Please stop copying Starfighter.

[DrewFX]

It has come to my attention that there are suppliers and then resellers out there selling my game Starfighter:D'Yammen's Reign illegally.  As I have never given out the copyright, except for Islona Games in 1999/2000 it cannot be reproduced and sold without my consent - not for charity or anything.

I am currently investigating several resellers and suppliers who have been doing this, so please help out and report any other instance you may have seen.

I have a good idea many Amiga suppliers visit these pages, some of whom are selling Starfighter.  If you know of any, or are one please let me know.

I think it's only fair that I reclaim any profits made with the sale of this game since 2000.

For everyone else - it's now free!  Please grab it from here...
http://www.drewfx.com

There is support here...
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=31169

[Hans_]

It's a pity that you have to deal with this. I hope that you can get these people shutdown. One way to help that is to advertise the free download as much as possible.

Hans

[DrewFX]

Yes I should advertise as much as possible.  Can people suggest other popular Amiga forums I could post to?  I figured this was the most popular being Amiga.org.

[Hans_]

Most people on the other sites probably visit this one too occasionally. It's already been posted as a news item at amigans.net (with a link to your thread here). There's also amigaworld.net which is more geared toward Amiga OS 4.0, but there'll still be people interested in starfighter.

You could also try morphzone.org. It's about Morphos, not Amiga OS, but it's an Amiga OS 3.x compatible OS, so they're also Amiga enthusiasts. Finally, there's aros-exec.org for AROS, which is also based on the Amiga OS API (but not binary compatible).

I can't think of any other places.

Hans

[coldfish]

I can understand your frustration, in principle.

But you do have to wonder if its worth the effort to stop the few remaining Amiga sellers around from selling an item they probably make only a few bucks (if that) from per year?

[weirdami]

@coldfish

Any bux is bad bucks. It adds up, too, across all their other illegal activities. Too bad now, though, that those people, when confronted, will say that they are free to distribute it because it's been released by the author. Until then, they'll keep on pirating and saying stuff like "the author never contacted me so I thought it was abandonware". Lame.

@DrewFX

Did you make it a news item here?

[coldfish]

@weirdami

Yep, I agree.  It's still a waste of time though.

[LoadWB]

coldfish wrote:
@weirdami

Yep, I agree.  It's still a waste of time though.

I know many people who thought that way until it happened to them.

Drew may be able to stop the eBay sales by sending proper DMCA notices.  I don't know how copyright notices work on the other side of the pond in civilization, but in the US at least it could be put to some good use.

If I see any on eBay I'll be happy to submit a copyright violation notice.

[DrewFX]

The thing is, why should other people be making money out of my game?  That's why I released it for free, to stop them.  Sure there will be a few more sales, but hopefully I have stemmed the tide.

On the ebay front, I have alerted Ebay about 3 people but I don't think their piracy email system works because I keep getting robotic email replies.

I have also found a distributor and I am auditing them (hopefully).  

It's not really been a waste of time so far, and it's my money.  I don't care if it's 50 bucks - it's mine, not theirs.  So it's basically stealing from me.

Regarding the news item - no I haven't posted it yet.

Thanks for the links, Hans.

I have contacted all of the ebayers, one gave up their source, another said it was going to charity and they contact all the developers before selling it - didn't contact me - and the other one is on the lamb.  Kinda fun doing the detective work

[weirdami]

@DrewFX

I hope their charity is the broke programmers fund. ;-)

[Damion]

Here is one guy selling it.  

In my particular case, the seller sold mostly CDs and DVDs, and genuinely wasn't aware that most (all?) of the software was unlicensed. This "UK Software" scam outfit is probably telling their retailers it's legit.

Ya know... pirating someone else's work is one thing (and I say all things in moderation), but SELLING pirated work should be a guaranteed ticket to hell, LOL.

[coldfish]

Ok, emotional/irrational arguments aside.

Seeing as its now -free- software, what's to stop me burning it to disk and selling it for the -cost- of the CD-R, jewel case, printing, postage, packaging + 20minutes of my time?

I cant believe you guys are so precious about ~10 year old software on a dead (market wise) platform.

 :crazy:

[keropi]

coldfish wrote:
Ok, emotional/irrational arguments aside.

Seeing as its now -free- software, what's to stop me burning it to disk and selling it for the -cost- of the CD-R, jewel case, printing, postage, packaging + 20minutes of my time?

I cant believe you guys are so precious about ~10 year old software on a dead (market wise) platform.

 :crazy:

that is a personal POV, and with YOUR work you can do whatever you want. you have ABSOLUTELLY NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to judge how other people feel and act regarding THEIR work. and because it is NOW a free game, it does not mean that it must be sold for 7 years without the author getting his share, no matter how small, or knowing about the sale or give permission to sale.

[odin]

The point is that there are people making a PROFIT on it, not just a few bucks for media.

[Angus]

coldfish wrote:
@weirdami

Yep, I agree.  It's still a waste of time though.

No its not.

Its a "feel" thing. DrewFX feels its wrong that people should be selling his game without permission, and that's pretty difficult to argue with. Potential purchasers are likely to feel that if the author has made it freely available they'd rather take advantage of that than be taken adavntage of by some (and I believe this is the correct technical term) "pikey {bleep}" on Ebay.

At the end of the day, all parties bar the aforementioned "pikey {bleep}" feel they have done the right thing - no small thing, and I would submit, not a waste of time.