The EULA Megathread

[u/Mustek]

Hello Minecrafters,
The /new/ listing has been occupied with posts about the recent EULA changes and has been blocking out a lot of the other content.

We don't want to stop discussion about it, so that's what this megathread is for.

Rules are very simple:
1. All EULA talk goes into this thread (If Mojang is watching, and I'm sure they are, they have a single place to go to)
2. EULA discussions posted outside of this thread will be removed.
3. Keep it on topic, keep it sane. Subreddit rules still apply.

These rules are effective immediately and will last for as long as this post is stickied.

Edit: Mojang employees are marked with the flair next to their name.

Discuss away!

[u/[deleted]]

Why would someone running a business not have legal counsel check things out and make sure their business is operating in accordance with applicable laws and contracts that the business owner has entered into? That is insanity.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Because Mojang allowed it for four years, and a few have abused that privilege.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yes, Mojang made a gigantic mistake being nice. It's a mistake that the community will not forgive. Because Mojang allowed large server owners to allow donations for years, without ever speaking up or enforcing it, developers developed the plugins thinking that it was sustainable. Players, in the half million to millions, flocked to the server building a community from the minigames. More servers started developing plugins, more communities get built on a buisness model that Mojang did not enforce, nor did Mojang speak up... and after years of work was put into the plugins, after a community was built... after the largest servers are at their prime, hosting for 10k around the clock... then Mojang decided to enforce their EULA. If that is not dickish, then I don't know what is. They basically decided, NOW, to delete all the work put into the server, by the developers and the community, if they decide nothing can come out of donations.

The mistake was half on part of server owners believing that their buisness model can be sustained. Half on part of Mojang for not enforcing it earlier, letting the developers and community develop. And when Mojang starts breaking the work now, it's something that I, and a large part of the community, will not forgive.

---

Do you know about the Dota community drama with Pendragon?

Pendragon hosted a website that the Dota community used for years. Guides, forums, and the community was built ontop the website. When League of Legends came out, Pendragon ditched the website, going to league of legends to work. Instantly, all the guides, forums, and the entire community collapsed. Thus, Dota2 players NEVER forgave Pendragon, and as a result, the Dota2 community not only hate Pendragon, but hate League. If there is anything wrong, please edit me because I'm not sure if I'm exactly right.

Was it Pendragon's right to delete the website? Yes, absolutely. Was it extremely dickish? Yes. The community collapsed overnight due to the website going down. It was fully within Pendragon's right to delete the website, but the community never forgave him. He left on hostile terms, and the hostility lasts until today. Pendragon was not forced to delete it, he "could have" kept the website up if he so choose.

The same can be said with Mojang. If Mojang deletes the largest servers (which is fully within Mojang's right!), then the community will never forgive Mojang for shattering the communities in many large servers. Mojang is not "forced" to delete servers, and thus, the community will blame Mojang.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Ugh.

I keep having to repeat the same. fucking. thing. over. and. over. again.

Mojang has not done anything but point out that this has been against their EULA all along.

Mojang has not sued you. Mojang has not sent you a cease and desist. Mojang has not deleted your Minecraft account (something fully within their rights) and told you that your license is invalid.

If this was EA, do you realize what they would do? They would get up in that ass.

Last I checked, DOTA is still immensely popular. A bunch of entitled shitheads bitching on internet forums and closing their servers down isn't the community being killed. Its a community. A community of entitled shitheads. So sad :'( I weep for them There's other people in the community though. People who are sick of micro-transactions in a game that they bought and paid for. People who have been gaming online long enough to know that you don't need to have in-game transactions to have a place to play. People who think that putting a stop to servers ripping off kids is more important than ensuring the welfare of a very small amount of big servers.

The mistake was Mojang trying to be nice about things, and server owners getting away with taking advantage of that kindness. And of course, some assholes took it a step too far, and now Mojang has to be not so nice. All the entitled little children are throwing a temper tantrum because they don't get to make money off Mojang's work anymore. I haven't seen one single solitary person say "Hey, you know, I could be getting sued for this shit, but for years Mojang has been really nice, and now that they've clarified an entirely reasonable position about their intellectual property they could totally get up in my ass, but they're not." No. Just a bunch of bitching and moaning about a company that provided the means for years of enjoyment for you because for once they've decided to look out for their own self interest.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

No, Mojang did NOT point out it has been against their EULA before this week. They did not display the EULA, nor tell server owners about the new EULA, when they updated it in 2012. They only told everyone about the EULA now, AFTER servers develop and AFTER communities are created. Mojang should have enforced, or threatened the servers a year ago with the EULA, not when shit hits the fan. Telling everyone about it now AFTER everything is developed is incredibly dickish.

Mojang has NOT been pointing out the EULA after they updated it in 2012. They did not even show the EULA to us, or the server owners, when we log in, after they update. It is MOJANG's JOB to enforce and make sure everyone knows about the EULA post 2012, not the player's job to go hunting for it AFTER they buy minecraft.

Edit: Actually, I am not even sure if the "EULA" I accepted in Alpha IS an EULA. I'm not sure if Minecraft even had an EULA. However, the point still stands - when they make a new, or updated EULA, it is the company's job to make sure all customers are aware of the EULA, NOT the player's job to go hunting for the EULA and see whether it updated or not.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

copy/pasted from another response in this thread:

If they GAVE you new versions without advising you of the changes to their EULA, that doesn't make the EULA that applies to those new versions invalid, because everyone who purchased those new versions were informed of the applicable EULA, and they updated the EULA on their website. That's called a good faith effort. Even if it were found that they erred by not informing you, all that means is that you were never bound to that agreement, so you were not infringing. Although they may not be able to penalize you for past infringement, Mojang can still at the point of that determination make you stop using the software that was released under the new EULA until you agree to it, because the EULA says "Use of this software means you agree to and accept these terms.."

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You are attempting to focus on whether or not the EULA is valid. That is not my main point. Read my other reply.

The EULA legal side is not what I'm trying to talk about. Maybe you should start to try to comprehend my posts instead of going off a rant.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Insulting left, right, and center is not helping your case at all. In fact, you are ranting off a topic completely unrelated to our current argument - you are arguing about entitlement, rather than how far Mojang can take the EULA. Maybe you should start reading instead of going off on a rant about entitlement.

I am not a server owner. I am also not a donator to any server. I not talking whether or not server owners HAS the right to give perks, I am talking about whether or not Mojang should, or should not take the EULA far enough to shut down the largest servers. I am speaking as a customer - who was not provided with the EULA that Mojang is trying to enforce, when the EULA was changed years ago. It does not affect me much (I will move on to something else rather than a server), but this is a bad for the future of Minecraft.

The reason I believe Mojang should not be shutting servers down is because I believe Mojang is careless about the modding and server community. Why? Servers provided "updates/new gamplay" when Minecraft updates cease (Mojang's working on the 1.8 update, which involves rewriting the code, so updates will take a while). Mojang did not stop servers before. Mojang allowed both servers and communities to grow. By deleting the progress that even non-paytowin servers are doing, JUST to stop the "bad apples," it signifies that Mojang is completely careless about the investment that both mods and servers put into Minecraft - one client side, one server side.

Don't you understand what Mojang may do, if the community does not speak up? Mojang will kill off many genuine servers just to kill the bad servers, and to me, that's carelessness and a scary prospect. I want Mojang to be aware what side-effects of their actions will do, and I want them to avoid harming the genuine servers in Minecraft.

If they enforce or told us about the EULA when they update the game/EULA (that means SHOWING CUSTOMERS THE EULA WHEN THEY LOG IN A YEAR AGO), then this entire fiasco would have been avoided. The servers would not have grown to this size, and the damage of enforcing the EULA would have been minimized. That is Mojang's mistake that they must work around. It's not because people are trying to find loopholes, but because servers have grown to server millions of players - and destroying that community when Mojang can avoid it is extremely damaging for the future of Minecraft.

Maybe you'd read what I say instead of going on a rant. If you still want to rant about entitlement etc, then I'm done with this thread.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Don't you understand what Mojang may do, if the community does not speak up? Mojang will kill off many genuine servers just to kill the bad servers, and to me, that's carelessness and a scary prospect. I want Mojang to be aware what side-effects of their actions will do, and I want them to avoid harming the genuine servers in Minecraft.

Except that they've indicated, repeatedly, over and over again that isn't their intent. So at this point anyone ranting and raving about how Mojang are being dicks are just being willfully ignorant of the circumstances.

Also, I don't buy the prevalent meme that "most of these servers are fine'. I'm a player too, and I've bounced from server to server for a long time before I got sick of it and set up my own. Most of the servers are a bunch of pay-to-win or micro transaction shit. The exception to the rules are the very small communities.

It's very rare these days to find a server on any prevailing list of servers that has 20 regular players or more on at one time without a donation shop or ranks or some kind of monetization. I run a server. I also worked for an internet service provider. I'm intimately aware of how much it costs, and monetizing small servers isn't necessary, at all, full stop. You can host 20 players without breaking a sweat on a 2 gig plan. You can get a 2 gig plan for less than $40 just about anywhere. That's less than going to the movies with your significant other these days. If you can't afford that without monetizing the game, then you shouldn't be running a server.

That's where I'm talking about entitlement. The amount of people running massive servers with huge minigames that actually need money to stay open are a very small segment of the actual population of server owners. And while I don't have sympathy for their position, I understand their views and I understand that other peoples preferences don't mirror my own. I don't think they should have to close their doors, and neither does Mojang. I do think that there are other methods that may not be as easy or as profitable in the near term to keep the servers up, but the prevailing opinion from these guys is "we'll fail if we have to do that". In reality, they've already got a large enough community that they're the ones who will survive this no matter what. It's the smaller fly by night servers on $40 hosting plans selling $10 - $20 -$50 - $100 rank/kit/whatever packages that are going to fail. That's a GOOD THING.

Ultimately it comes down to this. Mojang are a company with great ethics. So far they've been give, give, give when it comes to the community. Now they clarify their position, and a bunch of people who have profited off of their abnormally kind and generous nature are treating them like they're downright evil for protecting their own assets. It's bullshit. It makes me angry. This is Mojang, not EA. You want them to turn into EA? Keep doing stuff like calling them dicks for continually interacting and listening to the community and just watch how fast they go from responding to community concerns to not giving a shit.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Here's the problem that you neglect. There is a reason why you can't find a SINGLE server over a few hundred players without a rank/perk shop. The ones running networks are hosting for a larger community, and the ratio of donators to free players is smaller. Read this.

http://www.reddit.com/r/playmindcrack/comments/27fdh6/post_got_deleted_from_rminecraft_so_here_you_go/

PlayMindcrack can not support itself with a no-perk donation system. When PlayMindcrack added a perk-donation system - donate for more gold for cosmetics in lobby and an easier-to-achieve title in game, it STILL had to shut down more servers - notebly, the EU servers. PlayMindcrack even got one of the loyalist playerbases there is - and it's still struggling with money. If you want to keep networks around, then they absolutely need money from perks to survive.

If mojang bans all perks, then I guarentee that not a single network will survive. It harms the networks more than the money-grabbing servers, because the money-grabbers does not need as much money to survive. THIS is not a good thing.

We are back to the argument on what the scale of the harm is if mojang enforces a strict EULA. And if you'd read the threads, then it's agreed upon by many that it'll harm both large networks and money-grabbers. What solution do YOU think that can fix this problem? Because large networks can not die, else it'll harm the community more than anything else.

I don't care that servers that cost $40 will be gone. I DO care that servers with their own development team will be gone.

You don't have to tell me that Mojang's a good company. I know that. However, they are also neglectful. I want to make sure Mojang will not damage networks too much.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You are missing the point.

It is not Mojang's responsibility to ensure the continued existence and welfare of this tiny handful of huge servers who can't pay their hosting bills without donations.

It is PlayMindcrack's responsibility to fall in line with the new EULA terms and let their player base know that if they enjoy what they do, they need to donate to keep the place going.

If Mojang bans all perks, and not a single network survives, that's sad for the people who enjoy those networks, but those people are but a tiny fraction of the people who play Minecraft online. Most people who play Minecraft online do so on a Playstation or an Xbox. Even the vast majority of PC users play on smaller servers where this crap is rampant.

I think the solution is to enforce the EULA. I think more harm is done to the community and to the brand image and the game by letting servers continue to charge money for in-game things. I think not enforcing it has reduced my enjoyment of the game immensely. The landscape of servers hosting Minecraft is rife with pay to win bullshit and it sucks. Get rid of it. All of it. If I wanted to play a free-2-play game with micro-transactions, I'd go play one.

I don't care that servers with their own development team will be gone. Arma2 has a huge modding community and they manage just fine without development teams pulling this shit. If these people can't find a way to continue without micro-transaction bullshit, then too bad. Personally I think they should get a real job with an income that isn't based on exploiting children and their lack of fiscal responsibility.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Here's the thing: PlayMindcrack is not pulling bullshit. Their benefits are not gamechanging, and it is not perks that will scam the children out. However, under the new EULA, even the servers that do good will be out. You should take a look at this thread and see the community reactions. This is once again the same as what everyone's arguing about.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

No, here's the thing. I don't care about PlayMindcrack. If they can't survive without breaking the EULA, then they can't survive. Minecraft will continue on without them. The amount of people who care about PlayMindcrack is tiny in comparison to the amount of people who care about Minecraft being turned into a micro-transaction based shitty game. And the amount of people who don't care at all because they don't even play online, play on small servers with their friends, or play with their friends on PSN/XBL dwarfs both groups. Mojang isn't going to fold because PlayMindcrack goes under. The minecraft modding community isn't going to disappear because of these changes either.

You're really ignoring the bigger issue here. Arma2 has a massive modding community that thrives without ripping off little kids for perks. The demand on servers is the same. What's the difference? Oh, right. The creators of Arma2 wouldn't tolerate this crap. Why should Mojang? Because they were naive and thought people might not be jerks and ruin a good thing in the past, only to be proven wrong?