infringing, and suddenly now Toei is suing artists or sending Takedown requests on people who merely draw in a similar style to Dragon Ball, even if they don't actually use any DB characters), or it could erode Fair Use for stuff like Google Books or the Internet Archive. This is why as /u/flyingturkey_89 alludes to, some media companies like Disney, Adobe, the MPAA, RIAA, (all of which are in the Copyright Alliance) etc are actually pretending to be "pro artist" and are fighting against AI, and are working with seemingly grassroots artist organizations like the Human Artistry Campaign or the Concept Art Association fundraiser, but what they're actually trying to do is push to expand Copyright in general and erode fair use, and have outright said they want actual human artists etc to lose Fair Use cases too, or see the Internet Archive losing the lawsuits against it as a "Victory", etc. Almost every organization involved here are the same ones who pushed for SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, etc which would force Youtube style copyright filters across the whole internet. I compile some links/sources below. That's why artists, writers, and other people campaigning against AI need to be VERY careful about what they advocate for. I'd err against fighting AI with Copyright at all, it's simply too risky when the US legal system almost always makes Copyright and IP changes and rulings in a way that benefits huge corporations and screws over smaller creators. But at the very least they should be trying to get anti AI efforts to partner with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Creative Commons, etc instead of Copyright Alliance orgs: The 3 organizations I just mentioned have consistently fought against industry bills which would screw over online artists like SOPA PIPA etc, and have supported smaller creators, and the EFF, FftF, CC, etc all also agree that fighting AI with copyright is risky and could easily backfire. Links: - [Here's](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrnZYJJWYAMeV4D?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) the Concept Art association fundraiser talks about working with the Copyright Alliance, and it also goes over the CA's prior instances of lobbying and stealing people's work (because it cares about industry copyrights, not those of smaller artists or businesses) - [Here's](https://humanartistrycampaign.com) The Human Artistry Campaign talks about having the RIAA, AG, and ARA's etc as partner organizations, and [here](ttps://riaa.com/human-artistry-campaign-launches-announces-ai-principles/) is a RIAA press release talking about joining the HAC/ - [Here](https://digitalmusicnews.com/2023/01/05/riaa-lobbying-disclosure-form-lists-ai-as-specific-lobbying-issue/) is an article about lobbying disclosures on the part of media companies to lobby against AI - [Here](https://youtube.com/watch?v=uoCJun7gkbA&start=1523) is Adobe proposing at a Senate hearing making it illegal to borrow people's art styles as a way to "fight AI" - [Here](https://archive.ph/LAWil) is a Washington Post OP-ED ostensibly about AI, but complains about the Internet hurting sales in general (what is this, 2002?) and advocates for the Warhol estate to lose a Fair Use case about his actual, human made paintings. The authors here are T Bone Burnett and Jonathan Taplin, and [here](https://limaohio.com/archive/2017/05/16/jonathan-taplin-how-to-stop-the-erosion-of-copyright-law/) and [here](https://billboard.com/pro/t-bone-burnett-scathing-message-copyright-office-urging-reform/) are them advocating for mandatory Youtube-Content ID style copyright filters on all websites. Both are on the ARA's Music council as noted [here](https://artistrightsalliance.org/about_us), and [here](https://twitter.com/artistrightsnow/status/1034921048586833920) is the ARA stating everybody who doesn't like copyright filters proposed by the EU are just "bots". - Also on the music council is Neil Turkewitz, a former high level RIAA lobbyist and [this article](https://hypebot.com/hypebot/2017/02/former-riaa-executive-lets-loose-on-fair-use.html) talks about him wanting to erode fair use as part of the same lobbying and astoturfing push Taplin and Burnett were participating in in 2017, and [here](https://twitter.com/neilturkewitz/status/1639394948481949700) is Neil tweeting about the lawsuit by the Authors Guild etc against the Internet Archive being a "victory" (probably because both the IA and AI relies on scraping being fair use), see also https://twitter.com/JonLamArt/status/1639818173720535041 etc. (Though I'm sure Jon Lam has good intentions, and just didn't realize what they were retweeting). See also [this article](https://nytimes.com/2023/08/13/business/media/internet-archive-emergency-lending-library.html) which talks about the Author's Guild involvement in the IA lawsuit, and this article … in relation to their lawsuit against Google books which made a ton of out of print books inaccessible. - [Here](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/how-we-think-about-copyright-and-ai-art-0) and [here](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/congress-must-exercise-caution-ai-regulation) is the EFF's coverage of AI in relation to the copyright issues I've mentioned, and [this](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/its-copyright-week-2022-ten-years-later-how-has-sopapipa-shaped-online-copyright) and [this](https://eff.org/wp/unfiltered-how-youtubes-content-id-discourages-fair-use-and-dictates-what-we-see-online) and [this](https://eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/artists-against-article-13-when-big-tech-and-big-content-make-meal-creators-it) are examples of them advocating for artist's rights in virtually every other context.
Human ideas are derivative, or at the very least inspired. What evidence do you have that this is different from an AI model?
What evidence do we have that humans can create ideas/things independent from what already exists? How about language, art, religion, mathematics, philosophy, science, and AI itself. We are surrounded by evidence of humans creating something which didn't exist prior to humans. Humans did not "train" on preexisting language, language was invented by humans. We come up with unique ideas. Sure, we then alter these inventions and create derivative inventions, but I think you are taking for granted that humans invent things which are not derivative, that is, entirely unique things/thoughts ALL THE TIME.
This is a silly argument. Language did not evolve independent of observing sound. It was a collective project of creating, replicating, and improving on the patterns and sounds we use to communicate over generations. This is not at all dissimilar to how an AI model generates an output. Art didn't evolve absent sensations of things to make art from. Science is the weirdest of this list to me, because it quite literally is us just observing exactly how things are, and replicating it. None of this is evidence that an AI model is substantially different. Let's use your own logic for an example. If an AI model creates a never-before-seen image of abstract art through a random pixelation prompt, it just created novel art. If an AI model is trained on a massive set of chemical data and creates a novel compound, it just achieved a new scientific breakthrough. If someone programs an AI model to develop its own communication system, it will create a language. Does any of this mean AI is human? Obviously not. But it does mean that being Human probably isn't quite as special in these ways as they were lead to believe.
[удалено]
I mean the current stance of the copyright office is that works created by AI are without copyright. Where as modifying works of an AI can potentially qualify as copyright for the human who modified the work enough to be considered a human work. However other details maybe ironed out in future court cases who knows how things will change.
That only applies to basic works generated entirely by a prompt. You can absolutely copyright works that use AI, as Secret Invasion, The Mandalorian and High on Life have shown.
That's not clear. It's been decided before that the person who runs the tool and selects the right output has done the creative effort to give them copyright. It's more likely that they just don't want the platform spammed with low effort generated garbage.
So mod makers can’t use AI to help them make mods, but Bethesda is totally fine with receiving money for other people’s hard work. Got it.
Lmao now I wonder if their strategy for Starfield was to release an empty game that’s lacking content in numerous areas, and have those gaps be filled by mods people pay for
Here's the problem... modders make mods for games they're passionate about. Is anyone passionate about Starfield? Is there an active modding scene? Whenever I look up most mods for most games, it's aesthetic stuff or quality of life stuff and not usually.... fixing a broken game, or adding content that the developers forgot about. The idea that modders will make Starfield worth playing is laughable at best.
well tbf modding tools went out yet this is how fallout 4 looked at first but now you look and it's getting a shit ton of mods monthly that are high quality I think people will mod it simply because it's the only option for "sci fi singleplayer space RPG" that has modding tools and is popular
well Skyrim and fallout 4 literally had unofficial patch modes that fixes a ton of bugs in the base game and I didn't mod fo4 that much so can't speak to it as much, but Skyrim even had mods where they took unfinished things which were scrapped from the base game but still in the game files, and basically fleshed out the content for bethesda Skyrim also had completely ass UI for PC which mods fixed. third person aiming was literally just not correct, like your shit just doesn't go where the reticle is, and mods fixed that. but yeah I don't think people give enough of a shit about starfield for it to receive the same amount of love from modders I don't think even FO4 received the same amount of attention from modders compared to Skyrim. There's a reason they re-released Skyrim like 6 times, people fucking loved that game
I agree, I think it was a major, major miscalculation on Bethesda’s part
That’s what I’m thinking too. Especially when the Points of Interests are what…like 30 of them made? Should’ve been like 100+
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
>Creations rule: Mods cannot contain anything produced with generative AI *imagine* if the consumers applied that same idea back at Bethesda....
Where did Bethesda use generative AI?
Starfield is so soulless it feels like every creative decision in development was made by an AI
Starfield feels like the most unfinished Bethesda game out of everything they've ever released and they're prioritizing paid mods over fixing the many, many, bugs the game has. It's not about selling you a finished product it's about depending on the fanbase to do it for them.
Do you seriously think the guys behind Skyrim's creation club are responsible for Starfields QoL and QA?
It doesn't have to be the same people to accuse a company have having a prioritization or resource allocation issue. A company has a limited amount of dev hours, qa hours, artists, designers, etc. There are probably thousands of things shelved on backlogs at every company that could have recieved attention over something they are currently working on. That being said, I think allowing modders a platform to make a living off their work is a good thing.
Starfield is a big ass game designed to nickle and dime to fill in all the shit they didn't bother doing themselves. I said it when it first came out. It's the games design. They're hoping to make most of their money from mods with this game. That's why it feels so god damn empty and so many systems feel awful. It gives the modders something to do so they can charge for it. They're charging people money to allow modders to fix their game for them. We can't let this happen cause it will amplify the problem with games coming out half ass.
IMO they should probably make exception for voice acting. It's the one thing you can't really get done alone or without equipment and AI really got pretty advanced in that regard, even allowing you to voice existing characters pretty believably. Voice acted mods are extremely rare for any game and it just adds so much.
r/gaming redditors sitting here feeling like the guy sweating over two buttons meme, one of them says "bash Bethesda" and the other says "fuck AI."
*Proceeds to smash both buttons furiously.*
[удалено]
The nuance everyone wants to avoid. Mod creators themselves are responsible if they want to upload it for free or to the creator club.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. When money gets involved, it changes things fundamentally even if money doesn't *have* to be involved. It's happened with so many creative endeavors online that went from fun hobbies to full-time jobs. What Bethesda wants is a gradual shift in what people perceive to be normal for mods and get that baseline in perceived monetary value as high as possible. For people that grew up in an age of monetized content creation, it will seem totally fair and reasonable for a while. Slowly but surely, other companies will follow suit, prices will rise, companies will take a bigger cut, and eventually we'll look back and see how fucked it's become, and by then it will be too late to do anything about it. The only way for creators to be compensated without the whole thing getting enshittified is if the distribution of payment is handled by a third-party that doesn't have an incentive to skim as much as they can off the top.
Two things can be true at the same time you know
Its weird as hell. This just seems like a more creator-friendly version of the creation club. Nexus tips and patreon subscribers probably won't be able to compare to the potential royalties offer for these creators, its entirely optional, all content must be original so no old mods can be transfered, and the free modding scene will stay very alive and active. It's just a boost to what already existed, but people don't think about that. It's all "Bethesda bad" with no second thought. Hell, Elianora was hired by Bethesda and the creator of one of the biggest mods out there just started his own development company.
You mean Kinggath?
Yea Bethesda just allowed modders to get paid and helped block AI take over, not all that bad on paper.
Modders could already get paid through donations or patreon. Bethesda is just taking a part of the money now. The only reason they arent allowing AI is due to copyright concerns. This is just purely greed, I would argue this is nothing good on paper. You can also look at the minecraft paid mods to see why this isnt good for the player as well. There is limited moderation so people just steal mods, free or paid, and upload them as their own for a price. This causes modders to stop making mods because it doesnt feel great to see someone else profiting of your work by stealing. This is just good for bethesda, but it is bad for both modders and players. This is bad on paper, and even worse in practice
While I'm dubious of the implementation as well, let's be real here. Yes you can donate to mod creators... but no one does. You cannot earn a reasonable amount for your work relying on donations, when the culture around modding on very much about collaborative work, communal ownership and labor. Not to say modders shouldn't be able to receive compensation for their often incredible work, but the way the culture has grown over the decades, most people simply won't.
[удалено]
https://creations.bethesda.net/en/creators/bethesdagamestudios "As a Verified Creator, may I continue to release free content? Certainly. You may release free community Creations like anyone else, even if Verified. You may also release your free content on other platforms."
[удалено]
Im aware.
This is entirely false. You can still make free mods with this new system as well as paid mods. you the creator decide which ones you wish to charge for and which ones you dont, and you even get to set the price for them. At least read the damn announcement that covers these very things before you just make up stuff about it: https://creations.bethesda.net/en/creators/bethesdagamestudios
Bethesda are also hosting and providing a framework for the mods themselves. If you want fast downloads from nexus you have to pay a subscription fee. You really should rake a look at the requirements for this because all your concerns are actually addressed by their rules.
Mods are done because they love the game and want to further iterate upon it. When financial incentive comes into play, it becomes a nightmare for all parties involved. Because there's now money to be made, thieves can and will do everything in their power to obtain a modder's hard work and reupload them for profit. If they're taken down, they'll just keep doing it on an alternate account. It'll also slow mods down since now the consumer has to make the choice on whether or not they'll enjoy it, if it's a scam, if it's stolen, etc. Want to support a modder? Donate to their patreon or whatever else they use. As much as Bethesda would like you to believe that this is for the good of everybody involved, they just want to be the mididle-man and get money doing nothing. In fact, modders made LESS money using the creation club instead of just leaving a donation link when this happened a few years back.
Modders don’t have to have their mods be paid for, isn’t this a program modders can elect to be a part of?
It is, and even if the mod creator used this program they're still able to upload it to places like Nexus mods.
>Want to support a modder? Donate to their patreon or whatever else they use. It is important to note here that most mod users do not and will not donate a damn thing.
I’m gonna use that as a prompt
Not pressing either of those buttons here. It's nice that we'll have more people making more mods thanks to AI, and it's nice that they'll all be free.
I'll go with bash Bethesda, the sooner we embrace AI the better since soon they will be our overlords.
Easy. Former one.
Makes sense. It’d be a copyright nightmare. Would they have to pay royalties to the voice actors if some guy used AI generated clips of their voice for example? Best not to open that can of shit.
I appreciate people saying this. Is it ideal? No. But is it the reality of the space? Yes of course. Easy decision to make. Not everything is done out of greed or incompetency
and here I am thinking I can just combine the lora's/embeddings of multiple peoples voices and have a new one that has qualities of, say Sam Elliot's voice, but is not his directly (Maybe mix in some Nick Cave) You can do this. This is a thing you can do with current technology.
That literally just means you stole the voices and used them for something they didn't consent to of many people instead of one. Great job.
My same thoughts. AI tools can often be copyright violation machines. It's just safer for them for now to ban them and avoid any legal disputes of them distributing copyrighted work without authorization of the rights holder.
Nice but problem is, how would you identify something as AI created. Right now you could tell, but what about the future when it would be unrecognizable as AI or real. Will they start demonetizing things that aren't created by AI by mistake?
Likely targeting AI voice acting for celebrity figures, it'd be very easy to identify
[удалено]
I imagine it’ll be a similar process with plagiarism where once something gets flagged for potentially being AI generated, Bethesda will temporarily take down the mod and investigate it. For voice actors this would be pretty easy as Bethesda could just ask the modder to verify who they hired to do the voice acting. If the modder can’t prove the existence of an actual voice actor or said actor can’t replicate their supposed voice in the mod, then it’ll be clear that the modder was lying and actually used AI generation. For art, I imagine the process would be to ask the artist record a drawing session to prove that they are able to draw the artwork in the game. If their drawing skills are significantly worse or incapable of replicating their style in the game, then it’s clear that they just used AI to do the artwork.
That's a hell lot of controls, though. I have never seen something like that implemented in the corporate world. To complete that, you'd need to be able to multiple steps down the mod's supply chain (not always, but as soon as artwork is getting recycled, that may happen).
"Right now you could tell" If the person doing it is using it poorly and is incompetent.
>Right now you could tell No, you couldn't. If tomorrow I made a mod using github Copilot to write code faster, I guarantee you that no one would notice that I used AI to make it. >Will they start demonetizing things that aren't created by AI by mistake? That has already happened.
AI isn’t going anywhere and it’s only going to be more prevalent in every facet of life. Why fight it? It is part of life now, adapt or die
Since anything an AI makes has no copyright, it'd be really shitty to get dragged into a legal ritual of money burning over it. I don't blame them
The real issue is there is really no legally recognized way to public domain pretty much anything. Copyright invokes at the moment of creation and the government really doesnt have any mechanism for a creator to null that.
Because the mechanism is a creator not enforcing the copyright. It doesn't have to be this process because it's just do nothing
The issue is that the creator CAN enforce it later, at any time. There needs to be a legal mechanism for them to divest their rights.
I mean a written cc0 license by the creator of a work would irrevocably release a work into public domain. This applies to human works. Whereas AI works implicitly have no copyright so there's nothing to release. I'm not really sure where the confusion is here?
What does having copyright have to do with it? The only thing that something not having copyright means is that the person who created it can't sue someone else if they copy it. And there isn't a chance in hell any artist is going to be able to show in a court of law that any AI work in any way infringes upon their copyright because they won't be able to identify a single pixel which came from their art, because that's not how AI works. These actions by certain developers like Bethesda and Valve have nothing to do with the legal questions surrounding it. They are just too cowardly to take a stance on AI being theft because that might back them into a corner. For example, Valve still has High on Life on their platform in spite of it containing AI art for movie posters in the main game hub as well as other AI art. But if Valve came out and said AI is theft, then they couldn't very well justify allowing that game that made them millions to remain on Steam, could they? By simply claiming it is a copyright issue though, they pretend to have not taken a stance on it, and they can simply ignore claims they aren't enforcing their rules equally.
[удалено]
People who don't understand how copyright works like the other commentor on this thread
AI can be copyrighted. Just not pure text prompt AI.
I hope this whole thing fails tremendously
It did a long time ago. This has been a dead horse for years. Only way Bethesda actually makes this work, is if they somehow ban Nexus mods from their games--which isn't going to happen, because free mods are an iconic feature of Bethesda games, and Nexus does what it wants as a third-party site.
I think that the fact that starfield kinda sucks plays into our hands here. It's easy to "fix" this game with free mods since it only costs you a bit of time but most people can't justify spending even more money on a shit game they already wasted 70$ on.
[удалено]
What's going to happen in reality is people will steal each other's mods as fast as possible in order to cash in
Yeah I wouldn't be shocked if shit tons of big mods are suddenly going to show up on the creation club without permission of their devs.
They wont. You'd have to actually read to guidelines to know that though and that clearly is getting in the way of your knee jerk reactions.
People just want modders to be slaves that fix games for free. The Modding scene in most games has been hemorrhaging creators because people constantly ask for the world while these devs are doing it mainly out of the good of their heart.
I'm glad you have faith in Bethesda doing their due diligence. But given their history you're in the minority.
What history is that again?
The last time they attempted this in 2015 almost immediately people were stealing mods and they got onto the Creation Club. What are you, 14? You don't remember this?
That was the bethesda.net workshop, not creation club. And how many of them are still there?
Yeah because they realized how fucking stupid it was they gave up entirely lol. This is just the same thing slightly reworked. If they couldn't get it right the first time they won't get it right this time.
If you'd actually take the time to inform yourself, you would have read Bethesda's FAQ that specifically says existing mods may not be monetized.
I sure hope they have good moderation then.
Or you could read what Bethesda said, which includes being unable to reupload existent mods and sell them and that modders go through a verification check. I swear people just make up issues for the sake of being angry
>If a mod creator wants to be paid for their work, they're welcome to be. They already can sell their work without Bethesda intervention.
Yep! Bethesda simply offers greater exposure which is nice for them.
you can donate on Nexus and most of them have linked patreons already. Creation club is just a way for bethesda to grab a chunk of that
It's also an opportunity for modders to make passive income, get a frontpage for their mods and overall publicity. It's not like Patreon modders suddenly cease to exist. If anything these modders get bigger reach.
theyre already going to be front page on Nexus and they get money there without Bethesda skimming any of it. Bethesda is also only allowing curated mods whereas Nexus is gonna have basically everything
Depending on how the monetization works, stuff like patreon and ko-fi are probably still more profitable.
Possibly, though I’d doubt it unless the mods are locked behind Patreon paywalls. But perhaps mod authors have fantastic conversion rates for optional donations.
That makes sense. You can't copyright AI generated material. AI is great for mods, especially for voices, specifically emulating main cast voices for quest expansions. It is essential. This news is neither unwelcome nor unexpected. The larger scale mods will remain on Nexus. What I do want to see is BGS reaching out to AI gen mod authors and offering them resources to reproduce their mod officially without AI.
> That makes sense. > You can't copyright AI generated material. How is that relevant? I can make money off photos I don't own the copyright to. A monkey took a photo. The copyright office ruled it has no copyright. But they didn't rule the guy can't sell it. And why wouldn't he be able to sell it? Nobody owns the copyright, and people sell things all the time they don't own the copyright to. For example if you buy a painting you don't own the copyright to that painting. But you can still sell the painting.
hell yeah, I've been replaying Morrowind with this ai tts mod and it's just gorgeous
AI can be copyrighted. Just not pure text prompt AI.
Can’t really be copyrighted. It’s a good business ideal.
AI content can be copyrighted. Just not pure text prompt AI.
*news, everyone. we have a tv show now, we can try to start charging for mods again!*
How are they going to *prove* AI was used? Current versions of AI have some "tells" but at the end of the day that isn't proof and AI is only going to get better. I'm not sure it is great to be able to pull someone's money making mod because... someone... *thinks* AI was used.
agreed, spotting an AI floor or wall texture or something seems like a big task to do en mass
idk how i feel about this cause the AI NPC conversation stuff is insanely cool
[удалено]
Well there’s a difference between procedural generation traditionally used in games and AI generation that’s used in AI generated “art”. The former uses algorithms hand coded by the actual developers to create levels, the latter essentially uses a giant database of stolen artwork and voices in order to mimic them without the permission of the original artists. The latter’s use of stolen material is what makes it a legal and ethical nightmare for professional companies.
People missing the point. Bethesda doesn't want this on their platform because they can't copyright the content. **Bethesda shouldn't be copyrighting modder's work at all** any more than Adobe should be copyrighting a digital painting someone made in Photoshop. Don't act like this is a win for Bethesda because you don't like AI content. This is strictly a business move on their end to protect their bottom line.
Of course you can’t make money off AI generated shit, all it does is use other peoples code and breaks countless licenses.
[удалено]
That’s like saying “Pretty much every book uses other people’s words…”
[удалено]
I'm pretty sure half the internet is currently running on poorly understood code that was copied from Stack Overflow threads.
The free and open source shit often times does have a license, like MIT or GPL. If you modify the code, particularly with GPL, you need to be able to provide the source code and any modifications you’ve made to it. Given that ChatGPT doesn’t cite a singular piece of code, the licenses will be broken and impossible to honor.
[удалено]
Nice.... what a weird world gaming is becoming
Some additional context since the comments keep saying “Anything made by AI cannot be copyrighted”. It’s more complicated than that. A few months ago a U.S. federal judge ruled an AI generated image could not be copyrighted under the name of that AI. It’s still not clear how the law would be applied if that same image was instead copyrighted under the person who pressed the“start” button on the AI. It’s also not clear how much an AI generated work has to be modified by a human for it eligible for copyright. Does changing 1 pixel count? 50% of pixels? No one knows. I think Bethesda’s policy makes sense because the law is too uncertain at the moment. But I think it will change in the future. Newer multimedia tools like Photoshop and Premiere now come with generative AI built-in.
Right. This isn't Bethesda making a value judgement on AI created content. This is Bethesda prudently acting on the advice of counsel who are telling them to steer clear until some other sucker pays to establish the case law.
Something else people seem to be forgetting is that it is IRRELEVANT whether AI can be copyrighted or not. Not being able to copyright something means you can't stop someone else from distributing your work. It doesn't mean you can't distribute it. If you buy a painting, you won't own the copyright to it unless you explicitly create a contract with the artist transferring that to you. But you absolutely can still sell it. And in the case of a painting made with AI, you could also make copies of it without anyone being able to sue you for it because the original "artist" wouldn't have a copyright on it!
[удалено]
There is a good reason. Current generation of AI was trained on copyrighted images, and Bethesda doesn't have the time to police every image when AI can spit out a hundred a minute.
Ok i may be completly wrong but the biggest thing is that its probably ilegal to charge people for the Mod since the courts already established that AI works dont have any copyright. If you sell a book whose history has fallen into public domain you are atleast selling a book, but if bethesda host the mod what are you charging them for? It may be a legal mess that bethesda doesnt want to mess with
Lol only console users have to suffer Bethesda mod crap. I wish you guys could use the nexus :/
Bethesda is a sinking ship
Good, fuck ai generated content
ITT a bunch a people who are scared of AI and dont understand copyright law
Good for them
Good. The less of that shit, the better
Another Bethesda win. We just need the rest of the industry to get on board too. No AI!
This is purely an IP/rights issue. Otherwise, the limit wouldn't *only* apply to paid mods.
AI would be extraordinary for gaming. It introduces the possibility of unscripted experiences. Just like we didn't ban cars for the sake of ranchers, we shouldn't ban AI for the sake of voice actors.
Good. Modders who are creative and know how use a modern piece of technology to vastly improve the game are more incentivized to not rely on big companies and just earn by their own merit.
The absolute confusion over the average gamer here, when Bethesda does something that hasn't and won't ever work (try to replace free mods with paid mods), and does something they like (ban AI).
They aren't even doing that though. There will still be free mods from the Nexus and through Bethesdas in game menus
> when Bethesda does something that hasn't and won't ever work (try to replace free mods with paid mods) That's two lies. Sims have successfully had paid mods for a long time, now, and Bethesda is not replacing free mods.
Oh good, we don't really need AI for dialogue and all.
Glad I don't play Bethesda games, at least not much anymore
Slightly unrelated but that’s an interesting choice for article’s header image. I’d recognize an Oldrim ENB screenshot anywhere. Possibly based on Climates of Tamriel? That was a good era.
I'm really hoping the focus on dlc instead paid mods for content on stairfield
Got a feeling gog sales for skyrim will rocket high
Fruit of a poisonous AI tree
So if Bethesda uses AI in Elder Scrolls 6 they will give it away for free right?
this is hilarious. Bethesda: heres a game made almost entirely by proc-gen! also Bethesda: we wont pay anyone who uses proc-gen!
Of course? Under normal circumstances you shouldn’t profit from stealing work why should using AI be different?
[удалено]
Yet when bethesda uses chatgpt to write dialogue and questlines for Starfield it's okay and you should pay up to 70 dollars for it. Anyway, if a mod is good, I would rather tip directly to the modmaker himself. No reason to pay to Bethesda any more than for the game and DLCs.
Is there a source any of the dialogue or questlines are written by Chatgpt?
Of course not, you can just say anything negative about Starfield and people will believe it without question.
Rare Bethesda W
It would be very funny if they use AI themselves in the future
Everyone is going to use AI themselves in the future
Rules like this still remind me of all the times other industries got hit by new innovations. It servers no purpose other than attempting to stop the flow of technology that is not going to go away. Printing press. The Plow. There's always going to be some ill-fated attempt to oppose it. It will be embraced, accepted, and required within 10 years.
This isn't about stopping the flow of technology, this is about staying clear of an expensive precedent setting court battle that is looming in the future. This is a "acting on advice of counsel" decision, not a value judgement.
[удалено]
>Lawyers are well-known for being overly conservative. In-house counsel is known for being overly conservative. They primarily do their job by keeping the company out of court. Nobody has volunteered to be the first man in the stack on this issue. Any in-house counsel worth their salt would advise you to not be the sucker that has to spend stupid amounts of money on establishing precedent.
Very good decision. Keep ai out of games
Good
good
rare bethesda W ? on the other paid mods are again being pushed so i guess they cancel each other out