Legal Violations by CL3 - Citylife 3 Mod

[nodunit 397]

oh i was actually talking to the OP when i said "you". and it seems i quoted the wrong post lol. fixed now.

either way. be off to your basement and finish what you have in store for us! *whipping sound* :couch:

I prefer the term dungeon, though you could also say it is a drug lab of sorts.

Hi all,

thanks for bringing this to my attention

I would like to add that there is no fee to play and join City Life all we have is a strict set of rules. Joe bloggs can register, validate, interview and have boots on the ground for $0 and they can continue to play forever for $0 as long as they do not break the server rules.

We do not encourage our members to donate, even if they dont all content is available in game as Easter eggs where you would have to build it in the factory. All donations are completely voluntary and I will say 90% of those that do donate are long term members.

All of last years P&L from our donations from City Life 2 where we had a BIS agreement was sent to them as far as I am aware and with the release of ARMA 3 the T&C changed and they asked us to change our donation store accordingly to which I am aware what we have done is approved.

We rely on our donations and money from all of our own pockets to provide a server with anti DDOS due to the levels of attack we get which is not cheap.

If a BIS member reading this disagrees with what I am saying please let me know so we can correct this to remain compliant.

GySgt_Mel, please tell me who you are referring to about the forza files as I would be interested to know.

Please enjoy this video of our head of animations hard at work dancing in his living room

Regards

So everything you can purchase in the store can also be obtained through time in the mod itself? It's not a case of "only available here"?

That still leaves the problem of where the models came from and wether or not the authors of the game itself gave you permission...doesn't matter where you got the source files from, if the original authors/IP holders did not give you permission then that is a bit of a problem.

Secondly while I understand your stance on "We do not force our customers to use the donation store" it still winds up looking like a normal exchange and winds up in the commercial gain.

Donations are what people do without any incentive or return of service outside of the mod itself. It is a gesture of good will and when you go adding incentives such as vehicles and things of that nature you start to cross into the hazey line of commerce. Now we could go into various grey areas and say "You know what, that is alright" but then we come to the issue of vehicles being taken from another game and then sold...in that case it doesn't matter if it is a donation, it is the commerce of a stolen good.

Edited November 14, 2014 by NodUnit

[gysgt_mel 1]

Those cars that are in the donation shop can't be obtained in-game unless you buy it from another player. There are events where they give donation vehicles as prizes but thats about it. blue I will provide screenshots of your actual mod files with those textures. I sadly deleted all CL files so I do not have access to them.

[nodunit 397]

The more I think on the city mod the more I wonder, is this really worth bothering ourselves over.

Lets face it, we'd rather be tinkering in our workshops that dealing with this mess. If these communities want to sell stolen assets from other games fine, that is their and the IP owners business, we can notify the owners but there is no point in pursuing it further really. We do nothing but waste our own time in hunting down evidence for all the stolen content everyone has ever done...here on our own little forums with explicit rules it is different, but going out there to actively hunt down mods is another thing.

Fact is people who take content from other games are as old as OFP itself, its going to happen wether we like it or not, and it is not our duty to waste our time confronting them with it.

This all started because of Arma 3 life but I have to wonder what the agenda REALLY is, why is A3life getting such a huge response when something like this is more "meh" and its simple.

It is the same reason we go on manhunts for people that take the works of others without any credit on these forums, because its the same thing...they took content without bothering to ask, something as simple as a quick PM that could have stopped all of this from the start. It exploded, content multiplied, so many of us began to feel uncomfortable or threatened.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to defend your work regardless of what nick names you will be called for it, regardless of it being released on the internet, but this does not fall into that case, Asylum and CL3 may have questionable systems set up via their donations. However, if BI says its alright then fine, technicly they have said the same about A3L right now but we still press on, why? Clearly there is more to it than simple "monetization", wether we care to admit it or not.

Edited November 14, 2014 by NodUnit

[maddogx 13]

There is going to be a zero tolerance policy on any kind of flaming / flamebaiting / trolling in these threads, starting now. Anyone who can't keep this discussion factual, sensible and on-topic will find themselves infracted and unable to post here.

Some warnings / infractions and thread-bans have already been issued accordingly.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Iike nod I believe this is down to the original content authors to decide upon.,and deal with accordingly.

If they take legal action. City life., or whom ever is in violations will face the consequences. Anyone that was dumb enough to pay to play on one of these servers clearly are there for the taking, and it won't stop with a city life game. that again is their own problem.

As already said. This is nothing new. And the problem derives from the people willing to pay creating a reason to do it. It just seems more severe now because the newer members to the arma game are used to being swindled by cod and other such franchises to have a shiny new horse or pink shoes.

[themistercat 11]

So we're just going to ignore the issue because it does not affect us much? We're just going to sit back and watch them steal peoples hard work? Whether it's worth the effort or not, I would like to think that the ArmA community would stand up for whats right. That is all *Fly's away*

[nuxil 2]

So we're just going to ignore the issue because it does not affect us much? We're just going to sit back and watch them steal peoples hard work? Whether it's worth the effort or not, I would like to think that the ArmA community would stand up for whats right. That is all *Fly's away*

Did the OP make this thread in a rush without researcing facts a bit?

Has anyone solid evidence that CL3 has voilated some sort of copyright/lisence agreements ?

Has anyone real proof that CL3 stole any code/addons/models etc ?

Until this is proven. this thread is rather pointless.

Only thing that can be put into a question is the donation shop.

But all items are availeble ingame without donating as easteregges. event etc.

You are also not required to be a donor to join the server or to get faster into the server.

[Sooke 13]

Before throwing such serious accusation you need solid evidences.

Innocent until proven guitly applies here too.

If you have a real proof of addon theft, contact the author and try to sort it out in private with the involved parties and BIS if needed.

This forum isn't the the right place to throw allegations like these and be used as a public trial.

What started has a legit action could quickly turn into a witch hunt and do more harm to this community than the addon theft itself.

[nodunit 397]

So we're just going to ignore the issue because it does not affect us much? We're just going to sit back and watch them steal peoples hard work? Whether it's worth the effort or not, I would like to think that the ArmA community would stand up for whats right. That is all *Fly's away*

It is different when its something "close to home", we're comparing addon makers, people that do these things for free in their spare time to assets created by a large company.

One of them made it out of necessity and got paid to do it, there isn't nearly as personal of a tie there as there is to an addon maker.

That is why A3L is being pursued so fervently, because it hit close to home where as this at best has taken stuff made my companies that probably don't give a toss (otherwise groups such as Area 51 would have been shut down long ago).

And where does it end? Do we go pursuing EVERYONE for every ounce of stolen content ever? The majority of the companies either won't reply and more likely won't care, they have bigger things to worry about.

Do we go around accusing everyone with something similar of having stolen this from somewhere, do we spend countless hours looking for proof to do....what exactly?

Call them thieves and at best report them to the IP holder? Do the IP holders work for them when they have a much larger and more well trained team?

Edited November 14, 2014 by NodUnit

[GSP167 1]

Did the OP make this thread in a rush without researcing facts a bit?

Has anyone solid evidence that CL3 has voilated some sort of copyright/lisence agreements ?

Has anyone real proof that CL3 stole any code/addons/models etc ?

Until this is proven. this thread is rather pointless.

Only thing that can be put into a question is the donation shop.

But all items are availeble ingame without donating as easteregges. event etc.

You are also not required to be a donor to join the server or to get faster into the server.

I agree. I'm not gonna jump on the train against CL3. The only thing I see them doing wrong is perhaps the shop, other then than everything is perfectly fine with them. I'm sure a simple email from BI to them would resolve a lot of issues since they seem to be more mature and civilised than A3L owners.

EDIT: My post was reported D: what now.

Edited November 21, 2014 by GSP167

[ShastaRoF 10]

I wouldn't call what CL3 has done really "for profit" they have some good looking content, and they have just a couple servers. This seems to be borderline "witchhunting". There staff has put together a ton of great shit, and they probably have a couple thousands bucks split amongst a handful of guys working 40+ hours a week. That seems pretty fair to me.

[Alex-X-xSQ 10]

this is why all the life missions, are from kids, for kids... Kids just don't give a damn they do...

[MINKA 14]

Wow another mess...

Ohkay lets get started then..

City Life RPG 3 uses models ported over from Forza 4 and Forza Horizon using a russian website that has a very large 'dump'/'collection' of vehicles. And us as arma developers MAY in fact port and release these vehicles under FAIR USE(Read up on MS' ToS). And as we can all agree in both CL and A3L's cases, is not the case due to the 'commercial' status of obtaining some of these files for use.

I will however ask him about this but as far as I can see from a quick Google search Forza Horizon's cars are way out of the ARMA 3 game engine league and the time one would spend reducing it you may of well make it from blue prints

When you say "Out of ARMA 3 game engine league" I assume you speak of the high poly models. Stupid games aside, You and I both know this is not the case, As Object Builder has a BUILT IN feature to proxy out selections(For non-devs: You can drastically reduce poly count without loss of quality via Proxy Models which act as 'attachments' in a case for vehicles);

http://i.gyazo.com/c4c484bf07947859b049817d684d6465.png (120 kB) - Object Builder interior LOD of a Cadillac Escalade from Horza Horizon. Originally was 80k-90k faces. Is now 18k faces with no loss of quality. But where is the interior in object builder?

http://i.gyazo.com/75bf3d4c7c07653b685b54d13a5b7c15.png (340 kB) - There is what the model really looks like in game! Looks a lot better than Object Builder huh?

http://i.gyazo.com/fa829da205bafdd17e107bd2281cb07f.png (191 kB) - Same as above, But on the 0.00 LOD(visual), Three is no glass, no interiort or undercarriage in object builder.

http://i.gyazo.com/8f637710844645ebdd1c17b7a813d595.png (301 kB) - But yet again, The in game view is a lot better!

I encourage users to look around on their own means to find out what I am speaking of, Out of respect for the rules of this forum, I will not directly link these resources. If and when you find these resources I also ask that you compare them to the CL3 vehicles, And have evidence for yourself that CL3 use Forza cars. I will iterate that this itself is not a bad thing, But when certain vehicles are only available upon purchase, That breaks the FAIR USE policy, which I also ask that you read into to find out more about these policies.

To be fair on City Life, Their services that they rent are not cheap, From what I understand they reach above a thousand at times, So they have to make money some how. But I wouldnt say that charging people for the work of other people isnt very fair(or legal) either. There are obvious legality issues concerning this, But people need to see the real picture:

A) Bohemia Interactive wont support these movements, ever, if history is anything to go by.

B) Forza's development/publishing studios wont take legal action as City Life doesnt make enough money for a lawsuit to be worth it.

C) City Life wont stop using these cars, Neither will A3L, Or any other life mod to come. And any yield life mods get from this, Wouldnt even be enough to start a lawsuit against BIS.

The least city life could do is not flame people whenever some other server uses 'their' mods. It is very hypocritical. And before a CL3 dev comes and says "we no use forza carzzz", Yes, you do. I ported the Range Rover from Forza 4 and compared it next to 'your' one. Model quality was identical, as was the model features. I will download the CL3_Wheeled.pbo again and do a comparison if you wish. Will take a while though, Aussie internet is bad.

/rant

Edited January 21, 2015 by MINKA

[armatech 8]

AGAIN

all vehicle we use we have permission for if the location we got permissions from is using Forza 4 vehicles its not our issue if MS emails use asking to remove them we will inform them where we got permissions and pass on the email that stated we can use them in our closed community.

The only time a copyright from Forza 4 has been broken is when stupid people steal our pbos and then publish them saying they did the work.

The tigger to your rant was the skype chat so by ranting you support people stealing other communities content nice to know who you really are

[MINKA 14]

AGAIN

all vehicle we use we have permission for if the location we got permissions from is using Forza 4 vehicles its not our issue if MS emails use asking to remove them we will inform them where we got permissions and pass on the email that stated we can use them in our closed community.

The only time a copyright from Forza 4 has been broken is when stupid people steal our pbos and then publish them saying they did the work.

The tigger to your rant was the skype chat so by ranting you support people stealing other communities content nice to know who you really are

Care to provide us evidence of said "permission" to make profits/donations from these vehicles so that we can rest this case? My thoughts are that more than 1 company are involved in said permission gathering, as City Life, both in past and present, are not solely dependant on Forza's vehicles.

I was not trying to start beef, but simply poke holes in the statement which suggested that Forza's models are 'out of arma 3 engine league'.

Also, I believe you have me confused for somebody else(?) I am comfortable with porting my own cars(as you could see), And I have the utmost respect for the effort that developers, CL3 especially, put into making their content.