If you don’t have your work protected by a license, in most cases, people are free to do as they wish with your work.
I think that would depend on the country you lived in.
Where did you find this? Post a link to see if it’s real, for example not from paste bin.
That last bit about the EULA pushed it over for me. This is not from a lawyer, or anyone who knows a lawyer. This is almost certainly an attempt to spread FUD.
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Well, this is true: if I put my mod e.g. under MIT, Microsoft can use and sell it, as long as they do not remove my copyright mark.
However, this will probably (except there are many guys with way too much money out there) not stop people from downloading the mod from me directly, paying nothing, and use it totally legal and for free. Microsoft can do nothing about that!
Oh, and if microsoft sells my mod for 3.99 $, I’d sell it for 2.99 $ and earn money with it 
Okay, this doesn’t work as someone will just buy it and put a free download link into the internet… 
So I don’t think this would be a big problem for modders and modmakers, even if it would happen 
I don’t know in which country you live, but in the US every code you write is protected by the US copyright law.
Here in germany it’s also protected by law!
52 year old “reporter” shlock who has no idea about the copyright law. Thanks for the laugh tho, keep on with your delusions man
Nobody is going to stop modding because of your bull, we coded under mojangs eula we can code under whatever microsoft changes it to. just a new master. thats all that happened.
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I’m sure people will buy the mods instead of downloading free, yes you’re right
Because almost every country has signed the Berne convention, global copyright laws are very similar. And they all say that copyright is implicit and automatic. You don’t need to register, you don’t need to add a license, nothing. Which also means that without a license nobody except the creator has a right to use it. Meaning that if you don’t have a license on your work people can’t do anything with it. Not distribute it. Not sell it. Nothing.(at least, not legally)
I’m not sure about other country’s or global copyright laws in general but here in Australia, copyright is automatic.
Well said 
This is obviously a fake post. It’s to scare us nothing more. If you really think this is real re-consider, because it’s not. If it was real then the developers of Sponge wouldn’t create Sponge just to get it taken down. In fact since Bukkit is basically dead I think Sponge is Minecraft’s last hope. Think about it people play Minecraft because of the modding, modding is creativity it’s Minecraft’s life no modding = no Minecraft. I think Microsoft would know if they remove modding they lose their 2 billion dollars.
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This is hilarious.
The deal with Microsoft is basically done; if you are aware of financial news, as I am.
Sure.
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.
I agree with your sentiment, but your credentials are worthless without anything to back them up.
Microsoft will not allow modding of its game. That is a simple fact. Learn it now.
Based on what? Basically every end-user product from Microsoft ever has allowed plugins, or at least been scriptable from outside. Hell, they make what is widely considered to be the second best IDE in existence.
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.
Yes, but copyright protects implementations, not ideas.
Please learn this now. You MUST MARK YOUR MODS/PLUGINS AS NOT TO BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL APPLICATION IMMEDIATELY.
Commercial application, like running them on paid servers, or servers that take donations? Besides, unless you’ve explicitly licensed your code under a license that gives permission to do something with it, it’d be illegal regardless. If you chose a license like the GPL, it’s legal but they have to provide your source code.
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.
Like BukkitDev entries or GitHub repositories?
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.
Wouldn’t this apply to Mojang as well? Curse?
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!
Sure.
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.
Who?
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.
I’m pretty sure that, considering their size and that several of their core products depend very heavily on third-party developer goodwill (Windows, Office, Visual Studio, .NET, Windows Phone, SharePoint, …), Microsoft will not be intentionally breaking other people’s copyright. And this is coming from someone who is relatively negative about the sale.
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.
This is just hilarious. Microsoft won’t, or they’d lose a lot of their other business very quickly.
EULA has nothing to do with modifications.
Yes it does. A modification is a derivative work, and furthermore (in the case of Minecraft) depends on reverse-engineering the original product.
EULA itself was never legally binding,
Yes it is.
and it is in fact against the law for Mojang to have attempted to enforce what it did.
Nope.
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.
Nope, that’s not how copyright works. Nice job coming from a “lawyer”.
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Good explanation and breakdown
Love some of your comments to a part
Yet another idiot wreaking havoc because Minecraft players will believe anything they read.
Well… this seems totally legit.
I think the best alternative would be to “flag” the post?
Fit in no cat 
My intention is to downvote post/threads to order them^^
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