About reuploading from the archives.

[Razmott]

Why can't we, as regular members of this community (and not those with special status), upload mods from the archives to the repository? I understand that some are extremely old and no longer work in current versions. But for those that do work, why not let us do it? This work would be useful to everyone and would relieve the team of having to navigate thousands of mods to reupload here, which takes a crazy amount of time. Whereas if everyone here took care of it, it would be faster.

I understand that there are problems with the original authors, but given the age of most of the mods on these sites (Mini-Pictures, etc.), they must be long gone, no ?

 

[Miner34]

Why can't we, as regular members of this community (and not those with special status), upload mods from the archives to the repository? I understand that some are extremely old and no longer work in current versions. But for those that do work, why not let us do it? This work would be useful to everyone and would relieve the team of having to navigate thousands of mods to reupload here, which takes a crazy amount of time. Whereas if everyone here took care of it, it would be faster.

I understand that there are problems with the original authors, but given the age of most of the mods on these sites (Mini-Pictures, etc.), they must be long gone, no ?

The reason is probably copyright. And no, just because the author isn't contactable anymore doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with the mods, the copyright is still valid and will still be for a long time (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term).

 

[Razmott]

Yes, but this means that moderators are "spared" from copyright? And do these lifetime copyrights apply to something as insignificant as a simple mod for Rigs of Rods? I understand for music or something like that, but for a mod, especially for such a little-known game, I think it's too much. However, that's just my opinion.

 

[Miner34]

Yes, but this means that moderators are "spared" from copyright? And do these lifetime copyrights apply to something as insignificant as a simple mod for Rigs of Rods? I understand for music or something like that, but for a mod, especially for such a little-known game, I think it's too much. However, that's just my opinion.

They are either able to contact the original authors for permission or there was something in the repo/forums rules back then that said you give license to the mods of any content you upload. And about the length of copyright, yes, it applies to simple RoR mods unless they're like 10 lines of text. If you think of it, creating a mod for RoR can take longer than creating a song. Copyright is often a burden, which is why there are groups of people trying to abolish or at least shorten the term (not going further with this, it's already getting a bit too political).

 

[Razmott]

If you think of it, creating a mod for RoR can take longer than creating a song

It's true that I hadn't thought about it.
Afterwards, it's mainly to understand why we can't put the mods back on the repository like that. But if we could do it, as I said, it would be beneficial to the moderators because with over 4,000 mods still in the archives, for which they may need to be repaired, descriptions written, and photos taken, it takes time, and we can see that.
In any case, I find it a shame.
But there's one last thing I don't understand. Why ask the author's opinion about a mod to republish it where it was, that is, on the repository?

 

[CuriousMike]

For a short time we allowed anyone to re-upload archived content. Unfortunately this resulted in low-effort submissions where zero improvements were made to the mod itself (fixing parser errors, addressing visual and functionality issues, adding GUIDs and mini images, etc). These also usually didn't correctly credit the original authors or provide decent screenshots.

Regarding copyright, mod authors restricted re-uploads only to sites outside the official Repository. Often I'll contact the original authors if they're still active, however this is no longer possible with a lot of old mod creators. With the hundreds of mods I've uploaded (twice) over the years I've yet to have someone object to their mod getting a re-release.

The Repository currently contains nearly 900 files. The majority of "good" mods from the original Repository and forums have already been uploaded. The "4000 files" number on the Repository archive is inaccurate as it contains every file ever uploaded there, including deleted files and updated versions. The rest are mostly old submesh mods, we didn't really accept those until last year with the introduction of the legacy content section.