ChuckBeaver: Bottom line is as I already explained. Kick, scream and throw a tantrum. The laws are not going to matter even under the assumption they apply at all. The end result would be paying money for a take down that ends after about a year or longer and it changes nothing. Arguing here wont make gog care. They dont even respond to paying customers. Why would anything talked about involving free content matter to them , when you take this fact into consideration?(rhetorical question)
End of subject.
Bottom line is, you are making a bad legal take. Clearly you want to troll to think otherwise, but you are factually plain wrong. If there is one thing that sets me off, it is the arrogance and ignorance you've put on display here.
The law matters. It always matters. This is not a "tantrum". This is reality. IANAL but I drink and I know things. I have seen enough and know enough to determine the modders actually have standing to bring a class action suit against GOG. I can even direct you to copyright law lawyers who will tell you as much.
The fact the mods are under free distribution was made possible by the modders who either hosted it themselves on their own dime, or it was hosted within a third party site. These places have legal protections.
What we have here is a case of fraud and use of stolen content on the part of GOG. The modders for the most part are victims of the theft of their work put into a commercial product that violates laws of consent and commerce. It does not matter that the content could be downloaded freely. Anyone can use that channel. But the modders only authorized distribution through those authorized sources, not with GOG.
This is akin to someone asking to borrow a car, and they would take the car and use it as they see fit before the owner gave permission. Even if the car was freely available and wasn't in use by anyone else as per your argument, this is still theft. It's a crime. GOG doesn't have an excuse here.
There are modders who don't even know or have any association with the guy who compiled the list, and there is the mystery of whether that person took it upon themselves, or granted, the authority to OK the list and have GOG compile the assets. For the most part, GOG did not have permission from all the mod authors for the mods GOG wanted to distribute. Modders would have never ever, under any circumstances, relinquished rights to ownership and control just because they freely distributed their mods. GOG does not own that content. GOG has no license to it.
You're confusing free distribution with public domain, and this is not a public domain case. Modders for that matter might even start charging for their content, so your argument holds no water.
lupineshadow: And if some of the mod developers disagree, and explicitly revoke permission...what then? (as they have done)
What if two months later, some other mod developers also decide they will revoke permission, as is their right?
Totenglocke: It's freely distributed and not under any license. They don't have a right to tell people they can't download it, they can't try to remove mirrors to the mod either.
Wrong.
