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[Icewolf]

Well, if you have time and space to make the effort I won't hinder you! k:

[horrorist]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(plix @ Jan 18 2007, 06:57 AM) [snapback]275461[/snapback]</div>

That aside, EU directives are just that: directives. They are not laws and it usually takes some time for said directives to be adopted. Notably, the EU Copyright Directive has yet to be adopted by the Czech Republic (Spain being the only other country to not yet adopt this directive). A European Constitution would change this, but it remains a rather far-off possibility.

[/b]

The situation is very slightly different:

1. The european treaties define those subjects, which are allowed to be be ruled by european law, e.g. if there are treaties about income- tax, there might be european legal standards about it.
2. The legal standards of the european community sets a frame over the national law of thier members.
3. There are in general three types of european legal standards: directives, regulations and decissions.
3.1. Directives are legal standards for all (adressed) EC- countries. They are directly valid as they are issued, though they might contain facultative standards.
3.2. Regulations are legal frames, which have to be converted into national law within a certain time periode.
3.3. Decissions are additions or fundamental frameworks for other regulations or directives.

Well now lets deal with our czech friend Ondrej Muncinsky and as some kind of conclusion of this thread so far:

1. Copyrights and authorship are (as Trademarks) subject of supranational law or supranational treaties. In this case it is covered by the TRIPS and WCT treaties. In the EC this is covered by the regulations 2001/29/EC, 1991/250/EC and 1993/98/EWG (among others). Software is considdered as literature. The ownership of software or literature lies by its develloper for a lifetime periode plus 70 years unless the owner of these rights activly abandons them! The problem is that there is no administration for copyrights (unlike trademarks). Most of what we considder AW is merely "not actively protected". The owner (or his representative the ESA) could reclaim their rights. The ESA usually allows (or better: does not mind) copy and distribution of AW for free, but not commercial use! It is a difference if you sale something for $0 or if you distribute it for free.

It is not important if this czech website physically hosts the software or not. The owner of the website offers software and takes money for it ("You retrieve here full versions of games"), which is apparently sale (§§ 312b, 433 ff., 474 ff. BGB), even though it might be considdered as service (§ 631 ff. BGB). The average customer can't even realize that the vendor is not hosting the software by himself! That tiny note: "We don't store any software on our server." would not be understood by the average user (c'mon, whuz a server?), is not a valid general term and is absolutely wrong. If there was no software on it, how comes the server is running? :blink: I haven't seen anything like: "If you pay me some money, I will search google (because you are too dumb to do this) and tell you where you can get this software for free." The vendor has to deliver the software he advertized in any way (priciple of faith and trust, § 242 BGB), i.e. has to provide an oppurtunity to download it completely and correctly. It does not make any difference, if he offers a "paid membership" ("either pay only $4.95 to use our download service without any limitations for 1 day, or for $6.95 you get unlimited downloads for the whole month") or charges any link he provides. It is the same as if you pay $9,95 for brunch.
The contract is only ruled by law and maybe by general terms of agreement (actually I haven't seen any), though any doubt concerning the interpretation of general terms are turned against the user, which in this case is the vendor (§ 305 ff. BGB)!
For the customer the software is in any way purchased legally (no matter if it is freeware, AW, Shareware or actively protected) as long as he cannot realize (because it might be declared by the vendor or is clearly obvious) that he is buying illegal software (aquirering in good believe - or as a Ferengy would say: "A treaty is a treaty, is a treaty!")!
The situation would be different if the vendor would actually declare to provide an URL information (before the customer has paid!) and actually revealing this URL, which would ruin his own business, cause no at least semi intelligent species would visit his site twice.
Maybe the ESA is threatened by the possible cost of a lawsuit. If this guy earns lets say $2000 a year, the lawsuit will cost about $300 in the first instance plus expenses for the lawyers. Noone can be sure, if the ESA would win and if the defeated party would pay. The ESA is not Microsoft.
The misuse of copyrights or the sale of the software though not objected cannot become legal because of habitual rights, cause the TRIPS and WCT stand over national law.

This is the legal situation in my homecountry, but the situation in the Czech Rep. can't be that different, though many of the legal standards concerning sales- contracts and especially general terms are also ruled by european law.

2. Taking the reviews of the abbandonia site and reissuing them is in fact a violation of international copyright laws. Unless it is not ruled by czech criminal law (which might be possible), this is a subject to civil law.
First of all it is nescessary to object and to demand the removal of this reissue or to demand a declaration that this will never happen again. In addition to that the holder of this site can be hold for ransom for all expenses (lawers, stamps, fees,... ). The objection and the demand has to be sended by mail as a delivery document, not by e-mail or fax! If the holder of the site does not react he can be sued (in the Czech Rep.). In addition to that he could be ordered by law to remove the stolen textworks or to close his site at all (I am not sure if this is possible in Czech Rep.). If the czech authorities do not react, it is possible to sue the Czech Rep. at the european court (this can be done only by a lawyer not by an individual!) for not assuring the Art. 6, 7 and 8 of regulation 2001/29/EC. I would not recommend this, because it is very expensive.

3. The AW- sites, where the software is downloaded are not violated financially, because they are allready offering those downloads. It is of course a violation to detour a validation mechanism (e.g. number protection), which should prevent the illegal download e.g. downloads for commercial use. The possible procedere is allready described above.

4. What could be done? There allready were some reasonable ideas:
4.1. Ruining his business seems to be the most successfull way (Yes, hit him in the wallet!). This can be done in two ways: causing him expenses or cutting his income.
4.1.1. This Leech site does run on minimal costs, because this guy does not host anything. How is it possible that this guy can access those files without any control? Simple answer: those files (and their protections) are static, they are stored on a server and they are meant for access. If you know the direct URL (and maybe an accesskey) you can read them. Number protection (as used by HOTU) does not limit the access, it disables the automatic access. After typing in the correct numbers the script, running on the server usually redirects to the direct URL by transmitting the accesskey (maybe like "http://gameserver/games/game123.zip?...uest?key=12345"). If you manage to catch this link, you are in.
The solution might be to use dynamic accesskeys and dynamic URL. That means to change the links on the site and to rename the gamefiles/ directories regularly and randomly (which could be done by a script).
Whatelse could cause him expenses? Lawsuits? They could be expensive for the suer too. What if this guy would have to pay fees and penalties to the authorities or at least to pay his lawyer? I don't know if his tax declaration is correct or if his car is in a good technical condition. There are so many laws and orders, especially from EC, even the authorities do not know all of them. If you want to ruin someones business, let the authorities do their job, bureaucracy rules, Europe is great!
Nagging his ISP or having him blacklisted at PayPal is a way to establish additional pressure. Even though he could relaunch his site very soon if it is closed, it will cost him nerves a little money and maybe he has to find some partners, to register the website or at PayPal instead of him (cause he is blacklisted). Let me tell you something: "This guy does not trust anybody!"
7.1.2 Most AW- users would never pay anything (maybe donate, but not pay), to get the software. This leech site can't controll, which information the customer will get in addition to his gamefile. A simple textfile would inform sufficiently. The filename (or maybe the filename of the archive) could contain: "stolen-from-abandonia-com".
What about some propaganda? Who will prohibite a website, revealing this lets say suspicious activities with some links pointing to HOTU, abandonia, MOBY,... ? If you contain the right hitwords (e.g. sex, games, freeware, pedofilia, lolita, roswell, startrek,...) into the metadata it will be ranked skyhigh at google. I would not actually recommend this, but I cannot prevent anyone to do so!
There are also some straight ways to spread informations: newsgroups, discussions and even ptp.
I wonder what will happen if someone just steals his idea, by launching a site with a similar domainname, a similar (Stolen? Who knows!) appearance, containing the same reviews but totally free! The links on this site point directly to the mainpage of abandonia, AR, HOTU,... This guy can't sue you for stealing the reviews, he had stolen. What if there were not only one site but 20 from different countries?
7.2. Any assault, physically or by means of electronic warfare should not be recommendet. If someone would hack his webserver this would not hit him but his ISP. (So don't try to hack his IP which is 69.61.55.26 ) Mailbombing would not reach him. I'm sure this guy checks his e-mail almost every day, just to delete every mail without even taking notice of it.
Any physical threat or attack might concern the wrong person. The holder of this website does not nescessarily need to be the one behind this fraud. Maybe it is just someone who offers his name and identity. Maybe someone who is on alkohol, an 90 year old almost unconsious man or just someone who has no job and a $10000 debt. This czech adress could be nothing but a mailbox. Anyone who lives not to far away could pay him a visit and might ask him politely, if he would like to retire from his business, but I'm sure that he will not be at home. Maybe you could also check out that adress:

San Pedro Software Inc., 7 Craig Street, P.O. Box 332, Belize City, Belize.

(or 1016 W. Edison Chicago, IL?)

In fact noone could deny that this Ondrej Muncinsky is reading our forum.

For EU- law try http://www.eur-lex.eu

Well, a lot of stuff for today, hope I did not made too many spelling mistakes, and I haven't used a towel (maybe a bable fish) :bleh: .
Ich habe fertig! (Giovanni Trappatoni)

[The Fifth Horseman]

Props to you, man.

[Unknown Hero]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tom Henrik @ Jan 12 2007, 07:10 PM) [snapback]274594[/snapback]</div>

Calling his ISP (or whatever it is called) also does not help, as he doesn't actually need bandwidth (due to him leeching bandwith of other sites) - so he can just register for a low cost domain and refer his site url anytime he want to, and continue to leech, steal and rob. :not_ok:
[/b]

Well, maybe we can stop him from leeching from our site! We can put an image with letters, so that you must first write those letters in before download (ofcourse letters will always be different).

Eg.:

[plix]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Unknown Hero @ Jan 19 2007, 06:52 PM) [snapback]275699[/snapback]</div>

Well, maybe we can stop him from leeching from our site! We can put an image with letters, so that you must first write those letters in before download (ofcourse letters will always be different).[/b]

...and as has been discussed elsewhere (see the DFL thread I linked earlier): CAPATCHAs are worthless in this context. Such measures are useful for for preventing the most casual of leechers; however it is relatively easy to plugin and tune an OTS OCR package that defeats the CAPATCHA automatically. Hell, even randomizing the location of the file is pointless (I could write something capable of screen-scraping the site for the "dynamic" download link in a few minutes).

The only end-result of adding CAPATCHAs is a number of irritated end users whom have to compete with bothersome access control mechanisms. Oh, that and they are just a bid of a hindrance to the visually impaired.

[Scrapper]

Greetings people.... I am a bit of a n00b when it comes to website design etc... I don't know if this site is with a hosting company or being run out of someones basement either.

If the site is running out of the basement, why not just kill any access for addresses with the range of the ISP he is using at the firewall?

If the site is with a hosting service, do they provide any anti leeching mechanism?? Should stop any direct linking unless the domain is in an allow list. That's if he is direct linking to the downloads on Abandonia after you pay.
Or can you craft the site to route any requests for webpages off into a black hole if the requesting IP is within a specified (ISP) range? Attach an apology explaining that they cannot access the site becuse someone <insert the persons details here> on the ISP is selling other peoples hard work illegally.

Anyways... Just some ideas. It is a bit of work involved sifting through logs and suff and doing the whois lookups.

On top of that, report him to ESA. At least they know about it then. They may not be able to do anything at the moment, but they know.

[JJXB]

what about screening referrers? as in if the referrer isn't abandonia.com then redirect to another file that's some kind of advertising for abandonia or something like that. i know it's been suggested before but from what i can see it's the only viable solution)

[horrorist]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(plix @ Jan 20 2007, 03:40 AM) [snapback]275723[/snapback]</div>

Hell, even randomizing the location of the file is pointless (I could write something capable of screen-scraping the site for the "dynamic" download link in a few minutes).
[/b]

...Good point!

Maybe the solution is very simple:

Everytime a client requests a document/ file from the server he has to identify with his IP (how else the server could handle this request?) So the big difference between anyone who downloads through the leecher site and the official download page is: the second one has requested our download page before! If the server will get the request for a game- archive from an IP, which has not requested the download page before, that request will be denied. This client will get a message like:

"Sorry, your request has been denied. The file you wanted is still available at www.abandonia.com for free! No bullshit! No fees! No membership! No dialers! If you have paid Money to get so far, DEMAND YOUR MONEY BACK! You might find this guy here:
Ondrej Muncinsky, Resslova 1717 8, Usti nad Labem, 40001, Czech Republic, +42-0475200937 Fax -- +42-0475200937!
Abandonware forever!
If you were allready visiting our site you might need to reload the download site.
If your ISP is using a proxy, you might need to turn it off. If you are not sure how to do this call your ISP or Bill Gates (I'm sure that he will have time for you. [phonenumber of Bill Gates, if available ]). "

A similar message for a 404- error might be usefull, because this error might occur because someone got a broken link from this leecher site.

Does that make sense?

In addition to that it might be possible to extract from the server statistics, if there were requests of a download page shortly before the download of the corresponding gamearchive occured (which will be common) but the two actions had been requested by different IP- Numbers (which is more unlikely but possible, depends from the time we considder as "shortly"). As a second group there should be extracted any IP- Range which accesses abandonia more often than others. The third filter might be any IP- range who requested the same file (gamefile or download page) more than once in a certain time periode. If those three groups are correlated there might result the IP- Number or at least the IP- Range this (or another!) leecher uses. Which sounds not very spectacular, but by this it is possible to prove that way, that he has actually taken the games from abandonia (without paying him $6,99) and that he has redirected directly to an URL on the abandonia server, which is not nescessarily legal. And who knows what this IP might be needed for ? OK just kidding.. but who knows?

By the way: The abandonia- site should include general terms of agreement (legal notice), which prohibites the unlicenced copying or redirecting (except to our mainsite). Pointing a weblink (which has to be clicked actively) is always legal (because it is seen as a quotation) as long as it is not related with any violation. Automatc redirection can be seen as a violation to authorship rights, because the redirected webpage/ URL appears to be content of the other site. Those general terms doesn't need to be that blown up like an EC- Regulation. Two or three paragraphes might do this job well. I also haven't noticed any disclaimer yet (disclaiming from contents of other websites). Or an impressum. As you all might imagine there is an EC- Regulation for this; it's the Art. 5 of the regulation 31/2000/EC. By the way this leecher site does not comply to Art. 5 and 6 of that regulation, if anyone wants to complain at his ISP .

[The Fifth Horseman]

Blocking outside referrals to the files stored on the server might work.

[win98]

Right now we need to think of some games to put up on the download site that are legal and the guy would want to leech.