An idea came through my mind this morning, while I was working (my work doesn't require that I use my brains to do it). It's been quite a while that I am wondering what Bethesda could do to prevent mod theft and people abusing their assets and making money with them; the more I think of it the more it seems to me that there is only one solution (aside from shutting down modding, of course): online modding.
This would apply to the PC versions of the future games of course not to the existing ones:
each buyer of the game would get free access to an online version of the editor, no download and installation on your computer ; the tool could be installed on a cloud that would be personal to the user in order to avoid site overload,
mods made with the online tool would be stored on a cloud, no download and storing on your computer,
once published on Bethesda.net pc mods, the players would subscribe to them as they already do, no download and installation on your computer either,
mods would require being online to be installed and played.
Okay, enough conjecturing; let's get back to modding.