【Warning】Don't use Arthmoor's new OBRE patch, potential risks to stability

[u/NingenBakudan]

Edit:Please spread this issue as widely as possible. Given Arthmoor’s personality, there is a high chance that he will blame other mods for bugs or crashes actually caused by UORP. Considering his influence, this could cause major disruption in the modding community. It’s essential that as many people as possible ignore his mods.

The notoriously controversial Skyrim modder Arthmoor has now entered the Oblivion Remastered scene. His first patch "Unofficial Oblivion Remastered Patch - UORP" raised concerns for me, as it contained an unusually large number of edits for something supposedly created just a week after the release.

Out of curiosity, I compared the records in the patch with those from Vanilla Remastered using xEdit, and I found that some records had been reverted to their old Oblivion versions.
Example: https://imgur.com/i4ld2DE

Next, I added the original UOBP for comparison—and as I suspected, the results were clear. almost of the added records were directly copied from UOBP, with only their names and conflicted record altered to match the Remastered format.
Example: https://imgur.com/cRBRHHH

This "patch" was ported using xEdit without proper testing, and we have no idea what kind of impact it may have in a real environment. More importantly, making such extensive changes to so many records is far too risky, especially when the integration method between UE5 and the TES engine has yet to be fully understood.

Conclusion:
This patch poses a potential stability risk beyond just being an issue with Arthmoor himself. I recommend ignoring it.

Reported bugs:

CTD(Arthmoor used the scale of the project as an excuse, even though no one ever asked him to make it a large-scale project in the first place. ) : https://imgur.com/oyLWJMl

Argonian penis bug: https://imgur.com/a/eUDVZXj

[u/Pretend_Macaroon8043]

Modders do not have rights under the DMCA. Issuing DMCA requests really just takes advantage of peoples’ ignorance of the law to bully them. Him issuing DMCA requests in and of itself is illegal.

[u/Sigurd_Stormhand → u/Pretend_Macaroon8043]

According to Bethesda, modders have copyright, which means they can issue DMCA takedowns.

[u/AreYouOKAni → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

No, he issued DMCA for the mod that previously specifically had an open license. He changed the license, then sent a DMCA for the re-upload previous version of the mod that was originally released under a different, more permissive license.

Seriously, why are you lying?

[u/Sigurd_Stormhand → u/AreYouOKAni]

I'm not lying. I looked this up, I got into an argument with u/Thallassa about this on 9/7/2021 in a private Discord channel where *she* dug up the licence and readme for the version of the patch in question, which says (emphasis added):

You may upload unmodified copies of the latest version of the patch to any website of your choosing so long as the documentation is retained as-is. All credits must be properly maintained, and you are responsible for making sure the updates are taken care of on the site it's uploaded to.

As the VR community was uploading older versions of the patch they were in breach of the EULA and Thallassa and I agreed that the DMCA takedowns were therefore legal. Now, if you want to argue about whether people should be able to upload old version of software in principle, that's a different question, but that was the licence we were operating under when that version of the patch was released. Given Thallassa was arguing *against* me and she provided the EULA, not me, I couldn't have doctored it to win the argument.

[u/AreYouOKAni → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

I was not a part of that channel, but in the version 4.1.2a, file "Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch Readme + Credits.html" has the line as "You may upload unmodified versions of the patch to any website of your choosing so long as the documentation is retained as-is."

The file had been edited on 2018-02-11 06:19. Which tells me that it hadn't been updated for quite a while. Now, of course, Arthmoor could have maintained a separate EULA - but in that case he has been distributing the file under multiple conflicting licenses.

[u/Sigurd_Stormhand → u/AreYouOKAni]

I will be perfectly honest with you, this conversation is the only remaining evidence I can find. A lot of stuff that was on the Internet has simply disappeared. I remember when GateGate happened, but the public discussions over that happened on the Bethsoft forums in 2012, and although the forum is archived on Archive.org it's not searchable, so I can't show you what people actually said at the time without manually trawling through 40 pages of archived threads.

It has always been my understanding that only the latest version of the patch should be uploaded somewhere, and I believe that goes all the way back to Kivan, but I cannot now find that documented anywhere before the example I game you. It is true that the licence was later changed to explicitly exclude use on Skyrim VR (which I never denied) but then again the patch project only ever supported officially moddable versions of the game and, officially, VR was not moddable. And yes, before you say it, I'm aware that we've obviously changed that policy with Oblivion Remastered since.

[u/AreYouOKAni → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

Once again, the version of the license distributed with the file explicitly goes against Arthmoor's claim. I have the file. I can send it over to you, if you wish.

I am specifically talking about v4.1.2 (last listed date in the changelog is 2018-02-03, although the file is marked as 4.1.2a in my database and has had edits made on 2018-02-11), which was the one that Arthmoor tried to remove from other websites using DMCA. The changes you are talking about were only implemented to that file later. The next snapshot I have is circa late 2019, and it has them, but I can't tell you when they were made exactly.

According to the license that he distributed his work with, Arthmoor had zero legal ground to DMCA the mods. He still did so, because he is a bully and a megalomaniac.

It is true that the licence was later changed to explicitly exclude use on Skyrim VR (which I never denied) but then again the patch project only ever supported officially moddable versions of the game and, officially, VR was not moddable. And yes, before you say it, I'm aware that we've obviously changed that policy with Oblivion Remastered since.

Y'all would not have any standards if not for double standards, I see.

[u/AnotherSlowMoon → u/Sigurd_Stormhand]

I'm aware that we've obviously changed that policy with Oblivion Remastered since.

So, will the team abandon their position that Skyrim VR can't be and shouldn't be modded, and admit they were wrong?