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[Rogue]

Originally Posted by Frodo

I already told you. He steals reviews and walkthroughs that are written by AB people for use on AB (as well as stealing them from many other sources. Don't know about anyone else, but I never game him permission to use my reviews and walkthroughs. He has abandonware AND freeware games. And he charges for all of that.

AB removes links when requested. This guy does not. And how can you justify his charging for freeware games?

He is not selling the games, so there is a difference. He is selling his services, as if you check his site get's a lot of traffic. (of course, not enough for him to charge that much, but...)

Have you checked main site??? (www.mosw.com)


But you are missing one point I tried to make. AB offering screenshots and games is less legal then the site which copied reviews from an illegal site, and does NOT have any game files on his servers.

Amiga kickstarts are copyrighted, I know for couple of sites that are shut down because they offered kickstarts for downloads. Check what his site states for amiga kickstart images.

Now, just ask Amiga Inc. what they did to protect their IP.

[Eagle of Fire]

Abandonia and Abandonware in general is not illegal. It's simply not legal.

"Huh?" I hear you say?

Abandonware is inside a grey area of the law which never truely been investigated in the vast majority of the world. Until a worldwide concensus about this happen, Abandonware is not illegal but those who have the copyright rights have all rights to ask for contents to be removed from someone who is using it against their will. This "policing" business usually is made by the companies themselves, and it is the reason why ESA been created. ESA is, in fact, the grouping of a lot of companies who wish to protect their copyright rights and pay a single specialised company to do the work for them.

So stop trying to make us feel bad because "OMG, Abandonia is illegal!". Everybody knows, nobody care.

Back to the subject, the leecher... If the site in question was offering to be paid to give out links all around the WWW for the games the users are looking for, then link to the site or the review in question... Then there would be no problems at all. Not only that, but it would be plainly legal because the guy, like you said, would be offering his service in return of a payment.

What is happening here, however, is not the case. The guy ask for money supposedly for his own bandwith, then direct link to the files but from other sites without ever mentioning the review, the site direct linked to or even ask the webmaster of the leached site if he agrees. It's a scam, pure and simple. Both way.

How many people a week do you think would actually pay for this "service" if it was explained to them that the site they are paying to is actually only linking to reviews of another site which offer the game free of charge? Do you think a lot of people would actually bother to pay the first site when they understand that they would have found what they were looking for without having to pay anything here simply by using a search engine? Which they probably already did, but were unfortunate enough to click on the scammer link first. There is ways to get listed first in search engines, and that's actualy easy. You can bet such scammers do their best to achieve just that to catch as many fish in their net as they can.

[Rogue]

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire

Abandonia and Abandonware in general is not illegal. It's simply not legal.

:laugh:

I was looking for something for signature, this looks awesome. Do I need your approval to place this in my signature?? (That is not illegal, just it is simply not legal :nuts: )

LOL

If you knew me better you'll know that I'm not trying to make you feel bad. All I'm doing is stating the facts.

EDIT: Couple of years ago we had similar discussion at EAB about that site. Reason is that today from 2 sites you can have almost all Amiga games, and that guy is selling his services. Nothing you can do about that... there are still people who are Google-illiterate...

[Frodo]

Rogue, you are very eager to defend this guy. Are you working for him? Does he pay you a share of his profits?

The simple fact is that he is stealing bandwith and charging people to download freeware and abandonware games. That is theft!

AB offers abandoned games free of charge, that's true. But they remove link when asked to. AB does NOT steal bandwith, or charge for anything.

[Rogue]

Frodo,

would I recommend a way to stop his use of bandwidth if I work for him? The easiest way is to disable access for everyone whose ref is his site. (easily can be done, it might be already applied - nor sure)

Also I'm sure that Kosta has some sort of anti-leech in the place.

So there is only your review that is stolen, but I don't think that you'll be able to do much about it. Same as I can't do anything if someone copy my reply to you.

Don't get mad. Abandonia removing ESA protected or still sold games has nothing to do with this.

[Japo]

Well I think we already came to the conclusion that this guy can't probably be put out of business. And I think we also agree that this guy is a scumbag. But the only question is whether Abadonia will do something to prevent the leeching, because it's clearly possible and the leecher can't be wished away nor sued.

[Frodo]

Rogue, it's not only about stealing reviews. As I have said before, it's about charging to download freeware games and abandonware games.

I'm not mad. I just don't understand why you defend this guy's actions.

[Adamg]

Come on guys, let's calm down. None of us like guys like that or people like him. We all agree something should be done to limit rip-offs and bandwidth theft. There is probably some form of anti-leeching in place already on Abandonia. The question is, how effective is it, and what more can be done?

[Kugerfang]

Originally Posted by Rogue

Have you checked main site??? (www.mosw.com)

lawl. :laugh:

Why don't you contact the authorities? (FBI)