2 Responses to “Episode #197”

2 Comments

@enough Linux users
Think of it this way: you pay the big effort of developing of the software once. Then you have a foothold in that community. It is worth it? I say yes. Will more games be ported to Linux? Again, I say yes, especially since most game developers already target multiple platforms: PCs, consoles, handhelds.

@PlanetPhillip shutdown
Now I feel sorry I didn’t take my time to reply on his page; I also didn’t discuss this properly with him last weekend (we were both under time constraints), so posting here makes me feel a bit shitty. Still, I do want to give my opinion.

PlanetPhillip.com can be viewed as a distribution channel. Yes, since he’s not distributing maps he made, I can understand why the guy on moddb.com thought that redistributing the maps is ok. However, there are several issues the moddb dude got it wrong:
– he can post the maps only if the map maker agreed to it
– even in that case, he cannot post the same package that Phillip did. It’s like Valve managed to get a deal from DICE and took the install kit of Battlefield 3 from Origin and upload it as it was. You don’t do that, you’d get your pants sued off. You get the product from the original developer and you distribute that instead.

So I definitely understand the point Phillip tried to make: you like the packages from PlanetPhillip.com? You think is OK to take the package from planetphillip.com, upload it and not credit the original source? Do you really want to be proven wrong by basically cutting off your access to that mentioned source of maps?

Now on to the future: I think incidents like that will happen again. In most cases this might happen because the person doing it is either too young to take notice or just doesn’t care about the effort needed to package and more importantly, to add THAT extra information: screenshots, reviews. So, I am quite certain that it will happen.

What can be done?

Well, simply make THAT extra info the main reason why people visit planetphillip.com. Outshine every other site that simply takes the packaged archive and just offers it for download. Since all sites will have the maps available (one package or the other) it’ll be everything else BUT the maps that will tilt the scale in the favor of one site over the other. Worst case scenario, the other sites will either join the competition or simply rip out those extra tidbits. Tidbits that are Phillip’s creation, and thus have their copyright owned by Phillip, with all the legal implications.

Hi guys, thanks for discussing my issue.

Just to clarify. I don’t claim to own copyright on the maps (not that you guys did). That’s clear. There’s nothing stopping people distributing the original files.

He stole my text and images – that’s copyright theft. Okay, I can live with that.

But the guy didn’t even have the courtesy to firstly ask and then credit my site for being the “source”.

That’s all I ever wanted – recognition for the effort I put in to get these maps online.