Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

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skdursh
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Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by skdursh »

This user https://www.moddb.com/members/mememerlingamer/downloads at Moddb uploaded Stronghold Edge of Chaos by Realm667/DRDTeam and is claiming that they "just recently" made it despite it coming out in 2010. This angers me greatly. It sucks, but Moddb often neglects to do anything about blatant thefts like this very quickly unless a lot of people or the original creators contact them. Just hoping to put the word out in-case someone here has downloaded it and doesn't realize it's stolen. I'd also be wary of viruses or other issues as Moddb also doesn't very thoroughly vet their uploads for malware before hosting them either.
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Redneckerz
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Redneckerz »

To everyone else - This has been solved on Discord and Tormentor has been notified.

Given the user page, i am hard guessing its a younger person who is not aware that doing this is a big no no.
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Ozymandias81
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Ozymandias81 »

I have also informed Torm personally from Facebook, and also reported the "mod" on ModDB link. Everyone can do that, I just hope link will be shutdown and the "author" banned, since guessing or not he should deserve that to understand rules.
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leileilol
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by leileilol »

Unfortunately that site encourages and normalizes it by having a level/experience system tied to adding profiles/uploading... there was one member here who'd make profiles of every mod on the zdoom projects subforum "for exposure".
skdursh
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by skdursh »

Little update: the mod was taken down and the user was banned. Sounds good to me.
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Apprentice
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Apprentice »

leileilol wrote:Unfortunately that site encourages and normalizes it by having a level/experience system tied to adding profiles/uploading... there was one member here who'd make profiles of every mod on the zdoom projects subforum "for exposure".
That isn't the only issue that ModDB has, there are a significant amount more and compared with its competitors and money isn't one of them. It took me forever in order to flag a couple of dead mods as such, despite the pile of evidence available that clearly showed that those mods were no longer in development.

I suspect that money is a more important motivator for them, even so that they are willing to slide their own rules and regulations until it reaches a point that they cannot do their hide-and-seek act. They also have a double-standard on most things, because they are not allowed to host anything remotely based on "Battlestar Galactica" but they will host obviously stolen content pretty much 'forever' until they cannot hide behind it anymore . . .
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Kinsie
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Kinsie »

ModDB has a lot of moderation issues in general. I recall one incident of a modder being repeatedly harrassed across their multiple projects, complaining to ModDB staff about it, and basically being told to spin it into a rivalry as a dumb marketing stunt to get more hits for their mod.

That was a while back though... but it was around the time they also had a guy on these very forums hitting people up and nagging them to put their mods on ModDB, so I can't honestly say they strike me as the type of people who learn from past experiences.
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by sinisterseed »

ModDB is a horrible place for keeping mods in general, a lot of users just re-upload other people's stuff, especially without permission from the original author(s) and takedown requests are usually ignored even when the original authors request it.

Let's just say I know people who've experienced this frustration themselves, and guess what, the said mods are still in place. This site has serious issues... I would never recommend using it to anyone.

As about this particular incident, perhaps the uploader was just a very young person who didn't understand what he was actually doing, or a troll, and in that case, good riddance. Back when I was a dumb kid I did similar shit on a few occasions, because I didn't understand what I was actually engaging in at all, and it's been haunting me ever since. Every time I think about it I just want to bury myself deep into the ground out of shame....
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Graf Zahl
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Graf Zahl »

They probably think that the people hanging out there won't hire a lawyer. This may work for a long time, but if one person seriously decides to fight them they'd be in deep trouble if it can be proven that this is standard operating procedure for them.
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by sinisterseed »

Graf Zahl wrote:They probably think that the people hanging out there won't hire a lawyer. This may work for a long time, but if one person seriously decides to fight them they'd be in deep trouble if it can be proven that this is standard operating procedure for them.
Which makes me wonder what their modus operandi is. Everything uploaded on ModDB needs to be manually approved as far as I'm aware and manually reviewed before going public, it's not like it ends up there because there's no checks in place at all, making the whole thing all the more puzzling. What the hell are the mods reviewing?
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Apprentice
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Apprentice »

Graf Zahl wrote:They probably think that the people hanging out there won't hire a lawyer. This may work for a long time, but if one person seriously decides to fight them they'd be in deep trouble if it can be proven that this is standard operating procedure for them.
... which is what I had to do. They either seen the light themselves or their own lawyer said to them that they should deal with it, because I would've won it on points . . .
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VGA
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by VGA »

lowskill. wrote:
Graf Zahl wrote:They probably think that the people hanging out there won't hire a lawyer. This may work for a long time, but if one person seriously decides to fight them they'd be in deep trouble if it can be proven that this is standard operating procedure for them.
Which makes me wonder what their modus operandi is. Everything uploaded on ModDB needs to be manually approved as far as I'm aware and manually reviewed before going public, it's not like it ends up there because there's no checks in place at all, making the whole thing all the more puzzling. What the hell are the mods reviewing?
I guess they are mostly making sure someone doesn't try to spread a trojan with a super-awesome, fake mod.
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MFG38
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by MFG38 »

lowskill. wrote:What the hell are the mods reviewing?
Clearly not whether a mod includes copyrighted content or not. I remember one case where someone mashed Ultimate Doom and SIGIL together - unmodified to boot - and ModDB whole-heartedly allowed it on the site, even going as far as to feature it on their front page. It took a flood of reports for them to take it down, which I'm glad they ultimately did.

And that's not even mentioning the author of the "mod" failing to see past their own hypocrisy when it comes to distributing copyrighted content. When another user inquired them about it, they fully acknowledged that you wouldn't be allowed to distribute the full DOOM '16 game just because you modified the shotgun a tiny bit, but somehow they thought it was completely okay to essentially distribute Ultimate Doom for free.

The site definitely has its problems in regards to what they allow onto the site. I'm surprised they still haven't improved upon it to this day, even after numerous cases of people infringing on others' intellectual property at worst.
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sinisterseed
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by sinisterseed »

Oh I know, there were plenty of other other instances of warez that was approved as well.

Apart from checking if the files themselves are clean, I doubt the moderators are checking the rest of the important aspects, notably copyright. There's also plenty of re-uploaded content from other authors, and no doubt many of these were done without the knowledge or approval of the original authors, and there's cases where even when the OG authors request their takedown, they are not taken down. For these reasons alone, if I were to make mods again, I would never upload them there, no sane person would anyway.
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Re: Someone on Moddb stealing mods.

Post by Matt »

I just had an awful idea:

"This is a mod for Adobe Acrobat DC. It is modded to allow the user to bypass inconvenient credential and product verification signing. For non-commercial purposes only, no copyright intended."

Just to see how long it takes to get taken down...
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