Is modding fair use? (2023)

Is modding fair use?

Fair Use is used to argue that certain infringement is OK because it is, say, educational, satirical, or non-commercial. A mod, free or not, would still involve a modder's use of copyrighted material to create a derivative work, and would most likely be outside of Fair Use's scope.

Modded consoles have been cited as an avenue for video game piracy, both by allowing unauthorized copies to be played, and by circumventing DRM.

Copyright laws

At their core, game mods are derivative works. A modification needs to run on the original work in order for the mod itself to work. As a game modder, you own some limited copyrights in what you created but what you created is likely copyright infringement.

Generally speaking, it is not against the law to mod a game or to cheat in a game. It may be against the rules or policies of a company, and you may get banned (temporarily or permanently), but it's not typically unlawful.

As I said, mods are one of the many different methods of cheating. And within that cheating category, there are many different forms of modding.

Modding is not officially supported, nor can we provide support for mods. Modding can be complex and may cause your game to malfunction or not be playable.

What is the law in the United States? In the U.S., a modder needs permission from the game developer to make mods.

Before you get started

Android games aren't usually designed to support mods. This doesn't mean you can install mods the same way on PC. Due to access permissions and the game's structure, games that are easily moddable on PC often can't be modded on Android. It's also worth reiterating the universal rule of modding.

Modders do not get paid as per se. Modding is a hobby first and foremost. Modding have always been a hobby, made by enthustiasts for free and is free of charge. Steam did try to impliment a "Buy mod" system so modders could get paid, but scrapped it due to various reasons.

Generally speaking, it is not against the law to mod a game or to cheat in a game. It may be against the rules or policies of a company, and you may get banned (temporarily or permanently), but it's not typically unlawful.

Does modding make money?

99.9% of them don't. Its a hobby - they enjoy making things in their spare time and giving back to the game/community. Some of them manage to get advertising revenue but it is pretty rare. An extremely small amount of people either get their mod purchased by the company or get a job offer.

Twitch mods and Stream mods are different. Twitch mods will ban you from the entire platform if you did something bad meaning they could end your account. A stream mod is a moderator in a streamers stream and that streamer trust them to do good moderation in the chat.

Modding's legality varies from country to country. In the UK and US it isn't strictly illegal, as long as it doesn't infringe on a game's copyright – but to platforms and developers there can be a fine line between modding and hacking. In Japan, however, modding could lead to a fine or even a prison sentence.

Why, modding a console game in Japan, of course! Following a change in Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Law in December, game save editors and console modding services are now illegal.

In general no, simply because Steam has nothing to do with it except provide a platform for buying and playing the games. You will, however, be on your own with installing mods and can't expect help from Steam if the mods mess up your game.

To be short and sweet about it, yes. We don't offer any bypasses to Rockstar Anticheat so any modifications done from the WeMod app( if it even works) online will result in a ban from GTA V.

Sims 4 script mods are a type of mods where the creators put their own lines of code (from beginning to end) rather than simply changing the already existing lines of code provided by the official developers of The Sims 4.

online games can and will detect wemod. In all my years of using trainers and leaving them running in the background un-injected, I've never been banned. Your ban is simply the result of carelessness, I'm afraid.

Any Mods you create for the Game from scratch belong to you (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don't sell them for money / try to make money from them and so long as you don't distribute Modded Versions of the Game.

Best answer: Minecraft: Bedrock Edition does not support mods officially or unofficially due to the universal codebase upon which it's built.

Do Minecraft mods reduce FPS?

This mod reduces unnecessary GPU and CPU load by reducing the frame rate automatically when the client window is inactive or you are not operating the Minecraft for a certain period of time (optional from v2.0). As soon as the user performs any operation, it returns to the original frame rate.

Modding may sometimes infringe the legal rights of the copyright owner. Some nations have laws prohibiting modding and accuse modders of attempting to overcome copy protection schemes. In the United States, the DMCA has set up stiff penalties for mods that violate the rights of intellectual property owners.

Thus, modders cannot assert ownership over their work and cannot legally profit without infringing the game owner's copyright. The original developers of the game legally have the right to block the publication of the mods unless there is a license agreement, otherwise known as End User License Agreements (EULA).

As a moderator, you can ban users from your community to prevent them from posting or commenting in your community for a set period of time. Bans can be permanent or they can be temporary.

Doom (1993) was the first game to have a large modding community. In exchange for the technical foundation to mod, id Software insisted that mods should only work with the retail version of the game (not the demo), which was respected by the modders and boosted Doom's sales.

A mod can be as simple or as complex as you like. For example, creating a skin for a Minecraft character can be done in a 2D editor with no coding knowledge, whilst creating a total conversion can take years of work and require many creators to collaborate (see the Mod Hall of Fame for some of the most famous mods).

Because Minecraft is written in the Java programming language, each of the modding frameworks also uses Java and requires mod creators to understand Java.

Twitch mods don't get paid because it is not an official job. Being a mod for a channel is something a viewer chooses to do voluntarily because they want to help the streamer. More so, many channels don't make money and so it would be difficult to pay someone to mod the channel.

As spotted by Rockstar Intel, the lawsuit claims the mod team deliberately "sought unlawfully to copy, adapt, and distribute to the public infringing source code for two classic GTA titles."

How do game developers feel about mods?

Overwhelmingly, developers love mods, because they significantly boost the popularity of their game. I can think of only two major categories of mods that may be despised (but sadly, it's basically impossible to stop their existence and distribution):

The first step, you need to make good, interesting, or fun mods, this is the first and non-negotiable requirement. The second is you can't sell mods directly, people whose use mods and other “free” modders will crucify you. There are several options that open up once you can make mods open up.

Modding can be pretty hard. But if you know what kind of mod you want to make, and make sure you know a lot about the game you want to mod from a technical perspective, then you'll be able to weigh just how difficult making your mod will be.

Can I sell the mods I've made for other games in the Steam Workshop? A. It is up to the developers or publisher of each game to decide if paid Workshop mods are appropriate for their game. You will only be able to sell mods for a game in the Steam Workshop if the developers have enabled that functionality.

If there's any game out there right now that practically screams "modders' paradise," then it surely has to be Minecraft.

While most developers release a few patches and fix some or even most of the issues, very few actually provide continued, long-term support for their works. This is where modders come in. Experienced modders can fix crashes, bugs, fix quest lines or broken event triggers and iron out animation issues.

Yes. Since 2020, Twitch has implemented IP bans for streamers and their moderators. Once you report someone, the report will go through Twitch's moderation team, which reviews it.

Twitch's terms of service does not explicitly prohibit vaping on stream, meaning it is an allowed action. As is the case with marijuana, streamers will still have to abide by their local and federal ordinances around the act.

It's Better to Be Safe than Sorry

We can say that according to Twitch Terms of Service, vaping while streaming live is allowed, provided vaping is legal in your region. The Twitch rules do not stop the habit of vaping, but they sure do strongly advise against it.

no mods allowed - account ban if caught. The flip side is you can create a mod which creates a better game. So then EA might want you to be be a part of their team, unlikely, or they ban you and take/use your idea and do whatever with it as it has no legal authorization.

Is cracking games you own illegal?

Unwanted attention from law enforcement. Finally, it's important to remember that using pirated gaming content is illegal. Depending on the jurisdiction in which you live, it could lead to fines or even jail time, if use of cracked software can be traced back.

The Consequences of Jailbreaking Your PS4 or PS5

Downloading and playing pirated games on your PS4 or PS5 is illegal. But there are other consequences to jailbreaking your PlayStation that you should take into account.

Are mods illegal? No. They are perfectly legal.

In Japan it is illegal to sell nicotine-containing e-cigarettes as they are categorised as medicinal products, and as of yet none have been approved in this manner. However, Japanese vapers can import up to one month's supply of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes for their own individual use.

The Supreme Court came up with its guidelines in 2019. The modified cars are very different from the usual ones because their entire premise changes. In other words, playing with "structural features" becomes very difficult. If you make changes in a car's engine or chassis, it is considered as illegal.

They can't ban you for using a VPN - it's not that simple. Steam definitely tries to prevent people from accessing the service through third party VPNs by blocking IP addresses, but they don't have the right to stop people from using the services of their choice. Was this worth your time?

VAC bans are permanent, non-negotiable, and cannot be removed by Steam Support. If a VAC ban is determined to have been issued incorrectly it will automatically be removed.

To summarize: VRChat's developers banned ALL mods because a small percentage of them were malicious, for security purposes.

This means that mods are “legal” only insofar as game developers suffer them to be so; the moment a developer finds a mod distasteful, it can be found to infringe copyright. Mods, no matter how well-respected or validated by developers, can also be found to infringe copyright through statute.

Yes you can make money from modding games but it is a very slim chance you will be successful. The games I know of that people can make money from now are, World of Warcraft, Arma 3, and GTA V. These are all private servers that make money from in game purchases.

Is it illegal to sell mods for games?

Generally speaking, it is not against the law to mod a game or to cheat in a game. It may be against the rules or policies of a company, and you may get banned (temporarily or permanently), but it's not typically unlawful.

Thanks to Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software both save editing and console modding have been officially banned from the country, with punishments of up to either five years in prison or $4 million yen (roughly $46,000).

Any Mods you create for the Game from scratch belong to you (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don't sell them for money / try to make money from them and so long as you don't distribute Modded Versions of the Game.

Is modding Steam games illegal? - Quora. In general no, simply because Steam has nothing to do with it except provide a platform for buying and playing the games. You will, however, be on your own with installing mods and can't expect help from Steam if the mods mess up your game.

CD Projekt Red has released an official modding tool called REDmod that allows Cyberpunk 2077 players to officially create and install their own mods to the PC version of the game.

Modding's legality varies from country to country. In the UK and US it isn't strictly illegal, as long as it doesn't infringe on a game's copyright – but to platforms and developers there can be a fine line between modding and hacking. In Japan, however, modding could lead to a fine or even a prison sentence.

If you're planning on heavily modding Minecraft, 8GB of RAM is a good place to start, with more being better. This 8GB of RAM minimum is an excellent baseline for any modern gaming experience.

Get your work on social media, on modding forums and on your own website. Go to tech events and connect with vendors and other modders to grow your network. Having a strong online presence is particularly important, Brian Carter of Bods-Mods told us.

According to Microsoft, mod-makers earn 50% of the revenue brought in by their mods, meaning that the kickback from third quarterly sales is somewhere in the region of $175 million for content creators.