Why was this MOD removed?

[ShinraStrife]

 

 

And if you still have no clue - check on what happened to the original founders of TPB - Every one of them served prison time and paid huge fines - For copyright infringement.

Which is total bulls*** i must say, despite being software dev myself and having my (or rather my company's) work stolen more than once. The people who should have been punished were those who were uploading data in the process of torrent data exchange and thus by uploading it, creating an illigal copy of the media in question.

 

Helding (for example) Nexus owner responsible for what someone put onto the service, is stupid, stupid law, that more and more countries corporations try to shove in, despite it being about as logical as helding the landowner responsible for the guy who rented the house and then commited the murder in it.

 

Completely agree on everything else tho, and if someone wants to make (for instance) mod that changes sounds to Mario-like, he should at least produce the sound himslef, from scratch. And better yet, make them distinct from original. Re-typing a book into Open Office and then printing it is still piracy.

 

[edit]

a thought striked me just now... if i take an Fallout 4 sound clip and modify it to replace the original (like i did with the Super Sledge ilde sound (humm-crackle-humm-crackle-crackle. jesus. it was like a neurosurgeon was scooping out parts of my brain)) i technically broke copyright laws, right?

 

 

The thing about torrents is the files are uploaded to servers that act as seeds, then when enough people start to download the file, the downloaders become the seeds and the original servers used to house the files are taken down. The file then forever exists in chunks as long as enough downloaders seed the file they are pirating. Clients connect to peer lists and get chunks of the file from many different seeds.

 

By your logic everyone who downloads a pirated file via torrents should be imprisoned. Its impossible to effectively combat pirating due to the files not being housed on a specific server that can be issued a cease and desist, even though pirating is the main thing that ruins video game developers financially. (especially upcomming indie developers)

Edited November 25, 2015 by ShinraStrife

[LordGrievous]

My knowledge of trademark/copyright law isn't perfect, but if I remember correctly you have to actively defend a trademark in order to maintain it. If the courts decide you haven't defended it, you can actually lose it.

[TheVampireDante]

My knowledge of trademark/copyright law isn't perfect, but if I remember correctly you have to actively defend a trademark in order to maintain it. If the courts decide you haven't defended it, you can actually lose it.

 

Pretty much yeah.

[Guest deleted1125362]

 

 

 

And if you still have no clue - check on what happened to the original founders of TPB - Every one of them served prison time and paid huge fines - For copyright infringement.

Which is total bulls*** i must say, despite being software dev myself and having my (or rather my company's) work stolen more than once. The people who should have been punished were those who were uploading data in the process of torrent data exchange and thus by uploading it, creating an illigal copy of the media in question.

 

Helding (for example) Nexus owner responsible for what someone put onto the service, is stupid, stupid law, that more and more countries corporations try to shove in, despite it being about as logical as helding the landowner responsible for the guy who rented the house and then commited the murder in it.

 

Completely agree on everything else tho, and if someone wants to make (for instance) mod that changes sounds to Mario-like, he should at least produce the sound himslef, from scratch. And better yet, make them distinct from original. Re-typing a book into Open Office and then printing it is still piracy.

 

[edit]

a thought striked me just now... if i take an Fallout 4 sound clip and modify it to replace the original (like i did with the Super Sledge ilde sound (humm-crackle-humm-crackle-crackle. jesus. it was like a neurosurgeon was scooping out parts of my brain)) i technically broke copyright laws, right?

 

 

The thing about torrents is the files are uploaded to servers that act as seeds, then when enough people start to download the file, the downloaders become the seeds and the original servers used to house the files are taken down. The file then forever exists in chunks as long as enough downloaders seed the file they are pirating. Clients connect to peer lists and get chunks of the file from many different seeds.

Wut? No. Torrents are peer to peer, which means there is no "server" in case of torrents. Yes, you could use your server as torrent peer, but that just makes it another peer. And i was unaware of TPB doing that, but on the other hand, i didn't really dig for any info on the topic, so if you are correct, that makes the prison time less stupid. But not not-stupid.

By your logic everyone who downloads a pirated file via torrents should be imprisoned.

No. Only those who upload it. Because it's on uploader machine where the unauthorized copying of media is being performed. It's the uploader that violates copyright. Just because torrent exchange makes everyone who is downloading an uploader as well, doesn't invalidate that.

Its impossible to effectively combat pirating due to the files not being housed on a specific server that can be issued a cease and desist,

Soooo... because it's hard to catch those who actually commit a crime, we gonna punish someone else. Perfect. Why didn't police think of that sooner? Think how many murder cases could be solved that way!

even though pirating is the main thing that ruins video game developers financially. (especially upcomming indie developers)

And putting TPB guys in prison prevents that how? Unless your average Joe will feel on his own skin the consequences of piracy, he will keep doing that.

 

And there is another thing: on average, when someone pirates your work (remember, this has hapend to me in my work, but i strive to be an objective person) 99% of time, they WOULD NOT buy the product, even if there was no way to obtain it other than making a legal purchase. That person would just skip the content.

Edited November 25, 2015 by gloowa

[ShinraStrife]

 

 

 

 

And if you still have no clue - check on what happened to the original founders of TPB - Every one of them served prison time and paid huge fines - For copyright infringement.

Which is total bulls*** i must say, despite being software dev myself and having my (or rather my company's) work stolen more than once. The people who should have been punished were those who were uploading data in the process of torrent data exchange and thus by uploading it, creating an illigal copy of the media in question.

 

Helding (for example) Nexus owner responsible for what someone put onto the service, is stupid, stupid law, that more and more countries corporations try to shove in, despite it being about as logical as helding the landowner responsible for the guy who rented the house and then commited the murder in it.

 

Completely agree on everything else tho, and if someone wants to make (for instance) mod that changes sounds to Mario-like, he should at least produce the sound himslef, from scratch. And better yet, make them distinct from original. Re-typing a book into Open Office and then printing it is still piracy.

 

[edit]

a thought striked me just now... if i take an Fallout 4 sound clip and modify it to replace the original (like i did with the Super Sledge ilde sound (humm-crackle-humm-crackle-crackle. jesus. it was like a neurosurgeon was scooping out parts of my brain)) i technically broke copyright laws, right?

 

 

The thing about torrents is the files are uploaded to servers that act as seeds, then when enough people start to download the file, the downloaders become the seeds and the original servers used to house the files are taken down. The file then forever exists in chunks as long as enough downloaders seed the file they are pirating. Clients connect to peer lists and get chunks of the file from many different seeds.

Wut? No. Torrents are peer to peer, which means there is no "server" in case of torrents. Yes, you could use your server as torrent peer, but that just makes it another peer. And i was unaware of TPB doing that, but on the other hand, i didn't really dig for any info on the topic, so if you are correct, that makes the prison time less stupid. But not not-stupid.

By your logic everyone who downloads a pirated file via torrents should be imprisoned.

No. Only those who upload it. Because it's on uploader machine where the unauthorized copying of media is being performed. It's the uploader that violates copyright. Just because torrent exchange makes everyone who is downloading an uploader as well, doesn't invalidate that.

Its impossible to effectively combat pirating due to the files not being housed on a specific server that can be issued a cease and desist,

Soooo... because it's hard to catch those who actually commit a crime, we gonna punish someone else. Perfect. Why didn't police think of that sooner? Think how many murder cases could be solved that way!

even though pirating is the main thing that ruins video game developers financially. (especially upcomming indie developers)

And putting TPB guys in prison prevents that how? Unless your average Joe will feel on his own skin the consequences of piracy, he will keep doing that.

 

And there is another thing: on average, when someone pirates your work (remember, this has hapend to me in my work, but i strive to be an objective person) 99% of time, they WOULD NOT buy the product, even if there was no way to obtain it other than making a legal purchase. That person would just skip the content.

 

 

 

Yes, torrent files are peer to peer, but they have to get spread around somehow, and one computer on a home internet with a small upload bandwidth isn't going to get a file as big as, oh say, GTA V, out fast enough, you'd need business grade internet for that.

 

It's impossible to tell who uploads what when it comes to torrents. You have the people who buy copies of media (like GTA V) then give the copies to experienced crackers. The crackers make a pirated version and then give it to the distributors. The distributors announce the torrent to pre sites like PreDB or OrlyDB, then upload the file to top sites like TPB, KAT, TR.

 

The way it is setup makes it very hard to pin charges on any specific person. From the crackers to the downloaders:

 

The crackers are merely reverse engineering a program that was given to them, which most EULA's will say you are allowed to if you own a copy of the material. (Plus government or state officials have no way to figure out where these people are)

The distributors just pack a file into a torrent so they aren't really breaking any laws until they upload that file to a top site. (Still hard to track due to torrent uploading usually being anonymous)

The torrent sites aren't breaking any laws because they don't host any pirated materials on their servers, they only host a file that has links to it, which according to US (and most other countries) laws isn't copyright infringement.

The downloaders are breaking the law by both downloading (and uploading via seeding) the torrent, but there are so many downloaders and so many different trackers that it would be impossible and nonsensical to arrest them all, even though I wish that were the case. (plus most people that pirate, don't have much money, and therefore cant pay any fees that would be imposed on by taking them to court. Companies care about money and having someone arrested that cant pay them money is a waste of time and effort.)

 

Edit: When companies are faced with a problem they cant fix such as what I've just said they will attack the problem wherever possible, like mods on the Nexus, that are actually hosted on a server that can be threatened with DCMA.

Edited November 25, 2015 by ShinraStrife

[Guest deleted1125362]

Yes, torrent files are peer to peer, but they have to get spread around somehow, and one computer on a home internet with a small upload bandwidth isn't going to get a file as big as, oh say, GTA V, out fast enough, you'd need business grade internet for that.

Actually home PC is enough. That's the power of torrent system. In theory, the original seed only needs to upload data once, then other peers wil re-seed that part of data, even not having rest the file. Granted, it will take more time in the beginning, but the time difference is non-existent after a while. The way data propagates with torrent protocol, it has exponential growth of upload capability, which means it doesn't matter if the original seed has 64kb or 1gb connection, after same time, the upload capability will be many, many orders of magnitude larger then upload capability of original seed, making the bandwith of original seed irrelevant. (think of the Chinese (i think?) story about filling each square on the chessboard wih x2 amount of grains of rice then the previous one. No matter what start condition (the first square) you select, (be it 100, 4 or even one grain) by the 64th square you have more than 18 trillion grains (in case of lowest start condition == 1 grain, the amount in 64th square is 2^64 >= 1.8*10^19)

It's impossible to tell who uploads what when it comes to torrents.

Not excatly true. My torrent client tells me ip's of every peer i connect to, and which pieces and blocks i download from him. Which means that you can just download that torrent, log the info and then contact authorities that are responsible for extracting the ip-usage data from IPS's. This has been done. It far from impossible.

You have the people who buy copies of media (like GTA V) then give the copies to experienced crackers. The crackers make a pirated version and then give it to the distributors. The distributors announce the torrent to pre sites like PreDB or OrlyDB, then upload the file to top sites like TPB, KAT, TR.

The way it is setup makes it very hard to pin charges on any specific person. From the crackers to the downloaders:

 

The crackers are merely reverse engineering a program that was given to them, which most EULA's will say you are allowed to if you own a copy of the material. (Plus government or state officials have no way to figure out where these people are)

The distributors just pack a file into a torrent so they aren't really breaking any laws until they upload that file to a top site. (Still hard to track due to torrent uploading usually being anonymous)

The torrent sites aren't breaking any laws because they don't host any pirated materials on their servers, they only host a file that has links to it, which according to US (and most other countries) laws isn't copyright infringement.

The downloaders are breaking the law by both downloading (and uploading via seeding) the torrent, but there are so many downloaders and so many different trackers that it would be impossible and nonsensical to arrest them all, even though I wish that were the case. (plus most people that pirate, don't have much money, and therefore cant pay any fees that would be imposed on by taking them to court. Companies care about money and having someone arrested that cant pay them money is a waste of time and effort.)

 

Edit: When companies are faced with a problem they cant fix such as what I've just said they will attack the problem wherever possible, like mods on the Nexus, that are actually hosted on a server that can be threatened with DCMA.

You touch many subjects here, and are mostly right but there are some issues you might not be awere of.

1) crakers. i dunno what EULAs you saw, but every single one i bothered to read explicitly prohibits any form of reverse engineering. Buth that's a moot point, as the EULA itself has to comply with laws of the country where the product is being sold/bought. Which means, that every single EULA i had displayed for me in my life was probably void because of how law works in my country. Here, every part the agreement or contract has to comply with the law. If any part of agreement is not in accordance with law, the entire agreement is null and void for legal purposes. As most companies do not bother to check how do copyright laws look here, they jsut use standard US EULA translated. Which most likely breaks the law due to very restrictive license clauses.

See European Union Court of Justice verditct on Oracle vs UsedSoft GmbH case ( http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf ) and ongoing complaint vs Valve by someone from Germany about not being able to re-sell the game in his steam account.

Also, the cracker, when he cracked the application, breaks the law by passing the cracked copy to distibutor.

2) Distribbutor breaks the law every time he uploads the file. So it's actually easy.

3) torrent sites. correct.

4) Downloaders. Depends on the country. Here, it's legal to download. It's illegal to upload. Simillar to cigarettes and under-age people. It's legal for under-age to somoke a cigarette. It's illegal to sell a cigarette to an under-age person. The issue you raise about those that pirated not being able to pay fines is correct. Which is why the copyright owner can't proove loss of income - just because someone pirated your product, doesn't mean he would have bought it if he had no way to pirate it. But THAT does not mean they should be no consequences. There are other ways a court can punish a person for breaking the law. Especially if the culprit is underage. How does 200h of community works sound? Becaouse if i ware 14years old, i would much more fear that, then my parents having to pay money.

End regarding your edit, that is correct. Doesn't make it right or just.

[ShinraStrife]

 

1) crakers. i dunno what EULAs you saw, but every single one i bothered to read explicitly prohibits any form of reverse engineering. Buth that's a moot point, as the EULA itself has to comply with laws of the country where the product is being sold/bought. Which means, that every single EULA i had displayed for me in my life was probably void because of how law works in my country. Here, every part the agreement or contract has to comply with the law. If any part of agreement is not in accordance with law, the entire agreement is null and void for legal purposes. As most companies do not bother to check how do copyright laws look here, they jsut use standard US EULA translated. Which most likely breaks the law due to very restrictive license clauses.

 

Sorry,I didn't make myself clear on that reguard. I was once in the situation where I was faced with legal action for removing the DRM on Modern Warfare 2 when it was still popular. Steam banned my access to the multiplayer servers (which I wasn't even using at the time due to not having reliable internet back then, you can go to my steam profile to see that i was VAC banned) and then activision tried to threaten me with emails saying I broke their EULA and the like. I told them since I legally obtained a copy of the game, it was my right (and the right of anyone else in my situation) as the end user to remove the ability for the game to require internet access just to check if I had bought it or not. I eventually got them to leave me alone because in the end I never uploaded the "cracked" file to an online server, i merely showed other users how to do it, but I am still to this day banned from MW2 multiplayer. I don't understand why it was an issue. Many people still don't use steam because they hate the fact that you must prove you bought the game. It was a lot of hassle back then, but now that I am in an area with good internet, I don't mind Steam needing internet access.

 

But even if someone intentionally makes pirated games and uploads them, the upload sites are all anonymous, so they don't have much to fear.

 

Note to moderators: I do not pirate games nor do I encourage others to pirate. The situation I mentioned above was me legally buying a game and removing the need to have internet access to play the singleplayer mode.

[Lachdonin]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the copywrite would only be an issue if the modder was profiting from these mods correct?

 

Nope, it's any unauthorised use of their work. If you model, rig and texture your OWN thing, inspired by Zelda, it's no problem. But if you import any content made by someone else, without their or the materials owners permission, it's copywrite infringement.

[Guest deleted1125362]

But even if someone intentionally makes pirated games and uploads them, the upload sites are all anonymous, so they don't have much to fear.

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?.

Every web server logs all communication in and out. For Apache (which is roughly 50% of all the web pages) it's just a text file with ip address and action performed. Which means it takes exactly 5 minutes to to figure out the ip address of file uploader, then the ISP is (in most countries) legally obliged to release information on who was assigned that IP on given date. So no, upload sites are not anonymous. Nothing in internet is REALLY anonymous.

[LordGrievous]

As an aside, an EULA might say that you can't do something, but that doesn't mean it's legally enforceable. EULA's very frequently contain illegal or unenforceable provisions.