Omnimaga
Calculator Community => TI Calculators => Topic started by: haveacalc on July 25, 2015, 02:34:43 am
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Hi all, I've been gone for awhile. This site (http://calculatorti.com) hosts many popular games made by the graphing calculator community without proper attribution (besides READMEs the authors included in their ZIPs). Since virtually all calculator community software is released without license, they're not doing anything illegal until individual authors ask them for removal. However, they're hogging Google search results and stealing traffic from the few remaining calculator websites.
Any ideas about how to improve this?
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Are you sure what they're doing is legal? They go beyond lack of attribution, and actually claim the programs are their own:
Make math and science easier (and more fun) with free graphing calculator programs and games from calculatorti.com. You can make the process of transfering the application to your calculator sweet and simple with Texas Instrument's handy TI connect software. Install it on your computer and grab your GraphLink Connection cable (USB cable) to plug in your calculator. Then you can start downloading any of our programs and games (Wow! There's a lot!) from our libraries to transfer and install them to your calculator. Have fun!
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I'm not sure what could/should be done. They shouldn't be claiming those programs as their own though, because they aren't. It looks like they haven't altered the zip contents though, because the readmes still seem to be there (from the one I checked).
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Hey guys: I did a WhoIs look up and they are hosted by GoDaddy, here is a copy of their Legal Agreement (https://www.godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=TRADMARK_COPY&prog_id=GoDaddy®ionsite=www&marketid=en-US). Under Section B for Copyright Claims you can e-mail them about any relevant information. I would only do this if you find your work on CalculatorTI and if they do not act on your request to remove or credit you for your work.
According to the GoDaddy Legalese, this following information must be included:
- An electronic signature of the copyright owner, or a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive copyright that has allegedly been infringed.
- Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works on that site.
- Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit GoDaddy to locate the material.
- Information reasonably sufficient to permit GoDaddy to contact the Complaining Party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the Complaining Party may be contacted.
- A statement that the Complaining Party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
- A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the Complaining Party is the owner, or is authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
What does this all mean? I'm no lawyer and I'm interpreting this as best as I am able and may not be 100% correct:
- Basically saying that you need to include the proof of copyright. This will vary depending on your country of origin (or where the program was made). It is my understanding that the USA has a law the automatically provides copyright protection to the author of the work. I take a photo, that photo is copyrighted to me. Some countries may require the author to apply for a copyright on the work. I take a photo, that photo is not copyrighted until I apply for a copyright on that photo (and subsequently approved). I'll leave this step up to you guys.
- Perhaps a link to your work hosted somewhere with your permission. Repeat for any and all of your infringed programs.
- Links to your programs hosted without permission on CalculatorTI.
- No contact info is given but you can probably send this link: http://www.calculatorti.com/contact/
- Telling GoDaddy that your work is not attributed to you, hosted without permission and that CalculatorTI claims ownership. Which kind of seems implied (http://www.calculatorti.com/ti-programs/): "Then you can start downloading any of our programs and games."
- Basically, confirming your identity to GoDaddy and that all information provided is accurate and true.
Ideally, your first course of action should be Contacting CalculatorTI directly and asking them to remove your programs - with links. If they do not move forward with your request escalate the issue to GoDaddy.
You cannot ask for someone else's program to be taken down unless, you have written permission (Point 1 of the first list) from that author and share proof of that permission. Now, if you guys want to create a table that lists the programs on CalculatorTI with the properly attributed programs that were hosted with permission that'd be great! It'd allow the authors to quickly find their work and send the appropriate links directly to CalculatorTI and GoDaddy.
Example:
| CalculatorTI | | Real Source | | Author |
| CTI-Link | ticalc-link | comic |
| CTI-Link | omnimaga-link | Camelot |
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Or you could just ddos their website through tor and they will run away like little babies.
Job done
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Or you could just ddos their website through tor and they will run away like little babies.
Job done
No, such a thing usually just fuels anger and doesn't help to solve any problem at all.
Besides, that would be illegal.
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Thanks for the find @haveacalc we should probably start compiling a list of everything we can find on there for authors who are still active in the community and alert them. It would be nice if there was a proper way to ask for things to be taken down that aren't ours and the authors are not active anymore.
From the looks of it, they have been around for at least 4 years based on their youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyOvBUWN7Eaioi9dvgIHVNg).
Or you could just ddos their website through tor and they will run away like little babies.
Job done
You don't seem to understand how the real world works.
@benryves
http://www.calculatorti.com/ti-games/ti-83-plus-ti-84-plus/mirageos/stigma.php/
http://www.calculatorti.com/ti-games/ti-83-plus-ti-84-plus/mirageos/ufo-attack.php/
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Or you could just ddos their website through tor and they will run away like little babies.
Job done
Well, that's definitely not the right answer. I assume you were joking, but not all people will see your invisible sarcasm tags unfortunately.
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@Hayleia http://tiwizard.com/downloads/super-smash-bros-ti-83-ti-84/
Yet another site.
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@Hayleia http://tiwizard.com/downloads/super-smash-bros-ti-83-ti-84/
Yet another site.
That one says "Developed by Hayleia", though
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Yea, that one seems a bit different because they credit the authors and don't claim that any of the programs are theirs.
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Yea, that one seems a bit different because they credit the authors and don't claim that any of the programs are theirs.
This is true.They are still hosting without permission though. If someone uploads something without an explicit license is protected by copyright and is by default All Rights Reserved. This means that to host it you need permission from the author.
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Most of those programs don't have any sort of license, and I doubt many of the authors are around anymore or even care. In regards to the copyright / all rights reserved thing; I wasn't sure about that. This may be the case with the owner/operator of that website as well. I do agree that it's still kinda crappy to just host stuff without permission though, and if someone is running such a website they shouldn't be ignorant of the laws.
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I do have to say though, the owner of that second site has good taste in games. Dying Eyes is even on there. I really need to replay that game.
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:D Lol. That one is definitely a classic.
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Since virtually all calculator community software is released without license, they're not doing anything illegal until individual authors ask them for removal.
For the millionth time, no license is not a WTFPL. Licenses are inclusive, not exclusive: you can't do anything with a piece of software (redistribution, reuse, sale, etc) if it has no license.
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Thanks for the find @haveacalc we should probably start compiling a list of everything we can find on there for authors who are still active in the community and alert them. It would be nice if there was a proper way to ask for things to be taken down that aren't ours and the authors are not active anymore.
I took the liberty and started a Google Doc (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qVPIZA_M-Zg0KUtRL3lf9CY0LQ_4ocXuWXrzD-VedFk/edit?usp=sharing). I added a tab for consenting users as well. It's mentioned on the sheet but this is not where you give consent! Anyone can type in a name. That tab is to consolidate who gave consent to whom and to link to the public forum post where that consent was given. Ideally, maybe post any relevant profiles (TI-calc, Cemetech, Omnimaga, TI-Planet, etc) in the forum post so that if links to your programs are those sites under another alias it's easy to reference back on who is who.
EXAMPLE
I comic give consent to comic to speak on my behalf.
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/95/9564.html
https://www.cemetech.net/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=352
You do not need to do the consent thing, this is just an example of something that should provide decent proof that you gave consent to someone. I don't know if this is legally binding or adequate for consenting but it's a start.
You'll need an invite to edit the doc so PM me with an e-mail and I'll get that set up. If there's an a lot of interest I'll perhaps open it up so anyone can edit without an invite.
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@Hayleia http://tiwizard.com/downloads/super-smash-bros-ti-83-ti-84/
Yet another site.
Yea, that one seems a bit different because they credit the authors and don't claim that any of the programs are theirs.
Well, it would obviously bug me if they claimed it was their work, but not as much as uploading this on their website without caring about the updates I did in the meantime. I mean, there are (at this time) 8001 downloads on TI Planet, and all people who downloaded there got an up to date version. But among the 13459 who downloaded on that shady website, I doubt even half downloads were up to date since the zip is still called "SuperStarFoxOpen"...
I mean, there's a reason why I only uploaded it on one site until now, and it's just because I don't want to update it on several websites, so please people, don't upload it on other websites without updating it...
Anyone knows how I can contact them, at least to tell them to do something about the updates ?
(it would be great if instead of having their version of the zip, they could link to the TI Planet archive).
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it would be great if instead of having their version of the zip, they could link to the TI Planet archive
That reminds me... I'll just say here that TI-Planet is reasonable enough to let people who absolutely need a direct link, use our download.php link (archive-id based, and which will make the user download the always-up-to-date file), and not necessarily the HTML download info page itself (even though the latter indeed provides useful information/metadata, like the license, screenshots, additional details, etc.). That said, it should be a requirement (basic decency?) to provide info such as author name(s), license info, etc, wherever the download is.
Too bad some other website(s) don't provide/want such an external download capability and restrict them to their own website.
("A word to the wise"...)
It's also noteworthy that TI-Planet tries to link directly to the original source when possible (or at least wherever the author uploaded it himself), which makes sense when such websites provide a permalink system, otherwise, as soon as the link changes for whatever reason, downloads stop working, which is a big no-no for the end-user.
Recently, we've made it even clearer that some archives point to external sources, by effectively writing "ext" in the download button label, as well as the source domain in the info section.
We've also just added (yesterday, as of this post's date) a feature that will make the download fallback to a local backup of the file if the external source is down for some reason (but that requires us to make a local backup in the first place, it's not automatic; it will probable be done for important things only)
All that because the end-user must not have to face the consequences of having an unstable source host.