How the Minecraft Marketplace affects your server
The Minecraft Marketplace allows you to purchase user-created skins, maps and texture packs. We’re sure you’ve heard of it by now, so we will only cover how this directly affects your server.
If you’re not familiar with the Minecraft Marketplace yet, you can read our explanation article by clicking here: Minecraft Marketplace, coming to MCPE with the Discovery Update
How does this affect multiplayer servers?
The changes that come with the Minecraft Marketplace are mainly targeted towards individuals rather than server owners. Mojang is releasing this system in an attempt to create new revenue sources and since the number of players greatly exceeds the amount of server owners, it is more strategic for the new marketplace to appeal to the majority of their user-base, rather than the small amount of server owners.
Can I use content from the store on my server?
While the marketplace is targeted towards individuals, we do believe that maps purchased through the Minecraft Marketplace will be available for use on any Minecraft Realms server that the user owns. However, it appears as though it will not be possible to use maps on non-realms servers as it sounds like Mojang has implemented some form of protection to products in the store which will lock any purchased content (including skins and texture packs) to the account of the rightful owner.
The reason maps would work on a Minecraft Realms server and not a non-realms server is because each realm is connected to the account of the owner which allows Minecraft to verify ownership of the content in use. This function is similar to games purchased through Steam, in which only the owner can download and play the game, or songs from Apple Music which can only be played with an active Apple Music subscription.
Mojang has also confirmed that all content from the store will not be transferable between accounts. This also includes Minecraft Coins, which is the currency of the store.
Minecraft Marketplace creations will be protected.
While protection of the content was not officially announced, we can assume that this is the case as it was brought up in Mojang’s official Reddit AMA (ask me anything). In response to this post, one user asked how piracy will be prevented. There was no official response from Mojang, however, QwertyuiopThePie replied who is one of the initial content creators for the marketplace and also has early access to a Beta of the system.
QwertyuiopThePie stated that there is definitely a form of DRM protection on the store’s content. DRM stands for digital rights management, which is basically protection for software. This DRM protection locks the purchased item from the marketplace to the user’s account who purchased it.
“The maps available for download have some form of DRM, no doubt. Probably won’t be able to run copies without having purchased the original map.”
Source: QwertyuiopThePie
From what we know, the DRM protection implemented on the store’s content is not an always-online DRM, which means that the maps/skins/texture packs can be used in singleplayer mode with or without an internet connection, however, it cannot be used on a non-realms server.
All this being said — items on the store are not required to be exclusive to the Minecraft Marketplace, so there potentially will be free downloads on the internet for the same content, which would be legal. Users will also almost certainly find a way to bypass the DRM to create DRM-free versions of the content and release them online. While this would be illegal, it is bound to happen.
How does this protection affect other versions of the game?
Upon release, the Minecraft Marketplace will only be available for the Windows 10 and Pocket Edition versions of Minecraft, but not for the PC (Java) or Xbox versions of the game. This means that even if the DRM is broken, the content will still likely only be compatible with these versions of the game.
There does not appear to be any plans to expand the Minecraft Marketplace to the PC (Java) version of the game due. A likely reason for this is that there is already a huge volume of free content for the game — virtually every map, skin and any resources are already available for free download. Additionally, it’s far easier for a user of the PC game to install custom worlds since they have full access to the game’s files, whereas app content on a mobile device is typically locked down and in the case of iOS, requires special software to access.
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