I know this forum is for non-BYOND topics, but I really couldn't figure out where I would put a topic like this, this one seemed like the only one that would be right. Anyways, I don't know how others feel about this, but I feel that this is wrong. I have lately been seeing a lot of games stolen from the maker and the thieves hosting them. (The most common game I see is Dragon Warrior Legacy.) I know that some of you will say, "It's not stealing, I'm just hosting it!" Well, if the game wasn't put out to be downloadable, then if you get a copy, it's called stealing, unless you get it from the designer him/herself and she/he gives you permission to host it. I know personally, that I would be really ticked off if I spent a lot of time making a game, and I went onto Dream Seeker and saw someone else hosting my game and they gave themselves Master GM powers. And that is the most common case that I see. So, I guess you can put in your thoughts about this subject. And maybe we can end up doing something about all this game stealing.
Thanks.
BigDaddy
ID:190003
 Apr 5 2003, 5:29 am
|
|
I think you need to be clearer on whether these people are actually stealing the games, or in fact just hosting.
When you publish a game by putting it up for download on the hub, you're implicitly giving everyone permission to host it; you might restrict hosting to subscribers or something, but basically that's about it. However if you're talking about a game whose source has been taken and recompiled, then yes, that's code theft. Of course, this is pretty much only possible if the author of the game is dumb enough to share their code with the wrong people in the first place, so it comes down to judgment. For that reason, a lot of people simply don't care about code theft unless the copycat games are overwhelming the live games list--though now they only overwhelm the unpublished games list. Lummox JR | |
Some people have the idea that there's no problem with giving source code out to people you trust. Problem is, most people don't realize just how little they can trust their friends.
Bottom line, don't give your source code out, ever. | |
Bottom line, don't give your source code out, ever. That about sums it up. Unless you really don't care whether your code gets copied, distributed, altered, and so forth, the best thing you can do is not give it to anyone. | |
I understand that you shouldn't give out your source code. But if you give out the ability for someone to host a version, then they give it away because you got in a fight or something, then that person hosts it and hacks their savefile to make them Master GM and take all the special icons. Then hack all their friends save files to make them GM's. In my opinion, that is stealing. And that is usually what I see happenening.
| |
Icon stealing via .rsc files is a different, and is the bigger issue. The actual games being stolen is almost 100% of the time the maker's fault. The icon (maps also, but kind of useless to have them unless you have the game itself, which then you would already have the map which would make it useless once again.) stealing is the only real thing we need to worry about (though I don't.).