Mod as Heck: Frameworks for Examining Ownership Rights in User-Contributed Content to Videogames, and a More Principled Evaluation of Expressive Appropriation in User-Modified Videogame Projects

John Diamond is a professional game designer.1 Observing a ritual common in the gaming culture, Diamond goes by a professional nickname,2 reminiscent of a fighter pilot’s call-sign.3 In the lingo of cyberspace, he is more colorfully kn Ten years ago, that moniker turned out to be prophetic. In 1997, Irritant and a team of other unpaid programmers5 were working on an amateur project known in the world of computers as a “Mod,” a user modification of the source art, 3D characters, environments, or game engine of a commercially-