Legal violations by A3L: Arma 3 life

[PolyG 69]

I think the best way would be for someone here to go donate 30$ or more, and see if they get almost instant access.. That oughta' be plenty of proof.. be on the member list 1 day and instant access would do it.

[CaptainObvious 95]

OI! Let's not start to bark at the wrong tree, the evidence so far, while it sure is angering, isn't beyond reasonable doubt, which is what is needed to take legal action against these thieves.

[vegeta897 13]

That makes me so sick...

Anyway, I have a question for Matt - eventhough it's not really on topic :

I remember reading somewhere that BI sent, some time ago, a cease and desist letter to the DayZ Origins devs; I'd like to know on what basis this action had been taken?

I'm not familiar with Origins, but it seems it is quite alike the present situation, isn't it?

It's not quite similar because that was a very cut and dry case of using a trademark term that BIS did not allow. The proof was immediately apparent in the name itself, so there wasn't any hesitation.

OI! Let's not start to bark at the wrong tree, the evidence so far, while it sure is angering, isn't beyond reasonable doubt, which is what is needed to take legal action against these thieves.

Hear hear. It's not very encouraging to see the only BIS employee responding to this thread being more or less attacked for stating what BIS needs in order for the petition's goal to be carried out.

[icebreakr 3159]

I would also recommend if you recognize any models from your project or another game, contact the people responsible there to take legal action. Stealing models, addons, art, is out of the question and cannot be tolerated. For people living in wierd lawless places where stealing copyrighted work is ignored or tollerated, we can dispatch a team to visit them personally ;)

[haleks 8212]

Thanks for the precisions, Vegeta897!

[10pb 12]

@Matt Lightfoot

No offence, but you or someone at Bohemia needs to man up and tackle this situation rather than essentially saying "meh, you own the copyright, it's not our problem."

Regardless of the A3L team no longer being in violation of the ArmA III EULA, this situation is guaranteed to have a negative effect on ArmA and it's community if Bohemia doesn't do something significant to tackle it. It's got way out of hand.

Nobody bought ArmA III for it's official content. If the series didn't have modding support then ArmA would be a niche title. DayZ wouldn't exist, you wouldn't have your current job, and BI's cash-flow would be a negligible fraction of what it is now.

Look at the server browser - 99% of servers are running community developed missions and addons. ArmA is almost entirely reliant on community developed content. Bohemia knows this, as evidenced by MANW, but when the shit hits the fan (e.g right now) you just wash your hands with the whole affair.

You cannot chase down every single copyright violation of community content, we understand this. The current shitstorm is on a different scale though and you need to do something.

If this fiasco goes unchecked and causes community developers to think twice about sharing their content in the future then we'll all have lost something priceless.

Petitions and public shaming will do nothing unfortunately. A3L has already shown they do not respect community developers. Legal action is clearly required, but the community cannot afford it financially.

My suggestion would be for the affected addon makers to team up and launch a Kickstarter (or similar) in order to raise money to hire legal representation. Bohemia should then anonymously contribute a few thousand dollars in to said fund.

Unfortunately this whole issue was caused by money, and can similarly only be corrected with money...something which the community doesn't have much of, but Bohemia probably isn't short of what with being in the top-sellers on Steam non-stop for the past year with a community-developed mod turned standalone title.

[horrinny 10]

There are tons of other game engines where users have ported other game and game engine models over and nothing is usually done about it since it is all free with no pay attached.

__________________________________________________________________________________

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Edited March 26, 2015 by horrinny

[kiory 405]

I am so late to the party on this one....

It's pretty silly that it's been allowed to go on this long to be honest, unfortunately the same thing happens with Garry's mod, the difference is that it's free, nobody is making money other than underhanded model swapping/trading.

This however is extremely shameful, it should not be allowed to continue, and yes BI, you have a DUTY to sort it out, it's not up to us, it's YOUR problem. If you let it continue, it will give the impression that ANYONE can make money off of your platform without a seconds thought, including humble mod makers such as Tonic, Robert Hammer or myself etc.

Is that what you want? Is that the sort of behaviour you want to encourage? Do you actually even care?

A3L is making money off of your back and everyone else's back with all the crap they have stolen.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Kiory

[vegeta897 13]

My suggestion would be for the affected addon makers to team up and launch a Kickstarter (or similar) in order to raise money to hire legal representation. Bohemia should then anonymously contribute a few thousand dollars in to said fund.

This is the most ridiculous idea yet. You're saying Bohemia Interactive should give thousands of dollars to somebody they do not know so that they can launch a copyright lawsuit? I don't even see anyone in here saying that they are prepared to launch a lawsuit but don't have the money. This is just a recipe for disaster. Since BIS cannot fight for copyrights they don't hold, you're saying they should just give out thousands of dollars to the holders so they can. And you reason that BIS is obligated to do this because the Arma series relies on community content, and BIS must have a lot of sales money to just throw around. How can you think this sounds like a reasonable plan?

[10t 12]

I think the best way would be for someone here to go donate 30$ or more, and see if they get almost instant access.. That oughta' be plenty of proof.. be on the member list 1 day and instant access would do it.

This. The best way to test would be:

1) Start two applications with equivalent but different details (say, "Donald the Donor" and "Fred the Freeloader")

2) Donald makes donation, Fred doesn't.

3) Presumably Donald gets access, Fred doesn't

4) Donald plays for a few days, Fred waits.

5) Donald cancels/charges back his donation through Paypal

6) Presumably, Donald loses access

Q.E.D: Access is paid for as a commercial operation, not free with voluntary donations

7) Evidence (transcripts, emails, dates, screenshots, client .RPT logs and dated gameplay videos), the BI EULA, Paypal and Hosts' TOSes, and mod licenses are bundled up and sent to BI, Paypal, Microsoft, Crytek, CloudFlare, and A3L game and website hosts.

8) ????, but hopefully it includes the website coming down and Paypal freezing the account

9) BI forums celebrate resounding victory, I guess.

No need for BI to stick their necks out or for getting any lawyers involved. We ought to be able to tickle Paypal and some hosts into taking action directly. And frankly, cutting the money and visibility off is where it's going to hurt A3L the most.

What have I missed?

Edited November 10, 2014 by 10T

[kittykittybangbang 10]

you can if BI strikes them with a stop and desist order

[Dr_Defimus 10]

What have I missed?

The promotion mashinery on twitch and youtube take them down and you can take this mod down

[koffeinflummi 96]

Jesus christ people, leave Matt alone.

As BI is not the damaged party, they cannot take legal action. As Matt said, it's up to the damaged parties to take action. Any further circlejerking will accomplish absolutely nothing.

Unless you can definitely prove that they still charge for access (which you haven't, all you have proven so far is that they're still getting donations), all you can do is ask RH and the other damaged parties to actually do something and hit them with a cease and desist, and - if they don't, you know, cease and desist - pursue legal action. Unless they do that, all you're doing is wallowing in self pity.

[10t 12]

Additionally my suggestion above and according to the idea of "follow the money", I'd recommend all the affected Mod makers/IP holders to submit Infringement notices to Paypal.

I'm in Australia, so this is the page Paypal directs me to: Infringement notices

and this is the PDF Form to fill in. Depending on where you live you might want to visit the page yourself to get a locally-oriented one. It's available through the "Legal Agreements" link at the bottom of each page.

eggbeast, is pre-filling a form like that something that AMAR could help mod-makers with?

[Redphoenix 1540]

Jesus christ people, leave Matt alone.

As BI is not the damaged party, they cannot take legal action. As Matt said, it's up to the damaged parties to take action. Any further circlejerking will accomplish absolutely nothing.

Unless you can definitely prove that they still charge for access (which you haven't, all you have proven so far is that they're still getting donations), all you can do is ask RH and the other damaged parties to actually do something and hit them with a cease and desist, and - if they don't, you know, cease and desist - pursue legal action. Unless they do that, all you're doing is wallowing in self pity.

Everybody here should take this advice as it was actually the most unbiased and correct one.

If you want to damage them or purge them out of the gaming scene, do what KoffeinFlummi said.

Otherwise you will just end in a one-way lane where you can't get out. Like beeing banned from this forum for starting a whitch hunt.

[eggbeast 3684]

eggbeast, is pre-filling a form like that something that AMAR could help mod-makers with?

this is good, and some good ideas coming out. good work guys. keep your cool though eh.

for the record, AMAR just lets IP owners know about infringements, we don't work on their behalf necessarily.

but personally, I would be happy to put this lot together for the copyright infringements we all have logged in this thread.

there is no debate that A3L is making a lot of money by charging for privileged access to their servers. it is clearly stated and evidenced already.

our evidence compilation:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?184772-Legal-violations-by-A3L-Arma-3-life&p=2815104&viewfull=1#post2815104

and specifically this

http://i.imgur.com/ePzIhKr.png (142 kB)

surely this means that the EULA IS being breached Matt?

[Redphoenix 1540]

No, it's not, because you still can get access w/o donating.

I know that this is kind of dogdy, but they are not actually breaching EULA.

Sadly.

[eggbeast 3684]

on the contrary, if you try to get access to the mod today, you will see you cannot, without paying $30.

that is defined as charging for access in any court of the world.

[Redphoenix 1540]

What are you basing those assumptions on?

Please don't understand me defending A3L. It's just that we are in a situation we you need proofs for an accusation to make it a valid point in such an argument.

Of course it will take forever to become whitelisted if you don't pay, but there is still the possibility that you will be.

[haleks 8212]

Sounds like we gonna have a hard time to prove the EULA breaching...

Might be a good idea to focus on the other breaches/thefts/rip off?

[eggbeast 3684]

What are you basing those assumptions on? you need proofs for an accusation to make it a valid point in such an argument.

specifically

the opriginal pricelist published on the A3L website

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

+ Access to the Closed BETA

+ 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!

then they removed itfro mtheir website but continued to ask for $30 forentry in their TS - evidenced here

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?162249-From-the-creators-of-Stratis-Life-ArmA-3-Life&p=2799828&viewfull=1#post2799828

and now this

http://i.imgur.com/ePzIhKr.png

Of course it will take forever to become whitelisted if you don't pay, but there is still the possibility that you will be.

THAT

is charging a fee for access.

is a breach of the BIS EULA.

hopefully you can see that?

[Redphoenix 1540]

No, because you seeing stuff which is not there... You need EVIDENCE, no ACCUSATIONS!

[havatan19 10]

Also havatan, suggest you remove your link the mega.co.nz image hosting service, there's a bunch of porn ads and moderators probably won't like that too much. (Or maybe they will but that's another story for another day)

Use imgur next time, here's a link to your image http://i.imgur.com/XdrC8j4.jpg

and yes, the .net version is a copy of their website/server someone made to mock them. Which is hilarious because A3L seems to be pretty pissed about that.

Here's a link to the donations page, 450 donations so far since October 22nd 2014.

http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/donate/goal-2-a3l-server-donations/

thanks i removed the image hoster.

anyway, im confused. one says that .net is theyr other website, other says that someone fake A3L website but there are certain things i dont understand:

when someone fake the website of A3L, where are the donations from the fake website going ? the .net site has a donation system too and people donated there.

[10t 12]

...for the record, AMAR just lets IP owners know about infringements, we don't work on their behalf necessarily...

Of course. I just know that leaving it all up to the modders (who've already obviously invested an awful lot of time and effort into making the mods themselves) to also do all the legwork of chasing those infringing their rights has got to be exhausting and discouraging.

If they can be given the form (by anyone, doesn't have to be AMAR) with all the pertinent details neatly filled in and ready to go, then they can just send it on in themselves or approve "or an agent authorized to act on their behalf" (to paraphrase the form itself) to submit for them. I'm no lawyer, so I don't know if "agent authorized to act on behalf..." has any specific meaning in this context, or if it can just be "my buddy who I told it's ok to do this for me". I get the feeling AMAR, or one of their representatives, might have more flexibility here.

Most of the answers to the questions in the form are pretty much included in this thread, and the locked one. All we need to do is answer them for each of the aggrieved modders - that is, separate out Tonic's, Gnat's (I think?), RobertHammer's, and Milkman's content which has been used in ways that contravene the license and bam - four forms to trigger Paypal to start the investigation for us. For those who haven't clicked the link, here's the main bulk of the form content:

• I have a good faith belief that the website or webpage located at the following URL(s) or a screenshot of which is attached hereby (the "Webpage") sells, offers for sale, makes available goods and/or services or otherwise includes content or materials that infringe the IP Owner's intellectual property rights.
  URL:http://www.arma3-life.com/
  URL:Do they have another? I know the .net one is a rip-off by someone else of the real one.
  
• The intellectual property rights infringed by the Webpage (e.g. "XYZ copyright", "ABC trademark, Reg. No. 123456, registered 1/1/04", etc) are as follows:
  A succinct summary - probably in short dot points - of the relevant portions of the Arma modding licenses, BI's monetization policy, the EULA, and the NoDerivs/NoCommercial portions of the Creative Commons licenses which have been breached for each modder.
  
• The Webpage infringe on the IP Owner's IP rights in the following way(s):
  A better-written version of below:
  - Violates the EULA by charging "donations" to bypass an arbitrarily long (days, months or undefined) period of refused access in as little as an hour: clearly a thinly-veiled paywall or access fee.
  - Violates the Non-Commercial clause of the Creative Commons license governing use of the content by charging a fee for access.
  - Violates the No-Derivatives clause of the Creative Commons license governing the use of the content by having altered or otherwise defaced the content.
  
  
• I have a good faith belief that the use of the Webpage in the manner described above is not authorized by the IP Owner or the law.
  Strictly speaking no response is required here, but Tonic's and RH's quoted and screenshotted requests would no doubt be valuable.
  
• If the activities described above include the use of PayPal services to make payments for infringing goods or services, I have a good faith belief that PayPal payment services are actually being used to make payments for infringing goods or services on the Webpage. Please briefly explain the nature of this good faith belief (since presence of a button on a site does not mean that PayPal is actually providing payment services):
  The previously-captured images of records of donations, mbaker's and Caiden's comments, etc. are useful here.
  

The other required information is the IP Owner's identity which is why - if anyone's going to submit this on their behalf it should be someone they trust, who I guess would include some AMAR representatives. Or this can be left blank for the modders to fill in themselves before submitting it if they prefer.

Lastly, although the answers are very similar in each case, one of these should be filled out for each affected modder (i.e. "IP Owner"). That's the way the form's structured the way Paypal expect and is probably set up the easiest for them to process effectively.

If any of the IP Owners (or forum moderators, I guess) care to comment, or feel that this isn't appropriate, please let me know and I can butt right out. Otherwise, I hope this helps somehow.

Edit: Oh, since this is notifying a private company (Paypal) of a breach of their Terms and Conditions by a third party, I'm sure you don't need to meet the same burden of proof as you would in a court. If Paypal decide that this duck looks, swims, and quacks enough like a duck that it breaches their terms of use, then they can take the action allowed by their Policies, NOT the law. They encourage people (not necessarily the aggrieved party) to report violations of their Acceptable Use Policy - as you'll see if you look around their Legal section.

---------- Post added at 12:02 ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 ----------

the .net site has a donation system too and people donated there.

Are you sure that those donations aren't just the records of donations to the .com one, duplicated from the original website? I thought that the "donations" on the .net one stop on the 6th, making me think that's when GoatBoy copied everything. I'll admit I haven't looked into it at all, though. Didn't even click the button to see if it goes anywhere (it'd be pretty funny if the site was such a faithful copy that donations on .net accidentally ended up going to .com :p).

Edited November 10, 2014 by 10T

[eggbeast 3684]

sent by PM - user requests anonymity

Hey,

--> A3L has collected tons of donation money before BI made them stop, in turn during that time they breached EULA (that is why BI told them to stop) so shouldn't anyone who donated during the EULA breach be refunded, or the money earned during that time taken away by BI or someone else?

--> The community at A3L is not aware of the current situation. So someone should probably go post a big thread there, they will be banned by A3L but again no average regular member knows what is going on.

Consider this:

--> Contacting Lirik why? He doesn't need A3L for $$ he is too big. Further, most of his viewers hate A3L(whenever he plays it) that chat usually says "NO NO etc". I am not sure if anyone contacted Lirik personally, but if you do make sure you show him the thread etc...

--> Oh also don't forget they showed stuff in their videos and I am pretty sure at some point they said it would be in game. They did all this as they were collecting $$, so in turn lying to the public, collecting $$ aka scam/fraud w/e you wanna call it. (Lied to the general public about content and made $$ off it) It is basically like Activision saying, "Oh yeah the new CoD will have a tank and next-gen guns, promise it and show it off then never put it in game and people buy it because of they thought it would have it..."

Anyways good luck.