Butterfly media pirateware

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:59 pm

I am not sure whether we can do something effective about these. For one thing, though, everybody who sees any of these auctions should immediately report them -- ebay has a form for this.

In addition, one could try to notify some of the affected companies about the issue. They could then hand this off to their legal departments... At least in theory...

clem · Post by **clem** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:59 pm

just curious, is it possible to demand a refund if you bought counterfeited goods?

Post by **sev** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:04 pm

clem wrote:just curious, is it possible to demand a refund if you bought counterfeited goods?

Yes. that's how I got refunded. Open a PayPal dispute and state that the item you got is not as described. Describe that it is a copy, which in fact, according to PayPal policy should me not returned, but destroyed and evidence of it presented per request. In my case the seller just insulted me and refunded all money.

They have a nice feature there. If the seller refuses to reply, i.e. ignores you in 10 days period, you get refunded automatically.

Eugene

exofreeze · Post by **exofreeze** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:53 pm

Yep - I insist on using paypal as a medium for all my transactions. So far I have noticed that the people who were the hardest to talk into using paypal are the same ones who I ended up getting refunds from at some point or another.

timofonic · Post by **timofonic** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:25 am

fingolfin wrote:I am not sure whether we can do something effective about these. For one thing, though, everybody who sees any of these auctions should immediately report them -- ebay has a form for this.

In addition, one could try to notify some of the affected companies about the issue. They could then hand this off to their legal departments... At least in theory...

The problem is that there are *ZILLIONS* of them on ebay, it's quite impossible to locate that pirateware fully in an easy way. I think this only will be possible if ebay and affected companies work together for this, but that will never happen soon.

Before writting this message, I notified 70 piratewares and still there a lot to come. I don't know if ebay ignores those notifications or not, but it seems because it may be difficult to verificate if the buyer not complain.

StarG · Post by **StarG** » Mon May 14, 2007 12:26 pm

I came by copies of DVDs in my case too. Yet i found that a good remedy for not getting copies is to buy used and boxed games. Sometimes they are really cheap to come by

skotafactor · Post by **skotafactor** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:23 am

I just found a copy on ebay where the dvd case misspelled "musketeer"

Ceri Cat · Post by **Ceri Cat** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:26 am

This actually reminds me of about 6 months ago a British seller had a DVD full of Star Wars comics and RPG source books. Luckily I have the original and current managers of West End Games in my address book, and dropped them a line to pass along to their legal department, Lucas, and Dark Horse Comics to deal with it.

It's pretty flagrant abuse at times. EBay has some hard working staff who are overworked just following up on complaints, I'm not really surprised these blighters slip through for a while.

skotafactor · Post by **skotafactor** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:05 pm

This one guy (ironically named guy) has a bunch up on ebay. I saw BASS and TTAOTFM on there yesterday

Reckless · Post by **Reckless** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:30 am

Ceri Cat wrote:I'm not really surprised these blighters slip through for a while.

That's rubbish... eBay only 'police' listings when they are pressured/paid to do so by am external party. End users reporting questionable items has no effect - listings continue to the end and then re-listed. Even if the user is removed, signing up with a new account is clearly just too easy.

Edited EA to ebay

scoriae · Post by **scoriae** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:57 pm

Reckless wrote:
Ceri Cat wrote:I'm not really surprised these blighters slip through for a while.
That's rubbish... EA only 'police' listings when they are pressured/paid to do so by am external party. End users reporting questionable items has no effect - listings continue to the end and then re-listed. Even if the user is removed, signing up with a new account is clearly just too easy.

EA or eBay? The initial quote was related to ebay, and yet your response looks to be more about a publisher.

I know for a fact that eBay removes postings which are reported by end users. I have reported tons of pirated software myself, and nearly everytime I have seen it removed.

Jadefalcon · Post by **Jadefalcon** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:09 pm

I've also fell for the Butterfly Media trick. I'm a member of Adventure Gamers Forum, and saw Callahans Crosstime Saloon being sold.

Seller is this guy

gamesandmuchmorecouk

I confronted him about it. It came in a crappily printed sleeve with a bunch of other old games and he says it is pefectly legal and licensced. Despite this, one of the games, Take No Prisoners has a read me file talking about a 'rip that has movies removed'. Another game "Creepers" had this "If the go.exe file does not remove the copy protection question for you use creepers.com to start the game instead of creepers.exe
", which definitely doesn't sound legit. The menu read me has this charming message

"All Trademarks Acknowledged. Use of this CD is done so entirely at your own risk. Cheers", really formal eh?

Should I take this to a dispute with Ebay? He already has one neutral feedback which he was a bit rude with.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:21 pm

Jadefalcon wrote:Should I take this to a dispute with Ebay? He already has one neutral feedback which he was a bit rude with.

I would say yes. I bid all the time on eBay and have had few problems, so it is not just for you. Everyone that bids on eBay relies on the dishonest being reported.

Jadefalcon · Post by **Jadefalcon** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:13 pm

Well not much luck so far, this as a reply

"No response from them, but one from the seller. Surprise, he denied a refund citing this as a reply.

"a rip refures to coppying a game wich is older and has expired licence laws.

this means it then becomes freeware for anyone to sell or download.

all software is legal please visit my shop were a page there will inform you off all software terms.

From Seller - movies and much more

27/10/2008 07:32 GMT

software terms are

Commercial Software

Commercial Software is that that has a copyright and/or been released by a publisher in the last ten years or so into the mainstream market. Most publishers after this time generally make their wares available free, but this is not always the case. the general route and life expectancy of a commercial release is as follows:

Year 1: Full Price, Full Packaging

Year 2: Release as a Budget title, sometimes with limitations with minimal packaging.

Year 3: Rereleased at a potentially lower price.

Year 5-9: Discontinued Item

Year10+: Maybe placed into the Public Domain for free use.

Shareware

Shareware is software that has limitations built in, such as not being able to save etc. this is overcome by paying the author a small fee. Copyrighted software that is available free of charge on a trial basis, usually with the condition that users pay a fee for continued use and support.

Freeware

Freeware software is completely free, you can download it from the net or for a minimal fee you can purchase it on CD from many sources.

Licenseware

This is a concept thought up way back in AMIGA days. It is generally used for smaller publishers where they licence a game or piece of software at the cost of a small royalty for every sale they make.

Public Domain Software (PD)

Another "AMIGA" concept. Basically this is freeware that has no copyright and the author has no control over distribution or limitations of the distribution. A software title or game can be downloaded for free or sold on CD for whatever the "publisher" feels it's value is worth.

Abandonware

This is a reletively new concept, and relies on Commercial Publishers placing their old games or software into the Public Domain.

Charityware / Careware

Generally this is software that has been dumped by it's owner or publisher and is used to raise money for worthy causes as the publisher is not required to pay any royalties on each sale."

This is a load of horse crap, as even the infamous HOTU site claims that abandonware is not legal and mentions a 95 year copyright. I've informed him of that, if he still refuses, I'm escalating the claim."

Informing him that the concept of Abandonware isn't even legal in the majority of cases, got this reply

"these terms do not apply to your individual order you have not got abandonware,

these are simply a list of software terms and abandonware does not relate to this.what is the nature of your complaint because as of yet you have not stated what the problem is."

The problem is that the thing isn't the original, yet he claims it is licences, what the hell do I do..

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:26 pm

Jadefalcon wrote: "No response from them, but one from the seller. Surprise, he denied a refund citing this as a reply.

I believe that the whole "explanation" of various types of software is pretty much just cut and pasted from one of Butterfly-Media's web pages. (You can find it by googling for "Maybe placed into the Public Domain for free use" but the domain was different than the one I expected.)

Jadefalcon wrote: The problem is that the thing isn't the original, yet he claims it is licences, what the hell do I do..

In that case, shouldn't there be a copy of the license agreement included? Or at the very least, he should be able to provide one for you. Though I have a feeling it won't do much good asking for that. In an ideal world, I guess this is the sort of thing where The ESA or The ELSPA should be able to set the record straight on what the laws really say, but I wouldn't count on that either.