Safe mod sites

[MarkSH]

Why so terrified wisguy49? Nobody is telling you where you can and cannot download stuff. Take it off ripoff merchants all you like: when the mod needs an update, you won't get it becauseyou sourced it from someone who doesn't care. So since this isn't ANYONE telling you what YOU can do, why not tell us why the OP or anyone else here SHOULD NOT ask for the legitimate source? Without that, you're just screaming at terror at what you manufactured others saying so you feel scared and attacked.

As to the whole "copyright" thing, it's a possible thing, but it is irrelevant because whether it is given out to be randomly distributed or licensed only on this location for download there's the fact that the problem sites DO NOT CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTE THE WORK.

Indeed the only copyright theft is when someone claims authorship of a work they did not author ("piracy" is not theft, nothing is taken, only exclusive rights infringed. It's a civil case, not criminal. See trespassing) but claiming the work is yours when it is not IS theft: theft of the authorship and also any rights or revenue from that work done by another, same as any theft (e.g. of TVs).

So I would only go to legit sites because I want to know who the REAL author is, even if the author gave not one solitary mouse flatule for their rights as author.

There IS at least two licenses you can use for the purpose of such freely distributed works, BSD which requires the copyright notice with the author's name be included, or, which is more relevant to non programming work, the Creative Commons set, which have varying levels of what is allowed. There's by attribution, share and share alike, non modification and other versions that take the basic license and add new rights otherwise restricted by copyright even without registration, in exchange for some level of restriction on using the work licensed.

For me, the author of the mod needs to be known to me as being the author legitimately. Whether copyright existed or not.

[Guil]

Giants ToS state no mods can be charged for so that rules out theft in right to revenue.

I think it was modhub us I saw it on but it lists the creator and also the original download link.

[MarkSH]

Well not theft of copyright, in theory. I could still upload a "Mexico Villa" map mod and, as long as Giants don't look into it to see it's actually THEIR map mod I just reuploaded, I could then try to get them sued for infringing on "my" mod: Mexico Village. Of course if they fight it, it's EASY to show they produced it first, but if I get an injunction first by paying a good lawyer to make a case, I can steal from Giants until they pay to fight.

The claim of authorship is not paid rights, but it can be stolen. Ask the authors of the Manga series "Kimba the White Lion".

[pingu]

To me, having a Facebook or GitHub account does not automatically mean that someone claiming to have created some mod that can be downloaded is the original creator of it. Unless that someone belongs to a very very small group of highly recognizable and respectable modders, there is basically no way for us know if a modder is giving out mods created by others. I mean, how many tippers for FS17 are there for download? Most being variants of a standard tipper and looks almost the same; some even have the same brand name, same color, etc. How can any of us establish which ones of all those are original creations and not just 'stolen' by people that claims to have made them?

All this is, of course, not helped by the fact that most players of a game like FS don't know anything about this whole issue. They have a game. They find sites that have mods for free. They happily download them. They don't know about respecting others work. They don't understand that they just keep on supporting sites that live of malware, adware, etc. And then there are those that do know about all this. But they don't care one bit as long as they get everything for free, because that is what they think they are entitled to.

We want lots of people to mod and come up with great stuff. But that also mean there is no way to 'know' all modders and keep track what belongs to who. So I personally only see 'curated' sites as safe; 'curated' as in some people with insight have at least tried to only publish original work by those who actually made them.

[IceUul]

Let me explain how things work...

If someone makes a mod, yes, most mods out there are not made from scratch. This means they take another mod and modify it. Then they have a choice, keep this mod for themself or
upload it to internet. After it is uploaded they are shared it with the world, free of charge. Mods does not have any protection and there are no way to make one. Even games with heavy protections
get shared free on some vicious websites. So only way to avoid someone is re-uploading your mod on some site you do not like is not to make it available to the world. Keep it yourself and be happy!

But if you want to share it...

Be ready that some automatic computer programs called bots will find it sooner or later and make it available to different mod sites. Just be happy that your got your work shared with the world.
They just change the uploader name and some upload info, they do not claim it is made by them. If you include enough info about yourself inside mod files, then you will be still identified as original creator.

Mod sites like modhub.us, farmingsimulator19mods.com, fs19.lt and other similar mod sites will offer free hard disk space and great download speeds free. Internet bandwidth and hard disk space will cost a lot, so how they earn this money back? First, they need to get enough mods to they site, they use bots and other ways to get all the mods to be available on they site. More mods means more people will visit they site, more visits means there are more chance to get better advertisement money. Since these sites are not so popular to earn enough money back, they use aggressive advertisement mode to get more clicks/visits to advertise websites. They make fake download buttons, pop-up windows and much more annoying stuff to get visitors more clicks to the sites they are advertising.

These sites are not malicious, they do not contain viruses and malware. I have used all the above sites to download at least 500 different mods, checked the files and sites with newest malware and virus software and never found anything, i can confirm that these sites are safe to use. But i cannot confirm that every link you click there will not go to some malicious site. There are some risks, make sure first how these sites work and what button to click and what not to click.

Also i think these modsites, including Giants one, are best way to share mods, as long we do not have nexus or steam mod sites, checking 100 different sites every week for new mods is quite annoying.

You cannot fight with free internet, just accept what it has to offer or just do not use it. Keep complaining about mod thefts will not change anything.

[MarkSH]

These sites are not malicious, they do not contain viruses and malware. I have used all the above sites to download at least 500 different mods, checked the files and sites with newest malware and virus software and never found anything, i can confirm that these sites are safe to use

Nobody has accused of the sites of being malware hosts. The reason to be assuming others are is if you're worried they are right.

And if I were convinced that

a) it was worth the payment asked
b) actually properly representing the authors

I'd pay what the site demands. However, for (a) they don't say they're downloading a trojan, since that is what it is, to serve up ads to me to "pay" for it, that doesn't apply to what I would call "unsafe" as per the OP's worry, and you've just said that the ones you mention don't do (b) for reasons.

The Amazon Fire comes with either bundled stuff to sell advertising and underwrite some of the cost, or without that bundle for a higher price. That's fine, I can make my decision and it is, as required for a free market, an informed one. Not so happy when they say that they want adblocking off, and use this download link, which doesn't download what I asked, but an app to download what I want plus uncounted other advertising. Heck, I'm not even interested in downloading it, using it to download the thing I want and then uninstalling it so I'm not bugged by it or have my internet used to download random adverts. Partly because I don't trust it not to install some hidden stuff as well.

[W1der]

Well ...

Since a couple of weeks Fire Fox wont let me visit modhoster for "safety reasons". It wont even let me make an exception as it is considered a far to great risk to visit this website.
The prompt contains a description saying that there is a risk for my "information" to get stolen ... what ever that means!?

It´s is probably just an out of date certificate that is causing this ... but I am not that "savvy" so for the moment I am getting my mods elsewhere ...

I recently discovered "LS portal" ...
https://ls-portal.eu/

[cwattyeso]

Giants ToS state no mods can be charged for so that rules out theft in right to revenue.

I think it was modhub us I saw it on but it lists the creator and also the original download link.

Well I would make an argument then that these sites like modhub etc shouldn't be running adverts and adsense and stuff like that on their sites then to make money off the traffic coming to and downloading the mods that they have stolen from the original author's sites, so they are making revenue off the mods/

[RODHA]

I consider myself to be very computer savvy and no one is going to 'get me with a virus' or some bs like that.

Being completely irrelevant from the rest of your post as an IT guy I really don't recommend trusting yourself that much in terms of computer viruses and other malicious software types. Your PC could presently have some of those and you wouldn't even notice.

[pingu]

I consider myself to be very computer savvy and no one is going to 'get me with a virus' or some bs like that.

Being completely irrelevant from the rest of your post as an IT guy I really don't recommend trusting yourself that much in terms of computer viruses and other malicious software types. Your PC could presently have some of those and you wouldn't even notice.

Exactly my thought.

And the point is not only if these site contains viruses or not. The point is if we should support sites that operates like this with malware, adware, pop-ups, etc. I choose not to.

[norfolk farmer]

Well ...

Since a couple of weeks Fire Fox wont let me visit modhoster for "safety reasons". It wont even let me make an exception as it is considered a far to great risk to visit this website.
The prompt contains a description saying that there is a risk for my "information" to get stolen ... what ever that means!?

It´s is probably just an out of date certificate that is causing this ... but I am not that "savvy" so for the moment I am getting my mods elsewhere ...

I recently discovered "LS portal" ...
https://ls-portal.eu/

Modhoster.com has not worked for a couple of weeks but try the modhoster.de site that still works.

[blue_painted]

@wiseguy49

There are two parts to this:

1. If the modders get sufficiently annoyed/irritated/angered by their mods being uploaded where they don't want them to be, then some or all of these modders will stop producing new mods. The legalities, or not, are largely irrelevant.

2. The modder to whom you allude, not very obscurely, did NOT ask for donations for a new PC. Others asked and it was more in the spirit of thanks for mods already made and published.

As far as the legalities goes, it is as well to remember that GIANTS is Swiss company and at least one of the modders you mention is British, so American law is not necessarily applicable.

[MarkSH]

When it comes to copyright and payment for the work, the copies took no effort on your part, so it has to be an artificial agreement to not copy unless paid for. A think the copyright cartels and their PR faces keep forgetting.

THIS DOES NOT mean that paying for copyright stuff is wrong, nor that copyright infringement is right.

What it means is, as a content creator, stop worrying about who is NOT paying for your product, but who IS paying for it. And if there are enough people paying to make it work for you, then STOP WORRYING ABOUT PIRATES.

My refusal to use piracy is separate from "I should pay the authors". If I don't think it's worth the price, I don't bother. Piracy CAN help sales. Microsoft was built on it. Their stuff being pirated made them ubiquitous and gave them the monopoly they are milking to this day for billions.

And because I don't see paying for me making a copy of your work as a moral thing to do, if you don't ASK for payment, I still don't change my view: I should pay what is due still unless I don't think it worth the asking price (of acknowledging you did the work, in the case of free mods).

If you're making a business off copyrights, stop trying to stop people using your stuff and just worry about enough people paying to make it work.

You're not guaranteed a working business elsewhere, 9 out of 10 new ventures fail in the first 5 years. Despite VC being paid shedloads for their expertise in picking winners. Copyrights, however, have managed to engender the idea that you're owed a working business, however, due to copyright cartel lobbying and propaganda. So to pretend that their failure isn't normal for 90% of businesses, they demand that piracy be the culprit, not their value proposition *censored*.

Stop worrying about who isn't paying. If enough pay to make it work, accept you're in the top 10% of businesses.

[cwattyeso]

Have come across a modder or modding team that's doing pretty shady stuff, the sort of stuff that Giants may want to weigh in on. For a start they are only releasing their mods to people who sign up to a Patreon Account which basically is a way of them charging people for their mods, which is definitely against Giants TOS. The modders however completely contradict themselves in a FAQ section on their site/page where they state, "11. Do you make money with mods?
A. No. Modding is just a hobby and all our content is free."
Also they are doing some shady things with the mods themselves using something they term a "Mod Blocker" which prevents anyone being able to open, extract or view the contents of the mods zip file. So who know's what stuff they could be putting in there without people being able to check the contents. Also they are using their own terms in the Vehicle Type section of the mods xml to make their mods incompatible with other mods and causes players to have issues if they use them with such mods, an big example being Courseplay. With these custom vehicle types that the modders are using, it causes the game to have issues where game's won't save and the save file becomes corrupted. So it seems this group of modders is going out of their way to prevent players from being able to use other mods alongside their own.