Copyright for game mods/plugins. Responsibility and rules for distributing unofficial game modifications.

The rights to the modification made to any computer game belong only to its developers and publishers. This right is not absolute, but stipulated in the license agreement for the game, or in the same agreement that comes with various editors for creating maps/mods/models.

First about the main thing. All plug-ins created using the kit supplied or purchased with the game belong to the company that created the game or the owner of the game engine on which the game and the kit were created. The author of the plug-in has no right to legally fix it as his intellectual property, sell it, prohibit its distribution.

Meanwhile, the Author is the owner of game models, textures, scripts, music - if he created them himself. The author can issue a copyright on them and prohibit their separate use in other modifications, or anywhere else. However, if they are inside the mod, they are subject to the license agreement of the game manufacturer's company.

Officially - the author must have documents confirming his rights - only then can he go to court.
Unofficially - The author is obliged to distribute a special document ( readme ) with his mod / plugin, which, among other things, must indicate his rights to the content of the mod, the rights of other authors, if any, the rights of the game manufacturer company, designer and game engine, the rights to distribution of the mod and data for contacting the Author.

Our site policy is as follows:

• If the readme does not specify distribution rights or it does not exist at all, the mod is considered to be freely distributed.
• If the Author has any complaints about our site - we accept them only from the e-mail address specified in the plugin's readme. In this way, he will prove his authorship.
• Site administrators have the right to make claims only if it is revealed that we have copied the description of the mod. The mod itself does not belong to them or to us, but belongs to the Author with the reservations stated above.
• Localizations of mods and plug-ins can be prohibited for distribution only if the translation file itself is located separately from the mod file. If localization is made inside the mod file, the localizer does not have the right to restrict its distribution.

As you can see, legally, the Author and localizer has the right only to certain components of the mod, and if he has the necessary documents, he can, if necessary, go to court. However, among modmakers there are some unofficial rules that, although not legally binding, are nevertheless observed by the community of sites on this subject.

The author of the mod must correctly compose the Readme of his add-on - as mentioned above. Then we will avoid many problems and misunderstandings between the Authors and the administration of the sites that publish their work. And administrators, in turn, should carefully read the readme, do not violate it, in any case indicate authorship and not copy other people's mod descriptions, since these descriptions are part of someone else's content.

Both Authors and site administrators do one common interesting work and help each other. Keep this in mind before making claims and arranging proceedings.

Under the terms of the license agreement and the right to intellectual property, almost any third-party application to any software product is the property of the developer. Regardless of who made it, except for special stipulated cases. For example, documents made in Word, Excel, products of various software tools, Photoshop graphics (etc.) and other production programs. In this case, the owner of the document is the end user. Although, even then, the developer can defend the rights to all this content through the court if he proves that the person used the unlicensed version of the program.

Almost all license agreements of game developers clearly state that the author of the mod has no right to prevent the distribution of this mod in any way. Also, the author has no right to write in the installer or in the attached ReadMe about any restrictions on the distribution of the mod. Because it violates the rights of developers, because they receive indirect advertising of their game from the free distribution of mods.

It turns out the following situation - you made a mod, spent a lot of time on it, but, by law, you are not its owner and cannot get any commercial benefit from it. And they don’t even have the right to somehow control the distribution of their creation.

In this situation, we understand both developers and modders. Developers want to get the maximum profit and at the same time do not want someone to profit from their development. The creators of the modification also swelled a lot of time into the work, but in the end they were left without any rights. This is the harsh reality.

That is why we, the administration of the site Aqxaromods.com, are not required to ask any permission from both mod authors and various distributors.

In addition, if you ripped out pictures, an idea and a character from any game, took and used all this in a modification for any game, either you need these resources for a game constructor, or somewhere else. That, formally, is a copyright infringement upon the use of content or a character from the game. Although, if the project is completely free, then the developers usually turn a blind eye to violations. It's indirect advertising.

The rights to mods for computer games belong to the developers of the game.

This site provides links to other sites/services, and does not store any files.

If the copyright owner does not want his works to be available through our site, he only needs to inform us about it [DMCA].