Modders and Mod Users Be Aware - Gmods.com

[Maigrets]

I'm posting this as a Global Announcement because it affects modders and mod users alike. Other concerned people are doing the same anywhere they can to spread the word. This also possibly affects people who have images, written works and other intellectual property that belongs to them.

There is a site called Gmods.com, an affiliate of Olympus sites, that is mining mods from Tesnexus and other gaming mod sites. This affects not only TES games but Bioware, Runic games and others we haven't yet discovered. While it's understood that there's little that can be done about other sites that upload mods without permission, in the main they don't use underhanded and suspect methods as this site is doing to try to gain attention. They certainly don't announce their intentions on other forums to tell them they are leeching and using these other site's bandwidth as the Admin of Gmods has done. They obviously don't believe stealing to setup their site is wrong.

1. This site is hot linking to mods download links which results in bandwidth leeching.

2. Adding author information and mod entries without permission which authors CANNOT access without making an account and installing unwanted software. Some mods have the incorrect author listed.

3. Directly ignoring stated permissions in mod Readme texts and altering these Readme texts.

4. Demands you install software to be able to register an account.

5. And "possibly" attempting to make money from their actions due to their terms of reference though this isn't proven yet.

This site is also annoying to navigate and mod authors will not find their mods unless they do a search as they are not in the category lists. I found mine there only because someone told me and only after searching. After a frustrating attempt at finding a contact method that didn't error at every step, I have emailed them from the Olympus link at the bottom of the site page. However, the comment section like most of the site contact areas doesn't work.

This is the content of my email which I've also posted at Tesnexus.:

Kreisher,

I want all of my mods removed from Gmods immediately. You do NOT have my permission as indicated categorically in my Readme texts.

If you had continued to respond in the latest thread at Tesnexus you will have seen the large list of modders who do NOT want their work there or anything to do with your site and these are only the ones who know about this.

"Tesnexus thread Link"

Failure to rectify this situation will result in even more backlash from the wider modding community than you have already earned.

Don't bother trying to justify your methods any further. Just remove my mods and any others you do not have explicit permission to host.

I will be checking to see if you comply and if not I will be taking further action.

Thank you,
Maigrets

Gmods is supposedly in Beta, but this does not excuse what they are doing even after having been told numerous times it is definitely the wrong way to go about setting up a new mod site.

This is against the Eula of almost every game and they are effectively stealing other people's intellectual work to try to draw attention to their site.

Gmods
http://gmod.com/

Gmods terms of reference.
http://gmod.com/tou

Refer to this current thread at Tesnexus for further information.
http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php ... ex-system/

This is an earlier thread also at Tesnexus where they were told in no uncertain terms to stop what they are doing and there was also one at the Bethsoft forums but I can't quickly find it.
http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php ... p__3323913

Runic Games thread
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18042

Bioware Forum thread
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic ... /6840398/1

This is a link to a video where Kreisher the site owner tries to apologize for his actions. It was posted in July, before the current situation arose.
http://gmod.com/video/Gmod%20Apology

No matter what your opinion of the behaviour of this site and it's owners is, they are in the wrong and have been threatened with legal action.

Take care when viewing the site as it's heavily Flash oriented and without adequate protection there is the risk of malware. I can't even view the site without letting NoScript (for Firefox) temporarily allow it and all I get otherwise is a blank page.

Maigrets.

[StarX]

I thought they would have learned their lesson by now. Now they even link to Starx Vanilla Vampires Revised at Nexus, which doesn't even has the source files. They can expect a nice email from me soon.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Fessels]

No matter what your opinion of the behaviour of this site and it's owners is, they are in the wrong and have been threatened with legal action.

Take care when viewing the site as it's heavily Flash oriented and without adequate protection there is the risk of malware. I can't even view the site without letting NoScript (for Firefox) temporarily allow it and all I get otherwise is a blank page.

Maigrets.

I really hope they will be sued and shut down, what they are doing is out right piracy in my opinion! I am not even going to take a look at their site, no use to it.

[Bizzy]

Oh, I hate the Web 2.0.

[StarX]

Send them an email as well and will see what happens next. Here's the email I send:

Hello,

It recently came to my attention that my mods or mods that I gave permission for to others to use have a direct link at GMOD: http://gmod.com/mod/?s=starx&qc=mods&in=2

I want you to remove all those links/files as I never gave permission for such actions. The vampire mod isn't even complete as it requires a secondary download for the sourcefiles, so that only proves my point that you don't gave a rats ass about the modlinks you host, but just want to generate traffic for the adds.

If you want to be a serious modding source I suggest you stop leeching on the work from others (modders and site owners).

I should say this in advance: I don't want any explainations or excuses, I just want to have those files removed. I will be checking to see if you comply and if not I will be taking further action.

If I come across as being rude than I really don't care, you should have thought about the consequenses before making such a ridiculous leeching database.

StarX

[Maigrets]

Bethsoft official forum thread.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/t ... 2-gmodcom/

[shingouki]

They're even hosting Realswords on there...

[Maigrets]

They're even hosting Realswords on there...

Thanks for that bit of info. I'll let Alex know. Although he's probably read this post he may not know about Realswords..

[Fessels]

Just saw this post from DarkOne on the Bethesda thread about Gmod.

Links from GMod to TESNexus will now be redirected to this page.

[Maigrets]

Yes, I just got an email form Terry Sue, the Community Manager saying they've removed my mods and it seems many others as well.

This the email for future reference but I'm glad now DarkOne has done his thing they may well be shut down.

Hi Maigrets,

I'm the Community Manager at GMOD.com and I have gone ahead and removed your mods from our site.

I would like to sincerely apologize for uploading your mods onto our site.

Regards,
-Terry

[Waalx]

I can't really say that I'm in favor of this thing, but I've been putting stuff on the web for free long enough now that I know of many places where they distribute my mods already without my permission since a few years, in China, Japan, Russia, Korea, and others places.
I've even seen my work being sold as 3d models. Even then there's very little that I can do. Writing to the persons in charge may not work, and in some cases they asked that I provide proof I was the original author. As if I have time for this! The proof is out there, what else do you want? My original work files?

I gather many websites also make money with the advertisements on their websites, so it's not a really big difference if you exclude the fact that Gmods steal the bandwidth of other websites. In that regard that make me glad that WAC is a rather unknown mod, that it's under the radar and available only in this little private place that I personally pay for ...all without any ads.(notice that it's a rare thing to see a website without ad support ) Hopefully Gmods wont hotlink from RealSwords Workshop...hehe. They probably don't know of this place, hopefully.
From the comments I got from RealSwords users on Nexus, it's quite obvious they don't even read the Read-me and know jackshit about WAC, even if it's mentioned in the latest read-me, or rather since RealSwords Goblin (2008)...that a long time to not have a clue about what's going on! I'm still getting messages from people about RealSwords that are already answered (with WAC). Anyway...

At one point you have to say to yourself that it doesn't really matter, otherwise it just make you grow old faster Actually I'm much more mad about people taking my mods against my wishes and using them in video-games other than Oblivion. I've seen mods where some of the RealSwords material appear in Mount and Blades, in Fallout 3, Morrowind, and probably others that I don't know of.
That piss me off, but what can I do? I'm not going to spend money to sue somebody that live in Canada about my mods, so I'm even less going to sue somebody from another country. As if they would care anyway... Beside all that, I've had 3 donations only in 3 years of working this crap, so I have no $ to file against anybody.
The only thing I have is some intellectual property, and we all know what that's worth in this Age of the Freeloaders on the internet. It's worth less than crap!

When a person write me about porting my work into another game I always say NO. Afterward, what happen is left to that person's integrity. I'm not a police. I have no time for that.

Cheers!

[shingouki]

I can't really say that I'm in favor of this thing, but I've been putting stuff on the web for free long enough now that I know of many places where they distribute my mods already without my permission since a few years, in China, Japan, Russia, Korea, and others places.
I've even seen my work being sold as 3d models. Even then there's very little that I can do. Writing to the persons in charge may not work, and in some cases they asked that I provide proof I was the original author. As if I have time for this! The proof is out there, what else do you want? My original work files?

I gather many websites also make money with the advertisements on their websites, so it's not a really big difference if you exclude the fact that Gmods steal the bandwidth of other websites. In that regard that make me glad that WAC is a rather unknown mod, that it's under the radar and available only in this little private place that I personally pay for ...all without any ads.(notice that it's a rare thing to see a website without ad support ) Hopefully Gmods wont hotlink from RealSwords Workshop...hehe. They probably don't know of this place, hopefully.
From the comments I got from RealSwords users on Nexus, it's quite obvious they don't even read the Read-me and know jackshit about WAC, even if it's mentioned in the latest read-me, or rather since RealSwords Goblin (2008)...that a long time to not have a clue about what's going on! I'm still getting messages from people about RealSwords that are already answered (with WAC). Anyway...

At one point you have to say to yourself that it doesn't really matter, otherwise it just make you grow old faster Actually I'm much more mad about people taking my mods against my wishes and using them in video-games other than Oblivion. I've seen mods where some of the RealSwords material appear in Mount and Blades, in Fallout 3, Morrowind, and probably others that I don't know of.
That piss me off, but what can I do? I'm not going to spend money to sue somebody that live in Canada about my mods, so I'm even less going to sue somebody from another country. As if they would care anyway... Beside all that, I've had 3 donations only in 3 years of working this crap, so I have no $ to file against anybody.
The only thing I have is some intellectual property, and we all know what that's worth in this Age of the Freeloaders on the internet. It's worth less than crap!

When a person write me about porting my work into another game I always say NO. Afterward, what happen is left to that person's integrity. I'm not a police. I have no time for that.

Cheers!

I didn't even know you could donate on this site until now... I see it at the bottom now.

[Fessels]

Just saw this in the Bethesda Gmod thread.

Shezrie has found something interesting......

http://www.digitalninjastl.com/blog/tag ... -kreisher/

This isn't someone offering a service to the community, it's a parasite.

[Maigrets]

I just saw that myself.

Take note people about the part where he says "PAID" mods, and that mods can ruin your computer and give you malware, as well as other lies and innuendos. If people think he's going to stop now he's blocked from Tesnexus, think again.

I agree with what Waalx is saying in his post and there are other sites probably doing the same, but they don't come to the biggest mod mod site to announce their illegal intentions. I personally still want to see this guy taken down. More knowledgeable people than myself know how to go about that best.

You might be interested in this interview made by Sepherose from Tesnexus on behalf of modders from Tesnexus. Kreisher flails and basically digs himself a deeper hole.
http://www.digitalninjastl.com/blog/tag ... -kreisher/

As Sepherose points out this is setting a precedent for others sites that try this crap which is why they are being pursued so actively.

Whether people care or not.

[scot]

Can anyone give the link to the contact page, I´ve found some of my mods there and I want to ask them to delete them from their site.

EDIT:Nevermind send it already.

[Fessels]

Just saw this through a link in the Bethesda Gmod thread. It was posted on the nexus forums by HeyYou. (Look at post #216)

What will they try next!

[Maigrets]

Yes, this isn't over by a long shot. After already being told no, he continues to make attempts to bypass Tesnexus security, he's nothing but a sleazy parasite.