MacroQuest Gold?

[grimjack]

What the GPL says about modules.

If I add a module to a GPL-covered program, do I have to use the GPL as the license for my module?
The GPL says that the whole combined program has to be released under the GPL. So your module has to be available for use under the GPL.
But you can give additional permission for the use of your code. You can, if you wish, release your program under a license which is more lax than the GPL but compatible with the GPL. The license list page gives a partial list of GPL-compatible licenses.

As for plugins

If a program released under the GPL uses plug-ins, what are the requirements for the licenses of a plug-in.
It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. If the program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license for the main program makes no requirements for them.
If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, so plug-ins must be treated as extensions to the main program. This means they must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are distributed.

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the `main' function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case.

Thanks

[Plazmic]

Thanks grimjack. I had sent sprite a portion of that in email yesterday.

About sprite banning someone for distributing MQGold...
MQ is GPL, therfore MQGold *MUST* be GPL, and GPL is freely distributed.
Even if it has to be paid for from the original source, anyone that has a copy if it and give it out for free.
You cannot require user auth on a GPL software due to this. You can NOT require that every copy is paid for.

I'm just waiting for a response from ipowerweb, which is hosting sprite's site. Their terms&conditions do state they will drop a site due to copyright issues like this.

[cybernerd]

ROFL! I did the same thing today. I did a trace on the network to eqplat.net and found that ipowerweb hosts his crap in CA, so he is *probably* in the United States. Which means he can be sued by anyone in the US or that reserves the rights of US copyright holders.

-The Nerd

[cybernerd]

My computer must be broke or something.

http://www.eqplat.net/

Thanks for fixing that fool PLAZ! I don't know if it was you, me, both, or maybe others too, but I'm glad it's done with... for now. I'm sure he'll be back...

I guess I'd better break out my darn books and do a little brushing up on c++ so I can help out again. It's been January since I've done any real coding. Gotta get MQ up to par with MQ Gold so it's worthless. MWAHAHAHAHA!

-The Nerd

[fwiggles]

May 17, 2003

Site is back up from maintenance

[Imperfect]

Take me to court then =)

Plazmic is the copyright owner, so he is needed. Plazmic is not around anymore. If it was taken to court the verdict would most likely be that the source had to be released.

Do you really think the devs want /click to be public? If you do think again.

Hmm Kind of seems Plazmic is still around as well as me also. And since Plazmic wrote everything and I helped with the design it seems you really have no ground to stand on.

[cybernerd]

After waiting on hold with IPOWERWEB for more than an hour I got sick of waiting again and hung up the phone. But I did check out their website and sprite is in violation of multiple policies that IPOWERWEB follows.

All this information is at:http://www.ipowerweb.com/company/legal/legal_usage.html

Such prohibited activities include making available any program, product or service that is designed to or could be used to violate this Usage Policy.

but that means that he violates...

Hacking
"Hacking" and related activities is prohibited. "Hacking" includes, but is not limited to, the following activities: illegally or without authorization, accessing computers, accounts or networks, penetrating or attempting to penetrate security measures, port scans, stealth scans, and other activities designed to assist in hacking.

Also on the page it mentions this for copywrite infringement...

Copyright Notice Infringement Information
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, iPowerWeb has adopted a policy that provides for termination of websites hosted by iPowerWeb that are found to infringe on copyrights of third parties. If a copyright holder believes that there has been a violation of his or her copyright on a website that is hosted by iPowerWeb or its subsidiaries, and the copyright holder wants iPowerWeb to remove the website or disable the material in question, iPowerWeb will remove the website or disable the material if the copyright holder provides us with all of the following information:

1. A signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. Identification of the copyrighted work that is claimed is being infringed, or, in the case of claimed infringement of multiple copyrighted works, a representative list of such works.


2. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or is the subject of infringing activity and that should be removed or access to which should be disabled, with information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material.


3. A statement that the person giving the notification has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.


4. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the person giving the notification is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

And what do they do with violators?

Violations of Intellectual Property Rights
Any violation of any person's intellectual property rights, rights of privacy, rights of publicity or other personal rights is prohibited. iPowerWeb is required by law to remove or block access to content appearing on or through the Services upon receipt of proper notice of copyright infringement (see "Copyright Infringement Notice Information" below).

I might be wrong but when I talked to them on Saturday they had no clue what to do because the department I was talking to doesn't normally handle phone calls like that. I called them today to see what their response was because they told me they would call me, and we know how companies are about returning phone calls. But anyway it seems like PLAZ is the only one that can bail us out of this one. I'll try calling tomorrow while I'm at work, but I doubt they are gonna do anything since I am basically a nobody. The owner of the work needs to talk to them.

It is quite unfortunate that he didn't post an update like he said he was going to do. It's not on his front page and I haven't been able to get ahold of my friend to see what's going on on the inside of this monster.

-The Nerd

[Plazmic]

Three things to say:
1. I have provided the information needed to IPowerWeb, and hopefully the site will be taken down within 24 hours.

2. Response from license-violation@fsf.org:

Section 6 of the GPL forbids imposing additional restrictions on the software, and section 3 of the GPL requires that source code be made available. By violating the GPL, this person has lost his license to the software under section 4 of the GPL and may not further copy, modify, or distribute it.

Sprite is no longer legally allowed to touch MacroQuest, binary/source, modified or not. Oh, this would also make his software fall under "piracy"...

3. Pointing out copyright issues (as opposed to GPL issues)

From Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works:

Article 6bis
(1) Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

I think everyone knows how I worked to keep any hacks/exploits out of MacroQuest (cameraheight for example). /nokos and /setid both violate 6bis.

Article 15
(1) In order that the author of a literary or artistic work protected by this Convention shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be regarded as such, and consequently be entitled to institute infringement proceedings in the countries of the Union, it shall be sufficient for his name to appear on the work in the usual manner. This paragraph shall be applicable even if this name is a pseudonym, where the pseudonym adopted by the author leaves no doubt as to his identity.

So, yes, Plazmic is an acceptable form of authorship. SourceForge has my real name on record.

Article 10
(1) It shall be permissible to make quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries.

(2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union, and for special agreements existing or to be concluded between them, to permit the utilization, to the extent justified by the purpose, of literary or artistic works by way of illustration in publications, broadcasts or sound or visual recordings for teaching, provided such utilization is compatible with fair practice.

(3) Where use is made of works in accordance with the preceding paragraphs of this Article, mention shall be made of the source, and of the name of the author, if it appears thereon.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MQGold gives me (and the rest of the devs) no credit. This falls under "plagurism"...

So, the total damages so far are: Copyright infringment, plagurism, and piracy. Can anyone else think of how MQGold is illegal? I am planning on pressing charges.

[compuboy]

go plazmic, go plazmic, go go go go go plazmic

good for you, hehe you could even make some real cash off this one... i enjoy waiting to see how this one plays out hehe. would be great to see this on the news or something.

[fwiggles]

plazmic...you are the man

[Amadeus]

I don't blame you one bit. Be sure to have financial records pulled so you can get percentages on profit.

Heck, I know I've spent TONS of hours working on MQ in just the past couple weeks and I havn't done ANYWHERE CLOSE to the amount of work that Plaz did on this project. I don't blame him one bit.

I find this whole situation sad as hell. I can't bring myself to dislike or hate sprite...but, I feel sorry that he gave in to the greed.

Greed+talent = trouble

[Clawed]

Too awesome.

[grimjack]

I find this whole situation sad as hell. I can't bring myself to dislike or hate sprite...but, I feel sorry that he gave in to the greed.

I don't really see it as a greed issue. The problem is not that he wanted to make money. It is how he tried to do it.

If he was smart he would have sold the binaries with the source and not been in violation of the GPL. If he was creative he would have marketed it to the people who do not have compilers. Or, he could have bundled it(source included) with his own applications or other non free software that he has permision to sell. In the above case he may have pissed a few people off, but not been breaking the law. There are many ways to market GPL software. You just have to be creative. Redhat is a good example of this. They are able to sell a product that is free just because they have compiled everything and put it in nice easy to use installers. Another way is to sell a support contract for the software. You give the users binary and source and a contract to support problems they have.

Instead, he sells the code without source, points the users to the MQ community for support, and says "sue me " when he is called out on GPL violation. I don't hate or dislike the guy either... I really don't know the guy(He may be a fun guy to have a beer with). I do however hate his ethics and practices when it comes to buisness and IP rights.

Thanks

[Cheese]

Hmm we discussed this issue a bit at work. We decided that taking it to a 'big' court would probably be a bad idea, as that would be testing the GPL licenses (which is we believe untested still?). So maybe best taking him to small claims ?

I think you can still get like sufficient damages out of people that way, and if you have a decent legal person explaining the licensing to the court you'll be sorted. This case looks pretty plain to me, sprite's reasoning is far-fetched to say the least.

EDIT : Was gonna start a GPL discussion, not the right place for it ;P

[kaz]

I hope you guys realize this thread and this website are Sprite's one and only method of advertising his program, and your doing quite a good job of it.