[Shrike]

Stuff that I don't care about, probably.

I'll wait to see where this goes before rendering judgement.

[Kazan]

Sticks: It affects us because any company that uses the DMCA to unjustly squash criticism is acting like Microsoft - trying to hide their failures and play god over their customers.  

Notice my language "I am ready to call for" I believe this implies that we are not taking this action yet, and that it is not the position of the team.

[Sticks]

I agree that the DMCA is bad. I also agree that maybe GameSpy didn't handle it properly.

However, reverse engineering code is illegal. So is posting the results of your findings. If the info gets out before the software company is ready with a patch, then who suffers? Only the end user. In this case I don't think a cease and desist was so far out of line.

However, the use of the DMCA in this case may have been. I can't say, because I'm not a lawyer.

You still didn't explain how this affects us. If I act like Bill Gates it doesn't mean that Tom Jones loses record sales. There is no direct correlation.

Notice my language "I am ready to call for" I believe this implies that we are not taking this action yet, and that it is not the position of the team.

You are correct. It implies that this is the case. It does not state it directly.

[Unknown Target]

Think about it this way, Kazan (and everyone else):

Choice A: We cut relations with GS

Pro:
1) No risk of legal action

Con:
1) No advertising on one of the biggest gaming sites on the planet.

Choice B: We stay with GS.

Pro:
1) We get some heavy-duty advertising

Con:
2) We could all get screwed up the ass at any time by GS, if they so choose.

If Kazan can prove that GS is using the law incorrectly, I'm all for moving to our own server (hell, it would be nice to have an easy-to-remember domain name). If not, well, what have we got to lose by staying here?

BTW, for the record, I don't trust GameSpy.

[Kazan]

UT: nice summary

---------------------------------------------------------

GameSpy admits they have had a previous relationship with the man in question in bug fixing
The man in question acted in good faith - he notified gamespy of the bug in advance of relasing the information to the public, and the ammount of time was the standard (1wk) used by the security community - so naming the advisories was stepping to far

however under widening my investigation beyond the domain this into other sections of his pages I stumbled across the "patches" - which at first glance I had assumed were patches for his programs - no they are no-cd patches for ever peoples games - not that is clearly a violation of the laws stated (but i don't see any GameSpy property in the list)

Sticks: he didn't reverse engineer code, he just observed bugs in it and found their pattern.



I am coming to the conlcusion that althought gamespy stepped a little to far in attacking the advisories, I think they are right in attacking and using the DMCA

[Fineus]

So we maneuver things so that all work on the SCP is our own - that is to say that we can walk at any time and take all materials with us, owing them nothing.

[Kazan]

yep Kal

[Fineus]

Works for me, obviously the discussion isnt over - but at least that goal is kinda "there"...

[Kazan]

Ok - I think i'm going to withdraw my statement

While their attacking his advisories is overzealous, he was walking a thin line with the utilities, a thin line which i believe he crossed after further examination.

While I do not completely trust gamespy, like I do not completely trust any large business, I do not think they are heniously in the wrong here which was my initial reaction to the usage of the DMCA.  They do not only rely on the DMCA and Mr Auriemma once requested a "consultation fee" from them, along with his blatant copyright violations on his site (See "Patches" - especially the UT2K3 ones) I believe he may have acted in good faith with his advisories, he did not act in good faith with his programs and reguards to copy proteciton

[Bobboau]

when you go after someone you generaly through anything you can get ahold of at them,
wether or not the advisorys were a violation or not, he still defenantly made violations on the copyright front, maybe GS's legal department isn't as tecnical minded as they should be and maybe that's why they list some things wich realy arn't truly illigal, but there are violations, and even if this was as unwarented as first proported I don't think we should make any hasty choices, for the reasons this thread clearly illistrates

[Unknown Target]

We need to set up some sort of AIM, ICQ or MSN (not IRC, a lot of ppl can't get on that) chat to discuss this GS business.

You see, the problem with GS is that they are a company, and, like all companies, want one thing: profit.
Therefore, if we go into ANY partnership with them, we are walking a sheet of ice about a cm thick that they will screw us over, and take everything we have done.
After all, they partner with Interplay, take the **** we've done, and release it for paying customers only.
That's a little extreme, I know, but GS could concievably do that, OR even hire off you guys (our programmers) to do more exes. Only prob is, they could make the exes for paying customers only, again.

We'll have to tread VERY lightly in this matter. One wrong move, and 5 years of work goes down the drain.

[Unknown Target]

And doesn't www.freespace-open.com sound good to you all?

[Kazan]

to make exes that they control the distribution to they'd have to buy the origional code from Volition, then buy our changes from ALL of the SCP coders

[marajin]

Although I want to avoid all the political...rubbish.... I must say, it'd be nice to see a community of this size and quality at least have their own centralized hosting and domain name. The URL for these forums is definitely a handful, especially since I can't use a bookmark for it half the time (I Move around several machines). From what I see in terms of activity on the forum, although it's quite active as forums go, it's not a 250-people at any one time job. You could probably host the forums with a semi-decent home broadband package and a domain name...

(Edit: I'd offer to put it on my server, but I fear someone will suddenly go "Ah but there's tonnes of activity in these sections, you just never read them!", and the activity would actually be enough to slay my meagre connection... Actually thinking about it, it's quite possible the frequent screenies/pictures would be bad for the ole bandwidth.. Dunno, How active /is/ the forum?)

[Kazan]

UT: i was thinking fs2source.com

I think im going to fork this into a new thread

[Unknown Target]

We (the community) should REALLY look into some good hosting, such as www.hardlight.com or some such. would really help out the new guys.

And anyone who donates for the server(s) gets, what, 10 mb of space?

[marajin]

"You are being redirected to MyPills.com" ?

[Kazan]

hardlight.com is cybersquated

anyone who donates could get a tag on forums like "SCP Site Sponsor"

[Bobboau]

www.hlp.com

[Kazan]

www.hlp.com = squatted "no website is configured for this address"

http://www.whois.sc/hlp.com