minecraft pack ports: an essay;
I think one of the most frustrating things about being “that cat who showed off CITs on Tiktok” is the blossoming of stolen and re-distributed Java Edition packs for Bedrock and Pocket Edition, like Mizuno’s 16craft, Ghoulcraft, Cocricot and others. I’ve talked about this a lot on Discord because it comes up so often: no, I don’t support packs like that and no, you can’t link it to others on my posts, my server, or my comment sections and absolutely no: I won’t promote your ripped port.
All over Youtube, Tiktok, MCPDL, Twitter, and other shady Mediafire links, folks are distributing ripped and stolen ports of Mizuno’s 16craft, Ghoulcraft, or Cocricot for Bedrock and Pocket Edition. I’ve said that this is stolen work, and often get the pushback of “Why do you care? This isn’t hurting anyone?”
Packs like Mizuno’s 16craft, Ghoulcraft, and Cocricot take creators hundreds of hours. It’s step by step painful modeling, texturing, troubleshooting, coding, and general frustration. These packs are not something folks slap together in a week, these are difficult undertakings that can take days to create a single item.
Creators ask very politely that folks not re-distribute them. They make you hit checkmarks before download affirming this policy. Some creators want to work with you if you are porting to make sure everything is handled properly. Some pack creators don’t speak English very well and it can be difficult to parse the information. If you download these packs for free, you agree not to re-distribute them.
Regardless, this ripping and greedy reupload behavior is so frustrating because of the amount of work authors put into their packs. They do not want their work re-distributed or stolen to make money for someone else, and creators can very much decide that it’s too much work to keep fighting and leave the community.
One day, someone is going to feel like random people are capitalizing and making money off their work and tricking people who don’t know better.
One day, a creator is going to feel like a bunch of English speakers took their pack and removed them from the equation, from the credit, and from their work.
One day, a creator is going to get frustrated they don’t have control of their hundreds of hours of modeling, painting, texture, and debug work and remove their mod or pack from the community. And Java Edition will be less for it.
I know if I’m frustrated from people stealing my own work, I can’t imagine how pack creators feel to see not just a screenshot, but their models and textures stolen as well. I see thumbnails with my own Java Minecraft builds promoting these ad-infested downloads and it drives me up the wall.
And of course I think this policy can be confusing for new players who’s first experience in Minecraft has been Pocket Edition or Bedrock Edition. It’s understandable to feel left out and left behind from the latest cool thing, and I wish Mojang and Microsoft hadn’t been so greedy and overreaching to flat out restrict CIT and Java mods from PE/BE. But they did, so here we are.
But let’s talk about someone who did the most fantastic Ghoulcraft port to Pocket/Bedrock Edition: KaoMC. Not only did he get permission from MissGhouls to use her pack, but in order to abide by Mizuno’s terms of service, they completely replaced all of Mizuno’s textures with something similar but unique. This kind of port work is fantastic, and I’m so glad to see that there’s even the smallest possibility for folks to play with CITs in other version of Minecraft.
I’m not talking about fantastic packs like Ghoulcraft BE, I’m talking about the reuploads, the stolen models and textures, the fake ports, the ad-links, the scams.
In short: credit your packs, credit your mods, credit your artists, credit your music, and get proper permissions before moving forward. Credit the work you use or eventually everyone will lose it. The Minecraft community is so welcoming, do the bare minimum of credit and respect so we can keep it that way for everyone who wants to join in, no matter their edition.
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