[MATR5153]

hello i am new to the forum, this article compelled me to write. i think it is distugusting that people are trying to profit from the hard free work these guys do. i suggest the following, set up a bogus email account and bid $1000000 on all the auctions

he will get the idea after a while that you will block any attempted sales, if he complains to email you can forward them the complaint you wrote

just my £0.02 worth

[Fineus]

Wow... never thought I'd see something like this happen.

I suppose you guys can take pride that your mod is so good that someone is actually trying to profit from it. That said, I hope you nail the guy as it's rather sad that he's done this.

[Occams_Razor]

Hey. I'm new to the forums (great job BTW, and I'm making a small Shadow War mission pack).

Anyway, I'm an assistant at an Intellectual Property Law Firm, and while I'm  NOT A LAWYER (that is important) I can draft a proper Cease and Desist letter to deepalpha1 if you would like.

EDIT: Directing me to copies of the SCP and TBP licenses would be helpfull.

[IPAndrews]

I appreciate the offer but personally I would be against taking such action since WB would be perfectly within their rights to send such a letter to us. I would rather have faith in the intelligence of the average Babylon 5 fan not to fall for this. Let us leave this for now. If the guy starts making an obvious profit we will reassess the situation.

[Fury]

Originally posted by Occams_Razor
Anyway, I'm an assistant at an Intellectual Property Law Firm, and while I'm  NOT A LAWYER (that is important) I can draft a proper Cease and Desist letter to deepalpha1 if you would like.

EDIT: Directing me to copies of the SCP and TBP licenses would be helpfull.

Hi there

What IPAndrews posted is true. TBP and SCP are both developed by fans, who own no licenses to either B5 or FS2. Thus engaging in any law-issue would be our fall.

We have well stayed clear from getting any profit from TBP, including Gamespy's offer to put TBP as a subscription-only download for a limited time and magazine cover CD offers.

[Fragrag]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury

We have well stayed clear from getting any profit from TBP, including Gamespy's offer to put TBP as a subscription-only download for a limited time and magazine cover CD offers.

Wow, really? Never knew that, well, I think that was the point.


Ontopic:

I would like to give him Dibblers Finest sausages...

[Prophet]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Gamespy's offer to put TBP as a subscription-only download for a limited time and magazine cover CD offers.

Wow. I didn't know that.
Wow. I guess some normal people also think your work is good.

[morbiddreams]

Have you thought of notifying the appropiate licence holders and bring their attention to this..... Coz at the moment they are cracking down really hard on licence infringements......  Would it not be better for yourselves to inform these people of what has happened ande let the deal with problem seeing it is their licences that have been abused.  And show that you are more than hard done by with this than they are.

Not that I know what I am talking about, but for the benefit of TBP....  So they know you are not to blame for one persons m****r f*****g b******t actions. So would it not be better just to cover yourselves, so that you can just concerntrate on continuing the awsome and immense hard work you have put into this truly brilliant project.  Instead of having to worry about all this c**p.

If anything once they have seen this site they might even advertise it for you.... so everyone in the B5 community world wide knows about it and thats it is FREE...... OK I'm only dreaming but what a nice thought

[Fury]

If such an action would be taken, I'm afraid they would not let us continue this project unchecked. If they can't profit from us, then they most likely would force the project to be closed down.

[Toe]

This topic caused me to register an account also.  

First, I am.....very....annoyed at this.  I suggest spamming the ebay sites as others have suggested.  

I hate it when this type of stuff occurs, I really do.

-Toe

[Goober5000]

The Freespace 2 code license simply states:

Copyright (C) Volition, Inc. 1999.  All rights reserved.

All source code herein is the property of Volition, Inc. You may not sell or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the source.

At first glance this is surprisingly similar to the GNU GPL, at least superficially.  I've been wondering about talking with someone to more fully contemplate the ramifications of this.

While copyright law does not prohibit donations made to the developers of an otherwise freely available product based on copyrighted material (see for example http://www.exeterstudio.com/), this eBay stunt clearly falls into the category of trying to "commercially exploit a product created based on the source".

I don't know of any licenses (or lack thereof) mandated by WB or JMS for use of Babylon 5 material.

[Jimby]

I agree with you toe.  Really pisses me off when some dickhead tries to make a few bucks illegally like this.   Like the Dork who tried to sell Subway sandwich tickets.  Now I cant get any free subs anymore.  

I hope this project continues, I really enjoyed Raider Wars and Im looking forward to playing more.

[Primateavenger]

Just though I'd let you know the seller has stopped selling these items, assume e-bay must have contacted him

[Whitelight]

Originally posted by Prophet

 Wow. I guess some normal people also think your work is good.

Me, I don`t think its good, as a matter of fact I know its good.

[Occams_Razor]

I'm glad this seems to have worked out without incident.

I don't want to start a legal discussion (Since I make a living like that, and don't need to do it on my own time) but the SCP license really is nothing like the GPL. For one thing, from what I can find, it's only two lines

[Fury]

Hopefully there won't be any aftermath and this incident is good as closed. I don't know if eBay contacted the seller or what happened, but the important thing is that those auctions are now gone, hopefully permanently.

[Getter Robo G]

I got a response fromt eh letter I sent monday night (15 mins after teh notice was posted here I was about to go to work but tracked down how to contact ebay uk.  So I sent them a letter as someoen pset with the action of the person making the auction.)

The response I got was form letter variety... (posted below)

Sorry if I mistated anyting but 1.) I was upset, 2.) wanted to make them aware of this ASAP, 3.) was speaking only for myself  and not as a representative of the B5 team, just someone who would be VERY put off if this had happened to my team.


Thank you for your report.

We would like to let you know that we have received your email and we
will thoroughly investigate the information you have provided.

Please keep in mind that the reasons for actions taken or not taken on
a
specific listing are confidential and between eBay and the seller. We
will not be able to keep you informed of any developments for legal
reasons, but we assure you that we will thoroughly examine this
information. We will take the appropriate action for each individual
case, which may involve removing an item or simply issuing a warning.

If you believe an item is potentially infringing and it was not removed
by eBay, we encourage you to contact the rights owner and inform them
of
the alleged infringement. Rights owners may request the removal of
listings they feel infringe upon their rights through eBay's Verified
Rights Owner (VeRO) Programme.

If you would like to see information provided by the rights owners
about
items that may infringe their rights including how to contact them,
please visit our list of VeRO Programme participant About Me pages.

  http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html

If you are a rights owner and would like more information regarding the
VeRO Programme, please visit:

  http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/vero-program.html

Please do not respond to this email. If you reply to this message we
will not receive your email. All communications regarding Rules and
Safety should be sent to the link provided below:

  http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_inline/index.html

We appreciate your concerns, and we thank you for helping to keep
ebay.co.uk a safe and enjoyable trading community.

Best wishes,

The ebay.co.uk Community Watch Team

______________

[Prophet]

All thats missing is "This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds".

Anyway, at least they took somekind of action...

[Annorax]

That's their standard boilerplate.

The fun part about the VERO is that the rights owner controls the takedown process, which is automatic. You click the button, you claim the thing infringes your rights, it's automatically taken down without any action from eBay. I've seen numerous ransom schemes and anti-competitive actions taken using this program, including one where a poker chip store drove another out of business by deleting all their auctions with VERO.

Someone should get a VERO account and just kill these auctions on sight whenever they pop up.

[Annorax]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury

Hi there

What IPAndrews posted is true. TBP and SCP are both developed by fans, who own no licenses to either B5 or FS2. Thus engaging in any law-issue would be our fall.

We have well stayed clear from getting any profit from TBP, including Gamespy's offer to put TBP as a subscription-only download for a limited time and magazine cover CD offers.

Have you considered contacting the buyers and letting them know that the seller is a scumbag who's doing various bad things involving SCP, TBP, and their mother's favorite sheep? Would it even be legal to "encourage" the buyer not to give the scumbag money?