The fact that he would rather leave then send a simple counter notice should also be noted he obviously knows he is in the wrong or would have not abandoned an entire project...
I ask a very simple thing of him and he refused if you look at the skin of fairy tale you will also notice them similarities in design there as well..
I don't have his source for fairy tale so I cant do a side by side comparison of the code to make 100% positive for sure with physical proof but a DMCA only requires me to have reasonable good faith belief that use of the material in the manner specified above is not authorized...
a subpoena of the source for a side by side comparison with the mod in question would be able to prove for sure...
aside for the game similarities and he himself admitting he used code/icons from dm... I am quite surprised Lum with all this you still doubt me.. I have been a member longer here on byond then jolenar by far ...I am a well established developer with no past issues with literally ANYONE I have never had a copyright problem with anyone else...
Not only that as I said before I donate my time to insure byond works well on WINE... I have literally no reason to falsify a DMCA and have even provided evidence as to why I was lead to believe the content was being infringed...
Yet apparently "To be honest I think the takedown notice was likely premature and possibly even incorrect" this kind of doubt of my character when I have never given a reason in the past 12~ years to do so... My question is why..
Why am I being seen as the bad guy here I just dont want people using my content without using the GPL then going around claiming it and making money...
its ridiculous I have never charged for DM EVER.. yet other will steal work from dm and do so?? how is this ok?
How does this make me the bad guy for being upset and issuing a DMCA to someone who snickered at my request to license correctly then blocked me... This personally literally laughed in my face thinking they could get away with it..
I am so disappointed in this community obviously you don't care about your developers imo. If you did you certainly wouldn't make statements like assuming they are falsifying a legal document. I was never even asked for proof yet I still fave it and even offered more and was even willing to pay EXTRA for legal help to a protect a game I get $0 out of...
I am so infuriated with byond right now and disappointed.. This perfectly shows the toxicity of this community as well as showing the reason your losing developers...
Ontop of all this I had actually thought me and you concluded this was over last night and was hoping you would lock this thread but here we are 20 posts later?? With more assumptions that I was falsifying information..
If your goal was also to make me reconsider my development and participation in this community job well done it is possible I will leave to work with Aaron another developer who has left byond who used to work on dungeon master with me for those of you who knew Ginseng... who also was a long time developer that created many good original FREE games..
This is difficult for me as I never thought I would be put in a situation where I would feel I would need to leave the community let alone quit work on DM.. I have quite literally worked on it for over 10 years... and now I have to reconsider continuing that due to what feels like alienation.Because I wanted to protect my content
* slow claps*
I don't mean at all to imply you falsified anything or did anything in bad faith. Definitely not; it's clear you believe strongly in your position, and your statements in the complaints were true to the best of your knowledge. I'm just saying I think the whole thing looks iffy from where I'm sitting, and it's hard to rule out, for me, that this could have been an honest mistake. The reason others are arguing the merits is that they're having the same trouble with seeing the infringement. That's all. It doesn't mean you're wrong.
Look at it from the other guy's perspective. If for instance he was correct, or even thought he was, then your demands for compliance with your license would have been seen by him as ridiculous. Of course he would have laughed you off and blocked you if that was the case; you'd do the same if you felt (right or wrong) that they were making unreasonable demands. What you're saying he did is consistent with him believing he was in the right. It's also consistent with malicously flouting your license. So basically, the fact that he pooh-poohed your attempts at outreach could be seen either way. To be more specific about the reason you're getting so many questions about this, the confusion stems from the fact that you keep returning to the license as the main issue of contention. It's not about the license; it's really all about chain of ownership. It's important to be clear on which specific things he allegedly used without permission, and whether those specific things hailed from your own work or you in turn were licensing them from a different source. (And "similarities" don't count; any statements about things being merely similar significantly weaken your argument.) From what I've seen of Jolenar's position, he contends that the items at issue aren't original to Dungeon Master and therefore can't be covered by your license. Since you inherited the code from Ginseng, even though you said you worked with him somewhat on it, it's reasonable for people to think you might not know for sure if certain icons originally came from an outside source. This is by no means a signal that I want to keep this issue going. What I'm saying is, this is the explanation for why you've seen so much pushback. Above all else you need to stop taking the argument personally. No one is attacking your character where the substance of the complaint is concerned; they're only questioning whether you might have been mistaken. People are allowed to form their own opinions and point out what they see as potential flaws in the argument. That kind of pushback is a good thing; it will give you a good idea of what to expect in similar situations and how to address those concerns preemptively. You need to be able to present your case in a concise, cogent, and specific form with concrete examples. Hopefully, though, there won't be any future disputes and that's the end of it anyway. | |
To be clear, Godsring, when someone says that your actions may not be correct, they are not casting aspersions on your character but pointing out a potential error in judgment.
It's not even an aspersion on your faculties, as all people make mistakes. Something can be false without being falsified; it is possible for one to simply be in error. This is why, as you note, DMCA claims require you to attest under penalty of perjury only that to the best of your knowledge, the claim you are making is true. The law realizes that you can't swear anything to be true, not with any ral force. You can only swear that you believe it to be so. And whether you're right or you're wrong, no one is making you "the bad guy" for that, any more than they're suggesting you're "a bad guy" for taking potentially faulty advice from a potentially shifty web site. DMCA claims are free to file and require no legal experience or standing other than being the copyright holder or having been duly appointed by such. The procedure for filing them is simple and adequately described all over the web. So red flag number one is someone charging money to "assist" with them. It's not necessarily a scam in the sense of being illegal; shady lawyers do the same thing all the time. Most of those late night infomercials about class action settlements? You could get the money yourself if you're part of the affected class by just filling out a form or calling a hotline set up by the party that settled the suit. That's all the lawyer "with experience handling these tricky cases" will do. If there's a settlement, case has already been settled. This conduct is shady and underhanded, but there's no law against it. There's no law against offering people help with just about anything, or accepting payment for that help. There's also not really a general law against giving bad advice, for that matter. But something doesn't have to be illegal for the customers to be taken advantage of. If you can stand advice from a neutral party: it might be that in having thrown your weight behind this claim and thrown your money on the "legal counsel" of a Canadian website offering dubious services of dubious value, you may now be experiencing what is known as the "sunk cost fallacy". I.e., because you believed you were being infringed, you put your credibility on the line and hired this website to "represent/counsel" you, and then followed their advice. And things have spiraled so badly from there that you're talking about walking away and never coming back. That's not an optimum outcome for anyone. Not you. Not anyone. But while this chain of events has been costly for you personally, so long as you hold to the belief that your actions at every step of the way have been 100% correct and perfectly justified, you can tell yourself that the costs you're paying--literal and metaphorical--were Worth It. Examining the premises that brought you here, on the other hand, means considering the possibility that some or all of those costs were unnecessary, means opening yourself up to admitting the possibility that you were baited by someone's silly chat boasts or taken in by a sketchy website offering unnecessary help and unwise counsel. When you're in a position like this, I understand how it can feel like you're past the point of no return. When you find yourself in a hole, sure, it makes a kind of sense to think that escalating is the way to get out of it. If you're done, you're done. But maybe it's worth considering that the reason you feel like walking away is that right here and right now, you somehow feel like you have more invested in this dispute than you have in ten years of gamemaking with BYOND. Call me optimistic, but I suspect that feeling is just a feeling, and that if you step back and let things deflate a bit, you'll realize that it's not the case at all. | |
Whole thread should have been locked/deleted after Jolenar was told to go to the support form.
Jolenar had no business making this a public issue and wading in here yourself only stood to make it worse. That's why I said both parties were being stupid. Making it a public issue and not immediately requesting lock/delete is just begging for trouble. I wasn't trying to force my way into the topic, just pointing out where the correct next step for both users is and what to expect. | |
This was hilarious to read, delete.
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Kozuma3 wrote:
This was hilarious to read, delete. Don't delete the thread, just lock it. That way whenever I need a good laugh, I can come back here and read these 4 pages again. | |
My username's in this thread. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
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Ultimately, I'm not sure there's any point in carrying out the argument further here. Jolenar made the decision to leave, and if he sticks with it then that's that. I hope he comes back, and would invite him to dispute the takedown if he thinks it was issued incorrectly. To be honest I think the takedown notice was likely premature and possibly even incorrect, but it is what it is and if Jolenar would rather simply leave it alone than fight it, that's his affair. As it stands now I think this is more of a cautionary tale for all concerned, myself included, and there isn't much to be gained by continuing the back-and-forth.