[Community Discussion] Mojang's new up-coming EULA and how servers stand

[Towelie]

Mojang recently clarified  (via one of their support techs, Marc_IRL, that Servers are not allowed to sell items or permissions or anything else Minecraft related. They are only allowing donations, and only if the server hosts offer nothing in return for said donations.
Currently mojang are only discussing this but it seems that this is the direction they are taking. In 1.7.10 they've added an eula confirmation when the server starts and the owners have to accept the eula before starting the server for the first time.  Adding this means that the server owners accept the eula when starting the server, and it makes it possible for mojang to sue server owners.

My question is: If tomorrow, we are forced to remove the Donator Shop and we would just have the option to donate for the server without getting anything in return (forced so by Mojang), would you donate, knowing that it's what helps us to keep going ?

I am worried about the future of SFT and the future of Minecraft if this trend continues like it is and I am dissapointed to see Mojang shamelessly promote Realms by discrediting/destroying player owned servers.
If this was to happen, we probably wouldn't just die but we'd go through serious downsizing, probably involving removing all servers but one or two and drastically limiting us (without money, we can't pay devs to make awesome plugins, we can't pay subscriptions to dropbox/mediafire for automated backups and off-site backups, we can't host more game servers and we can't upgrade our hardware/infrastructure when needed.

[onionboys]

What is the reason they are doing this?

[mordalthunder]

nothing has been clarified yet by mojang, i want to know the reason behind it.
I hope mojang comes with a explanation in the next couple of days.

[ACrazyHobo]

I can take a wild shot in the dark and say For Cash money

[Towelie]

nothing has been clarified yet by mojang, i want to know the reason behind it.
I hope mojang comes with a explanation in the next couple of days.

Basically they are trying to promote Realms

[Cesspitsid]

Oh dear, I hope it doesn't come to this, What are Mojang trying to do lately?  it seems they're getting too greedy.

If the Permission and item pack donations were removed, leaving just the donation to keep the server up...
I would like to donate, but it depends on my life situation, so I can't really answer that with any confidence I'm afraid.

[waziel]

nothing has been clarified yet by mojang, i want to know the reason behind it.
I hope mojang comes with a explanation in the next couple of days.

Basically they are trying to promote Realms

Could also be, that they're trying to prevent people from making a profit from their game, and exploit small kids.
There are (sadly) quite a lot of Minecraft servers out there, whom are trying to get as much money out of their users.
IIRC, Jeb posted something on Twitter about this. That he was worrying about the misuse of donations?

[mjoll9]

would the modpack donations still be fine though o_O ? since the items are like modded and stuff.

[Towelie]

would the modpack donations still be fine though o_O ? since the items are like modded and stuff.

Nope, still mojang assets

[Towelie]

nothing has been clarified yet by mojang, i want to know the reason behind it.
I hope mojang comes with a explanation in the next couple of days.

Basically they are trying to promote Realms

Could also be, that they're trying to prevent people from making a profit from their game, and exploit small kids.
There are (sadly) quite a lot of Minecraft servers out there, whom are trying to get as much money out of their users.
IIRC, Jeb posted something on Twitter about this. That he was worrying about the misuse of donations?

It's not Mojang's job to protect children from that .It's the parent's job to not give them their credit cards and paypal accounts on hand. It's parenting 101 really. Not the fault of server owners that the parents of these children are careless and irresponsible.

[TheGoldenKibby]

Nooooooooo!!! Dammit paypal. Hurry up and transfer money so i çan buy auto shop!!!

[Brightpkz]

Honestly definitely disappointed in such a bad decision made by Mojang. This could definitely lead to the downfall of servers.

[Chinwonder2]

I hope Mojang don't do this, I hope this won't be the fate of SFT.

[ghostboy363]

I can see a series of bad events as a result of this happening.(Communities going down, people quitting, etc.) I just hope none of this actually goes through.

[gollumsmate]

Could also be, that they're trying to prevent people from making a profit from their game, and exploit small kids.
There are (sadly) quite a lot of Minecraft servers out there, whom are trying to get as much money out of their users.
IIRC, Jeb posted something on Twitter about this. That he was worrying about the misuse of donations?

Seems to be the just of it, Mojang are most likely trying to put a halt to servers profiting off of their game. But with a rule like that it will negatively effect just about all servers, putting many in the same position where they will have to consider the running costs.

I would like to think I would donate for SFT and continue to, and would hope others would as well, even if there was nothing in return.
Well when I say nothing in return, the reward of being able to play on the servers SFT provides should be more than enough, with the hours of entertainment they bring and the fun community that come along with it, a donation once in a while is nothing, if it helps keep this great community alive.

[rens0wntnoob]

towelie, it basicly says that they can sue server owners for making profits from users using minecraft perks.
But i know this, but you don't use the money for yourself, but constantly for the servers.Making you a Non-profitable organisation, doesnt that mean if you get sued you don't have to pay money/shut down?

[fearthe1337]

towelie, it basicly says that they can sue server owners for making profits from users using minecraft perks.
But i know this, but you don't use the money for yourself, but constantly for the servers.Making you a Non-profitable organisation, doesnt that mean if you get sued you don't have to pay money/shut down?

Effectively, Mojang is stating that they own the Intellectual property on Minecraft and  they are basicly saying you are not allowed to sell any parts of this.
I doubt a non-profit organisation would be excluded from this, as that would basicly mean websites hosting illigal software would be legal, not have to shutdown, as long as they are non-profit.


I do however think this is indeed realms related. In the chat log a Mojang employee stated they had 25.000 players (PLAYERS, not people paying) on Realms.
Now lets say 5 people per Realms server,  they would have only 5k people paying for realms out of the million of minecraft servers, apparently Realms is not the success they hoped it would be and are now trying to get it to be a success in another way. (google+, anyone?)

[Goldeneye0242]

If we continue to have a donator shop, minecraft can't really shut down the server can they? I mean it's mot like we host it through them
Post Merge: Jun 06, 2014, 11:22 AM
Nevermind i see... The whole lawsuit thing

[Kaninka]

The Donator shop is our way of charging to host the server, so in theory it should be okay.
Also Gameplay features: Is that just anything within Minecraft? Even 3rd party plugins like autoshop, disguise, pet etc. 
In theory we could choose to stay as 1.7.9...but that would die out in the end

[Eternal_Jamie]

Yup kaninka looking at it they're basically saying "we made the game, even major overhauls are ours". I get the impression from reading some stuff a lot of this is their support guys personal feelings leading this new push, he seems to be very opposed and "saddened" by some of the stuff big servers sell.

Though it has been there, just up to now they haven't shows signs of caring :S

[brotherband]

Does this mean that all player owned perms will stay, or will they be removed?

[emm10]

The Donator shop is our way of charging to host the server, so in theory it should be okay.
Also Gameplay features: Is that just anything within Minecraft? Even 3rd party plugins like autoshop, disguise, pet etc. 
In theory we could choose to stay as 1.7.9...but that would die out in the end

For once, I am happy with notch's position. It seems he is saying you can charge people as long as it is going to be for running the server, and saying you can't charge people to play on your server. So donation shop should be fine.

[Goldeneye0242]

The Donator shop is our way of charging to host the server, so in theory it should be okay.
Also Gameplay features: Is that just anything within Minecraft? Even 3rd party plugins like autoshop, disguise, pet etc. 
In theory we could choose to stay as 1.7.9...but that would die out in the end

For once, I am happy with notch's position. It seems he is saying you can charge people as long as it is going to be for running the server, and saying you can't charge people to play on your server. So donation shop should be fine.

I believe that Notch is saying that server hosting companies can charge for their hosting services, not that you can have a donor shop if it is for paying for the server... That's just how I interpret this

[Eternal_Jamie]

What notch said seems to go against what others have said (mainly one of their support folk) will just have to wait until they make these changes to know for sure.

[Dpa1991]

What I took from what Notch said is you cant go restrict access to something like mining diamonds and require the user to donate to use something that should be available to them at the start. So as long as we arent withholding game content and REQUIRING the user to donate to access, we should be fine.

Our donations are optional and a way to progress your play on the server faster, everything can be obtained for free if you play and we do our best to keep it that way.