Quote Originally Posted by Enla View Post
It doesn't matter, because again in Japan the copyright system is EXTREMELY aggressive and advocates for strict control and defense of one's copyrights lest the owner lose them entirely. Just one mess up and it doesn't matter if it's taken down or not later. This isn't a reality where copyright holders aren't litigious and looking for any flaw and will accept an apology if a mistake happens. SE is opening themselves up to lawsuits regardless of whether the community self policies or not - and if someone decides to sue they can absolutely nail SE to the wall for relying on their customers. Then if SE takes the sole burden for maintaining copyright solvency the amount of work needing to be done is just not worth it for them. There is no happy medium here.

Edit:
About the only way I see this working is if SE sponsored freelancers to come in and make a single item for them to add to the game, as then they'd have full control of the concept and development stage - as well as full ownership of the copyright at the end of the day. But that wouldn't be a 'mod' anymore.
would the burden not fall on the person who uploaded the mod in the first place? and if so, why couldn't square enix report this individual to the copyright holder? is there any precedence for this in the japanese courts because the scenario you present sounds absolutely absurd