Ufo 2000 Being Sold On Ebay

[Shotgunner]

Guys, I am posting the same topic in all four of the UFO 2000 forums in the hopes someone from the Project will see it. I apoligize in advance for cluttering the subforums with repeated topics.

 

I just came from eBay to look for a legit copy of XCOM CE and I came across several auctions by some person out in the UK who is offering X-COM Enemy Unknown and Terror From The Deep, as well as UFO 2000. He does not claim any credit for it, but he also gives no credit to it's creators. I don't know if you UFO 2000 guys authorized this person to do so, but seeing as how illegal copies of the XCOM games are not allowed for sale( he freely admits that, quote, "CD-Rom comes unprinted and is supplied in a paper sleeve", unquote.

 

The link to one of said auctions is :

http://cgi.ebay.com/X-com-3-Games-UFO-Terr...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Note that the above auction is only around for another 14 hours so if this person is doing something illegal, you UFO2000 guys need to move like a Chryssalid was on your donkey. The seller's screen name is mossy_games, and he currently has three auctions active at the moment, all of which offer the same three titles - Enemy UNknown, TFTD & UFO 2000.

 

Now, if I am jumping to conclusions here and you guys authorized this peron to sell your game on your collective behalf, I am very sorry. But, if he is NOT authorized to sell your title...well, I hope you nail the SOB to the wall(or whatever you can nail his hide to).

[Sporb]

somone with an Ebay account should probably complain - i for one, dont want this scumbag making money off my artwork and i know none of the other developers will appreciate it either.

[Shotgunner]

Well, I dont know aobut the UFO 2000 project members, but I for one do have an ebay account, and would be more than happy to send an official complaint to both ebay AND the seller, along with a warning of possible legal actions. After I post this, I am sending a copy of my initial topic to Serge. Again, sorry for semi-spamming all four subforums. At least it was for a good cause, not what most spammers flood forums for, right?

[Oldtype]

Well as far as UFO2000 is concerned, he can sell it or distribute it in any other way, He could get into trouble for selling illegal copys of XCOM and TFTD though.

 

ufo2000 is distributed under the GPL licence wich grants anyone the right to redistribute it. That includes the right to sell it or give it away for free.

read here:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-...heGPLAllowMoney

[Shotgunner]

Well, I PMed Serge about it in addition to posting here in the forums. I was unaware of the GPL-specific rights, so if anyhting is going to be done I guess it is up to the UFO2000 crew.

 

Besides, I was just playing "town crier" when I saw the auction over on eBay and wanted to give a heads up to the UFO2000 crew.

 

Anyways, I did what I thought would be right, and at least if I was wrong no one gets hurt for it, right? My intentions speak for themselves.

[Sporb]

Wait, that cant be right - why would the GPL allow somone to make money off the gains of others when they do nothng? at the very least, he will have his donkey kicked for illegal copies of UFO. AFAIK somone tried to do somthing similar With Jdoom awhiel back and he was much abused for it.

 

im not sure if i wanna develop stuff under GPL if this is the case - cause it basically means squat from the sound of it.

Edited December 14, 2006 by Sporb

[Oldtype]

Well he can take money for it. If someone is stupid enough to pay for something that can be obtained for free without any trouble, that is the problem of the buyer.

 

The GPL is not about money, it is about freedom. The seller has to fullfill certain conditions for him to have those rights, the most important one is, he has to provide the source code. He also has to include a copy of the licence, so any buyer would be aware of that.

 

Read that FAQ I linked to.

Edited December 14, 2006 by Oldtype

[Guest Azrael]

Wow, I didn't know that, so basically he can sell copies of UFO2000 for as much as he wants as long as he distributes the source code for an 'equivalent fee'! That's so lame.

[Shotgunner]

I agree. Serge and his crew have busted their a** to amke UFO2000, and now some idiot who sees a fast buck in their pocket can just abuse the GPL license to do so.

 

Hmm....if someone spoiled his day by informing eBay that he is selling illegal copies of XCOM though....*debating if I should just leave it be at this point*

[red knight]

That is one of the reasons why we changed licenses in Xenocide. Sadly, it is entirely legal to do so.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Shotgunner]

Ah heck with it - if this guy is getting away with selling illegal copies of the first two X-COM titles on eBay, he(or she) has ost likely done his/her research to know how ot get away with it.

 

It truly is a shame guys, and I, for one, would never buy or bid on something from this joker EVER - it is really low to take advantage of the legal wording to profit from someone else's hard work and dedication, especially if said work is provided for free by it's creators.

 

I wish you guys could find a way to nail his donkey to the wall and jam a Reaper up his you-know-what. Ouch, what a mental image - I think I'm going to bed now

[Zombie]

Not if I can help it. I'll fire off a couple emails to eBay and the seller tomorrow. I was successful in preventing some shady stuff with illegal DVDs a while back. Have you seen this in the item description? :

 

Note to eBay these games are available in the public domain. No copyrights are being breached.

This may be true for UFO2000 being an open source project, but it certainly isn't for the X-COM titles. Once the eBay folks are made aware of this fact, the sooner we can shut this guy down.

 

Edit: eBay contacted and provided with a list of the items in question. Will keep you updated. Most likely the items will be removed as suspension is reserved for sellers who violate more than once.

 

- Zombie

Edited December 15, 2006 by Zombie

[Oldtype]

Note to eBay these games are available in the public domain. No copyrights are being breached.

This may be true for UFO2000 being an open source project, ...

It isn't. UFO2000 will not be PD for quite a while, depending on the law of your state.

Most states follow the TRIPS treaty, that means at least 25 years after creation, but it is likely to be more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS

[Shotgunner]

Oldtype, that is certinaly a help. Now if only any of us were law school students or had family memebrs who were law students/lawyers who would explain it all in simple english.... Edited December 16, 2006 by Shotgunner

[Zombie]

Well, eBay removed the item listings a while back so I'd say it was worthwhile. I'll continue to keep an eye out for the seller and the delisted items. If something shows up again, we'll complain and do that again. Cheers.

 

- Zombie

[Oldtype]

Oldtype, that is certinaly a help. Now if only any of us were law school students or had family memebrs who were law students/lawyers who would explain it all in simple english....

Meh, it is not that hard. I am not a lawyer either.

TRIPS is just an agreement, that comes with WTO membership. And since most states are WTO members they have to adjust their law acordingly.

 

Public Domain means, not copyrighted. Anything anyone produces that can be copyrighted, is copyrighted by default for at least 25 years. After that period it becomes PD and anyone can copy it.

I say at least 25 years because that is the minimum. In the USA it is the lifetime of the Author +70 years I think.

And that is because Disney always lobbyed lawmakers to extend that period, when Mickey Mouse was about to go into PD.

Actually there are now efforts to prevent that period from expiring entirely. Wich means copyright will last forever.

 

GPL is a copyright licence.

 

 

P.S. copyright that lasts too long is a bad thing, think about it.

[Shotgunner]

I agree aobut copyrights extended indefinetly, it is retarded. But, that is why Disney will make money on Micky Mose till the end of time - cause they are greedy ***holes .

 

Anyway, tanks again for that link. It certianly helps in this issue.

[Kratos]

What the...shuckeroonies balls...

 

Um, developers in favor to change license say "I".

 

I...

[Serge]

Wait, that cant be right - why would the GPL allow somone to make money off the gains of others when they do nothng? at the very least, he will have his donkey kicked for illegal copies of UFO. AFAIK somone tried to do somthing similar With Jdoom awhiel back and he was much abused for it.

 

im not sure if i wanna develop stuff under GPL if this is the case - cause it basically means squat from the sound of it.

Well, I don't see any problems at all. While this guy is some unethical bastard, he actually did not manage to do any harm to ufo2000 anyway That is if he did not try to repackage the game or change copyright notices, which would be illegal anyway. But he has full right to sell the game (ufo2000 only, I'm not talking about original games) to anyone who would want to pay him money for some reason. Money can be taken either for support or training or whatever services he would like to provide. The main goal of GPL license is to ensure future project development, any improvements (source code) should be available to anyone for free under the same GPL license. Nobody is allowed to develop some powerup version without sharing its source code with the community, so that the community could always adopt these changes and improve them further.

 

As for noncommercial restriction, that would be stupid. For example it would forbid accepting donations, or do some paid work to improve the game. Anything that helps to improve the game and keep it free is allowed by GPL license, even if it results in some profit for some people as a side effect. The point is that community always benefits in any case and gets new better versions of the game.

 

Maybe you can feel sad about the fact that you did not get any profit for your work (just like I did not get any profit as well), while some smartass manages to also earn some money while helping to improve the game (no matter how small or probably useless his contribution is). But this is allowed on purpose. There are some FAQ and explanations of the reasons behind GPL license on the net. It proved to be very efficient for a lot of free software. If you still feel uncertain, we can surely discuss it.

 

Another reason why we can't change license for the whole ufo2000 project is that this is explicitly forbidden by GPL license If you track the history of ufo2000 project, it was started by some russian guy (Alexander Ivanov) in year 2000. Once he got bored and did not feel like improving it anymore, he decided to publish his work with full sources under GPL license at sourceforge. Would you like another option - he could just publish some binary version (which looked very promising, playable, but lacked many features and had numerous bugs) without any sources and abandon it this way? Sources under GPL license allowed me to take over his work almost 2 years later and continue development. So we have what we got now, the game got better over time and anyone is allowed to make derived versions, making further improvements possible. Even if we all decide to abandon this project, our work can be continued by somebody else and the game can be still improved over time (maybe after another 2 years of inactivity). GPL encourages improving the game by anyone but it focuses on forbidding any improvements or changes to the game without sharing the sources. So it ensures that the game will always remain free (free for adding further improvements). Changing the license requires getting permission from every contributor (starting From Alexander Ivanov of course and he seems to be unreachable now). Of course anyone is free to have any license for any part that is entirely his contribution, but none of us has the right to change the license of ufo2000 as a combined work.

[Shotgunner]

That's a damn shame Serge. I think I speak for everyone present when I say that if I decided to burn copies of UFO 2000 onto a CD-R and sell them(on eBay or wherever) I'd at least offer to share the overall profit. I mean, some people will do ANYTHING for money, and this person has found a loophole in the GPL to exploit. But the only right thing is to at least make an offer.

[Serge]

That's a damn shame Serge. I think I speak for everyone present when I say that if I decided to burn copies of UFO 2000 onto a CD-R and sell them(on eBay or wherever) I'd at least offer to share the overall profit. I mean, some people will do ANYTHING for money, and this person has found a loophole in the GPL to exploit. But the only right thing is to at least make an offer.

Such people can try to sell anything, but it does not mean their business will be profitable. They could with the same success sell air, or whatever that is already available for free, or resell something that is extremely cheap at ridiculously high price. Anyone getting ufo2000 from this 'businessman' can read docs that are distributed with the game and know that the game can be actually downloaded from the website for free. So anyone who feels cheated can require refund, also tarring and feathering him if still not satisfied He will get bad reputation pretty soon and nobody will deal with him. Anyway, he only resulted in increasing ufo2000 publicity in the end in some weird way. Where is the loophole in GPL?

 

But an interesting option here is that he could for example provide some unique paid services related to ufo2000. He could host his own ufo2000 server, hold tournaments and judge them, provide 24h support and probably work as ufo2000 instructor who can guide new players. If his customers know what they are paying for and agree that his work actually costs what he is asking, there is no problem actually and GPL allows that. As I said earlier, the restriction here is that if he adds some improvements to the game (for example improves the server to add some tournaments related logic), he MUST share these changes in the form of source code with the community so that these changes can be also introduced into main game distribution. If his business relies on the success and quality of ufo2000, he would be interested in investing some of his profit into improving the game (for example, he could hire some programmer to add some new features, or hire somebody to create new maps or weapons for the game to add some variety). And this model actually works for free software and there are numerous examples (big corporations such as IBM investing their money into developing linux and other free software). Adding 'noncommercial' restriction to the license would just kill such opportunity completely and have no positive effect at all if you think about this. GPL license is a very interesting thing, it seems a bit strange on first read and there seem to be loopholes, but it actually works in a very positive way for free software, looks like it was invented by some very smart guys who were clever enough to make free license also acceptable by business

[Shotgunner]

I never really looked at the overall picture that way Serge, but I see what you are saying. I'm sorry for raising a flase alarm, but at least I meant well, right?

 

Looking foward to the next release of UFO 2000, whenever it might be!

[Patrick1994]

There was no permission from the seller to sell UFO2000

xcom on the other hand is free game because XCOM no longer has a valid lincesne owner as microprose no longer EXISTS

 

plz correct me if i am wrong

[playstationman]

There was no permission from the seller to sell UFO2000

xcom on the other hand is free game because XCOM no longer has a valid lincesne owner as microprose no longer EXISTS

 

plz correct me if i am wrong

 

The person does have permission to sell UFO2000. In fact, everybody has permission to sell UFO2000, so long as they follow a few rules. (off the top of my head, they have to inform the buyer that the game is licensed under the GPL, and I think they have to provide the source on request)

[nachtwolf]

There was no permission from the seller to sell UFO2000

xcom on the other hand is free game because XCOM no longer has a valid lincesne owner as microprose no longer EXISTS

 

plz correct me if i am wrong

 

1. He's just a greedy bastard IMHO. When his customers find out the stuff was available for download, they will get pissed.

 

2. GPL grants him the permission to do this with UFO2000.

 

3. I think It's not that bad that he has been selling our stuff, the game will somewhat get distributed and talked about in this way too. Now : he could have asked and split profits, but see 1.

 

4. Atari Inc. actually holds the rights for X-com as they bought Infogrammes which bought MicroProse. That means he did something illegal there.

 

5. I don't care. I'm not going to stop having fun making stuff for this game just because some guy made a few bucks on my back. If distributing pays, we can always go that way ourselves and use the money to improve the game. But that's too much energy for nothing since the game is already a free distributive.

 

6. Our work is safe, as we granted the UFO2000 project the right to use it, but it can't be ripped from there and used elsewhere legally since the right has not been granted outside of UFO2000.

 

Still in doubt : take the time to think about what serge said on this issue.

Edited February 13, 2007 by nachtwolf

[Sporb]

i agree - if he were to take the game and change the name a bit to somthing like 'YouEffOH! Two Thowsand!' and claim it as his work, id be angry. But looking at it now, he has actually helped in a way. If Ufo2000 were to have a donation system where you could receive a hard copy of the game with some extra stuff ...

 

Of course it would need to be completely stand alone before it would be legal

[Felblood]

There was no permission from the seller to sell UFO2000

xcom on the other hand is free game because XCOM no longer has a valid lincesne owner as microprose no longer EXISTS

 

plz correct me if i am wrong

 

You're wrong. Microprose no longer exists, but the license got auctioned off to somebody when they went under. It's probable that it was purchased as a package deal with a bunch of other stuff and the owners don't even know they have it, but it is still held by somebody.

 

As to the bit about people making money distributing your software, don't fret too much. Sure some dupe almost got taken in, buying stuff he could have got for free, if he had known, but the reason people are allowed to make money distributing your software even though it's free is so people who don't know (like the dupe in question) can still get a copy of your great game.

 

Two examples from my own life that show how important this is:

 

Many many many of the games that formed me into a gamer were shareware games that I bought through TSL catalog's. I spent a lot of my childhood allowances buying demos of games like Hugo II, Secret Agent, One Must Fall, and Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Now, if the developers of this software had got wind of this they probably would have said I was getting ripped off. Those were shareware demos that I should have been getting for free. --But if those guys hadn't "ripped me off" I'd have never found any of them and had a lot less fun as a kid. (Outside of video games my childhood was pretty harsh.)

 

As for finding this game, I was lucky enough to be knocking around in an abandonware/piracy website (Never you mind why!) which happened to drop a link to your download page. How many English E-bay frequenters are going to stumble across that link? How many links to your site exist on the entire internet? Anything that helps bring new people into the community, even if it costs some more than others, is a boon to the project. --unless said new people are jerks...