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[xhunterko]

I was on one of my random google searches for sparse news about my game, when, lo and behold, to my shock and surprise, I found that the ludum dare edition of the game had been stolen and placed on another web portal. That's right. My game? My less then 48 hour piece of work? Really? I'm almost tempted to let them keep it. But I'd really liked to have had those views on newgrounds. Heck, even here on IndieDB! But, that begs a question. Are things are desperate enough for thieves to steal from lesser or even unknown devs? I hope not.

Though I am not surprised about one thing. The game on Newgrounds recieved 2 stars for it's effort. The game on v7games is showing one and a half stars but their rating number says 3. I guess it's partially my fault for not setting site lock, but the game was done in less then 48 hours and I didn't have time to look that up. The game looks and plays exactly like the one on Newgrounds, except for the v7games start up splash screen. The game has only 108 playtimes though the one on Newgrounds has 1161 views. I just hope the theif wasn't planning his retirement around that theft. I'm still trying to take it in.

When your a small dev, following the scene, being a fan, buying the bundles, beating the average, cheering your contemporaries, you feel a little left out. You see and hear the stories of games getting stolen and are thankful that it doesn't happen to you. And then it does. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, you become a victim. It just goes to show that nobody is safe from game theft.

I'll be attempting to get in touch with the v7games and inform them of the theft. In the meantime, if you want to help me out, I would really, really love some feedback on Missense! Which, you can take a look at here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/missense

I will keep this post updated and let you know of any developments! And please spread the word!

Thanks for reading!

Oh, one more thing, the actual game on Newgrounds:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/604787

And the one on v7games:
http://www.v7games.com/Puzzle/71143_Gene_Binder_v7.html

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks again!

[ThemsAllTook]

Not to defend v7games or anything, but looking at your game on Newgrounds, I don't see a copyright notice anywhere, nor anything in Newgrounds' terms of use forbidding the republishing of user submitted content elsewhere. It's certainly rude and inconsiderate of them to republish your game without permission or giving you credit, but is "stolen" accurate when nothing explicitly forbids them from doing so? I don't see any ads in the game, so I presume you're not losing any ad revenue if they get views instead of you (unless you get something from the normal banner/sidebar ads on Newgrounds?), so I'm not clear on exactly what harm they're doing you by reposting the game, other than possibly introducing confusion about who created/owns it.

[RudyTheDev]

is "stolen" accurate when nothing explicitly forbids them from doing so?

Not "stolen", technically, it's copyright infringement and misappropriation (among other technicalities, like unauthorized use). And it requires no notices or otherwise, any (original) work you create is automatically copyrighted by most laws. See, for example, fourth section for US or last sentence of second section for EU.

[xhunterko]

The site it's on doesn't seem to work any more and the last they updated there twitter was sometime last year. I am assuming the site is defunct. It's still a little disconcerting though. So, hopefully not much to worry about.

@RudyTheDev Thanks for pointing that out. I was sure that was the case but didn't know where to look.

[Evan Balster]

My understanding is this sort of stuff happens all the time, regardless of what legal language you stick on the page.  Everyone's trying to make a buck on the internet, and a lot of people don't seem to give a snit about it being an honest buck.  So account for that and put a sitelock on anything you don't want getting hijacked.

[BorisTheBrave]

This is very common for flash games. Most authors *want* their games copied to other sites, as they profit from the in-game adds regardless of where it is shown. Those that do not setup site lockers.

[Chromanoid]

Looking at the swf-url tells me that they republish newgrounds content very often (probably in an automated fashion): http://s1.v7games.com/swf/en/newgrounds/20121022/147/43670.swf
I think you should simply tell newgrounds about the page, if they don't know about this issue already... And yeah when you use something like MochiAds you want to spread your game all over the internet.

[xhunterko]

Hmm, all righty, thanks guys!

[Fallsburg]

Not to defend v7games or anything, but looking at your game on Newgrounds, I don't see a copyright notice anywhere, nor anything in Newgrounds' terms of use forbidding the republishing of user submitted content elsewhere. It's certainly rude and inconsiderate of them to republish your game without permission or giving you credit, but is "stolen" accurate when nothing explicitly forbids them from doing so? I don't see any ads in the game, so I presume you're not losing any ad revenue if they get views instead of you (unless you get something from the normal banner/sidebar ads on Newgrounds?), so I'm not clear on exactly what harm they're doing you by reposting the game, other than possibly introducing confusion about who created/owns it.

I'm going to say this is one of the stupidest things I've ever read.  I'm assuming you don't have signs up at your house (aparment, condo, whatevs) that say "Don't steal anything."  By your logic, I have the full legal right to walk into your house and take whatever I want because you didn't explicitly state that I couldn't.

[ThemsAllTook]

By your logic, I have the full legal right to walk into your house and take whatever I want because you didn't explicitly state that I couldn't.

That's a strawman argument, but we don't need to get into that... Though it may break copyright law, I'm still not seeing the harm in what v7games is doing here. I've released freeware games that have been scraped off my website and put up for download elsewhere, and I'm perfectly fine with that. The game gets more exposure, I save a bit of bandwidth, and I don't lose any money because I wasn't getting any from the game in the first place. The only obvious difference I see here is that v7games hasn't been completely clear in crediting the game's author. Would this still be an issue if they made it clear that xhunterko wrote it?

[Alec S.]

Flash games tend to spread.  As Boris the Brave said, most flash developers want their game to spread to as many sites as possible, so they get the most ad revenue.  The only part of that which is sketchy is adding their own splash screen. 

The easiest thing to do is add MochiAds, as it both makes it so you'll make a little bit of money when it's played, no matter where it is, and it gives your game a free layer of encryption, so that sites can't modify your game to strip out ads or add their own splash screen.

[Chromanoid]

The easiest thing to do is add MochiAds, as it both makes it so you'll make a little bit of money when it's played, no matter where it is, and it gives your game a free layer of encryption, so that sites can't modify your game to strip out ads or add their own splash screen.

They added the splash via another flash object in another div-element, can MochiAds really technically protect against this?

@ThemsAllTook: It's like republishing photos, does an ad sponsored newspaper harm me by using my private event photos from my blog for their stories? Yes, it violates my copyrights. Maybe xhunterko just doesnt want a shady page like v7games featuring his games (and profiting from them).

[Evan Balster]

A good example of a model that's harmed by that sort of scraping is Captain Forever -- a game which is the first in a series of flash games, the rest of which requires a payment for permanent access.  If that game wasn't sitelocked and got scraped, it wouldn't be played on the websites which link to where its successors can be purchased, and the people who play it on those other sites would effectively be lost business.

[ThemsAllTook]

A good example of a model that's harmed by that sort of scraping is Captain Forever -- a game which is the first in a series of flash games, the rest of which requires a payment for permanent access.  If that game wasn't sitelocked and got scraped, it wouldn't be played on the websites which link to where its successors can be purchased, and the people who play it on those other sites would effectively be lost business.

Now that's a good example. I guess I'm just thinking of this on a case-by-case basis; the harm that would hypothetically be done to Captain Forever is clear to me, but the harm actually done to Gene Binder still isn't. From this perspective, it seems like xhunterko is overreacting because the damage is all hypothetical.

_{...I probably should refrain from posting in the Business forum, given that I really don't have a mind for business...}

[Fallsburg]

That's a strawman argument, but we don't need to get into that... Though it may break copyright law, I'm still not seeing the harm in what v7games is doing here. I've released freeware games that have been scraped off my website and put up for download elsewhere, and I'm perfectly fine with that. The game gets more exposure, I save a bit of bandwidth, and I don't lose any money because I wasn't getting any from the game in the first place. The only obvious difference I see here is that v7games hasn't been completely clear in crediting the game's author. Would this still be an issue if they made it clear that xhunterko wrote it?

It's a strawman because that's all it took to dismantle your argument.

Your argument:
You didn't explicitly state the illegality of stealing it.  Therefore it's legal.

My argument:
Laws exist.  Just because you don't explicitly state that they are being enforced doesn't mean they cease to exist.

As to your new argument, I'd say if they clearly credited him, then it would be more ok.  But at the end of the day, it's still his IP and if he doesn't want to see it on the site, then that's all that matters.

[ThemsAllTook]

Your argument:
You didn't explicitly state the illegality of stealing it.  Therefore it's legal.

I think you've read a different meaning into my post than I intended. Sorry if my wording wasn't clear!

My argument:
Laws exist.  Just because you don't explicitly state that they are being enforced doesn't mean they cease to exist.

As to your new argument, I'd say if they clearly credited him, then it would be more ok.  But at the end of the day, it's still his IP and if he doesn't want to see it on the site, then that's all that matters.

Absolutely, zero disagreement on that. I'm really just curious about his reasons for not wanting to see it on v7games, which aren't clear from his post. I see "I'd really liked to have had those views on newgrounds", but the severity of his reaction tells me there's something more to it than that.

It seems like there's some circular reasoning going on with copyright law here. "What damage was done? They infringed on my copyright! What does copyright do? Protect me from damage!" If an action does no damage other breaking a law, then it seems illogical to me to have a problem with it. Law doesn't justify itself, it needs to have a purpose of actually protecting someone or something.

[Chromanoid]

It seems like there's some circular reasoning going on with copyright law here. "What damage was done? They infringed on my copyright! What does copyright do? Protect me from damage!" If an action does no damage other breaking a law, then it seems illogical to me to have a problem with it. Law doesn't justify itself, it needs to have a purpose of actually protecting someone or something.

His freedom to do the things the way he wants was damaged, man.

[Ben_Hurr]

Egads you're right; OP should totally waste his time and money opening a lawsuit to stop these fiends from robbing him of $0.


He could do any number of actions according to IP law, but doing something because BY GOD MY RIGHTS* WERE VIOLATED doesn't necessarily accomplish anything.

*copyright isn't a right, it's a bought privilege.

[wg/funstorm]

Your rights are subject to the terms of the site you are uploading to. Kongregate (not sure about NewGrounds... I don't know their terms in detail) specifically forbid the copying of user content.

But we all know it happens all the time.

As a flash developer myself, I find this situation unfortunate. I wish the sites like Kong would change their terms to match reality and make it clear during the upload process that your content may be copied.

Sponsors pay for flash games because they want views. Copying games off Kong/NG -> more hosts -> more viral spread -> more views -> more value. If games didn't get copied off Kong/NG, they would get less views and be worth a little less to sponsors. So I want my games to get copied as often as possible.

[Evan Balster]

*copyright isn't a right, it's a bought privilege.[/i]

Copyright costs nothing.  I think you're confusing copyright with registered copyright.