iCoder: Aren't they just a delightful bunch?

[Wafflemao]

http://kotaku.com/5750238/the-case-of-t ... bbit-games

This is pretty appalling. Thoughts?

[Madd the Sane]

They are violating copyright law with at least the art assets. Wolfire is in its rights to sue them if they so choose.

[rudel_ic]

If they took the game as-is, with textures, original maps, the same campaign, 3D assets and all, then I don't see any license allowing that, so they're in the wrong. The license clearly refers to the source code and resulting compilates. So they'd have to make their own stuff.
I never saw document clearing the assets. It's been said that someone from the development team said as much in some chat or whatever, but that's not good enough.

Apart from that, if it came to a legal battle, clearly, the name Lugaru can't be used for the nigh identical product from a different seller without any handoff of that name.

Most of all, there's not much money in this kind of behavior, and they're pretty much destroying their own reputation with this. So it's one of the most idiotic things a developer can do. They'll never get any positive vibe from anyone who's aware of this fiasco. The whole indie scene hates their guts. Kotaku has them in the crosshairs, they have a lot of readers. Multiple developers will take them as a referential bad example in the future. They're raping the opensource idea. It's pretty much professional suicide. And that for no good reason.

Plus, they can't remedy this. They won't get rich. So why do it?

iCoder, eh? Welcome to your five minutes. I guess any publicity is good publicity. Hooray for you and the 500 bucks you made. If it even reaches your banking account.

[ttcfcl]

Definitely appalling.

My question is about the legality. In the source code, The GPL licence is in the COPYING.TXT, saying it can be resold by others which I assume applies to the whole package, art assests and all. But then there's CONTENT-LICENSE.TXT that says the art assests *cannot* be resold. My question is can the CONTENT-LICENSE be legally applied in this case? Or should Lugaru have been released GPL *without* the art assets, and instead offed availble in a separate package, with *that* one saying the art assets cant be resold?

[rudel_ic]

[Jendraz]

This is frustrating. I hope that Wolfire is able to be compensated.

[Ragdollmaster]

If they had created a game on the Lugaru engine with brand new textures, models, and animations, it'd be fine. They literally just took the game and "fixed some bugs and memoryleaks" (ie did nothing) and then put it up so that they'd be able to make a cheap profit. Wow. Talk about reprehensible.

Apple should at the very least remove the clone from their store and compensate Wolfire for their lost profit. Legal action against iCoder is another matter.

[SamW]

I would take this guy's advice.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... stcount=15

Some one should document what files are modified copies or simply straight copies of non-GPL assets.
Also, you should check for compliance with GPL requirements.

[Chibiabos]

Its on destructoid now: http://www.destructoid.com/lugaru-shame ... 3156.phtml

[Chibiabos]

And a couple more sites have picked up the story:

http://www.techeye.net/software/apple-m ... u-download
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/02/03/ ... app-store/

[Freshbite]

This is going in the right direction, I see.
I will be cheering you on from the side. Go Wolfire!

[Chibiabos]

Its now up to 9 sites, including 2 in German and 1 in French.

http://www.google.com/search?q=lugaru+a ... 1f7ae91af6

[Janro]

Oh geez. What coincidence that I'm studying copyrights in my college class right now. I guess I'll be really interested in the topic now.

In any case. I hope this gets sorted out soon and that it is in Wolfire's favor.

[Blorx]

Saw this on Kotaku. This is just ridiculous. I mean, taking the source and pretty much doing nothing to it and then selling it is bad enough, but taking the source, compiling it, sticking all the original art assets in it, and then not even bothering to change the name, levels, etc, is just terrible. They're definitely in violation of something.

iCoder should probably be changed to "youCodeAndWeSeller."

[xpk3]

Me and 2 other people tipped off The Escapist about it, "Apple Authorizes Counterfeit Version of Wolfire's Lugaru"

Selling a clone on a platform where the original is also being sold boggles my mind.