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The Foundry - End User License Agreement
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THE FOUNDRY TERMS OF USE
The Program ("Star Trek Online") contains certain design, programming and processing utilities, tools, assets and other resources ("The Foundry") for use with the Program that allow you to create customized new game levels and other related game materials for personal use in connection with the Program ("New Game Materials"). The use of the Foundry is subject to the following additional license restrictions:
New Game Materials may be created only if such New Game Materials can be used exclusively in combination with the online version of the Program. New Game Materials may not be designed to be used as a stand-alone product.
New Game Materials you create using the Foundry are subject to the following rules and restrictions:
Star Trek Properties are defined as including:
New Game Materials may utilize the Star Trek Properties as provided by CBS and Cryptic Studios unless otherwise specified in the Prohibited Section below. You may use the names of characters (past or present) from the Star Trek Properties.
Prohibited Uses of the Star Trek Properties:
Other Prohibited uses of New Game Materials published using The Foundry:
Cryptic Studios and CBS reserve the right to remove any New Game Materials for any reason at any time, without providing cause or recompense.
You agree that, all New Game Materials produced using the Foundry becomes the property of Cryptic Studios, to use as they see fit.
As a condition to your using the Foundry, you will not use or allow third parties to use the Foundry or New Game Materials created by you for any commercial purposes, including but not limited to selling, renting, leasing, licensing, distributing, or otherwise transferring the ownership of such New Game Materials, whether on a standalone basis or packaged in combination with the New Game Materials created by others, through any and all distribution channels, including, without limitation, retail sales and on-line electronic distribution. You agree not to solicit, initiate or encourage any proposal or offer from any person or entity to create any New Game Materials for comercial distribution. You agree to promptly inform Cryptic Studios in writing of any instances of your receipt of any such proposal or offer. If you decide to make available the use of the New Game Materials created by you to other gamers, you agree to do so solely without charge.
The Program ("Star Trek Online") contains certain design, programming and processing utilities, tools, assets and other resources ("The Foundry") for use with the Program that allow you to create customized new game levels and other related game materials for personal use in connection with the Program ("New Game Materials"). The use of the Foundry is subject to the following additional license restrictions:
New Game Materials may be created only if such New Game Materials can be used exclusively in combination with the online version of the Program. New Game Materials may not be designed to be used as a stand-alone product.
New Game Materials you create using the Foundry are subject to the following rules and restrictions:
Star Trek Properties are defined as including:
- Star Trek - The Original Series
- Star Trek - The Next Generation
- Star Trek - Deep Space Nine
- Star Trek - Voyager
- Star Trek - Enterprise
- Star Trek - The Motion Picture
- Star Trek II - The Wrath of Kahn
- Star Trek III - The Search for Spock
- Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home
- Star Trek V - The Final Frontier
- Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country
- Star Trek - Generations
- Star Trek - First Contact
- Star Trek - Insurrection
- Star Trek - Nemesis
New Game Materials may utilize the Star Trek Properties as provided by CBS and Cryptic Studios unless otherwise specified in the Prohibited Section below. You may use the names of characters (past or present) from the Star Trek Properties.
Prohibited Uses of the Star Trek Properties:
- You may not use the first or last names, likenesses, or other depictions of any actors appearing in, or writers, directors, or producers of the Star Trek Properties.
- You may not use copyrighted content from the Properties, including but not limited to web content, promotional materials (posters, advertisements) or existing licensed merchandise (novels, trading cards, figurines).
Other Prohibited uses of New Game Materials published using The Foundry:
- You may not use New Game Materials to endorse or appose any political party, association (e.g., republican, democrat, candidates, or otherwise) or any side of any issue.
- You may not use New Game Materials to depict a likeness of any real person (historical or present day).
- You may not use New Game Materials to advertise any businesses, products or services of any party.
- You may not publish web URLs in your content.
- You may not use New Game Materials to convey any profanity, vulgar, hate language explicit sexual language, derogatory references to race, gender, religion, age, mental or physical impairment, obesity or sexual orientation, or reference any drugs (legal or illicit) or medication.
- You many not make use of any copyrighted or trademarked material of third parties, and only may use the Star Trek Properties as explicitly defined in this agreement, without irrevocable licenses granted specifically for that purpose
- You may not use New Game Materials to infringe on the rights of privacy and publicity of third parties.
Cryptic Studios and CBS reserve the right to remove any New Game Materials for any reason at any time, without providing cause or recompense.
You agree that, all New Game Materials produced using the Foundry becomes the property of Cryptic Studios, to use as they see fit.
As a condition to your using the Foundry, you will not use or allow third parties to use the Foundry or New Game Materials created by you for any commercial purposes, including but not limited to selling, renting, leasing, licensing, distributing, or otherwise transferring the ownership of such New Game Materials, whether on a standalone basis or packaged in combination with the New Game Materials created by others, through any and all distribution channels, including, without limitation, retail sales and on-line electronic distribution. You agree not to solicit, initiate or encourage any proposal or offer from any person or entity to create any New Game Materials for comercial distribution. You agree to promptly inform Cryptic Studios in writing of any instances of your receipt of any such proposal or offer. If you decide to make available the use of the New Game Materials created by you to other gamers, you agree to do so solely without charge.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Here's a few other links that might be helpful as well:
Star Trek Online End User License Agreement
Content Rating and Approval Process Details
Foundry on Holodeck - FAQ
Starbase UGC
The Foundry
The Star Trek Online Wiki
StormShade clarified it here:
Good: "LaForge was good at fixing engines."
Bad: "LaForge, fix my engine."
Correct?
Community Authored Content Reviewer - End User License Agreement
By signing up to be a Reviewer for the Star Trek Online Foundry, you are agreeing to be exposed to unreviewed community authored content. Such content will likely include offensive and distasteful information. Do not accept unless you are willing to view such content. Reviewers must be over 18 years of age or older.
You agree to review content in the context of appropriateness for all ages, and for violation of the End User License Agreement (EULA) for author that can be found on the Star Trek Online web site. The other players of the game are relying on your judgment to help identify inappropriate content.
You can revoke your reviewer status at any time.
I am over 18 and wish to accept Reviewer status.
I see two problems with this:
1) A typo. It should say; "...Agreement for authors that can be found..."
2) The Foundry EULA actually isn't on the Star Trek Online website.
I know there is probably no "toeing the line" in regards to profanity. I have heard two words in movies/shows, the "d" word and the "h" word (usually goes together in the same sentence), and I have used them once or twice in the mission I am building. However, I don't want to take any chances, and will be removing those two words from my mission.
"Making missions that main purpose is to give you accolade or XP most people also feel is cheating. Sadly they are very popular and get good reviews."
In response to this, WishStone posted:
In other words, you may not use anything that is exclusive to those properties. For example; you can use Klingons, because they are specifically covered in the "may use" section, but you could not use a race that appeared exclusively in an item of "licensed merchandise" such as a novel or one of those video games that you mentioned.
No physical appearance in your mission means no physical appearance in your mission. Not even at the end.
If you're talking about some text from the author simply thanking the writers / creators / actors, that's fine as long as they don't physically show up in the mission.
Also, what's the verdict on using the d-word and the h-word in mission text? They're present in real Star Trek scripts, and on almost every other TV show on the air. AND the game is rated T, after all.
However, WishStone corrected that just today with this post:
So it seems that you cannot actually re-create Star Trek episodes using the Foundry.
If it's a new character, I don't see why not.
You can have new guy who served on a ship at Wolf 259 or a guy who claims he's Archer's descendant. I don't see why not. However, you won't be able to enforce that outside your own missions and your audience knows that, which can cost you credibility.
When it mentions historical figures, does it mean the likeness or the names. because there are many names of people who are not historical figures, but have the same name?
SO if we have an NPC that is a ancestor of the historical figure, that is not the actual historical figure.
Because Tiberius Kirk is an actual historical figure.
Also, the name 'Enterprise' is not owned by Star Trek, CBS, Paramount. It is the name of a US Aircraft Carrier. That cannot be copyrighted. That means the name is not the property of anyone or any entity. If I am a plank owner (USS George Washington CVN-73) of a ship in the US navy, by law I am an owner of the ship. So if I use that name, and I am a plank owner by law, I should be able to use the name.
The original 13 ships of the Star Fleet were named after the 13 original ships in the US navy in 1775. The formation of the US Navy predates the declaration of Independence, because the US Navy was founded by the Continental Congress in 1775.
This is why all the 13 ships have the number 17XX in the Navy Commissioning Code or NCC. Every ship in the US Navy is a commissioned officer. This is why when you cross a Quarterdeck on a ship you must turn and salute the ensign of the ship (Flag). That is why ships have commissioning ceremony and a decommissioning ceremony. The original crew for the commissioning by law is reward as a 'plank-owner'.
Also, the initials USS which means United States Ship...is not a copyright-able name or title. Which is why they used it in the show. Also, the Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1967, but the construction started at Newport News Shipyard in 1965. Which coincided with the Original Series Launch in 1966. That was the first Nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier, and the first ship to experiment around with the Aegis type radar. Although they did not call it that then.
Plank owners are by law owners of the ship forever.
Three of those ships, Enterprise, Lexington, and Yorktown were in the battle of Midway in WWII.
Also, two of those are named after battles in the revolutionary war.
Also, I see people using the named USS Arizona in the game. The ship is still a commissioned as a US warship. I thought it was against the law to use the name USS Arizona and USS Maine to represent any ship because it is a war memorial for the people who died on the ship. And, USS Constitution is still a commissioned ship, and so is the USS Constellation.
If we cannot use historical figures or names, isn't the agreement in violation of the law? And if the ships name's are not owned buy any person or any corporation, then how can that be in violation of the EULA since none of the entities in the agreement own those names.
As an example:
If I have a ship named 'June' which comes from the Greek name 'ιουνίους' which is both an historical figure and a religious figure, does that violate the EULA?
However, government names cannot be copyrighted, which is why they used the names in the first place in Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry was a navy veteran.
Also, according to this latest post from WishStone, you cannot have any ship that appeared in any of the TV shows or movies appear in your missions. Nor can you, as was previously claimed on the official Foundry page, recreate any episode of Star Trek.
You can argue about the legalities of these various things all you want, but please do not do it in this thread because I don't want this thread to get locked.
And, legal or not, if you violate these rules, and someone reports you, you may lose access to the Foundry.
the thing about this *ahem* 'agreement' is that its asking for trouble from parents. the reason is simple: the agreement states that you have to be 18+ to enter into it. if the player is not 18 or over the player cannot legally agree to that agreement or any other - including the games EULA and tos, technically. this is because according to US law a minor cannot enter into a contract or any other form of legal agreement without the express written permission of the parents of that minor. since cryptic doesn't actually confirm a persons age when they play the game and anybody of any age can sign up (even a 10 year old can get ahold of a prepaid visa) one day cryptic could get a headache from an annoyed parent or parents (who possibly don't even know their child is playing this game) when they try to enforce one of these agreements.
therefore my suggestion is to improve upon these agreements and make it so there is an actual age verification before agreeing.
well....yeah if you want to get really into it theres a way around almost everything. technically you're correct, but it would be a headache to take it up with cryptic
yes this is true. but like many laws, few people know about things like that and fewer care to enforce it
it doesn't matter what a GM agrees or doesn't agree with. they can only enforce a rule, not expand on it themselves, or they violate the agreement. as long as you don't push it or make a major direct reference there isn't very much anybody can do about it
this is blatantly untrue. people can report you for anything. if it is legal it is legal. nobody can stop you from using the foundry in a legal manner. if they attempt to do so they have violated your rights and are asking for trouble.
the moral of the story is don't do anything stupid and don't give cryptic a reason to do anything stupid and we won't have to worry about issues like these.
if you are using a demo account I would think so. makes sense that the foundry would be restricted to full accounts.
The EULA was written by their corporate lawyers. It's unlikely that they're going to change this agreement unless you call Cryptic Studios and give them your Bar Number.
This is not true. There is no US law that covers what you can name an imaginary space ship in a video game.
This is completely true. People have already had their Foundry access revoked for violating these rules. I'm not guessing on this, StormShade (a Cryptic employee) has confirmed that this has happened.
No it doesn't. re-read what I said. To simplify: the player is a 10 year old kid, he signs up to use the foundry. in this situation the parents have agreed to nothing, the child has also agreed to nothing because according to US law a minor can't enter into such an agreement with any company. So in short, Cryptic would not be protected from said parents because no consent was given and nothing is binding on a minor. Is it likely to happen here? probably not. But theres no reason it can't happen, which is why it is important to be careful about age verification. It is also the same reason several TRIBBLE companies have been screwed over royally by parents over the years for using 'models' who were underage at the time. Not all that uncommon with some seedier companies like that.
it is very likely it would be changed if a very annoyed parent started causing trouble. Just because its written by a lawyer doesn't mean its legal. Have you watched the news recently? All kinds of companies get sued all the time. drug companies especially. The agreements, tos's, EULAs, notices of non responsibility, etc.. are all done up by corporate lawyers. That doesn't mean they are legal, or that said lawyers are even competent. You would be amazed at what some companies try to get away with
who said anything about a space ship in a video game? as far as those types of laws are concerned this is a commercial interest - in the case of the foundry it is copyrighted material that is developed by people for a company, which makes it their responsibility to keep stuff like that out of it. the medium it is created in is irrelevant. Such things are just as serious regardless of its a video game or not. No different than what the copyright TRIBBLE would do to cryptic if dstahl suddenly added shatners license to the game as kirk without his permission (before jumping on that one on the basis of mccoy and scotty being in the game, those were much easier to use given the fact that at the time they were added to the game both actors were dead)
I didn't say for violating rules. I said they can't punish or revoke access to a service you are paying for, for doing something that is legal.
Yes; and PF told you, correctly, that they have in fact done exactly this, and it's perfectly legal for them to do so, because when you payed them your money you AGREED THEY COULD. In writing.
And yes, clicking "accept" counts as a signature in the US, since 1998.
However, it's easier just to abide by the expanded rules than argue about them, especially since Cryptic are the ones who are enforcing them. If they believe the Terms mean one thing, even if they are flat out wrong, there's no way you can really win that battle unless you're going to go way beyond reasonable bounds and resort to legal action or something along those lines.
Just use the Foundry the way they say to. It's simply not worth making a fuss about it.
1: Can I depict planets from episodes, such as Talos IV?
2: I am considering an episode with Soong type androids, (which always look like Data, Lore, B4, etc...)
Would this episode follow the EULA?
1. As far as I understood the EULA, there is general no restiriction on using places and names.
2. ST Androids are generally OK because they don't depict a single person from the series/movies. But they must NOT look like one of the actors. I am not 100% sure but a "bald" Android with the skin tone and eyes of Data -without looking like a bald Brent Spiner- should get you on the safe side.
Personally I would still avoid it.
Use your imagination and tell a new story: Invent Worf's illegimate Half-Sister (that way you avoid a Worf lookalike). Or create a sentinent Borg who references Hugh (which is allowed).
If you can tell a good story that gets the player attached and involved you don't need known characters, just give the player an "anchor" to the events of the Series