Bioware Release Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset

Max writes "Bioware, the company who have been working on Neverwinter Nights for many years, have recently released a beta version of the NWN toolset for all to download. The toolset is a brilliant feature of NWN, as it allows players to create and script their own custom made adventures. This beta version is limited, but designed to give players an insight in to the massive customisation available in the game. The file itself is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware " Update: 05/19 04:10 GMT by M : Zed Pobre submitted an important note concerning the EULA of this toolset, appended below. Update: 05/19 14:16 GMT by M : Derek French of Bioware has a response below. I respectfully disagree with him; I've just read the SDK EULA's for Starcraft and Half-life, and neither of these would permit the company to redistribute your mods for their commercial gain, while Bioware's would. Update: 05/20 05:16 GMT by M : Bioware is going to take another look at the EULA.

Zed Pobre writes "Careful review of the EULA of the Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset reveals the following clause:

• Section 4(b):

  "By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

This is more or less the same as if a company producing a compiler wrote into the EULA that by distributing any program compiled with that compiler, the company would permanently get the rights to do whatever they wanted with that program, including reselling it for profit and then forbidding you to publish it yourself.

Derek French, the Assistant Producer for Bioware, confirmed that this section of the EULA is not going to change for the final release. Although he noted in the same message that similar clauses have been used by other companies providing tools for users to create their own content, NWN has a much greater scope than any of them by far, and it's now a profoundly bad idea for someone who wants to keep control of their writing, characters, or game ideas , or use those elements elsewhere, to make a NWN module using those elements publically available.

This kind of clause falls just short of "Bioware Owns Anything You Make", since if they want to sell a module you created themselves, the clause even allows them to forbid you from distributing your original version for any reason. The sole comfort in this is that the clause apparantly does not allow them to make a derivative work of your module, so it would have to be distributed "as is" -- but if the module contained enough "objectionable" material that they wouldn't want to take it for themselves, they could still forbid the owner from distributing it.

Once again, it seems that companies are only against piracy as long as it's their material being pirated. If they can pirate some individual's material by throwing an unreadable EULA up for a second at install time, it's perfectly fine.

The full forum thread discussing this can be found here."

Comments

Somewhere in America...

[ender81b]

The file it's self is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware

Somewhere in America, an English teacher is crying and doesn't know why.

Mirrors...

[Daniel Wood]

Three comments and the forum is already slow...
Here's the mirrors from the forum:
3D Gamers
Click Here

Baron Bosse
http://130.237.161.56/NWN_Tools_BETA.EXE

FilePlanet
http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?file=88066

gec
http://flinx.com/NWN (Mountain View)
http://jibe.biz/NWN (Redwood City)
http://sol.olymp.org/NWN


Use BitTorrent 0.7.1 from http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html to download http://130.237.68.4:8080/NWN_Tools_BETA.EXE

http://130.237.161.56/NWN_Tools_BETA.EXE

AusGamers
(Sydney Australia)

Good thing its not from Microsoft

[davmoo]

At the point where I am reading this thread there are 55 replies. Of that, only ONE comments on the EULA. Everyone else is foaming all over themselves trying to download the thing.

If that were an EULA from Microsoft, everyone would be calling for a downloading boycott and legal action...

Bioware's "License" is Not the First

[ewhac]

Bioware's so-called "license" that lays claim to anything you create using their tools is not the first of its kind. Activision pulled exactly the same shite a few years ago with a "license" attached to a version of Worldcraft. And yes, Activision got flayed alive for it. But it's not clear whether they learned their lesson. Bioware certainly hasn't.

A copy of the old Activision/Worldcraft license is appended below (with minor reformatting for HTML). Honestly, these childish people who complain so bitterly and shrilly about "theft" really need to take a good, hard look in the mirror.

Schwab

________________________

Software License Agreement Summary:

• These Utilities are for your sole, personal use
• They are unsupported by Activision, Raven, and id
• Levels created by these tools may not be sold or used commercially as defied [sic] by the Software License Agreement below.

The use of this software is subject to the terms of the Software License Agreement below. You must accept the Software License Agreement before you can use Level Utilities. The Level Utilities are provided strictly for your personal use. The use of the Level Utilities is subject to additional license restrictions contained in the Software License Agreement and may not be commercially exploited.

SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

IMPORTANT - READ CAREFULLY: THE LEVEL PROCESSING UTILITIES (THE "LEVEL UTILITIES") FOR USE WITH HEXEN II (THE "PROGRAM") ALLOWS YOU TO CREATE CUSTOMIZED NEW GAME LEVELS AND OTHER RELATED GAME MATERIALS FOR PERSONAL USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROGRAM ("NEW GAME MATERIALS"). THE USE OF THE LEVEL UTILTIES IS SUBJECT TO THE SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS SET FORTH BELOW. BY USING THE LEVEL UTILTIES, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY AND ARE BECOMING A PARTY TO THIS AGREEMENT WITH ACTIVISION, INC. ("ACTIVISION"). IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, DO NOT USE THE UTILITIES AND COMPLETELY REMOVE THEM FROM YOUR COMPUTER AND YOUR POSESSION.

LIMITED USE LICENSE. Activision grants you the non-exclusive, non- transferable, limited right to use the Level Utilities for the purpose of creating New Game Materials solely and exclusively for personal use. For purposes of this Agreement, "New Game Materials" represent computer data that modifies, substitutes for or adds new materials to the materials currently contained in the Product, thus modifying or replacing one or more existing game levels and other constituent elements provided in the Product. You shall not create New Game Materials, or tools that have no substantial purpose other than to contribute to the creation of New Game Materials, except as expressly permitted pursuant to this Agreement.

All rights not specifically granted under this Agreement are reserved by Activision and, as applicable, its licensors. The Level Utilities are licensed, not sold. Your license and the use of the Level Utilities confers no title or ownership in the Level Utilities or the New Game Materials created using the Level Utilities and should not be construed as a sale of any rights in the Level Utilities or such New Game Materials.

OWNERSHIP. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Level Utilities and the New Game Materials created by you using the Construction Kit are owned by Activision or its licensors and are protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international copyright treaties and conventions and other laws. In the event that you should, by operation of law, be deemed to retain any rights in any New Game Materials created by you, you, by using the Level Utilities, hereby irrevocably assign, without any further consideration and regardless of any use by Activision of such New Game Materials, all of your rights and interest, if any, in and to such New Game Materials to Activision. You also hereby grant Activision an irrevocable, perpetual, exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free license to exercise any rights, including moral rights, to any and all aspects of the New Game Materials. You agree that Activision shall have the full and complete right to package, publish, print, copy, promote, market, distribute, transfer and display the New Game Materials created by you and prepare derivative works based upon such New Game Materials, and any derivative works thereof, anywhere throughout the world.

LICENSE CONDITIONS.
You agree that as a condition to Activision's consent to allow you to use the Level Utilities, you will not use or allow third parties to use the Level Utilities and the New Game Materials created by you for commercial purposes, including but not limited to selling, renting, leasing, licensing, distributing, or otherwise transferring the ownership of such New Game Materials, whether on a stand alone basis or packaged in combination with the New Game Materials created by others, through any and all distribution channels, including, without limitation, retail sales and on-line electronic distribution. You agree not to solicit, initiate or encourage any proposal or offer from any person or entity to create any New Game Materials for commercial distribution. You agree to promptly inform Activision in writing of any instances of your receipt of any such proposal or offer.

If you decide to make available the use of the New Game Materials created by you to your friends, family, co-workers and other fellow gamers, you agree to do so solely without charge.

You shall create New Game Materials only if such New Game Materials can be used exclusively in combination with the retail version of the Product. The New Game Materials may not be designed to be used as a stand-alone product.

New Game Materials shall not contain modifications to any COM, EXE or DLL files or to any other executable Product files.

New Game Materials must not contain any illegal, obscene or defamatory materials, materials that infringe rights of privacy and publicity of third parties or (without appropriate irrevocable licenses granted specifically for that purpose) any trademarks, copyright-protected works or other properties of third parties.

New Game Materials must contain prominent identification at least in any on-line description and with reasonable duration on the opening screen: (a) the name and E-mail address of the New Game Materials' creator(s) and (b) the words "THIS MATERIAL IS NOT MADE OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION."

You will not use the Level Utilities to reverse engineer, extract source code, modify, decompile or disassemble the Program, in whole or in part.

TERMINATION. Without prejudice to any other rights of Activision, this Agreement will terminate automatically if you fail to comply with its terms and conditions. In such event, you must immediately discontinue the use of the Level Utilities and any New Game Materials created using the Level Utilities.

INJUNCTION. Because Activision would be irreparably damaged if the terms of this Agreement were not specifically enforced, you agree that Activision shall be entitled, without bond, other security or proof of damages, to appropriate equitable remedies with respect to breaches of this Agreement, in addition to such other remedies as Activision may otherwise have under applicable laws.

INDEMNITY. You agree to indemnify, defend and hold Activision, its partners, licensors, affiliates, contractors, officers, directors, employees and agents (specifically including, but not limited to, Id Software, inc., and Raven Software, inc.) harmless from all damages, losses and expenses arising directly or indirectly from your acts and omissions to act in using the Level Utilities pursuant to the terms of this Agreement

MISCELLANEOUS. This Agreement represents the complete agreement concerning this license between the parties and supersedes all prior agreements and representations between them. It may be amended only by a writing executed by both parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable and the remaining provisions of this Agreement shall not be affected. This Agreement shall be construed under California law as such law is applied to agreements between California residents entered into and to be performed within California, except as governed by federal law and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in Los Angeles, California.

If you have any questions concerning this license, you may contact Activision at 3100 Ocean Park Boulevard, Santa Monica, California 90405, (310) 255-2000, Attn. Business and Legal Affairs, legal@activision.com

Hexen II(tm) ©1997 Raven Software Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Id Software, Inc. software code contained within Hexen II(tm) © 1996 Id Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Raven Software Corporation. Published by Id Software, Inc. Distributed by Activision, Inc. under sublicense. Hexen® is a registered trademark and Hexen II(tm) is a trademark of Raven Software Corporation. The Id Software name and the id logo are trademarks of Id Software, Inc. Activision® is a registered trademark of Activision, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective companies.

Greetings from BioWare

[Derek French]

Hi all. I just wanted to jump in here and try and clear up some of the confusion.

First, read your EULAs for Quake 3, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc. (other games that allow you to create content). All of them say the same thing that we are saying. Our EULA is nothing new. They must be written this way to protect both the companies involved and the end users. I am serious. Read the EULAs of those other games.

Every time a new game comes out, someone actually reads the EULA and the spectres of corporate exploitation rears its head. Its just not happening. id, Blizzard, Valve, none of these companies have ripped off their fans. Why? Because its suicide. And we aren't doing it either.

Babbster - no, you cannot use your friend's novel nor on Star Wars, or any other existing licenced or copyrighted content for the basis of a module. This is prohibited by the EULA. Your friend can create a module based on his novel. CoreyGH has it right.

Some other comments:

Windows only. Really? Then I guess I better shut down this Neverwinter Nights Linux dedicated server that I am playing on right now...

Toolset is Windows only. Borland was supposed to have Builder for Linux done a long time ago and that was what we were going to use for Linux. We use Builder for Windows for the Toolset. The Linux Toolset is just not happening right at this moment.

The distribution statement means that you cannot charge anyone to play Neverwinter Nights. Neither for modules, nor for server access. This isn't a MMORPG.

And yes, our game is designed such that the end users do NOT need to download the modules in order to play on the server. No matter what module the server is running (well, pretty much).

Re:Greetings from BioWare

[letoram]

Quake3 EULA, the relevant part:

2. Permitted New Creations. Subject to the terms and provisions of this Agreement and so long as you fully comply at all times with this Agreement, ID grants to you the non-exclusive and limited right to create for the Software (except any Software code) your own modifications (the "New Creations") which shall operate only with the Software (but not any demo, test or other version of the Software). ID reserves all rights not granted in this Agreement, including, without limitation, all rights to ID's trademarks. You may include within the New Creations certain textures and other images (the "ID Images") from the Software. You shall not create any New Creations which infringe against any third party right or which are libelous, defamatory, obscene, false, misleading, or otherwise illegal or unlawful. You agree that the New Creations will not be shipped, transferred or exported into any country in violation of the U.S. Export Administration Act (or any other law governing such matters) by you or anyone at your direction and that you will not utilize and will not authorize anyone to utilize, in any other manner, the New Creations in violation of any applicable law. The New Creations shall not be downloaded or otherwise exported or re-exported into (or to a national or resident of) any country to which the U.S. has embargoed goods or to anyone or into any country who/which are prohibited, by applicable law, from receiving such property. You shall not rent, sell, lease, lend, offer on a pay-per-play basis or otherwise commercially exploit or commercially distribute the New Creations. You are only permitted to distribute, without any cost or charge, the New Creations to other end-users so long as such distribution is not infringing against any third party right and is not otherwise illegal or unlawful. As noted below, in the event you commit any breach of this Agreement, your license and this Agreement shall automatically terminate, without notice. You hereby agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless ID and Activision and ID's and Activision's respective officers, employees, directors, agents, licensees (excluding you), sub-licensees (excluding you), successors and assigns from and against all losses, lawsuits, damages, causes of action and claims relating to and/or arising from the New Creations or the distribution or other use of the New Creations or relating to and/or arising from your breach of this Agreement. Your obligations set forth in the immediately preceding sentence shall survive the cancellation or termination of this Agreement.

Basically,
1. The Mod should only work with the full-blown application, not the demo
2. Do not distribute the modification to anyone that isn't legal allowed to purchase/use the application.
3. Don't sell the modification without going through us
4. Don't distribute if you break any other partys trademarks, copyrights or similar.
5. Break this EULA and you're on your own, ID & affiliates and not responsible for your actions

Now this doesn't seem half as harsh as "grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means." basically saying ALL YOUR MODS ARE BELONG TO US (sorry, just had to do that :-)

You don't see photoshop telling us that any creations formed by the use of this application also belongs to adobe.

I seriously doubt that you need to go to this length to protect us and yourselves against hungry law-men.

Speaking for myself, this won't affect my pre-order, I will still wait for the sweet thing to drop down in my mailbox, but I won't be doing any mods (if Wine or a C++ Builder port makes the tools usable under linux)

Re:Greetings from BioWare

[Sheetrock]

Hello, and thank you for coming to Slashdot to address our concerns. I appreciate that you take enough interest in your work to come into the community and talk with us, and I hope that you'll take my comment to heart without offense as none is intended.

I've been quite concerned lately with the direction EULAs have been taking, and with some of the decisions being made at the leading companies in the game industry in particular. I would like to address two provisions in your EULA that could perpetuate or create new restrictions on players and hopefully persuade you to reconsider them.

One thing that troubles me is that your company is attempting to establish editorial control over the content users might wish to create and distribute. How am I or anyone else to know whether or not a package we labor over for days (to release for free to your other customers, natch) is going to meet with your company's standards? What risk does your company really incur if it permits customers generate whatever they desire with the toolset (and deal with the law themselves if they violate it)? More importantly, what liabilities has your company taken on now that it has more or less declared itself the policeman for all content generated with its tools? I know that the ISPs lobbied their asses off to avoid that kind of responsibility; are you sure you guys want it?

The second thing that concerns me is that with this EULA your company is attempting to create rights for itself to its customers' work. It's suspicious even if you only intend to use it to create a 'best-of' pack to distribute with Neverwinter Nights when sales of the original slow down (and, hey, I personally think that it'd be pretty cool to have happen with my work, but I'd at least appreciate an e-mail -- the Linux folk aren't demanding a copy of your software just because you're running it on their server, are they?) I'm comfortable with the idea that you don't want me or anyone else to sell modules I create for a profit, as I understand you'd probably prefer to license your engine for such things, but the statements in the EULA are excessively broad if this is all your company really wants to accomplish.

Whether or not you actually intend to exert this control, the perceived threat in this clause is enough that I wouldn't risk creating content for your game, and given the impact I believe it will have on the amount of quality content available for download I'd probably have second thoughts about buying it to begin with. I certainly don't think that any of you are out to screw us, but then again I never thought that Blizzard would punish their loyal fans either. I recognize that overbroad EULAs have become one of the hallmarks of the game industry from the big players, but I sincerely hope that, as an expression of goodwill to those of us who plan to line up at the stores to spend our hard-earned money on your game the minute it leaves the truck, you will have the courage to break with that way of thinking enough to rewrite the EULA to protect our interests with the same enthusiasm as you have protected your own.

Re:Greetings from BioWare

[Danse]

Here's what the Starcraft EULA has to say:

C. You are entitled to use the Program for your own use, but you are not be entitled to:

(iii) use or allow third parties to use the Editor and the New Materials created thereby for commercial purposes including, but not limited to, distribution of New Materials on a stand alone basis or packaged with other software or hardware through any and all distribution channels, including, but not limited to, retail sales and on-line electronic distribution without the express written consent of Blizzard;

Aside from that, there is no other limitations on what you or Blizzard may do with any "New Materials" that you create. (It said earlier that "New Materials" refers to custom levels created with the editor.)

So, yeah, I think he's full of crap when he says that these other EULAs contain the same control freakiness as Bioware's EULA. In fact, I'm going to send him an email and a link to this thread and maybe he can come back and explain himself.

Re:Greetings from BioWare

[Alsee]

The EULA is an outright licence to steal.

BioWare can take my creative labors, sell it themselves, and yank my rights to to my intellectual property. Not just comercial rights, but the right to distribute it at all.

Because its suicide.

This seems to admit that the EULA grants BioWare powers that "shock the sensibilities". The EULA is disgusting and you know it.

Pardon me for not trusting BioWare not to actually USE the disgusting aspects of the EULA. We've all seen companies commit suicide. They also try to get away with as much as possible just short of commiting suicide. And companies get bought out. If you really have no plans to use the licence in a suicidal manner, just REWRITE it.

Quake 3, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc. All of them say the same thing that we are saying.

I'll take your word for it. I never bought those particular games. NeverwinterNights sounded cool, but I can tell you there's no way I'm going to buy it, much less make content for it, so long as that EULA clause exists.

-

Protect from what?

[Yogurt]

What I don't understand is how the right to royalty-free distribution of modules protects Bioware and the end users. Can you give an example of where this provision would come in handy?

I understand that you may need to stop people from making Lord of the Rings modules and such, but there's a separate provision in the EULA for that.

Also, Sanuj's main concern on the BioWare thread doesn't seem to get addressed. I don't really care if Bioware distributes my module, but I would care if they used one of my characters in a spin-off novel. This isn't what the EULA is meant to allow, I gather.

Yogurt

Re:Protect from what?

[Zathrus]

That's like claiming that the program you just compiled should belong to the compiler maker, the standards committee, and whoever wrote the editor. After all, all you did was string words together and throw in some creative parts (e.g. - the logic).

Or maybe all books should belong to the font maker and the word processor vendor. Again, all you provided was the "creative part".

Perhaps music should belong to the instrument makers and other electronics companies involved. Once more, just using someone else's tools. The creative part is obviously irrelevant.

Sorry, things are provided for an intended use. When they are used for that intended use then you should retain intellectual property -- because that is all you're providing in the first place. The IP laws are written with this concept clearly in mind. I'm sorry that you, along with numerous companies (Activision amongst them) have completely missed out on this.

Oh, and finally, yes Id did see many, many pennys from those people "reselling their mindshare". They had to buy Doom afterall.

Re:EULA

[Derek French]

BioWare is a privately owned Canadian company. We are not from the US.

Re:...and if I don't distribute my modules?

[ZxCv]

If you make something with it (in, say, a week), you owe them at least giving them unrestricted access to it - they put in 5 years X x Developers and you, a week and $50.00. right?

Hardly. That's like saying that because Apple has invested years into developing iMovie, I owe them unrestricted access to movies I make with it. Wrong. Their compensation from me came when I purchased their product. Why should I compensate them any further by giving them any rights to my creations?

Solution: write an Open Source toolset

[Telcontar]

Since the toolset is Windows only, this seems to be the obvious way to go. Reverse engineer the file format(s), write an editor, use that editor to create the mods.
I am sure this is eventually going to happen anyway, bad EULA or not.

Re:Chill ...

[jgerman]

The issue is that it is another attempt by a corporation to take away rights that they can't (shouldn't) be allowed to take. Original content created by me is MINE, regardless of the tools I use to create it, or how I view it. We've been through this all before, when Nintendo (unsuccessfully) tried to sue a company for making games that worked with their system. Regardless of the EULA I CAN sell my modules if I like, just as I can sell a document I made with Word (not that I'd use word ;)) or a JPG I made with The Gimp.

This is equivalent to Ford saying that because I used Ford tools to machine after market engine parts for my Mustang that they can take ownership of those parts (or at least the design) at any time, and that I can not sell those parts to others.

I'm fine with the concept of selling software, I may believe in OSS but not exclusively, and as a coder I won't begrudge other coders the oppurtunity to make a living selling their software. What I am not ok with is Bioware turning corporate thug and trying to tell me what I can or cannot do with MY creations. Furthermore, I believe that despite Derek's statements to the contrary I CAN use copyrighted characters and settings provided that I don't make a profit from them, I'm reasonably certain this falls under fair use hence fan fiction.

Regardless of whether I agree with the license included, I don't have to live without the product. Bioware is (will be) selling a tool, once that tool is in my posession I can do with it what I like, when I like. I've agreed to the only license term that should be legal, I've paid some monetary price for the use of this tool, I will not copy it and circumvent Bioware's ability to make a living selling this tool, by distributing the copys, but that is the ONLY moral obligation I feel I owe once the product is purchased.

All I can say is that I wish I had the cash to fight them on this. It would be a worthy cause to start a company who's whole purpose is to expose the shit that software developers are trying to pull. I'd love to create a module, sell it for a penny and fight Bioware in court over my right to do so.