Vora_bat content theft

[4 IN 1 0]

Well, all BI can do is to call up a team of law studying slaves lawyers and send some letters to ISP and moddb themself for hosting IP stuff and I don't think those beancounters gives a damn....:(

[Dwarden 1124]

also, if You sure or suspect mod on some game, forum or site like modDB then please drop me pm or ideally email or just talk to me on Skype ...

it's impossible for us to notice and spot them all ...

in fact specific people are handing out these models to other mod teams sometimes even with intent to get them banned ...

Edited July 29, 2011 by Dwarden

[dmarkwick 261]

The HMMWVs are most likely the same, the squarized is the one from NZDK.

The triangulation comes from the fact, that he probably uses a directX 3d ripping tool, and took the model from a lower resolution lod.

Since it takes the model directly out of the game and all game engines calculate triangulated models in the end (thats right, every square gets triangulated in the end),

its no wonder his model is looking like that.

You're not making too much sense. If all models are triangulated then how could it be ripped from a different LoD? Wouldn't the LoD also be triangulated? And there's no way the n-poly version is a lower LoD in any case, there's far too much detail.

I'm certainly not going to defend a guy who has a known and provable history, all I'm saying is that this evidence, presented here, is not good enough.

[Kastrenzo 10]

I've grown very tired of talking to him, his avatar on the Moddb page says enough to begin with about what it's like to deal with him.

He tries changing the topic more times than you can shake a stick at, Accused the mod that I do the Audio for, of stealing models from the Battlefield 2 mod Project Reality, when it was infact just a bunch of leftover material from a British mod or something that our Modeller was working on a year ago, then left the team.

Furthermore he takes everyone who opposes him for a fool, I Understand modelling, although I'm not proficient with 3DS or Blender, But I've modelled in other programs less known by mainstream. he tries to imply that I and everyone else don't know what we're talking about, so he can rely on that.

Also, Dmark, he has a history yes, some evidence brought forth in the past and present has been disputed. But things like this here really aren't defendable at all.

ArmA 2 Russian UAZ

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/12/11142/100111-2243-00.jpg

And when confronted on it he replied "Oh, so that's where that model came from"

He is either sarcastic and Carefree, or Irresponsible. and in the case of the latter, Ignorance is not an excuse.

---------- Post added at 11:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 AM ----------

Every modding community has their fair share of assholes who like to steal other peoples' stuff, ours is no different. What matters is people taking a stand against said assholes by rallying the community against them, which is one thing this community is very good at. Great communication between the various modding portals and forums, e.g. Armaholic and here, allows for said stolen IP to be removed very quickly or banned from being hosted on the most popular websites.

I guess the difference here is the community has only recently started using larger modding portals like ModDB, so the aforementioned communication has been easy when it's just between community-specific websites. With Men of War, they're using ModDB from the start, and I would imagine the communication suffers as a result and guys like Vora_bat are left able to steal peoples' work and have no action taken against them. Not that I would hold that against ModDB as their site is very large for them to be ever-attentive to every project.

I agree, but the problem is that the Community for that game is split apart into several places, Namley moddb, The developer websites like Digitalmindsoft, and Best Way. And lastly the "Russian backdoor community"

The game was originally developed by a Ukrainian firm, so the Eastern Europeans got into it a lot sooner than the Westerners did, there are dozens of websites floating around with Hoardes of Russian Men of War mods filled with stolen content, I think there was one called "Afghanistan Mod" that had a bunch of Arma 1 or 2 models in it, I never downloaded it because I don't trust shady domains like that, and there wasn't much media on it that I could find on western sources.

The community on Moddb is divided aswell, there's those who are trying to hunt down the IP Theives, and those who are ignoring the property theft and Standing up for Vora_bat because he's popular *Because of Price of Terrorism, the mod that was banned from Moddb for utilizing stolen MW2 and Arma2 content*

And there is still a large portion of the community members that are well known, that aren't even taking part in this. I can't say I blame them considering the drama.

[4 IN 1 0]

This, I am afriad, is something that cannot be fix even if BI engage all its progadanda force when it comes to Russian(let alone possible hackers)...

[Kastrenzo 10]

Like Dwarden said it's not that easy to throw someone out according to the rules. And there's also his russian website, where probably noone (I mean ISP) ever is gonna give a shit.

And there's one big difference Zipper. In ArmA community, guys who steal IP get swarmed and bullied very quickly, in MoW's, they defend the bad guy.

If/When he gets banned from Moddb, that's where he'll go. but the point has always been that it would at least clean up the Moddb Men of War community substancially.

This guy is still hosting the Price of Terrorism Mod that got kicked off Moddb, on that Ukrainian domain. and he updates it with more Call of duty content and god knows what else, frequentley

[therev709 10]

I'm sure if we could gather/collect, interpret, and present the evidence of use of MW2 models/animations and overall property to Activision, they would hound him out with their Army of lawyers no matter what country or ISP he's using.

[4 IN 1 0]

Then you might find that activision get hacked by some Russian hacker group.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Then you might find that activision get hacked by some Russian hacker group.

It's a win-win situation! :cool:

[Kastrenzo 10]

That would'nt be a bad thing but I wouldn't be too afraid of a couple of "butthurt" Russian and Ukrainian guys from a video game forum.

There's hackers everywhere, the only reason Eastern Europe is well known for it is because their law enforcement doesn't do much to stop it, Or theres not enough people trying to crack down on it.

As far as Hackers, I'd be more worried about the ones working for the PLA, Always trying to bring down and comprimise giants like Google.

Edited July 29, 2011 by Kastrenzo

[Kastrenzo 10]

This is probably forgotten about now, but two or three days ago Vora_bat was permabanned from the Moddb website, on charges of IP Theft and Copyright Fraud from multiple sources, along with the laughable infraction of having more than one account which is against their rules.

He was using alternate accounts, posing as different people, trying to defend and stick up for himself. he finally got caught when someone traced the IP.

anyway I think we can consider this case closed. I hadn't even been paying attention to that Men of war game in weeks, I've been on ArmA again.

[ben_s 11]

This is probably forgotten about now, but two or three days ago Vora_bat was permabanned from the Moddb website, on charges of IP Theft and Copyright Fraud from multiple sources, along with the laughable infraction of having more than one account which is against their rules.

He was using alternate accounts, posing as different people, trying to defend and stick up for himself. he finally got caught when someone traced the IP.

anyway I think we can consider this case closed. I hadn't even been paying attention to that Men of war game in weeks, I've been on ArmA again.

Good to hear, But he's not the first and is surely not the last, sadly.

[max power 21]

That would'nt be a bad thing but I wouldn't be too afraid of a couple of "butthurt" Russian and Ukrainian guys from a video game forum.

There's hackers everywhere, the only reason Eastern Europe is well known for it is because their law enforcement doesn't do much to stop it, Or theres not enough people trying to crack down on it.

As far as Hackers, I'd be more worried about the ones working for the PLA, Always trying to bring down and comprimise giants like Google.

Thank you for the news!

We certainly hadn't forgotten that. There has been a push recently to try to better utilize moddb's service for content distribution and awareness. How moddb's staff investigate and deal with the inevitable cases of content theft that they are made aware of was of great concern for me. The way they seemed to shrug off such a slam dunk as NZXSHADOWS's humvee was a real blow to my regard for them. This news is certainly a step in the correct direction as far as I am concerned, and reinstates some confidence.

[therev709 10]

Hell hath no fury than that of a modder scorned.

The community has your back NZXSHADOWS, as well as anyone who distributes their hard work for free!

[-GR-Operative 10]

(Quite late, hum?)

Thanks to everyone that prizes for IP.

TKAzA Aug 20 2011, 6:32pm says:

Banned for art thieft, decompiling models from other games is illegal even more so importing them into another game. Take note, moddb will not tolerate this.

What a great sentence!

Edited August 23, 2011 by [GR]Operative

[4 IN 1 0]

Well he still have his website, his other forum membership, his bunch of fans, and on top of that, his internet connection, so things won't change much as long as him and the other scums still have access to the interweb I afraid...

[max power 21]

Well he still have his website, his other forum membership, his bunch of fans, and on top of that, his internet connection, so things won't change much as long as him and the other scums still have access to the interweb I afraid...

Obviously.

But every time a community website (any community) says 'take your shit somewhere else', you have a number of things. People who agree with that sentiment are reaffirmed; the people who are doing that crap get less exposure; and their supporters become more marginalized. This is a step in the right direction no matter which way you spin it.

[Fox '09 14]

Yes, unfortunately it is how the Internet works.. Once it's up, it's up forever and there is nothing you can do about It other than pushing it underground

[rangerpl 13]

ModDB is a very popular and reputable place so getting IP violators banned from there is a huge victory. The people on Russian and Ukrainian forums will still play with their stolen content, but at least this asshole won't be getting any serious publicity anymore.

[max power 21]

...other than pushing it underground

Which means less exposure, which means a smaller IP piracy community, which means less theft.

There was piracy going on before the internets. You can't control what everyone does, but you can propose rational standards that most people will more or less agree to.

[Dwarden 1124]

from what i understood not just vora_bat but several other mods with the stolen content met same fate on that date ...

well done modDB

[-GR-Operative 10]

There are lots of mods with Pot (Price of Terrorism, one of his previous mods) content. I don't know if all they have the stolen content that took this mod down, but it may be possible that the MoW community is going in the direction of a purge.

[Kastrenzo 10]

from what i understood not just vora_bat but several other mods with the stolen content met same fate on that date ...

well done modDB

Yes there was at least half a dozen mods from that game deleted. Many "fanboys" were screaming that moderation was being paid off by people opposing him, or simply that moderation was picking on him, but these people who were whining so much were oblivious to the fact that many other mods were removed

Most if not all of the mods that were using content he originally leaked have been deleted now, most of the owners were not banned with the exception of vora_bat since he was a repeat offender.

Mostly it's calmed down now and no one talks about it, I myself have a few people screaming at me because vora made a coutner video to mine, I admit that my video's evidence was mediocre at best compared to what the BIS Community came forward with, a few people are still crying out for him to get unbanned, and when others give them solid facts like he stole stuff from Bohemia for example, they just pretend they didn't hear it. This person was very lucky considering how many chances he was given. Too many if you ask me.

I was reading earlier comments, people are right, as long as they have their own domain it doesnt eliminate the problem completley, but it severley cuts off their access to respectiable hubs like moddb. where they are quite clear with their rules and regs.

Edited September 14, 2011 by Kastrenzo

[SpeedWolf 10]

I'm a men of war fan and I'm a bit sorry that it end up like this, as i know the feeling when someone take credit for someone else work, but unfortunately this is the reality.

i myself played his mod an even made a video using his mod, but i never care to check where the model come from because is none of my concern, but anyway i will link this Thread to my video that use vora_bat mod. so everyone can judge for themselves,

[Dwarden 1124]

he is banned and known thief, case closed ... see no point to debate if more