Valve Drops the Hammer On Infringing Dota 2 Mace

[IamGamer41]

That's the one thing I hate about sites like Stream.You get banned you lose all your games.If that's not a crock of shit I don't know what is.Could you imaging Nintendo or Sega doing this back in the 90's? Oh you let a friend borrow your Sonic 2 game? Well your banned from Sega!We will take all your Sega games back!

It's sad that we can't own the games we buy now a days.

I'm thinking the article here is wrong and that dude didn't really lose his games, and that the person who wrote the article just assumed being banned means you lose your game (it used to mean that too)

According to this he didn't lose his games http://www.shacknews.com/article/73450/steam-account-bans-no-longer-take-away-all-your-games

Quite possible.Don't believe everything you read and only half of what you see.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

too harsh a punishment? I think the guy got out lucky, valve could have gotten sued for this. He broke the terms of agreement, but not only that, put valve themselves at a huge risk. I think he's lucky he didn't get sued himself, as had this not have been resolved, could have well been on the cards.

 

[Elate]

Fuck, some people on this forum. Let me break this down for you;

WHAT HE DID, WAS ILLEGAL

Very, and undeniably illegal. We don't know what kind of ban he got, but frankly I think he should also get a lawsuit on top of that. You're ripping off other peoples work and then passing it off as your own to make money. This would be like stealing a picture, comic, or photo and selling it to a newspaper which then distributes it, to thousands of people. But because he possibly got banned from his paid for games (People assuming he's even a valve customer, he could have maybe 1-2 games and then submitted that, chances are he did if he knew it was copyright material.) VALVE is the bad guy? That would be like people blaming a restaurant for throwing me out before I could eat my paid for food after I started peeing on the customers.

 

[TheScientificIssole]

Full on plagiarism and you think being locked out of steam is too heavy? If you were caught doing this at university you'd be banned from graduating. There are many cases in the real world where you get charged thousands of dollars for this sort of willful infringement. I think he got off lightly really.

He wasn't stealing, it was probably just a tribute to a game he really liked. He probably didn't know the consequences. He probably thought VaLVe understood the reference, because I'd think that most people voted the item up because they've played Aion.

 

[AJax_21]

Full on plagiarism and you think being locked out of steam is too heavy? If you were caught doing this at university you'd be banned from graduating. There are many cases in the real world where you get charged thousands of dollars for this sort of willful infringement. I think he got off lightly really.

He wasn't stealing, it was probably just a tribute to a game he really liked. He probably didn't know the consequences. He probably thought VaLVe understood the reference, because I'd think that most people voted the item up because they've played Aion.

I remember reading the item description of this item in the Steam Workshop, he in no way referenced Aion or claimed it was a fan mod but his own creation. It also doesn't help that he jacked the weapon model from Aion's assets wholesale and put it up in the workshop.

There are tons of fan mods for Skyrim and TF2 in the workshop, the difference is the creators don't get paid for the mod unlike this guy.

 

[Ledan]

Wow, that's a lot of people defending steam. I'm not saying all of you are overzealous fanboys, but I'm pretty sure if we replaced Steam with Origin, there would be a lot less of you defending them.
Yes the dude did something illegal, but we don't take his legal property away for committing a crime. Jail him or fine him, but don't take his house, games, car, fridge, telephone, etc. If he has to sell them to pay for his fine, that's okay.

Now some of you are going to say that he doesn't own those games, that steam is just a service. Well here in Europe he legally owns those games as his property. The EULA is not a binding legal document either. So if he is in the EU he can take Steam to court for basically stealing the games that he paid for.

I don't give crap if taking his games away is "a slap on his wrist", that's not steams call to make, that is not within their rights, and that is now how the legal system works.

 

[mindrazor]

Oh, Andy Chalk! How can that be your take on the subject of IP infringement? Your conclusion is just plain wrong-headed. Nor can I believe that escapist supports the notion that stealing the work of others is a fine thing and should go unpunished. What this person did is in no way different from my taking this article, stripping the title and byline and selling it to pcgamer.com with my name on it and getting paid for it. Of course, I wouldn't do that because of the incorrect conclusion and the fact that it is wrong to do so, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised when you came calling about it and I lost the money I'd made and my access to both escapist and pcgamer.

Internet friends--there are actual laws and rules in the world and a good many of them are in place to protect you and the people whose creative work you enjoy. The rule to live by is a simple one and has already been stated most eloquently by Wil Wheaton, "Don't be a dick."

 

[somonels]

I hope the guy is form the EU and sues Valve to get his games back. I just want them to get sued, and lose. Maybe he'll get enough money to pay off some of whatever he gets for copyright infringement for commercial purposes. Good thing valve didn't pay him, that should considerably lessen his punishment.

 

[Tropicaz]

Wow, that's a lot of people defending steam. I'm not saying all of you are overzealous fanboys, but I'm pretty sure if we replaced Steam with Origin, there would be a lot less of you defending them.
Yes the dude did something illegal, but we don't take his legal property away for committing a crime. Jail him or fine him, but don't take his house, games, car, fridge, telephone, etc. If he has to sell them to pay for his fine, that's okay.

Now some of you are going to say that he doesn't own those games, that steam is just a service. Well here in Europe he legally owns those games as his property. The EULA is not a binding legal document either. So if he is in the EU he can take Steam to court for basically stealing the games that he paid for.

I don't give crap if taking his games away is "a slap on his wrist", that's not steams call to make, that is not within their rights, and that is now how the legal system works.

They banned his account, from what i've read that means he still gets his games. They banned him for violating their ToS which he agreed do, so they are allowed to do it

 

[Saviordd1]

Wonderful, glad to know me not supporting steam anymore is valid. He does something as small as this and gets banned for it and loses access to all the games he paid for.

Small? He stole another person/company's Intellectual Property and passed it off as his own for SALE in a different game product. That's not small, that's HUGE! He deserved his ban.

Yeah and he spent who knows how much off games on Steam. Ban him from ever playing the game again and prevent him from making money off the item , but losing 1000s of dollars worth of games is not fair. I'm never replacing my discs if getting banned is this easy.

Considering Valve very easily could have called the people who's rights he infringed and then made money off of and told them who started it this was being nice.

If the other company had decided to they could have sued his ass off for a LOT of money, losing what games you don't have installed is relatively nice as the other company probably wont persue the matter any further now.

Plagiarism is a huge deal in the common world, maybe its not a big deal if you copy a paper in high school or K-8 school but it will get you sued or arrested out here.

 

[Saviordd1]

-supbla-

Read the article, it links to a steam mod's post, it's real.

 

[Caffiene]

I looked it up and from what I can find on the net the cost of the item is apparently about $2.49 (for the key that opens that chest you get the item from).

So 24,603 users times $2.49 = This guy essentially committed $61,000 worth of fraud.

... and losing his steam library is too severe a penalty?

 

[dayjack01]

I don't think a steam ban means a ban from your games, just the multiplayer portion of ones that use steam match making.

no its full on ban basicly a midddle finger to the customer and that would not be good if i got banned with my 254 games on steam

 

[dayjack01]

Wonderful, glad to know me not supporting steam anymore is valid. He does something as small as this and gets banned for it and loses access to all the games he paid for.

Um...as small as this? The steam workshop is basically a place where steam customers are allowed to enter into a business partnership with Valve. It allows people to become part time developers and be published by Valve. This is not a small infringement, a key in DOTA 2 costs US$2.50. This mace is a matter of US$61,507.50, that's hardly small and as the developer behind the item he is entitled to a portion of the proceeds. This isn't a skin in minecraft, this is real business with real money behind it and that person straight up copied and pasted something that's not theirs to control. Firstly this person violated the terms of an agreement with Valve by using something that was not their property, secondly this person used somebody else's intellectual property for the purpose of earning money and dragged Valve into infringing on that property. How is this exactly a small matter?

HOLY SHIT 2.50 US DOLLARS THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT THAT ARE GOING TO BE SO POOR
okay enough of sarcasm lets just derail the thread here with the BS steam TERMS AND CONDITIONS basicly you fuck up you lose your games the reason why they banned the person games is because valvae couldent be bothered to give back the money and make the guy give back his share of the pot but NOOOOOOOOOOOO we "have" to punish him why? there is no point people who want to punish him are just dicks if he payed back all that was done and was left with what he had at the begginging then why punish him? its because people in the world are dicks and it feeds their ego SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much to be dicks to other people in the past we used weapons to be edicks to people now we use pieces of paper to leave people with NOTHING

now i might get shouted at called names and tolled to piss off because i posted MY opinion and WHY I say it but no because of of the reason i put forth in my opinion.


http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/4760/mofodg7.gif

 

[Ccx55]

I find the most stupid argument from people blaming Steam to be "what if it happened to you?".

Seriously, unless you have future plans to commit serious fraud or other illegal activities involving Valve, you have nothing to worry about. If you are planning any such crimes, then you'd be breaking the TOS and deserve a ban.

Not only a ban, but I could imagine even taking away all your games if the crime was serious enough.

 

[Ympulse]

If you were to replace every mention of 'Valve' and 'Steam' with 'EA' and 'Origin'in the OP, this would be a very different thread.

Just some food for thought, freedom fighters.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Er.... offer a open copyright option for mods that are fan made copies of stuff they like that dose not generate revenue.....

 

[bafrali]

snip

What can i say? I would be emberassed to be on the whatever side this post is trying to defend.

 

[Itsthefuzz]

snip

What can i say? I would be emberassed to be on the whatever side this post is trying to defend.

Yeah, even if I agreed with him (Which I don't) this would be a very poor way to convey his point. It's just caps and insults.