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Legal violations by A3L: Arma 3 life

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Right now my willingness to do anything anymore for Arma and make it public is near zero. I'd really like to hear an official statement from Bohemia regarding this issue...

Don't worry about it bro, BI will put out something soon I believe. Just put your name on a part of the mod to where no one can remove it. idk if you can encrypt it. If I was releasing something I would put "No using this for commercial gain", "You are not allowed to edit any part of this addon". Something around the lines of that, I don't won't people editing the pbo in anyway or using it for commercial gain. I have no problem with it being used in a modpack since I have my name on it.

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How about a license that states as simple as possible that the content tied to it is by no circumstances allowed to modified, distributed, or added to any addon or mod pack unless given explicit permission by the author.

This excludes not only commercial gain in any form but the inclusion of it into any mod, meaning that the mere presence of it within a mod without the authors permission would be immediately breaking said license.

https://www.bistudio.com/assets/img/licenses/images/license_chart.jpg

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How about a license that states as simple as possible that the content tied to it is by no circumstances allowed to modified, distributed, or added to any addon or mod pack unless given explicit permission by the author.

This excludes not only commercial gain in any form but the inclusion of it into any mod, meaning that the mere presence of it within a mod without the authors permission would be immediately breaking said license.

This is exactly what I was trying to get at, thank you! If every mod author does this then if any use of their mod in a way that they do not like or do not support can be removed and the author will be happy and no argument can be made as it was explicitly stated in their license.

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I have been following this thread since the first day, but only decided to apply this day because the misinformation going on here is just unbearable and you don't need to be aggressive towards just because I decided to take no sides.

The findings you mentioned, at least the ones present in this thread are just allegations and opinions that people are trying to pass as facts, and rest assured I would argue if the proof was crystal clear.

If there rock solid proof the damaged companies such as Microsoft and other companies would have already approached A3L, something that has not happened since the models are still being used in the game and same goes for Bohemia. All I see is a circular argument, a dog chasing is tail that somewhat ended up in ~90 pages.

People are clearly regurgitating the same statements over and over and that will help no one since the motivations behind it are just to feed the drama. It is just being hypocritical when people say this is to protect Arma community when it just enlarging the flame war currently going on. If you find proof provide it to the involved parties and thats it, the lack of morals from the community it is not in doubt but some still think it is a point worth arguing.

My findings are not going to be publicly released at this point of time due to the nature of the findings. They are absolutely solid evidenced findings showing a breach of the EULA and more piracy. If and when the investigation comes to a close then I may publicly show the findings but until then it is being kept off the public domain until further notice.

At this point of time people need to be patient because as Eggbeast has said, the report has been sent off to the various companies that we have proved have had their content stolen and used commercially, and yes before you ask, it is evidenced but we are keeping it off the public domain until the investigations are complete.

I think at this point, unless new evidence is posted, there is no real need to keep arguing over this thread as it doesn't help at all. The petition was obviously very successful and we got the number of signatures we hoped for and we still continue to gain more every hour.

It's a waiting game now.

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but they also need to protect themselves or define explicitly beforehand how they want their stuff to be used, otherwise the afterthought argument of "Oh no, someone is using my content in a successful way, how did I not capitalise on that before??" is invalid and negligent.

I agree with this to an extent. Yes when you want to publish your content you should take the necessary steps to protect it, but the A3L team has misinterpreted some of these licences and therefor broke some licence agreements that were done correctly. You also have to take note that the people at A3L have setup their own custom license that is technically void due to their license host not allowing copyrighted material to be affiliated with their service. Also the people at the A3L team can't complain when someone else makes a copy of their sever as they too are not protected by any licence.

Edited by deltagamer

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someone asked for a summary?

1. tonics code 95% all stolen and denied until recently admitted by A3L Mike Baxter

2. pirated materials from numerous games, evidence submitted to companies, including offer of sale of pirated content to individuals

3. confession by A3L dev team in twitch interview: accumulation by A3L team of 14+ months worth of server costs (at stated $2300 per month) = $32k in past 100 days.

4. pay to play expedition service is a commercial activity and so the CCL, APL and APL-SA AND the Arma3 EULA are all terminated.

5. many other mod makers have asked for their mods to be removed, due to the commercial exploitation and association with piracy

General Evidence post

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

Edited by eggbeast

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Right now my willingness to do anything anymore for Arma and make it public is near zero. I'd really like to hear an official statement from Bohemia regarding this issue...

For all those supporting A3L and their viewpoint THIS is the real damage done here. How you fail to see the effect this will cause for Arma modding in the future is beyond me...

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Don't worry about it bro, BI will put out something soon I believe. Just put your name on a part of the mod to where no one can remove it. idk if you can encrypt it. If I was releasing something I would put "No using this for commercial gain", "You are not allowed to edit any part of this addon". Something around the lines of that, I don't won't people editing the pbo in anyway or using it for commercial gain. I have no problem with it being used in a modpack since I have my name on it.

That is prose for the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, full legal text here.

Creative Commons licenses have been shown to uphold in a court of law first in the District Court of Amsterdam in the case Curry v. Audax.

Note that CC BY-NC-ND can of course only cover the parts of your work that can be licensed as such and not already covered by different licenses.

What does this mean?

Let's take CSE as an example:

It is released under CC BY-NC-ND. You can download and play with it, but you can't monetize it, and if you modify any part of it, you can't redistribute it. Any artwork or bit of code that is not governed by another license already is governed by this, i.e. original textures, models, animations, etc.

Some of the icons it uses are from external sources and fall under CC BY 3.0, meaning anyone can share, adapt, even commercialize these icons - but only these icons.

One of the objects may use a texture that was released with the public data pack under APL-SA. Anything derived from this texture falls under APL-SA and anyone trying to use it must follow APL-SA, meaning no commercialization, no use outside of ArmA, you need to make it available as such (no binarizing?).

One of the objects may use a texture that was released with the public data pack under APL. Anything derived from this texture falls under APL and anyone trying to use it must follow APL, meaning no commercialization, no use outside of ArmA.

One of the artists involved may have used an education license for 3ds Max, and thus anything he exports may not be used in a commercial application.

Edited by janus0104

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Problem is that sueing someone who abuses your material is an painstaking and expensive process.

Wich many of the modders dont have the money or time for.

BI Should in my opinion atleast help the best they can to protect the content that people created for their game.

Without these people, Arma wouldnt have a long lasting life.

BI knows this hence the make arma not war competition.

Its a common thing when a game becomes popular that there will be people that jump in to earn some easy money.

If BI doesnt do anything they will lose their most valuable modders and end up with only those easy money not so innovative guys.

Modding for Arma is much harder to do then any other well known engine. That + having to be carefull with your stuff makes it less fun to work on.

The expierenced arma modders will lose their interest if all their stuff keeps on getting abused (innovative things is always popular for copying).

The old ofp/arma style community of being open is slowly closing to a point its not fun anymore.

I know some known arma modders who are already finding their fun back in other engines wich have an way easier workflow to get something created.

my two cents why BI should do more.

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someone asked for a summary?

1. tonics code 95% all stolen and denied until recently admitted by A3L Mike Baxter

2. pirated materials from numerous games, evidence submitted to companies, including offer of sale of pirated content to individuals

3. confession by A3L dev team in twitch interview: accumulation by A3L team of 14+ months worth of server costs (at stated $2300 per month) = $32k in past 100 days.

4. pay to play expedition service is a commercial activity and so the CCL, APL and APL-SA AND the Arma3 EULA are all terminated.

5. many other mod makers have asked for their mods to be removed, due to the commercial exploitation and association with piracy

General Evidence post

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

1. Even if they had previous conflicts with Tonic they were wrong in what they did with is code, but at least he won't be tangled in this mess for much longer since they are trying to put out their own framework. They are not correct in keeping to use it until then and to use it previously without the proper permission. Any action to be taken about this is up to Tonic, if he feels he or his work have been damaged and if he has a clean past (don't know the details about the conflict).

2. If they confirm they are using their copyrighted material, the standard procedure from big companies to deal with communities is start with a friendly demand/request that most likely Caiden will comply with, if not he will face legal action.

3. Bohemia already talked with them and made their demands, to which they complied and changed their ways. Bohemia going to court with A3L is apparently something that they want to avoid. I don't really see how it breaks Arma 3 EULA, since you can get in without paying anything, but it will just take longer due to apparent lack of staff. The expedited path only makes their application to be evaluated quicker, they still have to go trough the interview, where they are treated just like everybody else. And this is to join the community not the server. To join the server you still have to be whitelisted, again a process where donators are treated like everybody else. EDIT: Just read their Intellectual Property statement and apparently this system was directly approved by Bohemia.

4. There is nothing that could be said here since they are at fault without any doubt, even if it is practised by many other communities.

Edited by JonSnu

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@havatan19 - the Vehicles you are placing under the creational right of City Life are not made by the City Life dev team either. The might have "borrowed" them before A3L did but they are surely not there creation.

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ok here last video for today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAqS_hgDPQ

and please watch this, the arma 3 life devs are lying with theyr official statement:

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

also i added this evidence post in every videos description:

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

and i posted a new blog on moddb:

http://www.moddb.com/members/havatan10/blogs/arma-3-life-illegal-activities

---------- Post added at 17:54 ---------- Previous post was at 17:53 ----------

@havatan19 - the Vehicles you are placing under the creational right of City Life are not made by the City Life dev team either. The might have "borrowed" them before A3L did but they are surely not there creation.

ok didnt know that but Citylife is not profiting with these models

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ok here last video for today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAqS_hgDPQ

and please watch this, the arma 3 life devs are lying with theyr official statement:

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

also i added this evidence post in every videos description:

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

and i posted a new blog on moddb:

http://www.moddb.com/members/havatan10/blogs/arma-3-life-illegal-activities

---------- Post added at 17:54 ---------- Previous post was at 17:53 ----------

ok didnt know that but Citylife is not profiting with these models

Just had a look on city life page, and they have a whole store for in-game content. https://donation.cityliferpg.com, but I am sure Bohemia is already aware of the situation.

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Just had a look on city life page, and they have a whole store for in-game content. https://donation.cityliferpg.com

what the hell ?! ok this mod is not pay-to-play like arma 3:life (was) but still what the fuck is wrong with these "modders" today ?

all the life/rpg mods are like a virus who wants to destroy arma 3 and its community, these mods and its community should gtfo of arma 3 and go to gta or somewhere else.

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what the hell ?! ok this mod is not pay-to-play like arma 3:life (was) but still what the fuck is wrong with these "modders" today ?

all the life/rpg mods are like a virus who wants to destroy arma 3 and its community, these mods and its community should gtfo of arma 3 and go to gta or somewhere else.

Huh... https://donation.cityliferpg.com/vehicles/land/police/lamborghini-reventon-clpd-en.html

Them police sure seem to get around.

Heheheh...donations...donate to us and we will give an item in return..hmm..its almost like a normal purchase exchange..

Edited by NodUnit

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It seems to be the case. Haven't seen any shared staff, servers or even a general project direction.

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Maybe there should be a thread for discussion on how City Life are handling things.

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Create another thread about it then. This thread isn't really about "Other people do it, why can't A3L do it too?". Its more to do with A3L hence the thread title. Its not that this community doesn't care they are doing it but you are trying to divert us to something unrelated.

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Now you're trying to divert the attention away from yourselves. Anyway it's not going to work and as previously stated several times, the report has been submitted and it is now a waiting game.

Can we limit the whole thread down now to just fresh evidence etc instead of all the unnecessary comments? There is no point arguing from here as it is in the hands of BIS and the game companies.

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i dont want to defend them, but:

atleast these are not stolen models and is not a pay-to-play mod like yours.

atleast they do not steal others content and make profit with them.

atleast the devs are not doxing other peoples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAqS_hgDPQ&list=UU2KCV18drTzPEsxFiV8snag

atleast the devs are not lying like you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTgbmH5v_1U&list=UU2KCV18drTzPEsxFiV8snag

idk if its wrong that they do, but your mod is the worstest when it comes to legal violations, so no need distract and show with the finger to other mods.

Edited by havatan19

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I've quietly sat over the last week or so reading through and following this thread. I'm shocked that anyone thinks they can make money in anyway by using BI's Arma 3 without their express permission to do so and its disheartening to see the talents of so many modders being abused.

For the posters defending anyone doing either of the above; you obviously don't know much about our Arma community or the game that allows you to enjoy the gaming experiences these rogue servers appear to be offering. If it wasn't for the selfless hard work by modders as well as the ongoing appreciation and support from the community for said efforts, you would not have experiences you've enjoyed and are obviously defending. I've seen this community go to the authors of weapons packs to ask permission to include it in new faction being created by reskinning BI's models. I've also seen promising mods halted or at least replanned because they didn't have permission to use a needed completed mod in their own project.

This is the level of respect and appreciation this community has been built on since BI started down the road of the Arma series. You should not allow those who disrespect modders, or worse look to profit from their work, to continue. A road we don't want to go down; Modders will drift away and BI will become less open with the game's assets. Imagine that, all the stuff enjoyed by those defending these apparent malicious actions will be no more.

I have managed gaming groups as well as the costs of running servers; donations are made voluntarily with no preset amounts until enough funds are collected to cover the costs. If you want to be smart, hold a few months worth of costs for those times your members may go through a tough financial time. The groups that do otherwise are not doing it to cover their costs, but make money from players, something that should not be allowed or tolerated.

Reading through the posts and even what was posted on the 'other' forums, the stories and excuses are ever-changing, frankly because they don't pass the smell test. Quite frankly, none of the versions seem to pass muster. Now, I'm only an observer to this matter but its obvious no one or no server is being victimized. Our community is trying to right a wrong and get everyone back to place of respect and hopefully modders can continue to take this game to new heights.

BI is a good company with a bunch of great guys. With all the efforts by the community, I'm sure they're wading through a complex issue to get it resolved. BI knows as well as anyone who has enjoyed this community to any degree, Arma would not be what it is and certainly will never be what it can be without the efforts and talent of its gracious and clever modders. We've all seen modders come up with stuff BI admire or even replicate!

Thanks to everyone for pushing forward and working through this terrible issue.

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