MODDERS, TAKE DOWN YOUR WORK NOW!

The deal with Microsoft is basically done; if you are aware of financial news, as I am.

I am a 52-year-old journalist and my husband is a lawyer. We have admired Minecraft for its creative modding community; bright, creative young people producing amazing ideas and sharing freely with each other. Minecraft has caused many cottage industries to emerge to help the young; it has caused many to learn technology well enough to get jobs and have hope for the future. It has been the only thing about Minecraft worth bothering with for us.

Microsoft will not allow modding of its game. That is a simple fact. Learn it now.

Microsoft will reproduce your mods for sale. It is already planning to improve its Xbox and other platform versions, over PC, which is set to be made a lesser version in future updates. And you can bet that your mod ideas will be behind most of what it 'comes up with'.

You DO OWN COPYRIGHT OF YOUR MODIFICATIONS.

Please learn this now. You MUST MARK YOUR MODS/PLUGINS AS NOT TO BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION IMMEDIATELY. You must mark your copyright claim; not that it's legally required that you do so. All that is required is clear, dated evidence of prior ownership before Microsoft produces its own versions. You have published these mods publicly; there is a clear path of evidence of ownership. You must get copies of all evidences of your initial posting of these mods, and paths to updates; every changelog, every feature; keep the evidence before it disappears, as you cannot be sure of its security. Bukkit is dissolving. Other mod hosting groups will soon follow.

I strongly advise all modders and modding groups to REMOVE THEIR MODS FROM PUBLIC USE. Minecraft has been sold out from under you; your work will follow. Microsoft must pay you for your work if it is to use it at all.

DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO STATES THAT YOU DO NOT OWN THESE MODS. The component that was Mojang's creation is all that belongs to Mojang. THE REST IS YOUR WORK, YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. You must defend it now!

We are sickened by what we are seeing here; there are some huge groups of creative people who have lost the foundation of their work. But I strongly urge you to take heart and form some sort of group through which you can create a fabulous new game. It can be mining, farming, mob-killing, it can be first person viewpoint, it can be blocky, even. Mojang never had the rights to those features; other games were produced prior with the same concepts. But you could freely apply your modification ideas to your game. And you have a HUGE audience all ready to take up your game and make your efforts worthwhile, from sales of it.

To protect the future of this game, you must draw up a legally binding agreement that it cannot be sold without consent from all contributing parties, depending on whom you appoint to those positions. Ownership by a large group will protect your game from the clutches of corporations. The danger of Minecraft was its ability to be sold like this. This used to be the People's Game; now it is a nothing.

DO NOT WORK FOR MICROSOFT FOR FREE! DO NOT LET IT RIP YOU OFF AND SELL YOUR IDEAS! Stake your claims NOW. I will continue to fight this battle for you, with postings of your legal rights according to US copyright law, which is the applicable version as Microsoft is a US based corporation.

It does not matter a darn how many lawyers they could hire to fight you; the law is the law. That cannot be changed. Copyright is clearly yours for these ideas. Mojang did not pay you to product those modifications; their mistake. If they had, they could claim ownership; potentially. But in addition, you would have had to sign over the rights to your mods also. And you have not.

EULA has nothing to do with modifications. EULA itself was never legally binding, and it is in fact against the law for Mojang to have attempted to enforce what it did. They had the right only to prevent profiteering from their game; the rest, as in how you play it, what methods you use to gain running costs for servers, was never their right to dictate. And it certainly has nothing to do with modding.

Please, developers, act now! Remove your plugins and mods!