I would just contact a lawyer if it actually bugs you and you can pay the initial fee if there is one.
Iâve asked for my mods to be removed from their site and will update this forum if I get a response. They were supposed to be exclusive to flightsim.to so that I could maintain them / control the releases and provide a better experience for users. I can understand why another site would choose to steal other sitesâ content to improve their hit rates and line their own pockets but this isnât ethical.
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If you were absolutely clear that you gave exclusive rights to Flightsim.to then if I was you I would contact them first and discuss it with them to see what their opinion is and then take it from there.
As regards future mods could you not put any copyright info in the main program to be shown by pressing a key and locking the program down with a key combination i.e. employ some form of software protection.
Either way if you enjoy producing addons to stop now would be a bit self defeating for you and following through on legal steps can be quite costly and aggravating. If it was me, I would try and see it as an unfortunate learning experience and try and sort it in a way that doesnât give you a load of aggro whatever that is.
I would think there is a kind attourney on this forum somewhere that would do this pro bono for the sake of the community. Maybe just an official-looking, threatening cease-and-desist letter? This really is stealing and it totally stinks! I wonder where in the world this site is based but I will be more than happy to join a boycott.
Redeye
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from a legal perspective it doesnât matter if you charge for your work or not. Its still intellectual property. That being said, doing something about it is a totally different animal. If you really wanted to pursue it then I think your first course of action would be to submit a cease and desist through an attorney to have the intellectual property removed from unauthorized sites. Actually litigating it would be a tremendous undertaking and require a lot of money.
In short, all it would do is remove exposure of your mod to users who donât use the site you intended. But thatâs your choice as the developer. I think you have every right to decide what happens to your property. But I think taking it as a complement and moving on is the best course of action to reduce your stress on the situation.
Iâm sorry people steal things. Unfortunately its just the nature of the beast. If you sold the product to a company with financial resources and the income was worth it to them, they would certainly litigate it.
im down with community boycott allflightmods, them and msfsaddons kinda suck in my opinion
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Unfortunately, retaining legal advice exposes an attorney to malpractice. Most attorneys will not provide advice or free services unless you enter into a pro bono agreement with them. Unlikely unless you find someone with friends or family connection or through a pro bono network.
The domain is hosted by https://tucowsdomains.com/ which appears to be Canadian so you stand a good chance of getting the domain taken down, the owner appear to live in Latvia so not much you can do there.
The server 163.172.33.204 is located in France and is run by Dedicated server: from âŹ4.99 ex. VAT/month | Scaleway so it should not be to difficult to get them shut down.
They appear to be stealing mods for a lot of other games as well, such as euro truck simulator 2, american truck simulator, dying light, farming simulator, fallout 4, mud runner and a whole bunch more.
Try a DMCA request, if that fails to get any response then try get the domain and server taken down, preferably you want to get as many people as possible complaining.
For reference here is a list of domains running on the server:
allflightmods.com
bestatsmods.com
booztgames.com
dyinglight2mods.com
ets2france.com
farming17mods.com
farming2017mod.com
farmingsim2017.com
l2kill.com
modsats.com
modsfallout4.com
modswows.com
mudrunner2mods.com
mudrunnermods.com
pf2018mods.com
rfsmods.com
scrapmechanicmod.com
sims4modding.com
sims5mods.com
snowrunnermods.com
stardewvalleymod.com
trainsimmods.com
trovemods.com
zaidimupasaulis.com
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is like msfsaddons, they re-use mods without creditsâŠ
I kind of agree but the reality is these days, this happens because of money. Download sites are commonly built to harvest small amounts of money from each click. So while things might appear to still be free, someone is making money from it without the appropriate consent.
Further, the download contains modified content which belongs to Microsoft / Asobo. So, while the mod is âfreewareâ the original file is something we have to pay for and all rights in that regard belong to Microsoft.
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I looked into it before. The best bet would be with the domain registrars because Scaleway ignore DMCAs and just pass them on to the person running the site, then they just ignore them.
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Surprisingly I saw my mod on there with credits. Didnât give permission in any way but I was surprised to see credits thereâŠ
doesnât make it ethical tho.
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We need to contact the hosting provider!
Iâm from Flightsim.to. Unfortunately, allflightmods doesnât care at all. As previously mentioned, they run an entire network of ripping game contents, also for other games. We already contacted the hosting provider, which in this case is Scaleway, but they closed several abuse requests with a simple excuse:
Itâs funny, because we actually certified under penalty of perjury that the information contained in the abuse notification is both true and accurate, and we have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved. We donât submit DMCAs without asking the creators first. As far as I know, no one ever received a answer when contacting them directly.
We also contacted OVH, their hosting provider for the files (shared on dl-file.com, which also belongs to their network). The abuse is still pending, but I donât expect appropriate action either.
Besides that, weâre regularly banning IP-addresses, as we can keep track of suspicious behavior for downloading files. However, that doesnât help that much either, since they simply use different VPNs each time. Even watermarks on the images are simply cut out, even if the result looks weird and ugly as f*ck.
Best you can do
- If youâre using Flightsim.to to share your mods, please make sure to enable the âOnly members can downloadâ checkbox. This makes it easier for us to track and ban those content rippers.
- Include your credits in the uploaded file! As far as we know, they are ripping files without even looking whatâs inside. They even uploaded NSFW+ content thinking it was a livery. Create a âReadMe.txtâ or âby Username.txtâ and mention where you uploaded it originally and mention that any download from any other source than the original file is untrusted, illegal and not supported.
Take action now!
If youâre a creator and your mod is shared on this website without your permission, please immediately take action and report this behavior to Scaleway and OVH.
Scaleway: https://abuse.scaleway.com with their server IP address: 163.172.33.204
OVH: OVH with their server IP address: 144.217.183.17
Both companies are based outside the US, so thereâs no need to file a accurate DMCA report. The more reports, the more likely they will finally act and shut down the site! Please only submit abuse if youâre legitimate owner of the copyrights of your file. Hereâs a template of what an abuse could look like. Remember to replace whatâs in brackets [..].
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am contacting you because the website [allflightmods.com or dl-file.com] - hosted on your servers, IP address mentioned above - is infringing on at least one copyright owned by me and did not take appropriate action upon contacting them directly. The unauthorized and infringing copies of my intellectual property can be found at:
(1) [Link 1]
(2) [LInk 2]These files are shared without my permission. The original file(s), to which I own the exclusive copyrights, can be found at:
(1) [Link 1]
(2) [Link 2]As mentioned above, the website owner â your customer â failed to take appropriate action and ignored every kind of contact attempt. Several mails remained unanswered by your customer.
I seek the removal of the infringing material from your servers. I request that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to your server in the future. Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving this notice.
I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable belief that my rights are being infringed. Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.
Best Regards,
[Your Name]
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Like children, OMG. Do what you like, do what people like. And donât make weird posts - itâs the Internet. I am thankful to all moders, but I donât like copyright idiocy. IMHO, of course.
Sorry to hear that there some people who just thinking about the money and not respect any makersâŠ
Any chance you can protect there files at least against the interference of others?
Thx for your work, I really enjoyed this mod. Regards
Folks,
Iâll be closing this thread as this is not the forum to be discussing ownership disputes between third party websites and your addons.
The only guidance I can give you here is to be cautious in what addon you choose to download from third party re-uploads - scan and verify the file is safe to use.
All the best.
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