Amiga-Hardware.com Taken Down

[dylansmrjo]

I'm using websphinx to get the site down. Hopefully the webarchive won't fail me. Sometimes it's really difficult to get through.

[Lando]

So, who complained, and what was the nature of the complaint?

Come on, don't be shy, people want to know.

amiga-hardware.com was an invaluable resource.

[Tahoe]

There is an updates message on it now:

The Big Book of Amiga Hardware
Firstly, apologies for the previous message. It was written as a quick placeholder in the early hours of the morning and I needed to sleep. The site has been taken down because I received a copyright violation notice from the author of a driver. Perhaps it was foolish of me to offer such things for download. The site has always been non-profit, is ad-banner free and has cost me a lot in the 7 years it has been running in both time and money. It is also the product of hundreds of contributors who have taken the time and effort to send submissions. It's for these reasons that I would like the site to return, however I need to decide whether it's worth the risk and if so what alterations need to be made.


- Thanks, Ian.

[cv643d]

Sad to hear that my absolute favorite Amiga site has been taken offline.

I hope someone can find a solution to the problem.

I have also contributed some things and I never thought a site like that could get into problems  :-?

[Oli_hd]

Nooooo  :-o  :-(  :-?
I was using it only just last night, its a great site.
It would be so sad to see it close.

---- reads reply above-------
just remove the driver involved, or all the drivers, it isnt the main part of the site.
I dont get why they would complain about a driver being uploaded though.. a program maybe but the driver is rather "hardware dependant" ;-)

[keropi]

who the hell contacted him? elbox? the poseidon author? who?
He should just disable the offending driver, not take down the whole site! but I guess he knows better...

[mboehmer_e3b]

the poseidon author?

For sure not, as Poseidon is available in AmiNet... but comparing the site before taking down and after the (hopefully soon) revival may give some hints.

@Ian: hope you can get this issue from your desk soon. Your site is a source of information many people would miss!

Michael

[platon42]

> the poseidon author?

No.

[Pyromania]

Perhaps what the site needs is to be sponsored and hosted by a commerical Amiga friendly entity. If the site is not too big DiscreetFX volunteers to be that company. We would handle any future complaints and free the designer of the site, Ian in this case of any worry since complaining companies would come to DiscreetFX, not him for complaints if any. Why would DiscreetFX do this? We think this site is a valuable resource and have used it many times ourselves, we don't want to see it die. DiscreetFX would charge nothing for providing this service to the Amiga community and Big Book of Amiga Hardware.

Best regards

-DiscreetFX Team

[c64_d0c]

this is the work of a morphos user that for sure... someone stepped on his butterfly and he kill the whola site!!  :-x
________
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[x56h34]

@c64_d0c:

Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense. Why would a MOS user feel threatened by TBBOAH site?

[Trev]

I wish we knew who sent the request and why. I'm always on the lookout for companies to boycott. ;-)

It's always a good idea to get permission before distributing software of any kind, even if the distribution of that software would likely be covered by fair use. Only the owner of a hardware device can make use of a hardware driver, and since the device owner is already an authorized user of the device driver, no law has been broken if they download and use a copy of the driver. If an unauthorized user downloads the software, they can't use it, so there would be no way for the author to prove harm has been done. That doesn't apply to value-added software that isn't required for a hardware device to function, but the definition of "function" is arguable.

Edit: Hopefully, the person who requested the removal of the driver offered an alternative method for authorized users to obtain a copy.

Trev

[Lando]

this is the work of a morphos user that for sure... someone stepped on his butterfly and he kill the whola site!!

Damn those evil MOS users!!

I heard they eat babies and murder small kittens too!

Thank God they're easy to spot - the horns, '666' birthmark and cloven feet give them away every time.

[c64_d0c]

and when you step on their little butterfly you know whats going to happen..  :lol:
________
VOYEUR SPY

[itix]

You have no balls

[jjans]

It sounds like he will be back when he has had time to review his entire site.

He has been operating this service at his own considerable expense. Maybe he could ask for donations like amiga.org does to cover his costs. I'd support that if it meant keeping the site alive.