Butterfly media pirateware

Reckless · Post by **Reckless** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:13 am

I'm afraid my 3 attempts at purchasing the game have failed so I could only supply shots from the demo

I've not given up but it rarely comes up on the only 'viable' outlet (being eBay) and even there I took a risk on something that was too cheap to be right ... of course it turned out to be exactly that

spookypeanut · Post by **spookypeanut** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:09 am

Reckless wrote:... I took a risk on something that was too cheap to be right ... of course it turned out to be exactly that

I too made that mistake. I tried emailing the company, but I think they only reply to lawsuits. Still, I now know to avoid like the plague any ebay item that looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/2jhjgv

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:24 am

spookypeanut wrote:Still, I now know to avoid like the plague any ebay item that looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/2jhjgv

If these are pirated - something I cannot confirm for myself since the one I tried to order never arrived - has anyone tried reporting it to eBay?

(In my case, the seller gave a refund, so I bear him no ill will.)

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:37 am

It seems the games that fun4u sells are warez, only shows screenshots and a photoshopped fake CD. I was thinking on buying that disc, but suspecting a bit.

Please send a message to the ebay client attention about this, I don't want people being scammed by getting a pirate copy at expensive price.

It seems the games that fun4u sells are warez, only shows screenshots and a photoshopped fake CD. I was thinking on buying that disc, but suspecting a bit.

Please send a message to the ebay client attention about this.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/r ... rfeit.html

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:00 am

The Madventurer wrote:It seems the games that fun4u sells are warez, only shows screenshots and a photoshopped fake CD. I was thinking on buying that disc, but suspecting a bit.

Please send a message to the ebay client attention about this, I don't want people being scammed by getting a pirate copy at expensive price.

I believe there are more sellers than that, though. Someone - I forget who - pointed to Butterfly Media as a possible source, and their TouchÃ© page certainly looks similar.

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:10 am

Unfortunately there are many sellers on eBay, trying to trick people into buying pirated games. The games are sold indirectly through dropping shipping places like Butterfly Media or one of its many other sites.

Several common points I noticed in their various auctions are:
* Seller is located in the UK.
* Buy it now, for cheap price.
* Hand shown holding the CD, the image on CD never looks quite right either.
* Offering a donation to unicef
* Claimed as supporting Windows, when game was only released for MS-DOS.
* Claimed as new/sealed in DVD case.
* Sometime their images, will even include link to the actually dropshipping web sites.

There is no easy way to stop this happening, as the dropping shipping companies are the real problem.

spookypeanut · Post by **spookypeanut** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:19 am

I think it was I who pointed to Butterfly Media.

They carry this out by drop-shipping. Not something I'd come across before. Essentially, butterfly media produce the CDs, which people can sell on ebay. When the auction completes, the seller gives butterfly media the address, and they send out the CD. So the seller has never seen the CD, and has no way of knowing that it's pirated.

I confronted the seller, claimed it was perfectly legal, I confronted bm, never replied. I even emailed the guys who made simon, as bm had that on their list too, to see if bm had licensed it properly (just because it's on cdr, doesn't mean they didn't license it, i guess...), but no reply.

I'm ashamed to say I gave up at this point. I figured that unless one of the companies that they were ripping off confronted them about it, nothing was going to change, and they're pretty careful to do it with companies that no longer exist (Simon seemed to be the exception).

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:34 am

spookypeanut wrote: I confronted the seller, claimed it was perfectly legal, I confronted bm, never replied. I even emailed the guys who made simon, as bm had that on their list too, to see if bm had licensed it properly (just because it's on cdr, doesn't mean they didn't license it, i guess...), but no reply.

It is extremely unlikely a game would ever be sold on a CD-R. Unless it is an extremely small company, selling only a few specific old games (ie Epic Classics).

To give an idea, of just how common, sellers using this technique are, a quick list from a few games searches on eBay:
brentlynne
buytoosell1
daveq6691
discount-storeuk
*fun4u*
gemma4477
global-hike
oasis_group
sassyxsara
stephenb1815
wrigglecookie

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:41 pm

It coukd be nice if creating a thread about this instead offtopic. What about some initiative for avoid this stuff? Like mailing ebay about this problem or whatever.

Post by **sev** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:41 pm

I "worked" with one of butterfly.co.uk suppliers, lester4864 (Tracey Walsh is his/her real name). I bought a CD with what I thought would be original The Big Red Adventure, and got their crap. I opened PayPal dispute, claiming that the item was not as described, and luckily got my money returned. Reaction from the seller was really bad, he tried to insult me half dozen of times, but anyway.

Here are technical details on what butterly media offers:

The CD contained 11 games. I.e. it gets enlisted under 11 different titles. Also on the back of their super-duper DVD case they advertise other 2 such collections.

Some excerpts from the READMEs of the games on the CD:

ARMAETH: "This File Was Downloaded from The File Factory.", "Released by *RADiANCE*" (a well-known warez group)

Big Red Adventure: "This file is from Home of the Underdogs. Enjoy";

The Gene Machine: "CD-Rip, Presented by Home of the Underdogs, repacked by doowopman".

Also I read ATIP (manufacturer info) from the CD.

Disc Manufacturer: Plasmon Data Systems. Ltd;
Recording layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine);
Media type: CD-Recordable;

So you may see how nice are their offerings.

Eugene

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:02 am

The File Factory seems to be a death BBS...

515-251-7792
DES MOINES, IA The File Factory
(1995-1996) Jim Moore

http://bbslist.textfiles.com/515/

I suspect ebay are ignoring this warez attempt, now I remember to see that kind of hand with the CD image months ago.

Maybe it's time to contact with the copyright owners directly.

Herrscher · Post by **Herrscher** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:35 am

The Madventurer wrote:The File Factory seems to be a death BBS...

515-251-7792
DES MOINES, IA The File Factory
(1995-1996) Jim Moore
http://bbslist.textfiles.com/515/

I'd guess the "File Factory" is more like this http://www.filefactory.com/ - i.e. ImageShack for "up to ten files (300MB limit for each file)" - and not a buried BBS from the last millenium...

exofreeze · Post by **exofreeze** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Herrscher wrote:
The Madventurer wrote:The File Factory seems to be a death BBS...

515-251-7792
DES MOINES, IA The File Factory
(1995-1996) Jim Moore
http://bbslist.textfiles.com/515/
I'd guess the "File Factory" is more like this http://www.filefactory.com/ - i.e. ImageShack for "up to ten files (300MB limit for each file)" - and not a buried BBS from the last millenium...

lmao!

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 10:04 am

I think more in obsolete stuff, sorry

What to the topic, any ideas for helping this not occour?

nabla · Post by **nabla** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:43 pm

I did not read this post and... u can guess. I just want to tell you that discount-storeuk definitely also sells this warez Big Red Adventure crap.