STEP:Mod Stewardship Service

Mod Stewardship Service

Mod maintenance on the behalf of retired mod authors

by: Step Modifications

Steps' Mod Stewardship Service is very similar to Nexus Mods' "The Care Taker" service, with some licensing differences. Since Step Modifications operates under "cathedral modding" principles, licensing for mods/assets/IP (herein termed 'Creations') provided for stewardship are converted to a cathedral-friendly license, 1. By contrast, The Care Taker service retains the Creation's original license "as is," which could potentially lock these Creations into the "parlor modding" paradigm indefinitely.

The decision of which service to choose rests with individual Creation Authors; however, Step Modifications encourages Authors to "open up" their Creation licenses when retiring to allow others in the community to continue utilizing and servicing/supporting these Creations as necessary. Creations within the Mod Stewardship Service will be transferred to the Step Modifications account on Nexus Mods where they will be maintained and potentially expanded up by knowledgeable Step Staff and community volunteers. See Terms & Conditions, below, for all the details.

Step will always make every effort to preserve the original intent of a given Creation.

Ineligible Creations

Creations not eligible for tewardship include, but are not limited to:

• Creations containing nudity or sexually explicit content
• Creations containing content not relevant to the game subject (e.g., political mods, mods that add content outside of established lore, etc.)

Disclaimer

Step Modifications is a legally registered non-profit organization, which relies on donations and other voluntary forms of community support to continue operating. Step Modifications may benefit from Creations within the 'Mod Stewardship Service' via direct donations from their Nexus pages, as well as any rewards system offered by Nexus Mods.

All Step staff and board members are unpaid volunteers, and Step never collects any membership or advertising revenues. All donations are used for operational and maintenance expenses, and any surplus is retained indefinitely until needed or allocated to another worthy nonprofit.

Current Mods Under Stewardship

SkyrimLE

• Alternate Sun Glare
• Deadly Spell Impacts
• Exhaustion
• Holidays
• iNeed
• Intricate Spider Webs
• Loot and Degradation
• Moon Glow
• Realistic Smoke and Embers
• Sleep Tight
• Step Skyrim Legendary Edition - SLE - Guide
• Visible Windows
• Wet and Cold
• Wonders of Weather

Retired

• ENB Presets for SkyRealism and RLwC-RCRN-CoT
• Golden Gods Shrines -- BCF and BAIN Wizard
• Skill Interface Retexture -- BCF and BAIN Wizard
• Static Mesh Improvement Mod - SMIM -- BCF and BAIN Wizard
• Visible Windows -- BCF and BAIN Wizard

SkyrimSE

• Aspens Ablaze Add-On - DynDOLOD 3
• Aspen Realism
• Better Dynamic Ash SE
• Better Dynamic Snow SE
• Deadly Spell Impacts
• Dragon Glyphs HD - Fixed
• Enhanced Landscapes - Dilon Vul - DynDOLOD 3D Hybrids
• Enhanced Vanilla Textures - Shrines
• Falkreath Aspens Addon - DynDOLOD Add-On
• Functional Windmills - Mill Stones
• Happy Little Trees Add-On - DynDOLOD 3
• Holidays
• iNeed
• Just In Time - Remastered
• Lore-Corrected Races
• Majestic Mountains Creation Club Landscape Patch
• Morekvior-Myrkvior Visual Enhancement-DynDOLOD
• Myrkvior - TFoS Add-On - 3D Hybrid Trees SSE - DynDOLOD
• Relighting Skyrim SE
• Smooth Shores Patches
• Snow Elf Ruins Resource Pack
• Step Skyrim Special Edition - SSE - Guide
• Vanilla Landscape Corrections
• Wet and Cold SE
• Wonders of Weather

Retired

• Snowy Landscapes in Snowy Regions

  replaced by Vanilla Landscape Corrections

Other Games

• Step Fallout New Vegas - FNV - Guide
• Step No Man's Sky - NMS - Guide

Terms & Conditions

Transfer of Ownership

Authors who elect to place their Creations into Step's Mod Stewardship Service must authorize the "transfer of ownership" of their administrative rights to any distribution source2 to Step Modifications, herein referred to as "Step".

Transferring the distribution source to Step allows Step to service the Creation and information pertaining to the Creation at the original source. Step does not utilize or operate a content delivery network (CDN); therefore, it is essential that Step have authority to service all aspects of the mod at the distribution source or even to change that source if/when necessary.

1. By transferring ownership to Step, Authors affirm that they own the Creation and may enact such Transfer of Ownership.
2. For any Creation hosted by Nexus Mods, the Transfer of Ownership is complete when the mod page is transferred from Author's Nexus Mods user account to the "StepModifications" Nexus Mods user account.
   • Nexus Mods will not complete such transfers without written permission from the Page Owner (Instructions below).
3. Creations hosted by other distribution sources will complete Transfer of Ownership to Step on a case-by-case basis, and documented in writing via email and/or any relevant private messaging system that can be used to verify correspondence sources.
4. Step gains the right to transfer the Creation to a distribution service other than that of the original service, if:
   • original distribution service does not allow the Transfer of Ownership, or
   • original distribution service is no longer available
5. The Author will be added as an administrator, if possible, to distribution page once Transfer of Ownership is complete.

NOTE

For Nexus Mods Transfer of Ownership, send a private message to the Nexus Community Manager, stating your intent to transfer your page(s) to StepModifications (or PM ON Nexus user 'StepModifications', and we will assist.)

Transfer of License

Creations opted into Step's Mod Stewardship Service shall immediately adopt Creative Commons (CC) "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike"1 once the Transfer of Ownership of the distribution source page(s) is completed.

Transferring to this license effectively facilitates "cathedral-friendly" governance of the Creation(s) by Step and the modding community at large. This is done to prevent legal harm to all parties involved, since the Creation(s) themselves are inherently the property of the Author and licensed accordingly prior to the Transfer of License by proxy of the Transfer of Ownership.

1. Any existing licensing will become null and void upon Transfer of Ownership of the distribution source. If the existing license is incompatible with transfer or 'remix' to CC licensing, the Author must modify or re-license any existing Creation license(s) accordingly prior to Transfer of Ownership.
2. Note that the Creation Author can license a separate version of the Creation under any licensing desired, but the version under Stewardship will diverge at that point. In such cases, it is prudent to delineate the official name of the Creation in addition to the versioning.
3. The Creation(s) is irrevocably tied to the CC BY-NC-SA license, granting Step's (and everyone's) right to irrevocably "... remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms."
4. All Step-mediated derivations of said Creation(s) will retain the CC licensing and will follow Step's Versioning Scheme
5. All derivations by third parties of said Creation(s) will inherently and irrevocably retain the CC licensing

Donations

Nexus Mods

If the distribution service is Nexus Mods, the Creation(s) will be opted into Nexus Mods Donation Points system.

1. Author(s) authorize Step to receive 100% of Donation Points from Creation(s); unless other arrangements are made prior to Transfer of Ownership
2. Step will convert Donations to cash at its discretion and only to cover business expenses relating to maintenance and upkeep of Step's public services. In the event that Step dissolves or otherwise ceases its services, all Donation Points will be converted to cash and/or awarded to another qualifying nonprofit of Step's choosing.
3. Authors who do not wish for Step to earn Donation Points from their Creations must state so, in writing, before the Transfer of Ownership. Step will honor all such requests.

Other Sources

As applicable, donations to Creation(s) distribution page will be redirected to the Step Modifications business account.

1. Author(s) authorize Step to receive 100% of Donations from Creation(s); unless other arrangements are made prior to Transfer of Ownership
2. Step will refund Donations at its discretion and only to cover business expenses relating to maintenance and upkeep of Step's public services. In the event that Step dissolves or otherwise ceases its services, all Donations will be converted to cash and/or awarded to another qualifying nonprofit of Step's choosing.
3. Authors who do not wish for Step to earn Donations from their Creations must state so, in writing, before the Transfer of Ownership. Step will honor all such requests.