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bad people selling your work

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bad people selling your work

Postby agoyo2yk » Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:39 am

hi guys. im new, im from spain.

the other day, i could detect several guys in ebay selling your work under the flight simulator logo. they are taking economical benefits by your work.

you can check it.

have a nice day
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby wlbragg » Wed Jan 15, 2020 2:36 am

Buyer beware!

Is there any aircraft rendering this effect in FG?
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby Isaak » Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:18 am

I think the artwork is from the promo add for MS FS 2020, they only replaced the MS logo with FG and are probably distributing a copy of FG. Can you provide a link? We might be able to report the scam to Ebay.

Edit: fwiw: I reported the item on Ebay, seems they've been active for a lot of time and are even registered as a legit company in the UK. We'll see.
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby tdammers » Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:03 am

GPL explicitly allows commercial use and selling. So "they are making a profit on your hard work" is not a reason to complain - if you license under GPL, then you are explicitly allowing people to do that.

However, these people are almost certainly committing all sorts of other crimes - trademark infringement, fraud, etc., so reporting this is definitely recommended.

They are probably also violating the conditions of the GPL that do exist, such as the "source provided" and "attribution" requirements.
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby Thorsten » Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:25 am

I'm kinda surprised they can sell a non-existing 2020 version...
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby bugman » Wed Jan 15, 2020 11:55 am

It doesn't seem too unreasonable to me. Well, selling a download link for about 3 GBP is a bit iffy. But the company PixelClassics also sells DVDs and printed manuals. And they do that for FlightGear, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and Gimp. I don't see any false advertising or attempts at tricking buyers into thinking that what they are buying is something else. Everything is clearly labelled.

The screenshots they use seem to be taken from the picture of the month, youtube videos, etc. I doubt there is a copyright violation there. And I'm not sure where the A380 picture over the water with a strong reflection comes from - to me it looks like they actually used the GIMP water effect. So slightly misleading, but nothing illegal. They could also have their own fork of the FlightGear repositories and make their own branches and tags - i.e. a 2020 version based on next from this year. That might be what their 'special' download is.

So anyone who buys this gets exactly what they paid for. Nothing is hidden in the product descriptions. They were not ripped off.

Of course the buyer could download directly from SourceForge or use the official FlightGear store. All profits would then help pay for the FlightGear infrastructure instead. If a FlightGear contributor thinks there is a profitable market to sell on Ebay (or other online stores), you should talk directly to curt about setting up the official FlightGear store there. Or better still, start a serious discussion about this on the developers mailing list. My guess is that putting the FlightGear store onto Ebay hasn't happened yet as the effort outweighs the small profits.

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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby Alant » Wed Jan 15, 2020 12:06 pm

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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby bugman » Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:09 pm

Maybe it's time to get the official FlightGear store up on Ebay, Amazon, etc. ;) Any volunteer motivated enough to set this up should step forward. It would probably help to have a "European distributor" and a "UK distributor" on top of the current US store. That would then be easier for the buyer to avoid import taxes. If you would like to volunteer on a long-term basis, a plan should be discussed on the FlightGear developer's mailing list.

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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby wlbragg » Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:37 pm

I don't see any false advertising or attempts at tricking buyers into thinking that what they are buying is something else. Everything is clearly labelled.

I disagree. They are trying to sell a product that you can obtain for free without mentioning that fact, that is misleading in and of itself and most certainly tricking a buyer into parting ways with their money when they don't have to.

And I'm not sure where the A380 picture over the water with a strong reflection comes from - to me it looks like they actually used the GIMP water effect. So slightly misleading, but nothing illegal.

"slightly misleading", it either is or isn't and it is, FlightGear doesn't have those reflections as far as I am aware of. There is other information in the descriptions that is not letter perfect, read it closely it is misleading. It states scenery and airport accuracy that I don't think can be stated as such.

With that said I have not purchased nor seen the product they are selling so I can't go much beyond what I have seen and read in the advertisement which is stretching many truths. Without going through the purchasing and obtaining of the product I can't comment on just how misleading this is.

putting the FlightGear store onto Ebay hasn't happened yet as the effort outweighs the small profits.

Maybe it's time to get the official FlightGear store up on Ebay, Amazon, etc.

I think that would be a good idea, not necessarily for profit but for informational purposes to help the general public avoid the scam artists. Even if this is legal. if there is no value added additional products or data, it's is at best misleading and therefor a scam in my opinion. If there is "any" additional product or even support, then I might see it otherwise.The description of what your getting is misleading with many exaggerations and omissions. I would venture to say if FG tried to sell using the descriptions, as is, there could be a case made for false advertising.
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby Michat » Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:05 pm

agoyo2yk wrote in Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:39 am:hi guys. im new, im from spain.

the other day, i could detect several guys in ebay selling your work under the flight simulator logo. they are taking economical benefits by your work.

you can check it.

have a nice day


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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby tdammers » Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:21 pm

bugman wrote in Wed Jan 15, 2020 11:55 am:It doesn't seem too unreasonable to me. Well, selling a download link for about 3 GBP is a bit iffy. But the company PixelClassics also sells DVDs and printed manuals. And they do that for FlightGear, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and Gimp. I don't see any false advertising or attempts at tricking buyers into thinking that what they are buying is something else. Everything is clearly labelled.

The screenshots they use seem to be taken from the picture of the month, youtube videos, etc. I doubt there is a copyright violation there. And I'm not sure where the A380 picture over the water with a strong reflection comes from - to me it looks like they actually used the GIMP water effect. So slightly misleading, but nothing illegal. They could also have their own fork of the FlightGear repositories and make their own branches and tags - i.e. a 2020 version based on next from this year. That might be what their 'special' download is.

So anyone who buys this gets exactly what they paid for. Nothing is hidden in the product descriptions. They were not ripped off.

Of course the buyer could download directly from SourceForge or use the official FlightGear store. All profits would then help pay for the FlightGear infrastructure instead. If a FlightGear contributor thinks there is a profitable market to sell on Ebay (or other online stores), you should talk directly to curt about setting up the official FlightGear store there. Or better still, start a serious discussion about this on the developers mailing list. My guess is that putting the FlightGear store onto Ebay hasn't happened yet as the effort outweighs the small profits.

Regards,
Edward


The font looks suspiciously similar to the one used for FSX though. And with the upcoming release of FS20, an unsuspecting buying might actually fall for it. Replace the word "FlightGear" with "Microsoft", and it's 100% an ad for MSFS20. So the words are technically correct, but the whole thing is still misleading.
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby Isaak » Fri Jan 17, 2020 5:35 pm

tdammers wrote in Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:21 pm:The font looks suspiciously similar to the one used for FSX though. And with the upcoming release of FS20, an unsuspecting buying might actually fall for it. Replace the word "FlightGear" with "Microsoft", and it's 100% an ad for MSFS20. So the words are technically correct, but the whole thing is still misleading.


That's exactly what I was thinking, for me it's clear that they're using the MS FS 2020 hype to earn some money on unsuspecting buyers.
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Re: bad people selling your work

Postby bugman » Sat Jan 18, 2020 4:16 pm

Isaak wrote in Fri Jan 17, 2020 5:35 pm:...for me it's clear that they're using the MS FS 2020 hype to earn some money on unsuspecting buyers.


From the current 102 customer reviews on the Amazon UK listing posted by Alan, not a single one mentions that they were 'tricked' into thinking that. It's clear even from the one-star reviews that the buyers knew what they were getting. Actually it looks like they've been selling their '2020' version for most of 2019 (the person's name appears to be Dean). If people don't like what is happening, then the solution would be to put in some serious voluntary hours into setting up the official FlightGear store on Ebay and Amazon!

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