Response to AlliedModders accusations of improper DMCA

[Kigen]

Hello,

Since I have been banned from the AlliedModders forums forever over the DMCA I cannot reply there.

You have been banned for the following reason:
Since you're clearly more interested in starting a shitstorm rather than waiting for things to get resolved properly, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

The simple fact is I've given them a month to comply with the GPL v3 and US Copyright law requirements.
https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=228625

GoD-Tony flat out refused to re-add the required headers which prompted the action that I had to take. I told GoD-Tony it was insufficient and that he must re-add the headers. His response was:

I'm pretty sure what we have there now should suffice, and I'll consider this resolved.

No further action on his part or the part of AlliedModders showed any desire to correct this GPL and law violations. So when the deadline came I had to take action. This is the only avenue left open to me. If I don't defend the rights as an author as listed in the GPL and US Copyright law then no one else will.

Unfortunately, AlliedModders is hypocritical when it comes to enforcing the GPL. They only do so when they directly benefit from it. Not because its the right thing to do (i.e., give proper credit and comply with requirements of GPL). They banned me within minutes in 2011 over perceived violations of the GPL. Yet they let the SMAC project run for two years in non-compliance. This is just not acceptable.

So since they have re-hosted the non-compliant code and have taken no action to correct their violations I must continue down this path.

Given credit and notice where its due is a basic tenet of the OSS movement. Their action are in direct contradiction to everything it stands for.

[Kigen]

My Steam announcement is much better formated. Check it out if you get the chance.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/kigen# ... 6843476947

Thank you.

[nightrider]

Your account looks to have been unbanned at AlliedModders.

[CTS_AE]

Not seeing you unbanned over there,
Sucks that they're all hating on you, people don't even seem to take into consideration how grateful they should be that source code is publicly available, but then again its so easy to with all these free public reversioning sites like github, and bitbucket.
What you're asking to be done is not much.
And licensing exists for a reason, very important reasons. GPL 3 is not hard to adhere by.
Hope all gets gets figured out and fixed up.

[Kigen]

I've been unbanned and rebanned 3 times now over there on the AlliedModders forums. Seems there is internal fighting going on over it.

They continue to fight to keep the source code up, but they have done nothing to just add the copyright headers.

[nightrider]

Odd your account looks to have been re banned at AlliedModders.

[Kigen]

This is really getting stupid. All they've ever been required to do is re-add the headers as required by the GPL v3 and copyright law. They still insist on playing the whack-a-mole game of re-uploading the infringing code elsewhere.

Now they're creating dummy plugins that would download the infringing code from Sweden. Basically a very round about way of linking to it, which is still illegal.

[Kigen]

To date no one associated with SMAC has attempted to contact me about resolving this.

Which the resolution is still as simple as it was before, re-add the headers as required by GPLv3 and law.

[nightrider]

Thank you for the updated information Kigen.