From the creators of Stratis Life: ArmA 3 Life

[eggbeast 3673]

is this your website? or did i go to another users site by mistake caiden?

http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/144-donate-to-a3l/

We have no donation rewards

so what is this?

PLEASE NOTE: You will receive the donator items when we launch; Please note that SOME donator rewards will not be immediately available upon launch but will be added in later.

$10-19: Bronze Tier Donator (You've got our backs!)

* 25 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game

+ The ability to change your ingame phone number once

+ Bronze donator rank on the forums

+ Access to the hidden donator forums, which will have sneak peeks and polls regarding game development.

20-29: Silver Tier Donator ( Ooooh, Shiny! )

* 50 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game

+ One free skillbook (Can be used once)

+ 2.5% XP boost on skills

+ PERKS FROM BRONZE (Excluding paycheck)

$30-39: Gold Tier Donator ( Golden Hands! )

* 75 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game

* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. No sport/air, non-tradeable.)

+ 3.5% XP boost on skills

+ PERKS FROM SILVER (Excluding paycheck)

$40-99: Platinum Tier Donator ( To infinite and Beyond! )

* 100 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game

* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. Non-tradeable.)

+ 5.0% extra experience on skills

+ PERKS FROM GOLD (Excluding paycheck)

$100 or More: $100+ Club Tier Donator

*A personal gift send by Caiden And/or Zannaza (Ingame)

*More to be announced

* Does not carry over to next tier as 'stackable value'

It is possible to upgrade your donation tiers.

example: If you were Silver tier already, and you do a $10 donation on top of that <Bronze> you become Gold tier!

[hcpookie 3770]

Hello Rob,

Gnat's plane('s) is not included in our modpack. All of the addons in the modpack have been made by us (or we have been given permission to use it for the ArmA 3 Life mod)

I can probably give you a list of more than 100 sites, if not thousands that break the BIS' license agreement in terms of giving out donation rewards, and it's happening on a large scale as well (I'm talking about some indie game companies that have setup 5/6 Altis Life servers and are actually profiting from it, even including a referral system). I think it would be wise to go after them rather than our mod which is not breaking any terms of the BIS license as we speak. We have no donation rewards, all donations are voluntarily and access to the mod can be given without a financial contribution (which is at our discretion via a whitelist request on our forums).

This is my statement and end of discussion regarding donations.

Caiden.

I'm sorry I have to put the popcorn down for a minute. So the "everybody is doing it and we are just a small fish" argument is in? I don't have a dog in the fight, as I couldn't give a rat's ass about the "life" sims at all. Just have to chuckle at that. I don't think Egg is "going after you" as you so eloquently put it... just trying to get clarification. If this big announcement I keep hearing about pans out, I for one will enjoy collecting "royalties" from my mod work. Helping pay for dev work would be a big benefit since all us mod makers do is totally out of pocket. Personally, I am hoping that is how things develop... no pun intended... as entitlement to IP is difficult to control. Then we all win! :)

Oh and I heard on one of the vids in this thread someone saying they were given permission for demo use of the Gnat plane. Was a little garbled but I did hear that specifically.

[tonic-_- 53]

Hello Rob,

(or we have been given permission to use it for the ArmA 3 Life mod)

Caiden.

Sigh

Did I give you permission to use my code in it? No. My code is the primary source of functionality that pieces it all together to make it playable. I've said it multiple times to stop using my code and yet you guys continue to clearly not care. You talk about being in good terms with Bohemia's EULA and only using content that you have permission for or own but you don't. Just because it is code does not mean that I don't have rights.

The reason why I am posting is to let the rest of the ARMA community here on the BI Forums know that you do not care about any rules or respect any of the content makers. Constantly trying to defend your selves and this project with lies really does grind my gears. A lot of people already know that this is nothing more then a glorified Altis life with mods in attempts to monopolize it. You want to do right by content makers? Start by dropping all of my code entirely, not just renaming variables and changing it around slightly but removing my code entirely. You want to monopolize upon it and climb your way to fame then write your own stuff.

That is my two cents towards this big scheme.

[takus 10]

I hope you've read some of the questions that were posted here Tonic, and witnessed how not a single question was answered bluntly and truthfully. Only twisting the original question and replying something unrelated.

We have no legal power, nor are we representatives of Bohemia. They seem to take advantage of that fact and we often get rude and defensive responses. All I can say is that I speak for the community, and in saying that, many are displeased with there behavior. Obviously not enough of us are.

At this point their playing the deny and delay game for as long as they can.

Edited October 21, 2014 by takus

[eggbeast 3673]

additional observation

I can probably give you a list of more than 100 sites, if not thousands that break the BIS' license agreement in terms of giving out donation rewards, and it's happening on a large scale as well (I'm talking about some indie game companies that have setup 5/6 Altis Life servers and are actually profiting from it, even including a referral system). I think it would be wise to go after them rather than our mod which is not breaking any terms of the BIS license as we speak.

so Caiden you recognise that "that [sites] break the BIS' license agreement in terms of giving out donation rewards" and your site clearly does this, yet you say categorically and finally that you do not break the license agreement. From your own website and evidence gathered from people entering your interview process, it is clearly the case that

a) you charge donations for perks/content

b) some of the content is BIS and some is made by other community members and some is made by yourselves

c) you claim you can charge for access to content made by yourselves

why would we question A3L team and not some other site out there charging for donation?

well, let's see

1. you guys are here, making full use of the BIS modding community, asking for ideas and help, and borrowing materials from non-commercial IP production teams and individuals in the forums, who actively share in developing the game (for the community to profit from it collectively, under BIS' watchful eye (with support from the guys at AMAR), and solely for their profit).

2. you are here, promoting your mod, which clearly (See above) breaks the rules regarding commercial exploitation of the game and community work.

3. you are actively recruiting CUSTOMERS on a non-commercial community site hosted by the game producer, whose license agreement you are actively undermining

4. you are in effect promoting commercial exploitation of materials within the BIS gaming and modding community, and so setting what appear to be commercial precedents, which will likely have a very significant effect on the modding and playing community in which BIS is currently allowing you to publicly participate.

5. when questioned, you are behaving evasively, contradicting yourselves, stating facts which are contradicted by the experience of many users, and avoiding other questions which may expose the reality of your commercial product

can you understand why we, as a modding community, are deeply concerned by your approach?

[Caiden 1]

I understand the confusion and our donation page was not updated (it's updated now). We've already let our members know that donation awards are not going to be handed out on the final release.

We've also clearly stated the following:

You acknowledge that the donation benefits can change before or after the release of the mod. (This may, or may not be in your benefit.)

Also if you read the big red text:

DONATIONS DO NOT GIVE YOU MEMBERSHIP, DO NOT PLAN TO DONATE AND SKIP THE INTERVIEW AND APPLICATION PROCESS

There is no way to buy yourself into the beta. People have been spreading these rumours because once we released closed beta everyone who previously donated have been given access since they supported us in the first place as stated by Baxter earlier. It was not announced by us as being: Donate and you can play. But rather we decided on our own behalf we would give those who donated priorly to beta release, access to the ArmA 3 life beta. This was announced after people had already placed a VOLUNTARY donation without receiving any reward in return, and those people were chosen by us at our discretion.

And Tonic weren't you the one who originally implemented a donation system into Altis Life, so don't come here and talk about others that you think are breaking the agreement, also we've changed a lot more than just a variable name... seems like you are butthurt because of all the publicity we've been getting and our growing community (Seems like you are also actively on hacking forums and saying you will write your own server side code for our mod, which is against our agreement published with our modpack, so who's breaking the agreement here..?). I'm also requesting a removal of this topic since people claim things based upon rumours which makes us look like this is a commercial project. Me and my team have been working on this mod for almost a year, and thankfully there is lots of players in our community who appreciate our hard work and enjoy playing it.

Feel free to quote this post and make more unneeded statements about us being a commercial project, when I've clearly stated this is not the case. If you feel any of the author's rights have been broken you can follow the guidelines published by Bohemia. End of discussion.

Just to make things clear: The only reward that is granted upon a donation is a forums tag, and in the future a player CP to check stats and a whole bunch of other website related features (which are not in game rewards on our servers and therefor not breaking any EULA!)

Caiden.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Caiden

[eggbeast 3673]

Hi caiden

I am sincerely pleased that you and your team are starting to understand the reasons for our questions about your mod, and specifically, the price-list for items and entry to beta that was previously published on your website (until I pointed out that this was illegal).

The price-list you had published clearly indicated an offer of services for a fee, which is a commercial exploitation of the BIS game and content, however you choose to describe it.

It was not announced by us as being: Donate and you can play.

sic

$30-39: Gold Tier Donator ( Golden Hands! )

* 75 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game

* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. No sport/air, non-tradeable.)

+ 3.5% XP boost on skills

+ Access to the Closed BETA

+ PERKS FROM SILVER (Excluding paycheck)

Contrary to your statement in paragraph 3 above, your website when i began my line of enquiry clearly offered access to the beta content of your mod for $30 (plus satisfactory interview), and this price requirement was confirmed to me by two users who had attempted to access it through your interview.

I am sorry you feel that we are approaching you based on rumours. I can absolutely confirm that my enquiries are based on the content of your website, the feedback directly from several users who have reported concerns about their experiences in your teamspeak and interview process, and the indicated model inclusions made in this thread by your mod team, and the reaction to this by the original authors.

And Tonic ... don't come here and talk about others that you think are breaking the agreement.

As I understand it, Tonic is objecting to the theft of his code, which, if he can document it, would be viewed as a very serious breach of the BIS forum rules.

I should add that if it turns out that you are removing the content from your website which makes your mod a commercial product to satisfy our enquiries, but continuing to demand payment for materials or participation in your mod, you will be found out in due course, and all at AMAR will work very hard to have all of your accounts blocked from Bohemias forum, along with service provided by our colleagues at PWS and Armaholic, and we will keep a very close eye on any future content you choose to adopt. Commercial exploitation of this game is absolutely forbidden under the EULA and we all work hard to keep it this way.

Edited October 21, 2014 by eggbeast

[JdB 151]

I'm also requesting a removal of this topic since people claim things based upon rumours which makes us look like this is a commercial project.

Wouldn't that be rather convenient. A lot of people coming in here who have gone through the application process who came across the $30 fee, on your website as well, and addonmakers who feel that their content is being used without permission casts a severe suspicion on the actions of ArmA3: Life which can't simply be swept under the rug I'm afraid.

As eggbeast said a closed beta that you can pay for to get early access is not allowed. Test versions of a mod may be restricted to team members or testers, but there is no such thing as a restricted public release allowed. Either you keep it internal until release or you release a public alpha, beta etc. All free of charge of course.

Edited October 21, 2014 by JdB

[Caiden 1]

Hi caiden

I am sincerely pleased that you and your team are starting to understand the reasons for our questions about your mod, and specifically, the price-list for items and entry to beta that was previously published on your website (until I pointed out that this was illegal).

The price-list you had published clearly indicated an offer of services for a fee, which is a commercial exploitation of the BIS game and content, however you choose to describe it.

sic

Contrary to your statement in paragraph 3 above, your website when i began my line of enquiry clearly offered access to the beta content of your mod for $30 (plus satisfactory interview), and this price requirement was confirmed to me by two users who had attempted to access it through your interview.

I am sorry you feel that we are approaching you based on rumours. I can absolutely confirm that my enquiries are based on the content of your website, the feedback directly from several users who have reported concerns about their experiences in your teamspeak and interview process, and the indicated model inclusions made in this thread by your mod team, and the reaction to this by the original authors.

As I understand it, Tonic is objecting to the theft of his code, which, if he can document it, would be viewed as a very serious breach of the BIS forum rules.

I should add that if it turns out that you are removing the content from your website which makes your mod a commercial product to satisfy our enquiries, but continuing to demand payment for materials or participation in your mod, you will be found out in due course, and all at AMAR will work very hard to have all of your accounts blocked from Bohemias forum, and our colleagues at PWS and Armaholic, and we will keep a very close eye on any future content you choose to adopt. Commercial exploitation of this game is absolutely forbidden under the EULA and we all work hard to keep it this way.

Understandable. The content on our website was outdated, so this may have lead to a wrong conclusion (and people thinking they can get in by simply donating). Also may I point out that I've stolen none of his content. His mission is published on armaholic under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. In the last page he is requesting the removal of code and he simply cannot revoke us those rights:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Caiden.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Caiden

[eggbeast 3673]

The content on our website was outdated, so this may have lead to a wrong conclusion

well the conclusion was also based on ongoing feedback from just before I began and throughout my time here making enquiries, by users who had been told they had to pay to play in your teamspeak. They PM'd me and I have passed this evidence on to BIS.

I believe your rights to use any content made by any of us falls down here: "NonCommercial"

As evidence from your website and from users applying to participate in your mod indicates the contrary.

Deriving an income from provision of a service is a commercial activity, however you guys decide to dress it up.

Incidentally, I don't see why you would ask to close the thread now, we are just beginning to understand the issues with your offer. Surely getting this issue out in the open and fully explored will help many community members to

a) not fall into the same trap of accidentally or deliberately offering a commercial exploitation of a BIS product

b) design any future mod or mission that has limitations to access, to ensure they comply with the EULA

c) avoid being ripped off by another group claiming to be non-profit when they are in fact collecting a large amount of money from people to play a mod that should be available free of charge.

I am glad you are removing the requirements for cash donations, and the benefits of cash donations from your mod. I am surprised that if you do indeed have an attorney, that they didn't advise you to do this at the beginning.

Edited October 21, 2014 by eggbeast

[Caiden 1]

well the conclusion was also based on ongoing feedback from just before I began and throughout my time here making enquiries, by users who had been told they had to pay to play in your teamspeak. They PM'd me and I have passed this evidence on to BIS.

I believe your rights to use any content made by any of us falls down here: "NonCommercial"

As evidence from your website and from users applying to participate in your mod indicates the contrary.

Deriving an income from provision of a service is a commercial activity, however you guys decide to dress it up.

Incidentally, I don't see why you would ask to close the thread now, we are just beginning to understand the issues with your offer. Surely getting this issue out in the open and fully explored will help many community members to

a) not fall into the same trap and accidentally or deliberately offering a commercial exploitation of a BIS product

b) design any future mod or mission that has limitations to access, to ensure they comply with the EULA

c) avoid being ripped off by another group claiming to be non-profit when they are in fact collecting a large amount of money from people to play a mod that should be available free of charge.

I am glad you are removing the requirements for cash donations, and the benefits of cash donations from your mod. I am surprised that if you do indeed have an attorney, that they didn't advise you to do this at the beginning.

Those donation rewards were going to be handed out on the final release, some time ago we announced we were not going to be handing out donation rewards. However this was never edited in the donation post (all of our members were also aware this policy could change after the donation was made). It's not like we have hired an attorney but Baxter knows a lawyer in real life which he can contact to ask questions considering licenses and so forth.

Unfortunately there are people that do not favor us and try to do anything to get us to shut down. I'm not sure about this proof but they may have been misinformed by other members and/or admin team.

Caiden.

[eggbeast 3673]

ok well just to explain - one of the guys who approached me is a long time XTRA clan member - who has been in my co-op fire-team for more than a year and is trustworthy and has no axe to grind except being shocked and dismayed to be asked for $30 during his interview in the middle of last week. Another guy PM'd me who has approached you guys for the first time also last week, and complained to me once he saw my posts here.

Given what you have said above about the website being out of date, it offers no excuse for the ongoing commercial activity (as evidenced above) of deriving a direct income from people to play on your servers with your exclusive mod/mission content.

previously you guys said that the issues we were raising were between your attorney and BIS, and now you say you don't have one retained.

you also argued that others were doing the illegal stuff not you, but clearly from your website and evidence from users contacting me, you were deriving an income illegally from the mod, and you were well aware of it - but felt we should not be asking you to justify yourself as others were up to it too.

I agree that this discussion is coming to an end. but it may not be the end you seek.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

His mission is published on armaholic under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.

Well there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, admission from one of the leaders of this mod that what he's doing is illegal. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/

and I quote...

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Sorry guys, but you have no rights here. A3L must be rebuilt from scratch, as the author has invoked his rights under the license he attached to the mission.

[tonic-_- 53]

And Tonic weren't you the one who originally implemented a donation system into Altis Life, so don't come here and talk about others that you think are breaking the agreement, also we've changed a lot more than just a variable name... seems like you are butthurt because of all the publicity we've been getting and our growing community (Seems like you are also actively on hacking forums and saying you will write your own server side code for our mod, which is against our agreement published with our modpack, so who's breaking the agreement here..?).

Yes, that's right. A donation system was originally implemented in Altis life but it was a system carried over from the Stratis life that I wrote for a community and lets not forget that it was implemented before the EULA was changed and was removed the day it was requested by Bohemia from all future builds. I'm not 'Butt hurt' over anything. I have been here longer then you and been playing the ARMA series for over 6 years, I have created and worked on the three biggest game modes / mods for the ARMA series in the past two years so I have no reason to be 'butt hurt'. I am here to provide enjoyable content for others because I enjoy it but time after time I am ripped off by people in a profitable gain when I spend hundreds of hours working on it where as they spend around 8 modifying it.

Further more since you want to bring up the licensing I used specifically for Altis life let us not forget the most crucial part that I have enlisted as my wish which is:

All of my code is not to be used outside of the mission in another ‘Life’ like mission

And as Darkhorse 1-6 pointed out you are directly breaking the creative commons license that it is under.

I will say it again, the only thing I have ever asked is that you remove my work with is at an estimated rate without looking at it around 75% of the mission file used to play this mod and I have asked this because as pointed out you are using my work in a commercial way and without my permission to use my work in something other then what it is which is Altis Life. The biggest way that the arma modding community works is asking people for their permission to use their work with yours, we have a trust system that runs here.

[Caiden 1]

And there we go again. Claims that this is an commercial project which it is NOT. The altis life framework is still the altis life framework and we've simply edited and not used the code in another 'Life' like mission. I hope you also know it's against the license to reverse engineer the game in order to hack servers and make it say: Altis Life by Tonic.

@Darkhorse Funny how you draw these conclusions so fast. And how you deem A3L has to be rebuild from scratch. Much hate.

Surely just go ahead with all these untruthful accusations. I refuse to respond on anymore of this. I think I've made my statements in my previous posts.

[eggbeast 3673]

Let's await the moderators involvement. I have been in touch with BIS today with my detailed assessment.

---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:50 PM ----------

PM received from RobertHammer today

Hey eggbeast,

re: http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24433-community-round-table-meeting-oct-20th-7pm-est/#entry63545

I dont support any payed mods like this one or any servers that you must pay to play

I would like to see all rh packs out from such mods, previously had similiar issue with Dayz Clones that you pay to get weapons ...

so if you can tell them, then do since am very busy man

anyway thx for info

Regards,

RobertHammer

---------- Post added at 04:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:54 PM ----------

would you care to list all of the other mods and scripts authors whose work you have included so we can check in with them too?

if anyone has the mod can you suggest any other authors we might contact?

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

@Darkhorse Funny how you draw these conclusions so fast. And how you deem A3L has to be rebuild from scratch. Much hate.

Surely just go ahead with all these untruthful accusations. I refuse to respond on anymore of this. I think I've made my statements in my previous posts.

I didn't draw any conclusions, I quoted your own post, pal. The license he attached to the mission prevents you from being able to edit. So, basically, tough shit.

[Caiden 1]

Seems like we have a bunch of stubborn people in this community. I'm done with this discussion and I request that this topic is deleted.

We have strict rules about what can and cannot be done to raise funds to contribute towards site/server costs they are clearly laid out here:

http://www.bistudio.com/english/comm...nt-usage-rules

If you feel that any site/person/mod is contravening those rules please send me an email, do not open discussions about it on the forum as both sides have the right to express their opinions/stance etc in privacy.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?181169-People-profiting-from-donation-servers-with-Ingame-rewards

[eggbeast 3673]

yes and in that link caiden you will find this

Is there any acceptable way I can make money on my server/website?

Yes. Voluntary donations are allowed and are not considered to be a commercial use. Nevertheless, in any way making the “donation†as part of a condition to receive access to/or getting any part of offered content would be in breach of the License Agreement. The content you create must be available to all whether they donate to you or not.

and up to the time I raised the issue with you, you were doing exactly this.

You may feel a refund is due to the people you illegally coerced into donating $30 to access your mod, and tothose who paid to receive donor items you have since agreed to withdraw. Some would say this is a worthwhile topic indeed.

[Caiden 1]

yes and in that link caiden you will find this

and up to the time I raised the issue with you, you were doing exactly this.

You may feel a refund is due to the people you illegally coerced into donating $30 to access your mod, and tothose who paid to receive donor items you have since agreed to withdraw. Some would say this is a worthwhile topic indeed.

You really are continuing with this aren't you? Why don't you do the thing I mentioned earlier. Haven't you made your point already?

[eggbeast 3673]

have you got any further with your non-profit model you were intending to develop?

we are keen to understand that side of it.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

@Caiden: You've been confronted by the author of the mission you've stolen before in this forum, and you pulled the same stunt about requesting the thread be closed as soon as he confronted you. Are you afraid of the truth?

[Caiden 1]

@Caiden: You've been confronted by the author of the mission you've stolen before in this forum, and you pulled the same stunt about requesting the thread be closed as soon as he confronted you. Are you afraid of the truth?

Seriously dude? You aren't even involved. You don't have anything else to do with your life? It was clearly stated by Placebo that no open discussion is to be held about these matters. I've reported your post and also await the mods to come here and shut this whole thread down. Feel free to continue with your stupid and incorrect accusations and I'll happily report each and every next post.

[eggbeast 3673]

Caiden calm down please. Dark Horse is also a member of AMAR, and as such is looking out for the rights of BIS and the community of modders that we represent. Placebo is well aware of this thread, and our involvement in AMAR.

[Caiden 1]

Caiden calm down please. Dark Horse is also a member of AMAR, and as such is looking out for the rights of BIS and the community of modders that we represent. Placebo is well aware of this thread, and our involvement in AMAR.

Cool story. I understand the concerns and in my previous posts I've stated everything I wanted to say, nice way to go completely off-topic and keep posting replies over and over when I've already told you everything you need to know. Keep it up dude you should be proud of yourself.