I've asked Ozzy to lock that thread when he appears and start a continuation.

Unfortunately the software has crippled it slightly by not displaying "new" when new messages are added and only showing up to page 4 in the topic index (on page 8 at the time of writing).

If you want to see new messages in that topic, open it on page 4 and click the last page number at the bottom of the thread for now.

Gumby unfortunately a lot of those fun things are in fact illegal. Bummer I know, but we can't break the law, as it makes us no better than him. Alas. But I do hope he contracts a serious personal and incuriable disease.... Oh and his system gets hit by some kind of nasty virus that causes it to spontaneously combust or something.... It couldn't happen to a more deserving individual

Ozzy

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What a good idea!! Hadn't thought of that...

If us designers did not impose restrictions on our files, more people would try to make money off of our work.

I respect your opinion, but I just don't want people making a profit off of my hard work

You know, I reckon I should give a little background regarding why I feel so strongly on this subject.  As I've mentioned, I was deeply involved in the creation of realism patches for Red Baron 3D.  My experience as a creator, editor, and distributor of patches for that game led me to see that obsession with copyright can be the worst thing that can happen in a community such as this.

When Red Baron 3D first came out, the community shared every file and every new discovery.  The game had a lot of problems, and needed a lot of fixing.  Two years later, the community, working together with free access to all of the community's files, had created a number of fantastic bug fixes and improvements.  It was a totally different game - some even called it 'Red Baron 4'.  Then, suddenly a couple of people came into the group and started hacking the landscape tiles - all well and good, until we found out that these folks wouldn't share, and insisted on a very restrictive copyright regime.  It was the usual deal - "we're not going to release the info on how it's done, no-one but us can publish it, and no-one can alter anything we produce - not even to make it easier for newbies to install".  Suddenly, everyone decided to jump on the bandwagon - "well, if they're doing it, I don't see why they should get the benefit of my work".  Suddenly everyone was copyrighting stuff, and production of new patches slowed to a trickle, and what was being published was mediocre at best, since the community couldn't easily get together to improve the add-ons that were being made.  Then the whole community broke off into factions, and eventually died out (except for a very few real die-hards).

This is why I think copyrighting 3rd party patches is so bad.  It has been proven, in my experience, to stifle development.  I'd much rather have a thriving and generous add-on community and run the risk of a few unscrupulous people turning a profit from my work, than have a community that can't work together because it's scared to death of intellectual property thievery.  There are many communities such as the latter on the internet.  I was privileged to encounter a community that (at first) represented the former, and it was a beautiful thing and an environment that I miss greatly.  If you haven't seen such a community, it's hard to describe how wonderfully such a community can work with no restrictions imposed by copyright.  It's sad that many here obviously didn't see it, because if they had, I've no doubt they would be with me on this.

A lot of designers, me included, impose distribution  restrictions on our free files and as long as people ask, a lot of designers gladly allow someone to modify, alter, and post online

Well - in any forum opinions will differ. The freedom to express and share them is what forums are all about.

I respect the opinions made, whether I agree with them or not. In this instance, my own wishes regarding the files I've published differ with Beery's and Balboray's That doesn't make me wrong and it doesn't make them wrong either. It's just a matter of where you sit on the playing field.

I'll explain my licence one more time for the benefit of anyone who didn't see my explanation in the last thread:

It specifically restricts distribution of my files to Simviation.com unless my permission has been granted to do this elsewhere.

There are 2 reaasons for this:

1) I want to support the Simviation website.

2) I don't want to support FSPlanet.

Extract from my licence:

This is simply to avoid actions of piracy. Almost all freeware sites will be granted permission.

FSPlanet make money from their advertising and their First Class membership fees. They wouldn't make very much if they didn't infringe licences without the authors permission as that appears to be where the bulk of their files come from.

If Ferdy observed the courtesy of requesting permission from authors like myself, this wouldn't be an issue. He doesn't. So I have no wish to make his site any more attractive to potential money-makers for FSPlanet by providing my files there.

As stated in my licence, most freeware sites would be granted permission to distribute it if they wished. All they have to do is ask. It's a simple matter of courtesy.

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i was think of this too, then sadly i remembered, as ozzy pointed out it is illegal, and sadly it is very tracable.