Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on December 29, 2005, 04:28:43 am
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Seriously, now that we are no longer chained to GameSpy, are we allowed to talk about it?
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I can't see any reason you can't talk about it.. linking to it is another matter though. Since I'm first to find this one lets say that:
You cannot link to warez in any shape or form. You can however discuss it so long as that discussion does not include linking to it.
If that changes - we'll let you know.
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What about asking someone to PM you a link? Is that ok?
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If you PM them and ask them to do it then yes. I'd imagine that if you posted here:
"If anyone knows where I can find this software in some form or another, please PM me if you do" then that's tactful enough.
The point is we don't want people publically using this forum to post warez links left right and centre. Hell, I'm mindful that allowing people to ask others tactfully - there'll be a host of new topics springing up asking for all kinds of software. That's not what we're about at all and to be honest I'd rather people looked for warez elsewhere - lord knows there are plenty of places for it.
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"If anyone knows where I can find this software in some form or another, please PM me if you do" then that's tactful enough.
I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. I see that Kal has posted a thread about this to the staff forum, we'll make a final decision later.
Kal is right, there a lot of forums where you can ask for warez. This shouldn't be one of them.
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"If anyone knows where I can find this software in some form or another, please PM me if you do" then that's tactful enough.
I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. I see that Kal has posted a thread about this to the staff forum, we'll make a final decision later.
Kal is right, there a lot of forums where you can ask for warez. This shouldn't be one of them.
of course, it would be largely dependant on said software's "legal" availability, but as i see it as far as games are concerned, if it's a legit link from the underdogs, then it should be okay-ish. but i personally wouldn't see any problem with HLP's current/new stance on warez discussion. i mean, look at what where we are, a discussion forum for a largely freeware game :nod:
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That's not what we're about at all and to be honest I'd rather people looked for warez elsewhere - lord knows there are plenty of places for it.
Am I allowed to ask if you know any good ones?
EDIT: The reason I'm asking this is because many of those warez places are not very good, especially for finding older games (kind of like what I am looking for).
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That's not what we're about at all and to be honest I'd rather people looked for warez elsewhere - lord knows there are plenty of places for it.
Am I allowed to ask if you know any good ones?
Personally my stance is the same as before, it makes no difference whether you ask or link to warez directly or sites participating in distribution of warez. Ask your friends or ask someone you know via some instant messenger.
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It seems to me that anything outside of abandonware - say it's hosted on HOTU - is out of the question. Same thing for music.
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That's certainly the best / easiest way of looking at it. We're not interested in promoting illegal file sharing here anyway - it's not what we're about.
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eMule - anything you can't Google.
torrent - anything that you can Goodle.
DC - anything if you're hardcore.
Kazaa - anything if you want spyware running.
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I have no problem with people using NW for warez trading.
Infact, I actively encourage people to help others find pirated copies of Halo 2 in defiance of Deepblue threatening to report me to Bungie the first time someone did it.
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There you go, you see? Go over to NW and discuss it. End of problem :)
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Makes me wonder though if that makes linking to NW a violation of rules...
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NW is a forum. What that forums shows is its own department but at face value NW isn't a warez site either. It's not our place to regulate their content.
Of course if people link directly to threads that contain warez etc then that's just as bad - and can't be allowed. Linking to the forums main page on the other hand? Nothing wrong with that.
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I can find just about anything out there if I put some time into it, but I refrain from talking about that stuff here. :p
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[I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. [/b]
Double You Tee Eff?
It wasn't even that strict on Gamespy...
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I can find just about anything out there if I put some time into it, but I refrain from talking about that stuff here. :p
True, true...provided there's something to find.
The frustrating part is discerning which is which....
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Warez is NEVER a good idea, I think just discussing it is opening a can of worms.
Might want to steer away from the subject alltogether.
My two cents anyway.
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Black Wolf: It shouldn't be a problem for anyone here should it? Our anti-warez policy has always been fairly strict.
BlackDove: I guess the moral discussion of whether warez is right or wrong is as allowed here as a discussion about politics or gay couples being allowed to marry or whatever else you like...
...but as with all things, if it turns bad in some way then we have to step in. This might include posting links to warez or insult other members because you disagree with their opinion.
It should hopefully be easy enough to get on with. I don't really want to start witch-hunting people because they utter the word "warez". It's the posting links in any form that we can't allow.
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Yeah I understand. I've just seen it as a line that people will cross if you allow it to a certain point.
However you've had that/this rule on Gamespy's HLP and it didn't look like there were any problems, so I guess your way works anyway.
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how about if it becomes a problem it will be dealt with?
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i got banned once for telling someone what site to find a 'warez' file on
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There you go then... don't do that :)
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Actually i was trying to imply that it's WORTH getting in trouble for!
seriously guys... go to www.3L1t3w4r3z.com for free warez! be like me!
I'm j/k. yeah i don't advertise warez anymore. i learned my lesson ;) but that was like 2 years ago at least.
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[I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. [/b]
Double You Tee Eff?
It wasn't even that strict on Gamespy...
I agree. That is too harsh.
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I don't have a problem with warez, I do have a problem with anything that might endanger the site though.
Warez linking would most likely do this, all it takes is some disgruntled person (DS) to point out to the authorities that HLP facilitates the sharing of software and we'd be shut down faster than you can say suprnova.
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I'm fairly certain that linking to Warez sites isn't anything that could actually endanger HLP. Linking to the sites isn't a crime, IIRC.
In any case, I agree, Fury's statement strikes me as far too harsh.
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It's not set in stone yet, we'll wait and see what the general admin consensus is. I'm in favour of keeping it the way it was on the GS server.
As for linking not being illegal, consider torrent sites. They don't have any warez on their sites but are still taken as illegal as they help the proliferation of warez. There are no hard and fast rules but I think we all prefer to side on caution.
Anyhow as an0n has said Penguinbomb doesn't have any issues with it so there shouldn't be a problem.
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As for linking not being illegal, consider torrent sites. They don't have any warez on their sites but are still taken as illegal as they help the proliferation of warez. There are no hard and fast rules but I think we all prefer to side on caution.
Anyhow as an0n has said Penguinbomb doesn't have any issues with it so there shouldn't be a problem.
Actually, Torrent sites IIRC link to the Torrent Downloads themselves, hence why they're considered illegal. There's no law against linking to the site itself, as long as you don't link directly to the Torrents. At least, that's how I understand it.
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A torrent file amoungst other things contains a list of sources for a file or set of files, thus hosting a torrent file is effectively hosting the links to warez.
Irrespective, the decision will not be based upon an open ended argument, as has been stated before we keep this site and its forums Freespace related primarily, anything else that goes on here is strictly secondary.
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I like Kalfireth's idea the best. Not like that matters much. :p
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Actually you better realise something:
The reason why warez, p2p networks, torrents are so prosecuted....
....ISN'T PROTECTION OF THE AUTHORS AND ARTISTS....
...but the PROTECTION OF PROFIT.
Here's something written by Orson Scott Card on mp3 that can be applied to this situation as well:
Mp3's Are Not the Devil! (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-1.html)
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Until 1978, copyright only lasted 52 years in the U.S. -- and then only if you remembered to renew it. There were other technical lapses that could result in the inadvertent loss of copyright -- it wasn't really user-friendly.
.....
Since 1978, the law was changed so that copyright lasted until a certain number of years after the author's death. So not only did the author never outlive the copyright, but the author's dependents could continue to derive income from it for some time.
Also, copyright began, not when the work was listed with the Library of Congress, but rather from the moment of creation.
But there were loopholes. If you wrote something as an employee of a company that paid you a salary for creating it, then your writing was a "work made for hire" and the copyright belonged to the company. You had no rights.
Here's where the ugly stuff begins. A lot of publishers began routinely requiring writers to sign contracts that declared that what they wrote was a "work for hire," so that the authors wouldn't own any part of their own work. Of course the companies didn't actually hire the writers and give them benefits, like real employees. It was basically highway robbery -- the companies demanded that either the writers sign their names to a lie and give up all their rights, or the company wouldn't publish it.
Only a few of us were stubborn enough to refuse to sign work for hire contracts. It was an expensive moral quibble, but I have real objections to perjuring myself and pretending that I was hired by a company when in fact I never was. If I took all the risks and wrote something on spec, then the copyright should belong to me. I'd license them to do whatever was needed, but I wouldn't, in effect, declare them to be the author of my work.
......
Strip away all the pretension, and what you really have is this: Rapacious companies that have become bloated on windfall profits and ruthless exploitation of other people's talents are now terrified that the gravy train will go away.
Because in the brave new world of online distribution of cheap CDs, do you know who the only losers would be? Big-salary executives and owners of big record companies.
.......
He's clever fellow (darn clever and profoundly moral if you read some of his books) with an admirable set of standards and a backbone to stand up for them.
Even though he's not my cop of tea - since I'm a socialist (lefty) while he's a definite conservative, (the side that lefties usually bash for 'supporting' the opression of the masses and so on... yadda yadda liberal blind dogma, you know the rest....) - I can't help but nod in agreement with most of his ideas and remember that there's more to the Christian morality than the doublespeaking lies of the spoilt rich.
When a guy like him stands up for an issue, I can know for certain that it's not just my liberal/materialistic upbringing rising up against some seemingly outdated/pointless tradition but genuine rage against evil deeds of people who want to live off my blood and sweat without lifting a finger in their lifetime for the rest of us.
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What you can and cannot do is largely dependent on where this site is hosted. If this forum is hosted in the US, your ISP will shut you down if your site is trading warez. The people responsible for paying for the site and the domain owners will likely be held legally accountable. I don't know about the UK, I don't run servers there, so it never occurred to me to ask. The HLP admins have taken a next step in responsibility by hosting this site somewhere other than GameSpy.
Regardless of what your personal OPINION on the "rightness" of warez is, it is indeed still illegal in many places. Until such time as that is not the case, if you run the website and care about it being up, you have to obey the local laws.
Ask a lawyer.
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Indeed. We've no intention of placing this site at risk just so that a small number of people can swap file locations. However we're not the thought police and if you want to discuss the legitimacies of warez, mp3 file sharing and so on then that's your own call. The line stops at linking to warez/file sharing sites however.
So far this hasn't been much of a problem. I see no reason it become a major issue now.
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I didn't intend for HLP to host warez or even associate with it to any degree.
That would be idiotic and would endanger the site.
Even if trading in warez is no more serious an offense than illegal parking it's still an offense and we shouldn't encourage it.
The point of the whole post was that the prosecution of warez and internet file trading is not quite the demon it's made out to be....and the real bastards are the ones spurring the hunt on and on.
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So far this hasn't been much of a problem. I see no reason it become a major issue now.
Just make sure the rules are clear and enforced and it hopefully never will be.
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What you can and cannot do is largely dependent on where this site is hosted. If this forum is hosted in the US, your ISP will shut you down if your site is trading warez.
Maybe you could host it in some out of the way country where the evil RIAA couldn't touch you. :p
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oh please... bunch of drama queens.......
the RIAA/MPAA/whoever isn't going to shut down a site that's just TALKING about warez, or occasionally privately (via PMs) linking to a site. they're too busy shutting down legit sites, who specialize in hosting or linking to warez, such as suprnova. i personally think as long as no one publicly links to warez, it shouldn't be an issue, but via PM you can do whatever you want, ala when we were still hosted on gamespy
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Actually, Torrent sites IIRC link to the Torrent Downloads themselves, hence why they're considered illegal. There's no law against linking to the site itself, as long as you don't link directly to the Torrents. At least, that's how I understand it.
Wanna explain why they're also shutting down EDonkey sites too then? Considering that all they ever contain is the hash number for a file. Something you could find out simply by using the search funtion in your client anyway?
The RIAA and MPAA are going after anyone remotely connected with piracy without regard to how much sense it makes.
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Best bet is to go see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil as far as any kind of official or semi official standpoint regarding wares is concerned. I, for one, would prefer as few rocks being available to throw at HLP as possible.
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[I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. [/b]
Double You Tee Eff?
It wasn't even that strict on Gamespy...
I agree. That is too harsh.
You're lucky its not me alone deciding on the matter. :p
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[I disagree, it shouldn't be allowed in that form either. If you deliberately ask for warez, it makes no difference whether someone replies to a thread or via PM, as long as you ask for it publicly, it's a ban. [/b]
Double You Tee Eff?
It wasn't even that strict on Gamespy...
I agree. That is too harsh.
You're lucky its not me alone deciding on the matter. :p
That's why we have more than one admin: To make sure you get "moderated". :D
Yes, that is a bad joke.
EDIT: But I have a personal question for you. When you were a kid, did you pirate something and it gave your computer a virus? :p
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Never had a virus or spyware on my computers. I haven't implied that I do not download software illegally, but I haven't said I do so either. My hard line stance on the matter is directly because such discussion does not belong here. However, it was decided that you can discuss about warez such as morality of it, but linking or asking for it is not allowed. We're not a tought police but don't expect to get away if you're caught red handed.