Legal violations by A3L: Arma 3 life

[nodunit 397]

the comments on this vid page are really great info actually - they're full of people moaning about being prevented from access or confessing to the culture of paying to access or proving how retarded they are about licenses and game piracy.

While posting the video is fine, I don't see much benefit or a good reflection on taking youtube comments and bashing them, it could give this "movement" a bad rep as drama seeking.

Edited November 13, 2014 by NodUnit

[GSP167 1]

So, has there been any official word from Bohemia yet?

No and we probably won't hear much about it until BIS actually takes action, closer that you'll get from an official statement right now is Public Relations posting on the thread sometimes.

Also, 1000+ signatures REACHED on the petition!

Edited November 13, 2014 by GSP167

[SmartMan132 10]

Good job guys, WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS!

[MrUltimatephil 10]

First of all. A3L is a free mod at the moment. Even if you pay 30$, that doesn't mean your application will be accepted. After that, you still need to pass your interview, then you need to wait for an admin to whitelist you. So stop saying that you need to pay to play, it's not true. I'm a member of the community and I didn't have to pay to play on the server.

[cofi0276 1]

First of all. A3L is a free mod at the moment. Even if you pay 30$, that doesn't mean your application will be accepted. After that, you still need to pass your interview, then you need to wait for an admin to whitelist you. So stop saying that you need to pay to play, it's not true. I'm a member of the community and I didn't have to pay to play on the server.

Did you notice the long lines of people for the interview Teamspeak? If you donate you get whitelisted in a couple of hours and if you dont, god knows when you will get in. The fact that they can slow this line as much as possible makes it pay to play. Previous system wasn't pay 2 play but it was breaching Bohemia EULA anyway, this system that they have right now is no different, its even worse.

[LordNevs 10]

Did you notice the long lines of people for the interview Teamspeak? If you donate you get whitelisted in a couple of hours and if you dont, god knows when you will get in. The fact that they can slow this line as much as possible makes it pay to play. Previous system wasn't pay 2 play but it was breaching Bohemia EULA anyway, this system that they have right now is no different, its even worse.

The donators have to wait in the exact same white listing lobby as everyone else, I can personally confirm this. They get processed at the same time too. There is no special white listing process for people who donated. Please be positive about something before you go and lie in order to convert more people to your side of the argument. The reason it takes so long to get white listed is because the admins are too lazy and they don't have enough staff dedicated to white listing at the moment. Not to mention that there are currently only 3 servers, all of which wouldn't be able to hold EVERYONE.

While I am opposed to the staff's failure to credit those who are due credit, I do not agree with the responses from either parties. It's a mod for a video game, just give the modders credit and that's the end of it. Donators donate donations because they want to support the mod. The only perk you get as a donator is a nice little tag that says donator. From what I have seen, you don't even get special treatment from officers or admins.

[nodunit 397]

The donators have to wait in the exact same white listing lobby as everyone else, I can personally confirm this.

Then technicly you as the customer are being scammed by that alone. The purpose of the 30$ donation is to gain expedited application, pushing you more to the top of the list so that you don't have to wait in the big line.

Granted they state that the review will be the same and it does not garuntee you access, it does still state that you will be more likely and have less waiting time.

This is directly quoted from their own forum. http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9740-official-beta-release-date/

Said application link also appears to have vanished...hm

As for special treatment.

"If you donate you receive benefits for your account in-game."

"You're donating to Arma 3 Life to help support the servers and not for a in game reward. If you do donate it is up to the Project Leads/Administrators to hand out any sort of in game gift because you helped support A3L."

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

It's very disjointed...first it says you won't receive benefits and that you do it to support the server, then it says you will receive benefits, then it says you won't and it will be up to the admin.

Edited November 13, 2014 by NodUnit

[GSP167 1]

First of all. A3L is a free mod at the moment.

No it's not. Plain and simple.

Even if you pay 30$, that doesn't mean your application will be accepted. After that, you still need to pass your interview, then you need to wait for an admin to whitelist you.

Paying 30$ DOES mean you will be accepted. This is how it works, you donate, then you go in TS and wait until they give you your donator tags and you're able to join the server. There's next to no interviews. Non-donators are given long interviews and little room to answer a question wrong.

So stop saying that you need to pay to play, it's not true. I'm a member of the community and I didn't have to pay to play on the server.

We'll say what we want as this is a public forum, thank you. Also we've gathered enough proof that confirms A3L is pay to play, you can read the 80+ pages of this thread if you want more information on the subject.

Also.

"You're donating to Arma 3 Life to help support the servers and not for a in game reward. If you do donate it is up to the Project Leads/Administrators to hand out any sort of in game gift because you helped support A3L."

This is just a way for them to play with words. Any good lawyer would be able to proove that they're actually intending to give you a reward for your donation.

Said application link also appears to have vanished...hm

Don't worry evidence has been kept

Edited November 13, 2014 by GSP167

[nathanm 11]

No it's not. Plain and simple.

Yes it is plain and simple

Paying 30$ DOES mean you will be accepted. This is how it works, you donate, then you go in TS and wait until they give you your donator tags and you're able to join the server. There's next to no interviews. Non-donators are given long interviews and little room to answer a question wrong.

I do the interviews, I have denied donators on many occasions due to them believing they can get an advantage and pass the interview by donating, this is not the case, every gets the same set of questions and it has the same set of answers, most of the support team don't give two shits if a person has donated or not, they get the same treatment as anyone else.

We'll say what we want as this is a public forum, thank you. Also we've gathered enough proof that confirms A3L is pay to play, you can read the 80+ pages of this thread if you want more information on the subject.

A3L was in violation of the EULA, now it is not.

This is just a way for them to play with words. Any good lawyer would be able to proove that they're actually intending to give you a reward for your donation.

Then let me see your good lawyer? No one gets any in game 'reward' for being a donator, unless there is some secret illuminati club which I've been blind to this whole time, maybe your in on it too?

Don't worry evidence has been kept

Application links dissapear from public view, they go into a section where it is archived once processed. (No again it's actually illuminati covering up this whole plot.... SMH)

You are really nothing short of a troll, look at your signatures to start with! You are speaking now in total hypotheticals and seem to be wired with old news and spooky stories to get everyone roudy. You wanted A3L to change has and is continuing too.

[janus0104 3]

A3L was in violation of the EULA, now it is not.

A3L is and remains in violation of:

- Copyright laws

- A multitude of licenses

- A3 EULA

as long as:

- addons from other authors are used while explicitly stated to not be used by A3L

- models from other games are used - E.g. models such as the one taken from Crytek not only break copyright laws with them but also break licensing terms since the model was uploaded for personal use only to be used in fan-art

- content from other addons is modified without explicit permission - E.g. CSE, which was recently integrated into A3L, uses CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, quote: NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

Money does not have to be made in a paywall fashion to be in breach of licenses and copyright laws, nor do you have to make any money at all.

Edited November 13, 2014 by janus0104

[havatan19 10]

posting for people who are new to this situation or only knows about the stolen addons but not of the stolen content from other games:

http://www.moddb.com/members/havatan10/blogs/stay-away-from-arma-3-life-mod

i think arma 3:life devs are done with moddb now since many people there know about the situation now + admins delete arma 3:life mod from moddb everytime :D

[nodunit 397]

Since we are moving beyond the name calling (I hope) stage and into actual conversing and discussion between the two groups, I believe we can acknowledge one another and also share the stories from both sides.

http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/35121-a3l-intellectual-property-statement/#entry90096

Yes it is true that Asylum and Altis life do the donations thing as well, in stranger price jumps for that matter..fifty..over one hundred dollars for benefits.

A3L however has fallen into this community's crosshairs because of all the grey areas and the fact that you are pulling more mods in than just what everyone else is using.

For example the Skype with Cage states as long as you do not use it for profit. You could argue that while you are not profiting directly from it there is no denying that it does something to enhance your mod and in a way you are profiting from it making your mod more effective. In fact this grey area could be stated for everything, you are not making profit from the content directly but you are taking the content and making profit with them as assets.

It would be like me taking an addon from someone else to compile into my own and then selling it, it is nothing more than an extension of my addon but my addon is still profiting from its mere presence.

If you your community is serious about removing the content requested to be removed then I am nearly certain that you will lose all of the heat.

Edited November 13, 2014 by NodUnit

[havatan19 10]

Since we are moving beyond the name calling (I hope) stage and into actual conversing and discussion between the two groups, I believe we can acknowledge one another and also share the stories from both sides.

http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/35121-a3l-intellectual-property-statement/#entry90096

Yes it is true that Asylum and Altis life do the donations thing as well, in stranger price jumps for that matter..fifty..over one hundred dollars for benefits.

A3L however has fallen into this community's crosshairs because of all the grey areas and the fact that you are pulling more mods in than just what everyone else is using.

For example the Skype with Cage states as long as you do not use it for profit. You could argue that while you are not profiting directly from it there is no denying that it does something to enhance your mod and in a way you are profiting from it making your mod more effective. In fact this grey area could be stated for everything, you are not making profit from the content directly but you are taking the content and making profit with them as assets.

It would be like me taking an addon from someone else to compile into my own and then selling it, it is nothing more than an extension of my addon but my addon is still profiting from its mere presence.

If you your community is serious about removing the content requested to be removed then I am nearly certain that you will lose all of the heat.

time for a new video !

[eggbeast 3673]

Attention moderators:

Mike Baxter and Caiden spoke out last night in an interview with PsiSyndicate regarding their ongoing use of Tonics no derivs licensed mission code

Transcript: 13 November 2014

http://www.twitch.tv/PsiSyndicate/b/588047310

PS = psysyndicate

MB = Mike Baxter

CA = Caiden

1.35.45 PS why did you tell Tonic to kill himself?

1.36.20 CA "Tonic had stolen our scripts"

1.38.00 PS city life prefix in the code?

1.38.00 CA one of our developers Baritol, helped by Bluevein, gave code to Barotall and thats how it got in there

NOTE Barotall apology see http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?184772-Legal-violations-by-A3L-Arma-3-life&p=2817832&viewfull=1#post2817832

1.52.30 MB the only thing you can kick us in the nuts about - stealing, and utilising is Tonics work - dragging along, editing, yes we are in major violation of that shit right there.... I apologise to Tonic for using his shit, however we're not gonna shut down our servers just because we're using his framework

[nodunit 397]

Aaaannnd that right there is the core of this whole problem.

[eggbeast 3673]

evidence updated

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

[nodunit 397]

If we're going to go this far on the manhunt then we can at least acknowledge as well (not saying drop it, not acknowledge) that they have said they would remove the content.

Actions speak louder than words of course but we shouldn't just ignore what has been said, especially in light of previous inter community interaction.

[Grimm89 10]

I've been reading this thread up until about the 35th or so page, too much work to read the rest of it. (Yes, I created an account just so that I could post on this issue).

I was really looking forward to playing A3L, got through the application and interview processes at to which point they took no interest in anything to do with anyone that hadn't donated... It's basically them saying f**k off and come back when we've got your money.

Now that I've read (most of) this thread which I learned of via PsiSyndicate last night, I wanna see these thieves taken down with force, which brings me to my point of this post; more licensing issues...

Basically, we all know that anything with a patent or copyrighted name will require direct permission and a license to use outside of that company/person's ownership/intellectual property/blah blah blah (recalling the post about Crytek's bus)... Which made me think about the cars they're using; more explicitly the well known manufactures such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, McLaren, ect. Every game which uses these manufacture and model names requires the given license from these companies; all the big racing simulator games have these (Forza, Gran Turismo, Test Drive, ect.)... Now I remember Test Drive Unlimited 2 having a major licensing debate with Ferrari stating that they were not going to give them permission to use their name in their game due to some kind of PR issue about them having Lamborghini in their game, long story short; they were worried about players buying more Lambos than Ferraris so they said it was either one or the other (Ferrari eventually prevailed). Obviously Arma and BiS don't not have the required licenses to use these names within their game, other wise I'm sure they would have properly branded vehicles as stock, and obviously they means that any mod created using replicated vehicles is in breach of copyright for obviously not having said permission, now; whether that'll come back to bite devs like A3L in the arse, the modders who created it, I don't know; but I'm sure it'll have repercussions for BiS for knowing allowing mods like this to continue with unlicensed copyrighted vehicles... Truth be told, I don't have much knowledge regarding issues like this, and I'm not sure if it's already been brought up... But if Ferrari are willing to refrain from distributing licenses for matters as trivial as TU2, then well... What'd happen in this scenario?

I'm basically going out on a whim here and it's all assumptions, so correct me if I'm wrong in any way, as I said, I'm not too knowledgeable on this issues.

[Redphoenix 1540]

Attention moderators:

Mike Baxter and Caiden spoke out last night in an interview with PsiSyndicate regarding their ongoing use of Tonics no derivs licensed mission code

You forgot or add this

www.abload.de/img/psysindicate_stream_a79swx.jpg

[havatan19 10]

NEW VIDEO RELEASED! DEBUNKING SOME OF THE "ARGUMENTS" THAT A3:LIFE DEVS MADE IN THEYR OFFICIAL STATEMENT:

http://arma3-life.com/forums/index.php?/topic/35121-a3l-intellectual-property-statement/#entry90096

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTgbmH5v_1U

please share this article:

http://www.moddb.com/members/havatan10/blogs/stay-away-from-arma-3-life-mod

[eggbeast 3673]

well there are various other issues - evidence has been submitted to BIS and numerous copyright owners about theft

the commercial use is what i think needs some clarity - in that interview you can see that these guys have justifiably no idea what they are doing with regard to licensing or commercial activity.

As a former company director for numerous charitable trusts and even a PLC let me lay it out in simple terms:

the licenses under which mods are generally released stipulate no commercial use.

these licenses include:

The arma public license for anything derived from Arma series under the materials released within this framework, typically vehicles, weapons, characters and similar items

The Arma Public License Share Alike, typically Terrains, terrain objects, playable content and voiceovers

creative commons license by-nc-nd

The CCL wiki also has a very long and unsatisfactory research report on users of CCL's and their views of what is considered non-commercial. It dffers a lot, but not in a way that would affect this case. They intend potentially to modify the definition in v4 of the CCL.

Additionally the BIS EULA for Arma 3 (available in steam via game manual) governs what you can do with the game, and it says:

B.You are entitled to use the Program for your own use, but you are not entitled to:

(i) Sell or transfer reproductions of the Program to other parties in any way, nor to rent, lease or license the Program to others

(ii) Publish and/or distribute the computer Program or any of its parts

(iii) Exploit the Program or any of its parts for any commercial purpose including, but not limited to, use at a cybercafe, computer gaming centre, computer aided training center or any other location-based site where multiple users may access the Program

ok so what is this commercial thing? the guys in the twitch.tv movie could have used some help here, like legal counsel, which would explain:

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the UK accepts this court-derived definition of Trade as

'Broadly, ‘trade’ can be taken to refer to operations of a commercial kind by which the trader provides to customers for reward some kind of goods or services. The extension of the definition to ‘ventures in the nature of trade’ allows for the inclusion of isolated or speculative transactions, although not all such transactions will be within the definition.’

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim20060.htm

ok so this explains why paypal has been asking you about is it for friends and family or for a service? for the past year. This was as a result of various national tax offices challenging paypal to better manage a growing black economy.

What it means is that Commercial is taken to mean "anyone providing goods or a service to a customer for a reward."

The $30 donations required by A3L to provide a service to users to expedite their application is therefore a commercial service.

Further the prior donations of $150 required by A3L from users in order to provide them with a motor car in the game is a commercial service.

The hosting of a gameserver, and collecting donations for it, is a commercial service.

If the question then comes into a court proceeding, the judge would consider the nature of the services supplied, the reward granted and may well take into account the scale of the operation and the PURPOSE of it in determining whether a commercial activity had been taking place, but it has historically allowed for individuals, isolated and one-off sales (on ebay etc). These cases most often arise due to non-payment of taxes.

So if you are BIS or a mod maker (or another game company whose content has been stolen) and put onto the A3L servers and effectively sold through the donation for expedited access service, then it is clearly up to each to consider whether they wish to prevent the commercial use of their product and SCALE and REPUTATIONAL and OTHER DAMAGES will be a significant factor in their decisions.

This is why many of us host servers and receive donations towards them with impunity.

They are generally acceptable levels of income and expenditure and do not constitute an enforceable level of commercial activity.

Even so, the tax dept might say "yes in theory that is commercial, but we won't take any action on it" - I have had this advice many times in my career when considering say a grant for a sports hall or a church renting out space to communities.

whether you are a charity or a non-profit co-op or whatever is irrelevant to the definition.

also whether you are registered for tax, or incorporated as an entity is irrelevant.

So, how does A3L shape up in light of this?

http://www.twitch.tv/PsiSyndicate/b/588047310

Transcript: 13 November 2014

1.28.00 CA [reads text from new web page]... this $30 donation gives you access to expedited application system, it's not a payment for content... we are not charging for content, we are giving a reward in exchange for a $30 donation, and our support team will look at your application earlier.

PS how is this not commercial? money is being generated. if the money isnt being used for anything then why is there a donation system?

CA ok so you expect us to get money out of our ass to pay for our servers?

PS well you've made $50,000 from a mod you may as well close donations...

CA i said it wasnt used to pay people, it wasnt used for personal expenses.

PS but its still money that is generated so that makes it commercial

MB it doesn't make it commercial

CA [laughing] I'm making money so I'm commercial that's not right that's not how it works

PS all i know is Arma 3 life has generated a large sum of money and theres a lot of mods in...

MB that doesnt make us a commercial entity [EB see their confusion?]

CA what people do, they look at the number of donations and they multiply by $30 and they say "hey theyre making $700 a day" but people dont understand that not every donation was $30.

1.43.50 MB How dyou know that every donation is $30.

PS how do I know because zoo told me how much thats why

CA Zoo does not have access to the paypal

PS are you trying to tell me that you'vemade $1000 off the mod or something

CA I haven't made anything personally, everything goes back into the mod one way or another [EB: this is still commercial]

PS I find that hard to believe

ZA The only people got access to the paypal is me and caiden, Zoo doesn't even have access at all.

PS but saying that everything goes back into the mod like i find that very hard to believe

GG DDOS protection, upgrade to the servers, more servers, its also securing the future as well, ok so lets say we used $500 this month and we have $2000 we can use for the upcoming month in case no-one donates - it's to secure the future as well

ZA i mean we got exactly enough money to keep the community up for 1 year and a few months that's it. even though we have money its still you know we have to keep something for the future

1.59.50 PS it is commercial its not a non-profit organisation

CA we're not distributing profits, you can say we're commercial but you can't prove it. we are not commercial. we are trying to achieve a goal here which is paying for a server and everything goes back into the mod [EB: irrelevant]

PS how much are monthly costs?

CA it has been different each month, we have tested a lot of hosts. £200-$300 for website and $500 for cloudflare and $5-600 for each server then overhead costs.

ok so how much did they make already? what is the scale of the income received for the services they provided?

If you add up the costs Caiden describes (at 2h.00mins) of $2300 per month and their earlier statement that they have enough now to pay for the servers for say 14 months, that would mean that in the past 100 days (since donations started (28 Jul - 11 Nov 2014) A3L has earned $32,200 from 2,740 known donations.

The average donation to date is therefore $11.75.

As they average 27.4 donations a day that’s an annual income projection of 360 days x £322 per day = $115,920

I think it is beyond a doubt that the A3L project is operating at a taxable commercial level.

Also if Zanazza and Caiden are solely responsible for a paypal account containing $32,000 from an unregulated trade then could be viewed by the mod authors and BIS as an unacceptable risk of personal gain because it is unregulated, undisclosed, significant in size and public profile. The fact they have derivedthis income while providing pirated content to their users/customers is grounds for a full cease-and-desist from MS / EA Games / Crytek / BIS and ImageSpace Inc, whose models they have illegally imported to the mod and any authors from this community whose work has been modified or distributed by them.

The sheer visibility and scale of the operation should be enough to guarantee its downfall.

I should add that the A3L tactic of changing what they are doing each time something is raised, to try to continue their operations, will not suffice.

If indeed they have collected $32,000 from users already then changing their rules or giving the code away will not clear them of this license breach.

Anyone who has paid and received the mod should contact the relevant copyright holders who have been infringed. They should demand a refund from A3L on the grounds that the product contains a large amount of pirated material. And if a refund is not forthcoming, they should contact the European Consumer Centre in the Netherlands to find out how to make a complaint to the relevant regulatory office in the same area as Caiden's paypal account/bank account (Friesland, The Netherlands)

Edited November 13, 2014 by eggbeast

[enex 11]

Why is katt on stream answering questions?how is he connected with a3l?

[Dr_Defimus 10]

even if they have an realy good root server that makes around 100-130$ ( i7-3930k 64gig ram) a month and with all the extra ddos protection it's hard to belive they top 200.

[JonSnu 10]

even if they have an realy good root server that makes around 100-130$ ( i7-3930k 64gig ram) a month and with all the extra ddos protection it's hard to belive they top 200.

From someone who has owned arma 3 servers you definitely do not know what you are talking about. With the amount of DDOS that have been targeting them, I would guess a server with a protection able to handle them would be in the $400-$600 range each. This if they are paying for monitoring, something that is likely considering that they don't seem to be very experienced in the matter.

Edited November 13, 2014 by JonSnu
mispelling

[eggbeast 3673]

we pay £100 is for ours and run A3 + HC and 3x A2 servers on it fine. but you missed the point a little.