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[Japo]

If he's not infringing the games' copyright he's infringing our reviews' copyrights. I'm no lawyer but I heard that the only instance where copyright infringement won't be prosecuted --even being illegal-- is when the copyright is abandoned AND you're not making profit out of it. I think that if one's profitting from (even abandoned) copyright infringement, it's the respective attorney's duty to sue him, the thing goes public ("The people against Sick R. Leecher"). But I could be wrong and this could vary for different countries. Anyway the copyfight of Ab' reviews is not abandoned so Ab should be able to sue him in any case --practical difficulties to this notwithstanding.

It would be swell to write an article exposing this human waste and make it gain a higer Google ranking than his own site, this kind of things has been done in other areas. But I guess this isn't doable since people are arriving at his site searching for "free games download" and not for the guy's name or anything of the sort.

There's another solution which would be worth it only if this leeching was really straining for Ab --and if it isn't then we could just drop it. In the page here in Ab where you get to download a game and there's a donating button, it could be added a remarked message stressing that any donation to this site or any other one is always voluntary and that charging for other people's works is illegal and immoral.

[plix]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Jan 22 2007, 08:09 AM) [snapback]275952[/snapback]</div>

Blocking outside referrals to the files stored on the server might work.[/b]

From what I remember, he was distributing a custom application to manage things. That said, faking referrer headers is beyond trivial and adding such support to a custom application is a 30 second job.

[Morrin]

Let's just send him a cake with rat poison in it.

[horrorist]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morrin @ Jan 25 2007, 08:32 AM) [snapback]276362[/snapback]</div>

Let's just send him a cake with rat poison in it.
[/b]

Just force him to eat, where I had to eat, when I was in the army, that will do the job.

BTW: Just checked our criminal law. If the commercial abuse of copyright is not only illegal but also criminal in the Czech Rep., it might be punished according to german law, if the legal owner of the copyrights (in this case the author of the review) is german citizen (§§ 7 Abs. (1) StGB, 108a UrhG).

The accusation (though possible) should be declared to the authorities in addition to a formal request for punishment. The deadline for this request would be three moths after knowledge of the violation or the offender. This would cost nothing but a bit time. This case would be handled by a german judge, who might sentence this guy to a let's say 10.000 € fine. I'm not sure if there is any executional agreement between Germany and the Czech Rep., it would be easier if this guy would live in Austria or in France. :wallbash:

So if anyone knows a lot about law in the Czech Rep. it could help.

[win98]

Sorry about the delay with the website but I have been busy and have not found a good free host with a good file size limit yet.

[Lulu_Jane]

I never heard back from Paypal.... Not very impressive.

Well, I guess it's just like "they" say - if at first you don't succeed, get really cross and disgusted, vent your feelings and re-state your issue in yet another appropriately worded email, and try again. Hmph.

[win98]

I agree paypal can't believe Lulu_Jane alone. I don't have an account so I can't email them but If anyone ahs a paypal account email them with the matter. If they get enough complaints they will look into it.

[Japo]

Okay I've got a Paypal account (it's free anyway). I'll contact them but, do you think it would be better if everybody sent exactly the same message so that they know we're talking about the same issue and take it seriously? Or will it just annoy them? If the emails are going to reach them from their actual customers (anyway I guess everybody can email them even though he's not a registered user), I think it's a good idea. Well if you like the idea here's what I'll send them:

Dear Sirs,

I am writing you to inform that one of your customers, Mr Ondrej Muncinsky, is making an unfair use of his account and violating your user agreement contract as stated in your Acceptable Use Policy. In fact his usage constitutes an infringement of international and EU laws about copyrights.

His usage of a PayPal account implies, along with other foul practices best described as swindling and bandwidth stealing, infringement of copyrights, notably of articles property of websites such as Abanonia (www.abandonia.com). (Abandonia itself has no legal issues whatsoever and is in constant and close friendly contact with the companies owning the copyrights of the games it hosts.) Mr Muncinsky’s website URL is the following.

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/

All people harmed by him as well as all who simply know about his foul practices would very much appreciate that you cancel his account following your Acceptable Use Policy.

Thank you in advance[/b]

I wanted to add the following but the 1,000-characters limit prevented me to do so. If you're not a registered user of PayPal and are sending them a regular email you may add it:

We would as well appreciate that once his account is cancelled, you inform your colleague online payment services of this issue so that Mr Muncinsky doesn’t easily find an alternative to continue his activities until the judiciary takes care of them. Other online payment services would heed PayPal’s information on the matter faster and more duly than emails from private persons.[/b]

The subject of my email was "Illegal Activities". Admins could use a version adding that they're writting on endorsed behalf of a site whose copyrights are being infringed.

[horrorist]

Good work! k:

[Japo]

Thank you... Okay don't know if others wrote but I got an answer:

Dear Javier #####,

Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologise for the delay in
responding to your email concerning your concerns regarding Mr Ondrej
Muncinsky.

Thank you for the email Mr. #####. I would advise you to please forward
the email to our relevant department to the following address:
paypal-compliance (at) paypal (dot) com. adding the email address of the person in
question.

I do apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you. We are pleased
to have you as a member of the PayPal community of online payment
members. If you need any assistance in the future, you can contact
Customer Service by email at https://www.paypal.co.uk/ewf/f=default
Thank you for using PayPal.

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Atentamente,
Susana
Departamento de resoluciones de PayPal[/b]

If you write in an uber-formal style they may think you're fogyish, but they will take you seriously. Seems that they've got an special email account for this kind of complains regarding acceptable use, so if you're going to write them use this address:

paypal-compliance (at) paypal (dot) com

You've got to add the leech's address which is

gms (at) mosw (dot) com

(I shouldn't mask it but forum rules are forum rules.) I'm mailing mine right away, let's see what comes out of it.