Hell, I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I remember reading somewhere that Bethesda effectively owns all the mods made for it's games. In any case, it's unlikely to be an issue any time soon, as consoles won't be getting mods this generation at least.

I started studying law a year ago, so when I installed Oblivion I didn't bother reading the contract. I sure will read it for Skyrim though. Gonna be interesting
It may or may not be as easy as it sounds. When does a mod become an altered work that is "new and independent"? These are questions that are not easy to answer, hehe.

But I doubt most people care about it. Most people just think "Oh new mod! Good! Great! Now my game is a bit better! Let's spread it to everyone so their games can be better as well!"
Copyright is mostly just relevant when there is a conflict at hand, and I doubt a modder or Bethesda or a player would want to argue over a mod in court, lols lols

I can imagine Todd pissed off in court shouting at a modder.

This has been discussed many times on the forums and always it comes back to the EULA you accept when you buy the game - anything you make related to the ES universe belongs to Bethesda - however the thread is not about copyright but about converting PC mods into DLC

Todd has said that they have spoken about this with MS so there is definitely an interest in doing this - however I doubt they are going to be able to achieve it with Skyrim - that would be a major business model change for MS

Ah okay, makes sense that's in some form of standard contract yeah, since there are so many games and a lot of interest in protecting the ideas. Companies always want to protect themselves as much as possible.
It's funny then how modders for instance complained about that Morrowind 2011 overhaul (combination of many mods), and how the modders permissions should have been given.

Anyway, I don't see modding coming for consoles either for Skyrim. Although I do think it will come for FO4/TES6. Modding is becoming more and more popular by every year that passes. So, in terms of the DLC question... I just think that Bethesda should come up with better DLC ideas. Like Kvatch Rebuilt. That should have been a DLC rather than one of those house mods imo. Or it really should have been in the game from the start.

I think a big problem with mods getting to consoles is really a logistical one. Every mod made would have to have a place, paid for by SOMEONE, to be downloaded from. It would require someone to take a financial hit to keep it running.

If that required every mod to have a price tag, I don't think there would be very many complaints among console users to get them. As long as prices are reasonable. It may have to depend on the size of the mods, as verifying the quality of every mod would be impossible. And of course as mentioned before, there is no telling what kind of havoc it could wreak upon your console if you downloaded the wrong thing.

Probably it'll never happen.

You'd do best buying a PC.

While theirs a slim chance I don't see it happening and I'm okay with it.

It wouldn't be just microsoft,I can see sony charging for them too..

Bethesda will not make anything unofficial into official DLC. It doesn't work that way, and Microsoft probably wouldn't allow it on Xbox Live.

Now this is something I seriously doubt will happen.

Yeah, that's exactly what I wouldn't want. To see all the mod'ers consolizing their mods to make a buck. Not that they shouldn't, good for them, but I'd hate to see PC mods taking such a huge hit to quality and creativity so that they can get them to work on the consoles.

I couldn't think of a worse thing that could happen to the PC mod community than letting consoles use mod's, for that and a host of other reasons.

Consoles pay, PC gets for free. Very fair, I dare say.

Are you saying they'd police out my Better bodies mod Y_Y that would be so...very very sad

This was another concern of mine. The PC modding community would dwindle in size and quality.

Omg, I even forgot that Kvatch rebuild, arrow fletching and spell managing (deleting and writing you own ones) wasn't in original games, not to mention more realistic economy
Well svcks to be you :tongue:

Regarding modding potential on consoles
As far as I know there are games on both consoles that allows some degree of modding
(Little big planet on PS3 and Halo (Forge map) on X360, so there is a something already
Anyway, most probably for most complex mods we will be needing some supporting tool (like OBSE for TES4 for example)
And this is what I don't expect to happen on consoles, unless OBSE anolog for Skyrim will be handled as oficial patch.

The LittleBigPlanet series is developed by a Sony subsidiary and published by Sony. The Halo series is developed by a Microsoft subsidiary(ies) and published by Microsoft. That's why they allow modding for those games; they have control.

Not only do a lot of good mods require OBSE, some also require other mods. THen there's the issue of third-party apps that are needed to install some of the mods or make sure they don't conflict with others.

There are some complexities to the process that console folks never see. Unless BGS intends to produce their own dependency checker and conflict resolution system, I don't see that as happening, regardless of the legalities of copyrighted material or the logistics of making them available. In the modding community we come up with our own ways of handling it. Very few of the better/more complex mods have less than 10 comments by people who ran into some sort of issue with installation or getting the mod to work in game. Usually these problems are easily resolved, but resolving them requires a human to have significant access to their gaming platform, which console owners almost never have. Its simply a limitation of the platform, sorry.

And not only would Bethesda have to police and edit mod conflicts, badly scripted mods, potentially harmful content and objectionable material they would have to be careful of illegally ported copyrighted material. It could be done quite subtly with malicious intent, and result in huge law suits if copyrighted material found its way onto console mods (particularly if they charge users to download them).

The upshot of all this, as others have already stated, is that console mods for Skyrim would require on-going support and resourcing that BGS doesn't really want to allocate in the long term. Keep in mind that the best mods probably won't be released for a couple of years after launch (or like Midas Magic will continue to be updated for several years), by which time BGS will be working on the next TES title.

As much as it would be a great selling point for Skyrim on consoles and provide a better experience, I think it is just going to be too problematic.

Sony and Microsoft won't allow it, besides most of the greatest and largest mods require third party programs to install and run as well as some tricky installation processes.

Not going to happen.

Wow... That would be hillarius

I think that this would be a good idea. Pick out some of the best of the mods and release a DLC (or several) which are collections of these mods for console. players. There would need to be a small fee because by releasing these DLCs Bethesda would be taking responsibility for their contents. This means someone (or a couple of someones) would have to go through and make sure that the content is approprate, and work out which mods can work together and either fix the compatibility or make an announcment that requires that they player choose which mod to use (A "Sorry, but mod B is not complatible with mod A, please select which one you wish to use" dialog box during game start up). This fee would not need to be very high though.

Can someone point me to where it is required that DLCs for the Xbox 360 must have a price. I know that I have downloaded several (for several different games) that were free (they were small ones though)?

X360 doesnt have to have a price for its DLCs, as you said several games (Monday Night Combat, Skate series, Red Dead Redemption, Portal 2 in a couple months, etc) have had Free DLC. The thing is that these DLCs are hosted by M$oft and they begrudgingly allow the use of their bandwidth and server space for the procedure.

I am sure that some of these free DLCs are actually supported on the individual company servers so as not to incur a fee. I am also sure that Beth could do the same thing. They could have certain mods, deemed appropriate by the community like the Indie Games on XBL Marketplace are(which are never rated by ESRB or M$), on their own server for a limited amount of time. After this time period(or download limit) is up a new batch of mods are placed up. If you wanted to get a mod that was up months ago you would need to get it directly from someone who has it. I know this can be done with the PS3 because you can share your DLCs and whatnot with up to 5 different accounts. There could even be an in-game fileshare like there is in Halo 3/Reach and Skate 2 and 3.

User created maps and levks? Those aren't mods... Those are already existing content twist an turned with new paint, they don't compeletly alter how the game works or add in aspects that was not snacking not be possible orginallu in game

Agreed. Not gonna happen because of those two issues (if not more).
Bethesda would have to look at the code to meet Sony of Microsoft's quality standards for their console brands and make it official. If they don't and people use these mods, they void the warranty of their console system(s).
If Beth make money on someone else's mod, no doubt the mod makers would want a slice. Likewise, any modders trying to make money off these mods could be infringing on Beth's copy rights to the game. Plus I doubt Bethesda would want to fit the bill in managing otherwise free mods.
Too many obstacles/ issues (especially the legal ones) to make it worthwhile for the company.