Moon Channel – Is the New Minecraft EULA Literally 1984?

Hey guys it was here and back at it again with our Minecraft let’s play number 82. yeah today we’ll be starting a brand new hardcore book so let’s go punch some trees yeah wait what has this ever happened to you hi I’m Mooney and I’m a lawyer you may remember

Me from that one and a half hour Masters thesis on Japanese history that I tricked you into watching or from one of my many tedious lectures on video games and intellectual property law if my voice sounds a little different in this video I apologize I’ve got a bit of a

Cold one of my viewers recently brought to my attention some changes to the Minecraft end user license agreement or Eula that have caused quite a stir amongst the community of mine crafties and so I am interrupting your regularly scheduled broadcasting to quickly review the EULA translate the legal lingo into

Plain English and compare the new Minecraft Doula with the old one for your benefit the roots of this tree go deeper than you might think and I’m actually of the opinion that the Minecraft Eula though perhaps unwelcome by content creators and private server operators is quite generous in comparison to the industry

Standard and not as dramatic as it has been made out to be which brings us to the topic of this video is the new Minecraft Eula literally 1984 or is this just business as usual but first a word from our returning sponsor Factor repairing a filling meal

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Law starts with a fun little story about 13 years ago I happened upon a social media post concerning a new game in development created by an enterprising young man from Sweden the game was described to me as being like Legos and I immediately found the idea quite

Intriguing I reached out to this young man via email and paid him 10 euros for access to the alpha test of his game the young man it turns out was Notch and the game in question was Minecraft I could not have anticipated back then that Minecraft would become the global

Phenomenon that it became but even back in late summer of 2010 it was clear to me that the game I was playing was very special indeed I vaguely recall that back when I started playing a fishing rod had just been added to the game I also vaguely

Recall that you could not actually use the rod to fish and indeed the fish itself had yet to be added to the game there was no overarching story there were no in-game objectives there were no alternate Dimensions yet not even the nether today’s Minecraft is a completely different game than 2010 Minecraft there

Is now an overarching story there are two alternate Dimensions to explore there is magical enchanting and there are mods and experience points in sprinting and just like how today’s Minecraft is very mechanically different from 2010 Minecraft the nature of today’s Minecraft as a body of intellectual property is also

Very different from what it was back in 2010 as well as early as 2011 people on the Minecraft forums were complaining about paying 22 US dollars for a copy of a game that had sold only around 1 million copies I paid roughly 10 to 15 dollars for my copy of Minecraft in 2010

So let’s say that in 2011 Minecraft had made roughly 15 million dollars in sales in 2014 just three years later the Minecraft IP and its developer Mojang were purchased by Microsoft for a princely sum of 2.5 billion dollars in April of 2021 Microsoft reported that Minecraft had sold 238 million copies at

A price of 30 a copy giving us a rough figure for approximately 7 billion 140 million dollars in sales which is closer now probably to 9 or 10 billion dollars in 2023 and that’s not including things like merchandise or spin-off games or royalties which might tack on another half to full billion

Minecraft is the top selling game of all time and it isn’t even close you may recall from the Nintendo video that Pokemon is the world’s most valuable media franchise well Pokemon has sold a total of 324 million copies across all games as per PG sales Wiki this means on

Minecraft in 2023 as a single game has sold about two-thirds of the copies of all Pokemon games put together the distinction here of course is that Pokemon remains a much more valuable intellectual property because it has vastly Superior merchandising Pokemon’s Revenue as an IP is as much related to

Products surrounding the games as it is to the sales of the games themselves Minecraft might have made 10 million dollars in lifetime sales but Pokemon earned 11.6 billion dollars in licensing and merchandise profit in the year 2022 alone that said still Minecraft certainly is nothing to sneeze at it is Microsoft’s

Crown Jewel and one of the most valuable intellectual properties in all of Gaming a man brings us to the topic of end user license agreements or eula’s there’s a lot of misinformation regarding what a Eula is and what a Eula does so what is a Eula aula is an agreement or contract

Between a developer or publisher of software and the user of said software that specifies the rights and restrictions that apply to the use of that software you list can have an enormous scope meaning that each Eula can be quite different from the next there is no governing law stating what a

Eula can or cannot contain because the term Eula itself is merely used as a broad catch-all no legal basis term for an alleged contract between a software maker and a software user the law tells us what a contract cannot contain and what that means in the context of eulas

But the EULA in it of itself is not that legally distinct from say a shrink wrap contract of any other kind which we’ll get to shortly now trying to understand what a Eula is in the complete context requires a level of granularity that might be better suited to a law school

Course on contracts as opposed to a YouTube video for Minecraft players I would need to start with a lecture on common law and then talk about the Uniform Commercial Code and its applicability in individual State jurisdictions then inevitably someone is going to complain about how none of that

Applies in the European Union when it kind of sort of does and then the Brazilians will throw a party somewhere in the comments it all sounds like more trouble than it’s worth but I just can’t help myself so let’s take a quick look one layer deeper in the United States an enforceable

Contract is an agreement that requires an offer acceptance of the offer consideration meaning that each side provides some value to the other mutual agreement Ascent capacity meaning that you are mentally competent and slash or not a minor that the contract itself is conscionable and legal and sometimes the

Contract also has to be in writing but it depends and lastly there has to be an intention to create a legally binding relationship which is itself quite a difficult topic look I told you this stuff was complicated a Eula as you may recall is basically and debatably a kind

Of shrink wrap contract and just like everything in intellectual property and many things in law it is not clear whether shrink wrap contracts are legally enforceable imagine for a moment that you are buying a copy of Animal Crossing for your beloved little sister and yes this is an excuse to switch to

Animal Crossing music before the Minecraft OST puts you all to sleep in any case imagine that in the plastic wrap surrounding the game box a little sticker with tiny little font on it declares that by opening the package you promise not to use this copy of Animal Crossing to manufacture nuclear weapons

Which is a real Eula provision that actually exists in Apple’s iTunes by the way if you bought the game opened it up and gave it to your sister having never even seen this sticker on the plastic wrap is it an enforceable contract what if you your sister Isabelle and Raymond

Decide that you want to enrich a little uranium together can you be sued for breach of contract can your license to play the game be revoked well that’s essentially what a shrink wrap contract is and the EULA is basically an electronic shrink wrap contract nobody reads them and everybody knows that

Nobody reads them except me I read them and by the end of this video you’ll have read one too or listen to one at least like an audiobook the world’s worst audiobook for jogging sorry where were we alright well a shrink wrap contract meets many of the elements that are

Required for a valid contract under common law there is an offer and consideration I offer this game and ask for you to adhere to these conditions and pay money and you accept and get to play the game but was there an intention to enter into a contract with regards to

These conditions and can you accept a contract or be bound to a licensure agreement that you didn’t even know existed well there is no clear answer the states of Louisiana and Illinois each attempted to address the issue of shrink wrap contracts but the Louisiana software license Enforcement Act was

Essentially invalidated after and I’m not making this name up vaultcorp versus Quaid software found me act to be unenforceable and the Louisiana Act was also thereafter shortly repealed legal precedent in this case has been equally unhelpful there are two parallel legal lines here on this topic that don’t ever

Meet the seventh circuit in Pro CD V zeidenberg decided that shrink wrap contracts are largely enforceable and a whole line of cases has followed that precedent in favor of shrink wraps however another lineage of presidential jurisprudence emerged out of the second circuit in the spreck to be Netscape

Vis-a-vis closet V Gateway which held that certain characteristics of certain shrink wrap contracts are unenforceable but did not comment on the legality of shrink wrap contracts as a whole Mooney I can hear you ask why did we need to learn about this stuff what’s the point

Well the point is that the legality of eula’s isn’t clear what a Eula is isn’t clear and what a Eula can be used for if it can be used for anything at all isn’t clear either because nothing here is clear everything can be debated and misinformation and misunderstanding run

Rampant in other words when it comes to understanding eulas no one is around to help which brings us to the topic of why eulas even exist why include these quasi-legal potentially unenforceable contracts to begin with some eulas exist primarily to limit liability or the capacity for you the

Person or entity writing Viola to be sued other eulas might primarily be used to govern a data collection and privacy but in the case of video games eulas serve generally a rather specific purpose and that purpose is to manage the scope of intellectual property rights now a comprehensive ulo with

Accompanying usage guidelines or agreements May govern all of these different things and more I’m not suggesting that they don’t but for video game developers topics surrounding IP management like user restrictions copyright and trademark ownership and ownership rights or user-generated content are of Greater importance than say consent to data collection for

Advertising which might be a website’s primary concern American IP law and the tentacles it extends into the global body of intellectual property law causes trouble for everyone it is entirely possible for a multi-billion dollar intellectual property like say Nintendo to become genericized allowing everyone to utilize it if the boundaries of use

Of that property are not clearly delineated by the IP owner Nintendo had a close shave in the late 80s to early 90s and precisely this way it is also possible to lose your Trade Secrets by making accidental public disclosures or to lose ownership of your valuable characters by failing to engage with a

Content creator in the right way and the list goes on and on in other words be convoluted Frankenstein’s monster that is American IP law with its unnatural combination of judgment corporate lobbied and presidential law means that nobody really knows where the lines are drawn which requires a valuable IP holders to

Play the field very defensively the EULA in this case is a helpful tool for large companies and small developers alike to extend the bubble of their legal protections where the law is unclear or silent a Eula in and of itself is not necessarily an evil thing it is merely a

Tool if you need to protect yourself or your project from liability or exploitation or intellectual property theft the law itself is insufficient and the EULA becomes a necessary consideration let’s use the license page for the free recording software audacity as a case study you can see that this

Page doesn’t say Eula anywhere on it the page tells you that audacity is a free software that it is published by the free software foundation and you may copy distribute modify and slash or resell audacity under the terms of the gnu General public license or GPL audacity is also notably trademarked why

Is all of this necessary well imagine you are playing Minecraft and you build this cute little house in your multiplayer server after a long day in the minds you come back and the house has a squatter someone else has moved in and put up a sign you bring this to the

Attention of the admin but the rules of the server are clear if your house doesn’t have your name on it somewhere there’s no way to prove that the house belongs to you you then have no choice but to watch as the house gets turned into something it wasn’t intended to be

Your free software project if it isn’t properly licensed and potentially if it isn’t properly trademarked it’s like that Minecraft house you built the GPL that the free software Foundation promotes the one that is used in varying capacities by audacity and and Dolphin Emulator grants use rights but forbids proprietization meaning that it

Forbids anyone from excluding others from the use of the software in what is sometimes called amusingly copy left returning them to our audacity license page as the license page States what audacity is provides details concerning the licensure of audacity for the end user and note specifically that audacity

Is a registered trademark of Dominic mazzoni it is essentially a very Bare Bones end user license agreement it may not directly state that you need to accept this agreement to use the software but it does provide some conditions to your use remember what is and is not a Eula isn’t legally defined

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is de facto a duck now consider this if even free software like audacity which is freely modifiable and distributable needs a license and some vague kind of license agreement for the end user what kind of protection does a multi-billion dollar intellectual

Property Behemoth like Minecraft require Minecraft in particular is a complicated Beast as it is a game that functions as a medium of expression meaning what belongs to who with regards to in-game Creations needs to be very carefully delineated or problems could emerge now with this framework in mind let us go

Far back in time to the ancient era of 2010. the year I started playing Minecraft we’ll start from the very beginning and look at how the EULA of the game developed over time and then armed with all of the necessary context we will review together the recent Minecraft Eula and its changes info

When I purchased Minecraft I did so by paying Notch directly via Paypal I literally sent 10 euros to his old email address Marcus mojang.com Minecraft is a truly remarkable story it is a game built of an individual’s Grassroots Vision it is a product not of soulless corporate strategizing in investor

Capital but of a single man’s vision and regardless of what one thinks of Marcus’s personal beliefs his vision in building Minecraft is undeniable back in 2010 Mojang was not a subsidiary of Microsoft and Minecraft was a gritty indie project this is Minecraft’s yoga from 2010. it’s accessible via a

Hyperlink which reads terms and conditions with a lowercase C and it opens to a header which reads copyright information lowercase i in the section labeled other Notch rights in the first person I am not going to put up a huge uba it’s clear that a lawyer didn’t

Write any of this and isn’t even called a Eula at any point though it appears to be one but the terms and perhaps more importantly the promises laid out in this Yuma terms and conditions section are surprisingly easy to identify let’s review it together number one the one major rule don’t distribute anything

I’ve made including modified versions of anything I’ve made all game downloads need to come from a single Central Source rule number two what you can do to a you can get a full refund after one month to be or not to be if you’ve bought the game you can mod it please

Don’t grief to see any tools you make for the game Belong To You 2D do what you want with screenshots and videos of the game don’t steal art resources or distribute them and two e plugins for the game belong to you do what you want including sell them you can sell your

Copy of the game if you want which means selling your account and finally number three I’m not going to put up a huge Eula I’m trying to be open and honest if there’s anything legal you’re wondering about don’t do it or ask me first very straightforward isn’t it not as clumsy

Or random as in modern terms and conditions section An Elegant Eula for a more civilized age well in 2013 December of 2013 to be exact the first major change to the Minecraft Cuba occurred it caused a very large stir at the time especially given that Minecraft was

Relatively small and as you will see the controversy and anger surrounding this yield the change was a little bit misplaced in any case let’s review it quickly together in order to protect Minecraft we need these end user license terms to set out some rules we don’t like rules any more

Than you do so we have tried to keep this short as possible if we think it is necessary we might have to ask our lawyers to get in touch so right away Mojang is trying to keep their promise in rule number three no giant Doula but

You must as one might know from the teachings of the ancient Wu-Tang Clan protect your neck the EULA then links to the terms of use for the Mojang website brand and asset usage guidelines and a privacy policy you can see the night and day difference from before lawyers got

Involved to after can’t you we won’t be reviewing those documents though as they’re outside the scope of the video and of the community’s concerns for now let’s stick to the Yuma we’ve returned to our one major rule don’t distribute anything this has been clarified into subsections one a don’t give copies of

Our game to anyone else one B don’t make a commercial use of anything we’ve made one C don’t make money from anything we’ve made or One D don’t let other people access anything we’ve made in an unfair way whatever that means from there we get to using our game which is

Number two from above this whole section has essentially been Rewritten before it was you get a refund after a month you can mod but don’t grave your tools belong to you do which one with videos of the game don’t steal no art plugins belong to use cellular account if you

Want now you can’t sell your account rented or resell keys in order to stop piracy you can still modify the game but the don’t grief people Clause has been clarified mods are cool distribute them hacks are not cool don’t attribute those you can still do whatever you want with

Screenshots and videos of the game but now it’s within reason aha now it says you can’t make commercial use of those screenshots and videos if they adversely affect our right by all means they say upload videos to YouTube and monetize them but don’t rip art resources and

Pass them around or do anything that affects our IP rights that’s no good their use is cool too Mojang says but only to the extent that the law says so hmm well thankfully Mojang says tools you write for the game mods and plugins still belong to you but don’t monetize

Them we have the final say on what constitutes a tool mod or plug-in and what doesn’t you can see this expand Mojang’s power over mods considerably you can’t sell them anymore even if you own them and this is in order to protect Minecraft as an intellectual property remember the Nintendo video on

Trademarks the law doesn’t clearly draw the lines and so the UVA has to do that to extend the Law’s bubble of protection around the intellectual property the EULA continues if you make content available through our game you give us permission to use copy and modify that content and the permission is

Irrevocable you also give us permission to let anyone else use any content you make in our game don’t make content using our game that infringes on the rights of others if you do we’re passing the buck to you you are responsible for your infringement game is provided as is

We can terminate your license at any time if you reach the terms Eula extends the legal bubble but it isn’t intended to reduce your legal protections and we can change the EULA if we why now let’s take a moment to reflect in this December 2013 YULA which went into

Effect on August 1st 2014. what do you suppose was the point of controversy why was everyone so upset about this change well the issue back then was ostensibly that many Minecraft servers were paid to win you quote unquote donate to the server and you get perks in the form of

In-game items or materials or Buffs and there was a spoken and unspoken reason for this change the spoken reason is that pay to win servers are unfair and according to Mojang’s Eric Rose at the time if you were on a server your experience should be the same as every

Other player we just do not want people to mix the pools of paying people and non-paying people in other words Minecraft is for the people now the unspoken reason that many presumed was totally wrong users thought that Mojang put the clamps on Pay to Win servers so that Mojang could sell them

The stuff that private server operators were selling this argument is often thrown around when restrictions around IPS are tightened and it is almost always not the case another incorrect reason given was that the crackdowns on these servers were made so that Mojang could sell their own private servers to

Users via Minecraft realms but the unspoken reason the real reason for the EULA changes I’d argue is that Mojang didn’t want their ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property to be muddied by the commercial usage of their IP by private server operators think of this all in a real estate terms a sorry

In advance to gen Z and the Millennials and like half of Gen X before you buy or sell property you always want to make sure that the title to the property is nice and clean no liens no other ownership rights you aren’t aware of well Mojang was trying to do the same

Thing because unbeknownst to the Minecraft community in December of 2013. something was coming that would change Minecraft and the video gaming space forever in September of 2014 just one month after the new Minecraft Eula took effect Marcus sold Minecraft to Microsoft in a 2.5 billion dollar cash deal the

Minecraft Community famous for its mature adult user base accepted the news in a calm and collected no as you’d expect of the Minecraft Community completely lost its Collective marbles some users blamed those who had complained about the new Eula months ago saying that Notch must have sold

Minecraft because he was tired of all the pressure from people complaining about his doing the right thing not just blog post on his decision was also memorialized in the form of a paste bib in this blog post Notch says that people were bothering him about the EULA

Changes and that he was confused and frustrated and didn’t want to be a symbol or a CEO that he is just some nerdy computer programmer etc etc it’s not about the money he said it’s about my sanity my respect and love for Notch for Marcus is evident I’ve stated as much in the

Video already and have even communicated directly with him in the distant past but and you may recall me saying this in the Dolphin Emulator video about Gabe Newell you don’t get to be a billionaire without making billionaire decisions and billionaire decisions are always about the money you see even before the

Microsoft acquisition Mojang was beginning to utilize the power of law to consolidate its intellectual property ownership Minecraft’s lenient Eula was a product not of good intentions but of naivete and as Minecraft grew so too did the clamp’s Titan around the IP consider for example the story of bucket

Bucket.org was an open source server for Minecraft the first organized project of its kind it launched with the GPL license the copy left one as you recall and from 2011 to 2014 if you ran a private Minecraft server you were very likely using bucket in 2011 at the first

Minecon Mojang its love to bucket by hiring four of its developers to work on Minecraft directly and it seemed that Mojang had no problem with bucket being an open source project licensed under JPL version 3. sure bucket acted like a mod it utilized slash reverse engineered some parts of the Minecraft GameCube to

Build its own server code and API but Mojang had no problem with that at least it appeared that way until December of 2013 when the new Eula was implemented the fireworks that occurred but a heavy burden on open source developers who were under pressure to abandon their

Projects in light of the EULA changes we discussed and on August 21st 2014 the bucket Project Lead Warren Liu announced the end of buckets development only for the Wii developer of Minecraft to respawn that bucket wasn’t Warrens to discontinue and that Mojang had taken ownership and complete control of bucket

Remember those developers hired by Mojang back in 2011 Minecon while as part of their employment contracts they surrendered their personal copyrights and rights to the open source contributions they made in bucket essentially turning over bucket to Mojang under the table on September 5th 2014 a weed bucket

Death not hired by Mojang issued a dmca takedown on all of his contributions to bucket which caused The Source Code 4 bucket to be well taken down this was a huge deal for the Minecraft Community bucket was being used at the time an estimated three times more than Mojang’s

Own server software now Mojang had to have known that an under-the-table acquisition of an open source project licensed under the GPL would not have passed muster if it had been challenged and In fairness to Mojang bucket shouldn’t have attempted to license their product under the GPL to begin

With which is its own can of worms but nonetheless Mojang’s acquisition of bucket was never meant to protect or build upon the project at all the point was to consolidate and centralize their IP rights by snipping a loose end and all of this happened before Microsoft ever got involved in Minecraft

You can read more about this fascinating Story by visiting this link which is where I sourced the information above it’s also in the description for your reference so as we now approach our discussion of the current you I want you to keep this story in the history of the

Minecraft Eula in the back of your mind Mojang has always been protective of their IP even going so far as to use underhanded tactics in order to consolidate their IP ownership prior to a sale there was never an innocent era of Minecraft only a naive era of

Minecraft in fact it can even be argued that Microsoft has been a better more consumer-friendly Keeper of the Minecraft IP than an independent Mojang ever was after Microsoft acquired Mojang in 2014 the EULA continued to slowly evolve in 2015 the EULA was expanded to include more precise definitions of various

Terms by 2017 the one major rule had been pushed down the Page by a binding arbitration and class action waiver section boilerplate stuff included in many Au lament to prevent expensive Court proceedings and perhaps to confer an unspoken home field advantage to the ulub provider then quite suddenly the

UVA stopped changing this 2017 atula lasted from September 2017 until the recent Eula changes on August 2nd 2023 now what is interesting is that throughout this entire time from the beginning of Minecraft to until just recently the original voice of Notch was preserved in the text of the EULA that

One major rule language is essentially the same as it was back in 2010. the New Yuba and its accompanying commercial usage guidelines is a complete redraft and in that respect I can understand why it isn’t so intimidating and perhaps for old Minecraft vets even a bit disheartening but I think that the new

Eula doesn’t really enforce anything more than the old Eula does in fact the reason why this new Eula might even be good for the community is that it clarifies the rules to the point where even clickbait YouTubers can read the EULA and understand what it means whereas the old Eula might contain all

Of these provisions and more but is delivered in a less legally coherent package as it was built and developed out of Notch’s original word salad brings us finally to the bones and heart of our discussion we will break down the new Eula like this I will read you a

Part of the Yuma I will then tell you whether this provision also exists in the 2017 Eula or if this is truly something new then I will explain why this classes in the EULA to begin with so without further Ado let us begin the Minecraft Ender user license agreement

Or EULA starting with the title The Yuma includes the peculiar Ender language you see as it refers to hideo kojima’s 2001 hit Game Zone of the Enders moving on and number one the EULA starts with a summary and though the summary is written in soft words to cushion the

Legal power the YULA holds it is not incorrect or even misleading in any of its statements the 2017 Yuva has no such a summary but this isn’t really the EULA proper so we’ll move on quickly number two if you buy download or use our services or click accept on the Ula you

Agree to the EULA and the Microsoft Services agreement if you are a miner and remember what I said about Miners and contracts have your parents explain it and remember they are responsible for your Minecraft account and for accepting on your behalf does this Clause exist in

The 2017 aiula well yes it does the 2017 Eula contains this exact same click wrap language it also points to outside agreements that we will review together briefly later including account terms brand and asset usage guidelines in a privacy policy the new Eula has a clause specifically pertaining to miners though

Low because remember miners can’t form contracts in this way the new Eula is a bit more protective than the old one given how many Minecraft players are legally children moving on to account terms Microsoft accounts are used you should review that Services agreement if you use a different platform that

Doesn’t involve a Microsoft account review their service agreements if Minecraft education is involved these specific groups agreements might apply the Minecraft shop is managed by show Commerce so review their agreement if you have a Mojang account you need to migrate to a Microsoft account and the new service agreement applies to you

There’s nothing to see here really mojing had its own account terms which we will later review and Microsoft has theirs Nintendo has theirs the language is fundamentally the same but much clearer and now we get to the interesting stuff what you can and can to do with Minecraft software and

Content if you buy our games you can play our games even on a server you own but you can’t distribute anything we’ve made unless we agree to it here I think the EULA really should have defined what we’ve made before it defined and distribute anything this

Would have cleared up a lot for readers I suspect well what does what we’ve made mean it includes but is not limited to the services plus any other games we might publish in the future and all the updates patches DLC Market content add-ons modified versions of the game

Any part of the above that isn’t a whole merchandise audio visual content or anything else we’ve made you will note that there’s a few different redundant and everything else’s what we’ve made equals the Minecraft IP and the stuff Microsoft owns that orbits that IP which includes modified versions of the game

Let’s compare that quickly to the 2017 Eula which reads friendlier but has essentially the same conditions any mods you create for the game from scratch belong to you remember that a mod means something that is your original work that does not contain a substantial part

Of our code or content you own what you created you do not own our code or content now is the new you the more strict here or is it merely being clearer the answer is clearer this new language seems aggrandizing because it tells you on its face what it is about

The old Eula hides its power over albeit likely unintentionally in the 2017 Eula Microsoft already owns most if not all of your mods because your mods contain parts of Minecraft’s code it is unavoidable in most cases for a mod not to interact in some way with code you

May recall this very issue arising in a totally different game and video with the point Pro multiplayer mod debacle the new Eula isn’t giving Microsoft power they don’t already have any 2017 Yuba the new Eula simply removes the obfuscation removes the mask that makes it seem like you own your mods and even

If we interpret the 2017 Eula with the most generosity possible it still states that the mods you create belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them except you can’t sell them for money or try to make money from them and you can’t distribute modded versions of

The game meaning the mods aren’t fully yours as they are subject to conditions not set by you or what does distribute anything mean in this case let’s break it down together if you don’t have permission please don’t give copies of our game for free to others don’t make

Money using our intellectual property no seriously please don’t make money using our intellectual property and please don’t share our game or our IP stuff with others you will note this is all subject to simple permissions if you have permission to sell the game you can make money by selling it like if you’re

GameStop you may also note that this language seems awfully familiar and it is this is the one major rule from the 2017 you love verbatim this is the exact same language preserved from the era of Notch minus its once brand header so the spirit of the old Eula For Better or

Worse is precisely preserved here nothing has changed to round out this section let’s continue number five otherwise we are quite relaxed about what you do we’ve put together Minecraft usage guidelines and these are extra permissions that allow the community to be creative but that we can withdraw if

People abuse them what are these extra permissions well they’re outlined in a separate document called the Minecraft usage guideline the usage guidelines Define some terms first in the notes that these guidelines are not for other large corporations at agencies or politicians to promote anything unrelated to Minecraft this is for the

Community of fans and like any legal agreement by any software company the terms are subject to change over time all rights to the IP of Minecraft copyright trademark rights and related rights belong to Mojang and Microsoft if you use the IP with the permission the usage guidelines give you don’t make it

Seem like you are officially representing Mojang or Microsoft don’t do anything unlawful or obscene Etc don’t tie our assets to mature stuff like gambling or violence don’t redistribute any of our games which you may from both eulas and make sure to clearly disclose that you aren’t associated with Mojang or Microsoft now

Here comes a big point of controversy if you want to use Minecraft in the name or title don’t use Minecraft as a dominant title use it as a secondary title while this is tyranny surely you can’t use Minecraft as a name or dominant title does this mean our YouTube videos can be

Taken down if they contain the wrong name well here’s the truth of it that was always the case here is a screenshot of the Minecraft usage guidelines from 2015. this we’re not cool with it languages nothing new it existed in the guidelines for nearly a decade the people complaining about this title

Thing have simply never bothered to read these guidelines until now this new Eula isn’t 1984 it’s 2015. it was always within Microsoft or Mojang’s power to pull the plug on any YouTube video or content involving their IP for essentially any reason including but not limited to these naming guidelines if

These guidelines weren’t put to paper the only difference would be you wouldn’t know why your videos were running into trouble this Clarity is a good thing these guidelines are an extension of our protections it helps us know where the lines in the sand actually are instead of having to figure

Them out by tripping over them we’re going to skip the commercial use section for now as it isn’t really relevant to the rest of the video if you have questions about it please leave me a comment in general though again more detailed but not more strict and a lot

Of the language is identical which brings us to videos streams and screenshots and friends let me tell you this is a very generous set of permissions Microsoft and Mojang are directly telling us that we can put footage of the game on YouTube or twitch and make money from them as long as we

Aren’t adding paywalls in real life or otherwise and are adding our own unique content to set footage the old usage guidelines said essentially the same thing only much worse and have completed there’s this line at the bottom of the old guidelines that says more will

Follow as and when we decide what to add if something isn’t covered by these guidelines and we haven’t otherwise said it’s okay that means we don’t want you to do it these have finished guidelines survived from 2015 until August of 2023. these old guidelines aren’t a good thing

They are terrible I say once again don’t mistake brevity for leniency short and vague is worse than reasonably longer and more detailed when it comes to yuba’s and usage agreements that are intended to protect valuable intellectual property as the net such short Euless cast can be way wider and

Thus enforcement of Ip rights more arbitrary and speaking of enforcement of Ip rights we finally arrive at what I had expected to be the most controversial section of the new Eula and usage guidelines servers and hosting but once again the conditions are fairly generous you can charge for access to

Your server you can solicit donations as long as those donations don’t come with pay to win mechanics you can sell titles and cosmetics as long as those don’t interfere with gameplay you can show advertisements in game as long as they follow constructed promotions guidelines you can sell and use in-game Virtual

Currencies as long as they can’t be cashed out no money laundering using Minecraft sorry and these are all taken almost a Verbatim from the old commercial usage guidelines from 2017 nothing has changed so now that we’ve gone over the important parts of the usage guidelines let’s take a quick

Break to review what we’ve learned number one a short or vague Ewa doesn’t necessarily make a lenient Yuba and number two the new Eula is almost identical to the old Eula only clearer which is a good thing as it helps draw lines for Content creators like myself

To follow now returning to the UVA itself the next Clause states that your content remains your content Mojang owns the Minecraft dirt block but your 2×4 mud hut Masterpiece is your intellectual property then there’s a whole section on Online safety and Community standards and then a large section on Realms but

Let’s take a closer look at the content remains your content line the 2017 eula’s section on content is incredibly unclear the new eula’s illustration of the Block versus the building is extremely helpful in the 2017 Eula your content is never clearly defined and thus the line is vague anything could be

Not your content if nobody knows what that means it is better to have Clarity on what is and isn’t yours and the new Eula does a much better job with far fewer words at clarifying ownership of content the 2017 Eula also doesn’t have these large sections in the EULA

Dedicated to two values diversity and Online safety all of these things are not only good for a community arguably they protect Mojang and Microsoft from liability in different ways all good stuff for almost everyone playing Minecraft I think you will agree now what about all of this stuff on

Minecraft realms well I wasn’t able to locate the 2017 at use agreements for Minecraft realms but nothing in the new Eula seems particularly controversial here Realms is a paid service where you loan a dedicated server from Microsoft to play Minecraft if you don’t want these restrictions in independent

Private server is always a possibility and that’s it that’s the whole Eula there’s some general stuff sure and a privacy statement but really nothing has changed barely any of the words have even changed this is just the same Yuva Rewritten for clarity and Clarity is good but we’re not done with our Eula

Analysis I’d like to do one last thing before we wrap up this section and move on to Eula comparisons with other IPS I’d like to look directly at the Minecraft community’s complaints about the new Yuba to help assuage the panic Reddit user yes I’m Kian is a gun server

Owner who feels that the new Eula update is officially 1984. but is it I’ve seen this same body of complaints reposted all over the Internet let’s take a look at these complaints together and see if his statements ring true Number One servers with player cues such as 2b2t

Are now non-ula compliant Kian cites to a clause stating that access to your server can’t be limited to or controlled directly or indirectly by a player owning or having access to out of game content now In fairness the old Eula doesn’t directly mention that access to your server can’t be limited or

Controlled and kian’s first point has some Merit this does appear to do away with priority cues but priority cues including the one Kian is referring to with 2B 2T have arguably never been allowed it’s just clarified now consider the 2017 ayuba and agreement concerning accepting donations you are allowed to

Accept donations from players but can’t give preferential treatment for donating and this ostensibly includes priority cues it wasn’t enforced that doesn’t mean it isn’t against the EULA and this is also why having a clear eulow that appears stricter is better than an unclear Euler that appears more lenient

But isn’t actually an effect moving on to allegation number two any server piece of online content such as a video or other may be taken down due to any reason whatsoever if we don’t like what you are doing we meaning Mojang now let’s be clear this is the case with

Virtually every and any intellectual property and is especially the case with video games again remember the point pro video as content creators our use of someone else’s IP is completely up to the IP owner they owe us nothing and can take away that permission at any time fair use isn’t affirmative defense in

Court and not an active protection and here we go furthermore this has always been the case the 2017 Eula uses this exact same language word for word it is not new to the 2023 you complete number three all server owners are obligated to add a disclaimer saying not an official

Minecraft product this has always been the case and it has been a part of Minecraft’s Eula since 2015 using this exact same language this is not new complaint number four using Minecraft as a significant creative work such as in a YouTube video is no longer allowed the example given Minecraft the ultimate

Kotoba server for Redstone is not allowed well say it with me everybody this has always been the case this language has been a part of the Minecraft Eula since at least 2015. even the kotoba examples survive albeit slightly changed complaint number five any server or other things is considered

Commercial under every circumstance even if it does not make money or not well guess what that’s right this has always been the case from the 2015 Eula exact same language nothing has changed here either complaint number six in-person Minecraft events like Lan parties are no longer allowed to engage in sponsorships

If sad event is to make money so this is a legitimate new Clause but only because the old Eula and usage agreement did not have any language that directly addressed in-person events however this was also likely never allowed pursuant to the 2015 commercial guidelines which state that things not specifically

Permitted in the guidelines aren’t allowed and again vague language makes for stricter terms as such sponsorships for in-person Minecraft events like Lan parties were ostensibly never permissible now at the very least it’s more clear complaint number seven in-person Minecraft events cannot be marketed using Minecraft assets such as logos or

Fonts this is the same as the above right ostensibly never previously allowed either not stated doesn’t mean allowed quite the opposite is true complaint number eight servers with any content not suitable for 10 year olds whatever that may be is no longer allowed while this has always been the

Case this exact same language exists in the 2015 Eula identical to the 2023 Eula the new UVA helpfully offers a bit more explanation instead of saying your content has to be suitable for the target audience it is now for 10 plus but Mooney I hear you say this new Eula

Includes violence and terrorism and explicit lyrics and mature content instead of the previous Etc okay fair point but this doesn’t mean it wasn’t always still the case we should welcome this change because it tells us directly where the line and the sand is instead of saying merely

Etc this kind of content was always on the chopping block we are now only being told about it what a Eula says and how it is enforced are two different things and why hasn’t it been enforced while that’s up to Mojang in Microsoft enforcement is expensive and tricky

Smaller Eula violations might simply be escaping notice or not worth the cost to enforce or maybe you have to read between the lines and understand that these Clauses are just meant to protect the company from liability in any case number nine fictional story writers are not allowed to include

Minecraft brands or assets like fonts or images for Minecraft related works so this new Clause is reworded the power of the Clause already exists in the 2015 guidelines where it states in separate and rather unclear terms that Minecraft’s logo or the word Minecraft or its asset or brand are not allowed to

Be used in books and other Publications in other words this has likely also always been the case Kian then finishes off by accusing Mojang and Microsoft of gaslighting which is always nice and then states that they’ve changed the Euler such that they can now change the guidelines whenever they like and that

It’s supposed to be our responsibility to check them which as you all know has always been the case and always will be the case of course and that’s the whole list of complaints my friends this is 1984. this is democracy manifest having read the EULA with me and the

Usage guidelines and having compared the old Eula and guidelines to the new ones what do you think I’ll tell you what I think it is completely unnecessary Panic nothing in this Eula has substantively changed the rules remain the same they’re just clearer now will enforcement be ramped

Up well this I can’t say but if enforcement is ramped up it won’t have anything to do with alleged new powers granted in the new Eula or usage guidelines I encourage you my viewers not to be swept away by tides of mob and mentality but to take a moment and

Observe situations like this one with nuance and attention to detail it takes a month to make a video like this one the debunking spur of the moment passionate and angry complaints but it only takes a second to make said complaints may you my moon Channel viewers always seek the context before

Jumping on the bandwagon now before we conclude I want to make the case that the Minecraft Eula is actually quite the opposite of when commentators like Kian make it out to be in fact I think we are quite privileged to have such a degree of Freedom when it comes to engagement

With the Minecraft IP Microsoft for all of its faults has done a tremendous job of Minecraft on the IP engagement side and I don’t think the Minecraft Community understands how rare This truly is in order to give you an idea of how lenient not strict but truly lenient

The Minecraft Eula and guidelines are let’s take a quick look at a different Eula from a similar game in this space the Minecraft YULA and guidelines combined are roughly 12 pages long with a fairly large font size this is the terms of use agreement for Roblox it is 33 pages long with tiny

Little font and tons of legal jargon and citations all that good stuff at the Minecraft Yuba very intentionally does include this is Minecraft’s Eula on what your content is and isn’t it’s a pretty legally sound summary of the Microsoft service agreement concerning your content which is itself rather generous we don’t own the

Original stuff you create we own things that are derivatives of our own property single Minecraft block is ours dirt Hut is yours what does Roblox say about user generated content the services contain various forums functionality software and other interactive features that allow you to create uploads of mid-published display generate transmit

Or otherwise make available publish ugc on the services for more information release features please also read section 2 of The Creator terms yada yada some experiences allow for users of that experience to publish ugc within the experience such users who separately publish ugc with an inexperience here by

Grand both Roblox the creator of the applicable experience a worldwide perpetual royalty-free and irreficable right and non-exclusive license to use and exploit the ugc in any manner or media Etc in other words all your base are belong to us if you make stuff on Roblox ownership is Complicated by law and

Roblox cannot and good faith just say your Creations are theirs but they make the most of it anyway and certainly their user agreement gets no points or ease of readability Minecraft is ESRB rated everyone 10 plus and Peggy 7 plus Roblox is also rated ESRB 10 plus and

Pegi 7 plus Minecraft’s Eula is drafted in such a way that it can be understood even by a sixth grader Roblox Eula is drafted in such a way that it can barely be understood even by a lawyer Minecraft is truly unique in this way and for all

Its faults we’ve never seen an IP the size of Minecraft handled with such openness and content creator friendliness Microsoft has problems sure but with regards to Minecraft it is a Pioneer and its handling of the franchise should be respected and not harangue if this is how we treat those

Trying to do good for us we are merely inviting the opposite foreign egalitarian intellectual property of its size I can’t think of another IP that has such a lenient generous UV attached to it we Minecraft players are deeply spoiled by the amount of Freedom we have to create and utilize different aspects

Of Minecraft for our own artistic expression and for our own commercial ventures in being spoiled however I fear that we have also become privileged the complaints I’ve seen surrounding the new Minecraft Eula Are Holy without Merit the EULA is almost exactly the same as it used to be and if anything does

Happen enforcement wise it’s not likely to be because of Any substantial change in the end user license agreement or usage guidelines if you have any other complaints that I’ve not seen bring them up in the comments and I’ll see what I can clarify but please also review the

Old 2017 YULA and guidelines first Linked In the description and see if the answer might already be there there’s nothing dramatic about the new Minecraft you love on paper we’ve made a monster out of a mere Shadow so is Minecraft’s new Eula 1984 is it Brave New World is

It Fahrenheit 451 with a handmaid’s tale for dessert no it turns out the new EULA is just business as usual a special thanks to my dear friend the ever effervescent yozori for her help on the video’s intro you can check out Jose’s twitch Channel at twitch.tv

Yozori or by going to yozoda Oi dot live I’ve been your host Mooney with a cold and thank you for tuning in to Moon Channel hey how you doing I’m Mooney in this year’s Moonies Minecraft Let’s Play episode 2005. today we’re going to be planting some sheep hitting some rocks