Well, I don't know.  I guarantee that I'm the most anti-capitalist guy on this forum - I despise any form of exploitation for profit (even the legal kind), but even if one accepts the theory that this guy is a thieving, moneygrubbing S.O.B. who is making a part of his profit illegitimately from the labour of others, I still really don't see what the big deal is.

In an effort to stop this thread becoming like a broken record, let's try to look at this from a different angle.  Would you folks be happier if, instead of having a download right there on his site, he instead used links to your preferred download sites and included a note saying that those files were at that site?  If so, what's the difference?  He would still be offering basically the same service, but without infringing on your licensing rights.  Would you still have a problem with that?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

There's absolutely no need to apologise.

You might find Ric Barker's message at the top if this page useful:

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=fs2002;action=display;num=...

"He makes his money from ........... his cut of the payware CDs that are sold by mondalori.com (who host his files) full of freeware software from his site. "

I'm not sure I understand fully (I'm obviously missing a lot of context in regard to the history of this situation).  Are you saying that he takes other peoples' freeware titles and packages them up and charges a profit for the files on the CD?  Or are you saying that he charges for entry into his site and hosts other peoples' freeware on that site while packaging up his own work on CDs?

If the former, then I would be more willing to concede the point.  But still, he may simply be passing along the outlay for the CDs he's burning.  I think, before we organize an angry mob armed with flaming torches and head out towards Castle Frankenstein, we ought to make it clear to everyone exactly what the monster has done that's so bad.  I came to this thread with no knowledge of the background and to be perfectly honest the vitriol here made me think that you were all a bunch of reactionary wackos hellbent on controlling every aspect of your contributions to the game and God help anyone who got in your way.  There may be other newbies who might be getting a similar impression.

This guy is making money (his ISP are actually doing the selling) from freeware files on CD without the permission of the authors. That IS illegal. Ah well, let us hope that they get closed down by the Gardia Civilia. Nice gentlemen who open doors with sledgehammers!
Unfortunately there will always be people who are prepared to flaunt the law to make a few quick bucks of someone elses hard work, but look at his forum, he is going out of business fast as he has slightly less ethics than a rattlesnake with toothache. Couldn't happen to a more deserving individual.

LONG LIVE SIMVIATION, home of the best people in Flight Simming.

Ozzy

Quote:

Thanks. I have followed the gist of the 2 threads on this subject for some days. Now I know the crux of the matter you have my full support, whatever good that may be.

I'm no legal expert but I think to have any chance of success you have to concentrate on the actual piracy issue rather than cloud it with arguments on the morality of posting essentially free files on a free site. This is why it took me so long to understand what this is really all about. I'm sure this is how the lawyers would look at it. Providing it is clearly stated in the conditions that a file is Freeware & not for commercial use, it is is llegal to include it on a CD & sell it for profit. This is perfectly straightforward & how I would approach it.

Let's face it, it would be easier for him to simply download the files & put them on a CD without posting them on his site as well. He doesn't really need a website at all except to advertise his stuff. If what you say is true, which I no longer doubt, at least he is doing this quite openly for the time being. The danger is that he will go underground & continue his piracy. This would make him much more difficult to track down.

There are a few little tricks you could do by hiding messages in the files themselves that would be seen by the end-user when selecting them in the sim. I won't go into detail as he or his accomplices could well be reading this. Something like "This file is Freeware. If you were charged for it return it immediately & demand a refund. Also report it to your local Trading Standards Office" should have some effect.

Quote:


Yes, I would be very much happier.  The difference is that it allows the author to maintain configuration management.

When I started posting freeware I originally did it on just one site so when I produced an update I knew where to post it.  A few other sites also requested permission to put these products in their libraries, which was OK because I still kept track of what was where.  But now they have spread to so many sites without permission, like FSPlanet, that I don't know what version is where. So I gave up trying to distribute updates.  Even if I wanted to keep the versions on pirate sites up to date, every site has different methods and rules for uploading and it would take weeks of effort.

I get several emails a day from people who are using releases as much as 7 versions old they just downloaded from one site or another.  They are still dealing with bugs that were fixed a year ago.  This is frustrating as hell and a big waste of time for both those users and myself.

And to make matters worse, FSPlanet seems to be misrepresenting some of my products.  They claim to have version 2.1.1 of one utility posted, but it is actually only up to 1.3.2.  It is also shown with some kind of strange screen pic.

I wouldn't mind so much if the pirate sites would at least make an effort to keep versions up to date. But they don't, and it is doing a big disservice to the community by keeping outdated and dubious material circulating long after it should be discarded.

Any new product I release from now on will be posted on only two or three sites. It will have in big bold writing at the beginning of the ReadMe which three sites those are, and if they got it from any other site it is illegally posted, probably obsolete, and possibly tampered with.  Since a germ like Ferdy is likely to edit the ReadMe to remove that warning, I will probably have to put it as a pop-up window in the product itself.

Regarding the open-source concept: maybe in some utopian fantasy world does a product just keep on improving if everybody and anybody gets to rework it and repost it without any kind of central control authority, but in reality it ends up as a configuration nightmare where there are hundreds of versions and permutations floating around worked on by numerous people.  Nobody takes ultimate responsibility. New users can't keep track of what permutation has what feature or bug and they don't know who to ask for help if something goes wrong.  Maybe it could work with a small group of enthusiasts, but in the huge MSFS community, with hundreds of web sites all over the world, it is a recipe for chaos.

Quote:


OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAVE BEEN MISSING ALL OF THIS! Right now i am hitting myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Urgh!

Ozzy, Simviation will LIVE forever! Yeah

Tipster, this might seem a little late and well, my ISP was having some trouble these past days. Anyways, i back you up 100000%. I do not know what making a panel or spending time on it is like but just imagining myself doing it and then seeing it somewhere else without my permission just makes me mad, as if i was the the one that built it!

I believe Ferdy is reading all of this, there is no special reason why he shouldn't be.

Tipster, i hope you come down on him on all possible ways. You were finally one to take action and well, I am sure everyone here backs you up. Right? Maybe 95% of the people? That is enough to win this thing.

Ferdy, why the hell are you doing all this crap?

.......Ferdy has to be missing something, maybe respect for the wishes of an owner.  I am sure i would never do that. If you get over 40,000 visitors.....that is the number right?.........and you have memberships why do you have to go around uploading stuff you shouldn't?

Tipster, it is really cool you are helping the Simviation site by not allowing FSpirate, formerly called FSplanet.........

One last thing, i also think alike from the view that we have to control ourselves. I am just a kid but even though i am a kid i wouldn't go the edge of sending vruses or spam. We were talking about their forums and how dead it is. Ours is obviously not dead! Over 12 pages all together one on sigle thread? WOW. Back to the topic, we have very respectful people in this forum so let's not ruin our reputation over this?

As i said, i can only imagine the anger you are feeling but let's keep between the normal, civilised lines?

--John

PS: Oh yeah, we got a living human being in control of FSpirate (y'know what i am talking about) but this human being deserves to know he is doing something wrong, no he is not acting like an adult. I can probably show him how to live! ( exaggeration? maybe so)