4 ms·

IANAL, but as far as I know, in the US, you are automatically granted copyright protection on any original creative work. Copyright is different than Licenses a

IANAL, but as far as I know, in the US, you are automatically granted copyright protection on any original creative work. Copyright is different than Licenses although licenses can be used to confer copyrights.

joshuaissac 4y ago
This is the case in all states that are parties to the Berne Convention or the TRIPS Agreement, which covers all but half a dozen countries in the world. Related thread from earlier this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34880663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34880663
brucethemoose2 4y ago
Unless its covered by some draconian TOS, right? I expect to have 0 ownership over anything I create in, say, Halo Forge. Microsoft owns my soul within the platform. I figured Steam would be similar. Probably Discord too? If its not, I think Valve needs to make some changes to specifically avoid incidents like this.
- staticman2 4y ago
  If someone makes a copyright claim Steam may be obligated to remove it until the developer makes a counter claim. It doesn't matter what the TOS says. For example, if I post the Lord of the Rings novels on the Steam forum even if the steam forum TOS says Valve owns the post, they don't really own the post because I never had the legal ownship of Lord of the Rings and could never legally agree to that on behalf of the Tolkien estate. So basically no TOS is going to resolve the factual question of who owns copyright in a post to the steam forum since the poster may not have had the legal authority to agree to the TOS. Also Valve only has a business interest in the rights to display the posts to the steam forum, they have no business interest in owning the posts, so it would be unreasonable and greedy for them to go further than a license to display the posts. I have not read the TOS but I wouldn't be surprised if Valve's TOS terms were reasonable since they have a good reputation with the gaming community.

joshuaissac 4y ago

This is the case in all states that are parties to the Berne Convention or the TRIPS Agreement, which covers all but half a dozen countries in the world. Related thread from earlier this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34880663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34880663

brucethemoose2 4y ago

Unless its covered by some draconian TOS, right? I expect to have 0 ownership over anything I create in, say, Halo Forge. Microsoft owns my soul within the platform. I figured Steam would be similar. Probably Discord too? If its not, I think Valve needs to make some changes to specifically avoid incidents like this.

staticman2 4y ago
If someone makes a copyright claim Steam may be obligated to remove it until the developer makes a counter claim. It doesn't matter what the TOS says. For example, if I post the Lord of the Rings novels on the Steam forum even if the steam forum TOS says Valve owns the post, they don't really own the post because I never had the legal ownship of Lord of the Rings and could never legally agree to that on behalf of the Tolkien estate. So basically no TOS is going to resolve the factual question of who owns copyright in a post to the steam forum since the poster may not have had the legal authority to agree to the TOS. Also Valve only has a business interest in the rights to display the posts to the steam forum, they have no business interest in owning the posts, so it would be unreasonable and greedy for them to go further than a license to display the posts. I have not read the TOS but I wouldn't be surprised if Valve's TOS terms were reasonable since they have a good reputation with the gaming community.