Totally Ripped Off!

[Toonces]

Hey Y'all,

I know people take things on-line that they shouldn't, but I think this guy has crossed the line a bit.

I made CTF-Lily Liver-DCSE-XL as an exercise to learn how to use the terrain editor in UED3. Then, at the request of some friends, I made a Bombing Run version of the map. Now, this morning I found this on FilePlanet:

U2003 Bombing Run Lily Liver (http://www.fileplanet.com/files/110000/116206.shtml)

...all the jerk had to do was ask and I would have given him permission. My question for y'all is this...Is there any way to request that Unreal Playground not support the jacked file?

Thanks!

-Toonces

[blito3]

well email file planet and raise a stink....(too bad u could not leave a burning bag of dog doo doo on the front porch)

[IHopeToGod]

LOL!
The author's name is "Tracy (MajorPussy) Baker". I assume that is not you. How did he get the file? And did he make changes to it. The new editor is geared for getting ripped off and makes it so easy. There should be a feature where you can permanently Lock a map so that it cannot be changed or altered in any way. The best to make it harder for thieves is to mark your best prefabs. In this case you have had your whole map stolen :eek: . This problem is likely to get worse......:rolleyes: I'm pretty sure UP will not support stolen or plagerized maps knowingly....

[Toonces]

I reported it to the FP legal folks. I don't know who Tracy (MP) or Michael Baker are...both names are credited in the zip. Little creeps didn't even give me a credit in the ReadMe file...LOL

-Toonces

[Toonces]

Wow! FilePlanet's stock just went up with me. I received a very nice response from them and they pulled the file.

-Toonces

[Freakish]

sweet!!

[Angel_Mapper]

One thing you can do in the future is delete all the bsp brushes after your final rebuild. It won't affect the map in any way except for lowering the file size a little, but if anyone tries to rebuild it everything will disappear ;)

[MalOSB]

Originally posted by Angel_Mapper
One thing you can do in the future is delete all the bsp brushes after your final rebuild. It won't affect the map in any way except for lowering the file size a little, but if anyone tries to rebuild it everything will disappear ;)

Sweet.
That at least stops them re-releasing your map. Does not stop them Going in an stealing other stuff from MyLevel though :(

Mal

[Toonces]

Originally posted by Angel_Mapper
One thing you can do in the future is delete all the bsp brushes after your final rebuild. It won't affect the map in any way except for lowering the file size a little, but if anyone tries to rebuild it everything will disappear ;)

Angel,

That a really good point and I have done it in the past. The strange thing about Lily Liver though is it was mostly an experiment with the terrain editor and the static meshes. The point was to see how few BSP brushes I could use and still make a map that could be played and released. I think I wound up with a total of 5 including the skybox, the outer box, the secondary sky layer and the firepit...:-)

Truth is, though, I don't have much of a problem with people using my stuff or to build on my maps as long as they ask first and put something in a ReadMe file.

-Toonces

[IHopeToGod]

Hehe. That is naive thinking, as most people will take your stuff and will not give you credit for it. They will even take your whole map as you have already found out -LOL!. You could spend weeks making a Prefab, and then wake up the next morning to find that PersonX is taking credit for it . In less than a month I have seen this happen at least 5 times already :D

By the way - almost nobody except mappers read the readme file ;)

[Toonces]

Originally posted by IHopeToGod
Hehe. That is naive thinking, as most people will take your stuff and will not give you credit for it. They will even take your whole map as you have already found out -LOL!. You could spend weeks making a Prefab, and then wake up the next morning to find that PersonX is taking credit for it . In less than a month I have seen this happen at least 5 times already :D

By the way - almost nobody except mappers read the readme file ;)

It's really not naivete on my part...more just a refusal to slip into total cynicism. Although I am disappointed on a daily basis, I still try to look for the best in people...Perhaps it's an artifact of my Baby-Boomer optimism...LOL

-Toonces

[blito3]

LOL... life is never fair

[UniKorn]

I actually wonder why people do that. There is nothing rewarding in using someone elses map and getting credit for it.

So how do I delete that bsp thing?

[IHopeToGod]

I started deleting bsp to reduce file size, but later on after also being the victim of being ripped off (the matter is settled now :)), I do it as a regular practice.

After you have finished your map and are positive that you will not make any changes, then you can go ahead and delete all the bsp. Ie: In the old editor you would select all brushes and hit delete, (make sure the purple mover brushes are not selected) and then just save the map. Always make sure you have multiple backup copies of a version containing the brushes - otherwise you will not be able to make any bsp changes to your map later on....

For important prefabs - you can engrave your name physically or corrupt part of the brushes if you fear being ripped off, if you feel that such effort is warranted. It cannot prevent stealing but it can prevent someone from claiming they created it and then engraved your name on it :D

[blito3]

good idea milk....and angel for bsp bee thing....well blito4 engraved a little blito4 marker on some of his maps.

[MalOSB]

You could write your name in the terrain using either a small Painter or even use a layer to stop people nicking it.
I know this because i was mucking around and put "Who’s your daddy' :) . But it looks C*ap so you would need to hide it somewhere. As long as they (the thieving Muppet) did not know it was there you would be able to find out if they are using your Terrain.

The terrain I’m making now is extremely unique so if anybody nicks that I’ll easily be able to slap them silly! :)

Any other idea's?

Mal

[sharpfish]

I asked Dan Vogel this when I was in `communications` with him over editor bugs earlier in the month.. I asked if there was a way to `protect` static meshes - just like you used to with BSP (lets face it - bsp is NOT the problem now - they are going to rip those meshes we took ages with!). He didn`t actually respond to that point but if a LOAD of mappers mail epic about it they may be able to do something in the editor to protect the meshes - even if they can still be ripped with one of those package tools (on the map file) it would stop noobs loading the map up in UED and copying them. I had 2 requests to use some wood walkways from Tropica and said `sure` so long as you say who made them in the readme.. ( certain meshes I dont mind - I mean they were hardly dificult to make - just some folks can not even get 3dsmax let alone use it ).

Same goes for music files and textures.. Dont want to get too petty as sharing and customising is what the game is all about (and if epic had been so `petty` we wouldn`t have built anything to begin with) - but this will need sorting out.. It will simply dissuade the good / creative mappers from bothering eventually and ut2k3 mapping may be left to the `lego block` builders. I think most of us who make our own meshes etc are doing it because the level NEEDS it, ie we couldn`t use exclusively epic meshes to acheive the `theme` we require so spend a bit of time making them to enhance a level. If someone then rips them (or the maps) they need slapping in public - and the map sites must always keep an eye out for this.. static mesh pinching is one thing but complete level rip offs (as above) are a big NO-NO.

Sharpfish
www.realityfakers.tk