RERE posting content to Steam Workshop without permission

[Feint 137]

So I was alerted to some of my content (Paddle Mod) being posted to the Steam Workshop by a user named RERE without my permission.  When I investigated further, I noticed that he had posted additional content from a lot of other users including:

 

(me) Feint (Paddle Mod) - taken down a few days after I flagged it

Gnat (Cessna Skywagon addon)

Flay (HangGlider addon)

RichardsD & ruPal (MTRV)

Ohally (T-10 static line parachute)

Mr Burns (MRB - Kartiniator)

Randomslap & mukcep (C-17 Globemaster)

 

 

 

This fellow is a real piece of work.  Here's regularly posting angry comments about how outdated he thinks the addons that he's ripping off are, regularly uses racial slurs when yelling at commenters who ask where he got the addons or why something doesn't work...  Here's his response to posting work he didn't create:

 

"(Incase the one stupid ♥♥♥♥ that keeps putting comments down saying I stole this, no ♥♥♥♥, its a port.. and I never claimed I made it, ♥♥♥♥ing ♥♥♥♥♥) 
Anyway, somebody was bound to do it eventually. Guess i'm the only person who doesn't wuss out when it comes to porting this kind of stuff... don't complain, because you know you wanted it... "

 

And his recent response to me directly:

RERE  [author] 3 hours ago 

N****r I don't care lol ifnhe don't want it posted on the workshop by somebody else he shoulda done it himself 

 

If you are any of these content authors and your work has been posted without your permission, I recommend you reach out to this person and ask them to take down your work and flag it through Steam (which is the only way I believe it was taken down because he never responded to any of my comments and I couldn't PM him).  I've included the links that I could find. 

 

EDIT: Here's another user teddy268 who has been posting other people's content without permission.  

[Macser 776]

I recommend you reach out to this person 

 

I think the only reason they'd want to reach out, is to wring his neck.   :)

[DAGGER ARMANET 172]

Sorry to hear that Feint. Love your work. Raven uav is da best eva. Either way hope this guy gets owned somehow in life

[ineptaphid 6413]

i have hidden one ir two of the more abusive posts in this thread-let's keep it civil.

 

I know it is hard-I have come across this guy as well-the quote feint has given was directed at me-I keep reporting him and telling as many mod makers whos work he has stolen.

[dunedain 48]

Is there no way to remove WS privileges from these people? The WS is an awesome tool, but people keep abusing it because there don't seem to be much consequences there. You can be locked out of the market features as well as your inventory if you are caught cheating or scamming. Developers can issue game bans at their own discretion. It's odd that nothing can be done against people who just won't follow the rules on the Workshop.

[haleks 8212]

What dunedain said!

 

Any system leaving room for abuses should have the means to punish frauds and warn its users against said abuses.

Half those guys on the WS seem to ignore how licenses work, the other half simply don't give a damn... This is such a waste of time & energy for everyone...

[Greenfist 1863]

Half those guys on the WS seem to ignore how licenses work, the other half simply don't give a damn... This is such a waste of time & energy for everyone...

Many of them, that guy included, just don't understand that they can't upload other people's work. They honestly think they're doing the community a favour:

 

(Incase the one stupid ♥♥♥♥ that keeps putting comments down saying I stole this, no ♥♥♥♥, its a port.. and I never claimed I made it, ♥♥♥♥ing ♥♥♥♥♥)

 

Steam and BI publishing tools should at least have a clear notice saying "You can only upload shit you made yourself! Violators will be prosecuted! No, seriously, you'll be shot at dawn." in horse-sized fiery red letters, and not just a tiny "Do you agree with the license nobody has ever read" checkbox.

[PuFu 4600]

@feint:
since i am well accustomed to the person of this type pushing content they have no IP rights for on the steam, and as i see myself forced to take down about 5-7 uploads per week, let me give you some advice:
1. do not just flag, DMCA it (press the flag button then go to the "here" link lower corner). or go directly here: https://steamcommunity.com/dmca/create/and fill it an submit it.
2. current steam community agreement doesn't allow anyone but the original creator to upload content on SW, since Valve requires the Ip owner to share indefinitely all its ip rights with Valve.
from here: http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

6. USER GENERATED CONTENT

A. General Provisions

"User Generated Content" means any content you make available to other users through your use of multi-user features of Steam, or to Valve or its affiliates through your use of the Content and Services or otherwise.

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and publicly perform, your User Generated Content, and derivative works of your User Generated Content, in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site. This license is granted to Valve for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights and may be terminated if Valve is in breach of the license and has not cured such breach within fourteen (14) days from receiving notice from you sent to the attention of the Valve Legal Department at the applicable Valve address noted on this Privacy Policy page. The termination of said license does not affect the rights of any sub-licensees pursuant to any sub-license granted by Valve prior to termination of the license. Valve is the sole owner of the derivative works created by Valve from your Content, and is therefore entitled to grant licenses on these derivative works. If you use Valve cloud storage, you grant us a license to store your information as part of that service. Valve may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

If you provide Valve with any feedback or suggestions about Steam, the Content and Services, or any Valve products or services, Valve is free to use the feedback or suggestions however it chooses, without any obligation to account to you.
 
D. Representations and Warranties

You represent and warrant to us that you have sufficient rights in all User Generated Content to grant Valve and other affected parties the licenses described under A. and B. above or in any license terms specific to the applicable Workshop-Enabled App or Workshop page. This includes, without limitation, any kind of intellectual property rights or other proprietary or personal rights affected by or included in the User Generated Content. In particular, with respect to Workshop Contributions, you represent and warrant that the Workshop Contribution was originally created by you (or, with respect to a Workshop Contribution to which others contributed besides you, by you and the other contributors, and in such case that you have the right to submit such Workshop Contribution on behalf of those other contributors).

You furthermore represent and warrant that the User Generated Content, your submission of that Content, and your granting of rights in that Content does not violate any applicable contract, law or regulation.

 

DMCA is something Valve needs to comply to. Since you are the original author, the uploader is forced to take it down or valve does it for you. 

TLDR: go directly for the DMCA, not for the flagging thing, it is much more effective. There is no reason to politely ask anyone to do it, it's a waste of time and energy. I think i filled over 250 DMCAs over the last year period. 100% of it was taken down between 1h and 5 days

Edited April 18, 2016 by R0adki11
removed foul language

[war_lord 934]

Yeah, don't bother asking nicely, just DMCA, the thought of lawyers getting involved lights a fire under Valve's arse. Valve aren't going to do anything themselves to prevent this, because it's much cheaper to allow a Wild West situation then to spend time and money enforcing rules.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

Me post got hidden due to a bad word! Bloody Aussies and their terrible vocab!

 

Anyway, if he doesn't want to negotiate you're just going to go in guns blazing pretty much. 

[hnchmc 125]

I had noticed this guy a few weeks back. Didn't know who to contact, and ended up sending a PM to Dwarden as that was who someone had told me to send the issue to. I hope all of this gets resolved! (He seems to be pretty toxic.)

 

EDIT: Does anyone else think his "RICKSHAW PORTING PROGRAM" sounds like "Ripoff porting program"?

[Feint 137]

@feint:

since i am well accustomed to the person of this type pushing content they have no IP rights for on the steam, and as i see myself forced to take down about 5-7 uploads per week, let me give you some advice:

1. do not just flag, DMCA it (press the flag button then go to the "here" link lower corner). or go directly here: https://steamcommunity.com/dmca/create/and fill it an submit it.

2. current steam community agreement doesn't allow anyone but the original creator to upload content on SW, since Valve requires the Ip owner to share indefinitely all its ip rights with Valve.

from here: http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

6. USER GENERATED CONTENT

A. General Provisions

"User Generated Content" means any content you make available to other users through your use of multi-user features of Steam, or to Valve or its affiliates through your use of the Content and Services or otherwise.

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and publicly perform, your User Generated Content, and derivative works of your User Generated Content, in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site. This license is granted to Valve for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights and may be terminated if Valve is in breach of the license and has not cured such breach within fourteen (14) days from receiving notice from you sent to the attention of the Valve Legal Department at the applicable Valve address noted on this Privacy Policy page. The termination of said license does not affect the rights of any sub-licensees pursuant to any sub-license granted by Valve prior to termination of the license. Valve is the sole owner of the derivative works created by Valve from your Content, and is therefore entitled to grant licenses on these derivative works. If you use Valve cloud storage, you grant us a license to store your information as part of that service. Valve may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

If you provide Valve with any feedback or suggestions about Steam, the Content and Services, or any Valve products or services, Valve is free to use the feedback or suggestions however it chooses, without any obligation to account to you.

 

D. Representations and Warranties

You represent and warrant to us that you have sufficient rights in all User Generated Content to grant Valve and other affected parties the licenses described under A. and B. above or in any license terms specific to the applicable Workshop-Enabled App or Workshop page. This includes, without limitation, any kind of intellectual property rights or other proprietary or personal rights affected by or included in the User Generated Content. In particular, with respect to Workshop Contributions, you represent and warrant that the Workshop Contribution was originally created by you (or, with respect to a Workshop Contribution to which others contributed besides you, by you and the other contributors, and in such case that you have the right to submit such Workshop Contribution on behalf of those other contributors).

You furthermore represent and warrant that the User Generated Content, your submission of that Content, and your granting of rights in that Content does not violate any applicable contract, law or regulation.

 

DMCA is something Valve needs to comply to. Since you are the original author, the uploader is forced to take it down or valve does it for you. 

TLDR: go directly for the DMCA, not for the flagging thing, it is much more effective. There is no reason to politely ask anyone to do it, it's a waste of time and energy. I think i filled over 250 DMCAs over the last year period. 100% of it was taken down between 1h and 5 days

Great advice!  Thanks.

Edited April 18, 2016 by R0adki11
removed quoted foul language

[willithappen 194]

@PuFu Thats some good advice, real pain in the ass thats the only way to get valve to react.

If only BIS had people that could ban workshop access to ArmA 3 content so this could be stopped.

[hnchmc 125]

I am actually surprised that Valve doesn't allow game creators to dedicate moderators to the game's workshop. It makes perfect sense in my eyes, as it's less work for Valve to do as they obviously don't want to moderate tens of thousands of workshop items for hundreds of games. Shame though. I hope this all gets resolved, and perhaps be an example of what happens when things are ripped off and put on the steam workshop.