Our mod has been stolen

[mjolnir]

If they would just ask and said it is a bit changed discovery....but writing the readme and everything...*sigh*
.... badly burned vodka on them! That way they soon won't see their work.


@Doom.... well I only know how to swear in Russsian...so when you combine me and the translator you get the right words ;)

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[onca]

Hey ja, how about a few easter eggs in the next version.... like some infocards or bar rumours that say, "If you are from flserver.ru, then YOU SUCK!!!" And of course those numb nuts wouldn't know how to change it, coz they're morons.

[EoN]

Distasteful action by such a server. And I'm saying this in a very mildly as any other form of expressing what I would like to say probable gets me into serious trouble.
As for the argument of legal action the answer is simple. YES you can take legal action against those people and any server that is running that mod.
I know that the admins/mod-team never copyrighted their mod but it doesn't mean they are no legal means left to fight them.
I know as an artist any work I publish, or release, has Author Rights. This is the basis for most copyright laws in every nation on the planet. Even in Russia.
This Mod was published on more than one site and can be traced back to the makers.
But there's a slight problem taking legal action against these 'copycats' and that is money and most likely borders between the nations of the makers and these 'copycats'.
I'm no solicitor (Lawyer for the Americans) either but I know that if someone uses my art without my consent they can get into serious problem.
That server runs on someone's PC and got its own IP. This IP can be traced and thus you can find out what their ISP is. Write them an email and hope you can convince them to close down the server by disconnecting the owner of that IP. But I known this is a long shot. You only need to look at RIA/MPAA, and such organisations, how hard a time they have getting information from users from an ISP.
Other options are writing to the hosting sites that what they are spreading is a copy of your Mod. Most likely that will have more effect in spreading this copy to the masses.
Personally I hope that server gets PWNED big time by the FL community.
Kind Regards,

EoN

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[Horon]

The fact that their map has Pre-Discovery 8.41 or whatever still on it is kinda a dead giveaway.

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While being quite funny, your sig was the biggest one i've ever seen so far. No more than 700x250 please. ~utrack
http://pastebin.com/SYQXBufs

[Treewyrm]

EoN is correct, there are author rights. I told them so and quoted part of the copyright laws, however they disagree citing to some kind of "registration" and even "patents" (invention!), which we know not to be true. Basically they rejected author rights and do not wish to respect them at all. All attempts for civilized talk ended up with insulting us, and recent posts even suggest that neither Igiss is the author of the Discovery Mod nor has anyone of the credited person made the ships. In other words playing dummy and trolling.

@Single Earred Dude: it's only the map, the mod however is Discovery 4.84 with all the latest ships and systems in there. You can download it from their site and see it yourself if you want. Not surprisingly DatastormWarning.ini still has old Discovery warning in there.

[Dopamino]

Can you really take legal action since it is just a modification of an already copyrighted game?

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I mostly lurk around Media Center these days.

[EoN]

EoN is correct, there are author rights. I told them so and quoted part of the copyright laws, however they disagree citing to some kind of "registration" and even "patents" (invention!), which we know not to be true. Basically they rejected author rights and do not wish to respect them at all. All attempts for civilized talk ended up with insulting us, and recent posts even suggest that neither Igiss is the author of the Discover nor has anyone of the credited person made the ships. In other words playing dummy and trolling.

It doesn't matter if they agree with author rights or not. As an author you only need to publish it and you automatically have those rights.
The registration is only needed for copyrights and patent doesn't apply here as this isn't an invention like a new type of motor for a car.
This mod was released and worked on for years from what I can read in the Readme. It was posted on several sites for people to download and most likely has the dates when those Mods, meaning every new version, were posted.
This alone should be enough for most judges to rule in your favour.
But as I said taking them to court means you need to pay first and when a judge rules in your favour you can get your money back. I believe this is the case in most western countries but I do not know how the legal system works in Russia.
This is something Igiss needs to look up or ask a solicitor for advise on this.

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[Treewyrm]

Can you really take legal action since it is just a modification of an already copyrighted game?

Theoretically you can apply to author rights, because what they certainly did was taking work of respected authors (Igiss and contributors) without any consent and not crediting them (in fact their admins were cited as the authors instead which makes it even worse), it's a theft in black and white. On practice this is however an entirely different topic I'm afraid.

[Dopamino]

I think all we can do is bluff and threaten them to remove their fake.
We definitely don't want to tango with Microsoft in the Russian court system...

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I mostly lurk around Media Center these days.

[Eppy]

Hm...I'm trying to decide whether or not to post some flames...I've been playing with the translator. Apparently 'Defecate' translates into a word that means 'Cleared' over there...even though my author's rights feel horribly violated, I'm sort of having fun with this one...

...I'm sorry. That was tasteless. But still!:lol:

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Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.