This is taking the whole 'you don't actually own this game' to a whole new level when trying to dictate what mods you can use with it. The digital world needs a major reboot in terms of consumer rights, and this should happen sooner rather than later as companies are increasingly trying to take this into the real world by attaching software to hardware and then seeking to gain both rent and control due to nonexistent state of consumer rights associated with software.
I agree, that do not(should not) have a leg to stand on here.
They might not like the fact, but the dev is selling his software, not theirs. It would be akin to MS sending a take down request to software running on windows.
I wonder how much "strength" the tos really has in this case.
The term "derivative work" covers a lot. For example all fan translations are one and all content stored on movie subtitles sites is by definition illegal. I don't know about those particular VR mods but in general case it is easy to show that game mod is not a standalone work and counts as derivative work, so game developer can limit the distribution however they want.
I think it's more a dependency and less a derivative (there isn't any source code/game objects being distributed via the mod as far as I can tell.)
I would be very interested to see how a court would rule on this, as AFAIK such as Lexmark v. Static Control Components, you can modify products you purchase, but how much weight would the TOS really hold?
But they're not going after people who use the mod. They're going after someone who's profiting off of their IP. Someone else said upthread that CDPR doesn't go after people who make free mods (or donationware) so it's clear they don't have a problem with mods per se.
I'm not saying I agree with their stance, but we're talking about different matters entirely.
Depending on your age the term Game Genie [1] probably brings back some fond memories. If it was before your time, it was a hardware device - a mod, you could attach to video game devices that would enable you to tweak the memory of the game in real time enabling you to do all sorts of things, mostly it was used for stuff like infinite lives or whatever but you could also do neat things like tweak the gravity in games.
The neat thing is that the device was completely unapproved by the device IP owners, most notably - Nintendo. It required the creators to reverse engineer the NES, crack their anti-pirate measures, and then finally enable a nice interface for users to 'hack' games at the end of it. And then for the icing on the cake they then bought copies of every single NES game, 'cracked' them, and published, and sold, books with codes for specific games precisely profiting off players of these games.
Nintendo tried to sue, and lost. They appealed, and lost. The Game Genie wasn't violating Nintendo's IP, they weren't even harming their sales in any way, shape, or fashion - they probably helped them, if anything. And so it was a pretty much open and shut case with all the legal wrangling lasting mere months. And the exact same is true here. As a fun aside this even set the precedent for legally selling games on consoles without the approval of the console IP owner.
The point is that a derivative work has to be a derivative work, not just something that works with your IP. And this just sounds like a mod that hacks in VR capability for dozens of games that don't otherwise support it. I imagine they'll comply simply because going to court against just one of those companies is going to be a lot easier than fighting it, but it's a shame. Mainstream success seems to have turned into a terrible curse for CDPR.
> they weren't even harming their sales in any way, shape, or fashion - they probably helped them, if anything.
I would like an even stronger precedent, to say that even if sales are harmed, it's non-infringing. E.g. a car aftermarket customization that improves performance so that it is equivalent to a more expensive model of the same brand, thus harming profits of that car brand. Or hell, just plain old regular repairs, so one can keep an old car for longer.
We don't owe it to corporations to protect their business models.
How would they prove that he's profiting off their IP when his "mod" doesn't add content or require any particular feature of a base game (the "mod" supports many games) and is actually primarily meant for interoperation with a novel input and display method?
If Valve was the developer of the VR compatibility software, CD Projekt would get crushed in court.
> How would they prove that he's profiting off their IP when his "mod" doesn't add content
Adding a VR mode to the game is definitely adding content. If you mean storywise, okay, I agree with you. Still, he's profiting off it in the fact that you need to pay a monthly fee to access the mod.
Even if he claims he's not, he indeed is profiting off it, because there is no way you can use the mod without paying first.
> If Valve was the developer of the VR compatibility software, CD Projekt would get crushed in court.
The difference is that Valve would have asked for permission first from CDPR if they could sell their software, or even then, work together with CDPR to have the software be implemented natively on the game. Plus, Valve has the same stance on paid mods on Steam, so it's not really a good comparison here.
> I'm not saying I agree with their stance, but we're talking about different matters entirely.
I don't see any difference between a paid or free mod. Were CD Projekt losing out on sales of the VR DLC?
> They're going after someone who's profiting off of their IP.
They are going after someone who is making their IP more valuable. I missed Cyberpunk the first time around due to the initial bad reviews and then not having time after they fixed them.
With Valve coming out with their VR headset I am considering getting one, and looking at VR games, Cyberpunk with the mod was going to be a purchase.
It's their game, it's written in the EULA, which everyone accepts blindly without reading. You have accepted the EULA before playing the game.
This is the same as the Steam Subscriber Agreement saying you CANNOT make paid mods using Valve's IP unless given permission to do so.
There's nothing wrong with CDPR going after someone who thought they'd get away by making an important mod paid-only. It's a totally different story if the $10 fee was optional.
This is taking the whole 'you don't actually own this game' to a whole new level when trying to dictate what mods you can use with it. The digital world needs a major reboot in terms of consumer rights, and this should happen sooner rather than later as companies are increasingly trying to take this into the real world by attaching software to hardware and then seeking to gain both rent and control due to nonexistent state of consumer rights associated with software.