Bioware Revises NWN EULA

malaire writes "Assistant Producer Derek French of Neverwinter Nights has posted the new EULA for all to see. This addresses most concerns raised by the community about user-created content for the game." Our story noting the EULA concerns makes interesting, if somewhat confusing, reading.

Comments

Bioware did a Good Thing (tm)

[LordYUK]

Okay, if anyone actually bothered to READ the EULA, they will see that Bioware has actually done a Good Thing (tm). Now you actually have to distribute your module, as opposed to simply "serving" it. Which I suppose means that if 5,000 people play under me as a DM, they cant touch it, but if I send it to Billy Bob jr to play on his Lindows machine, its fair game. :)

I like this part --

[Tranvisor]

6. Revocation of Rights. Infogrames and/or BioWare may at any time and in their sole discretion revoke your right to make your Variations publicly available (whether you are Distributing or Serving), provided that Infogrames and/or BioWare shall not revoke your right to Distribute a Variation if Infogrames and/or BioWare is, at the time of such revocation, using or distributing such Variation.

So they actually put in their EULA that if they sell a expansion pack with your mod in it, they won't take away your distribution rights of said mod just to bump their profits. :)

95% perfect, good but not great.

[psoriac]

Well, this is good news; the rewording is a large step in the right direction although they still haven't crossed the finish line yet.

Essentially they have revised the clause everyone was upset over to read "we can force you to stop giving away your mod, but only if we're not selling it too". This addresses the concerns people had with Bioware stealing their customers' mods, while still giving them a legal right to stop the distribution of mods they/someone finds offensive. While cencorship is still implied, it at least removes the possibility that they can unfairly profit off your hard work.

However, they still added the weasel words that would allow them to include your mod in a CD they're selling and not give you credit for it. While it does they they will make every effort to give you credit, it does not say they *have* to; in fact they give themselves permission to forget; so it basically still boilds down to "we'll give you credit if we feel like making the effort".

Oh well, if your mod is that popular, people will most likely have already heard of you and know you made it. I know that I for one now feel no hesitation in designing and distributing my own mods; whether people will want to play them is another matter. ;)

Re:95% perfect, good but not great.

[dallask]

in legal jargon, they cant say that the WILL give credit, if they miss placeing your name somewhere, you could sue the shit out of them, instead, they say use the phrase "make the best effort to" to imply that they will do their best.

to put that in context... its the same as me, a freelance software developer, saying in a contract:

"my company will make the program so that it cant be hacked"

or

"my company will make the best effort to construct the application in such a way to avoid user hacks"