Maps and mods on allegro.pl auction site

[sfidanza]

I'll reproduce here the post I just wrote on Heroes Community, as the subject is, i think, of interest for the whole community:

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Someone going with the nickname Radziu_666 is selling an H5 package on allegro.pl (the polish eBay), with maps, mods, official patches, the skillwheels, and some other H5 stuff.

Apparently, he claims at the end that everything is GPL licensed, allowing him to make the sell. I don't know about you, but I didn't see much GPL licenses in any released map or mod (in fact I didn't see much license at all). I also doubt Ubi (or the polish distributor CDP) would be too glad to learn that someone is charging for their patches. And I also doubt Aurelain released his skillwheels as GPL.

At this guy credit, though, I notice that he didn't put the manual in his package, maybe because he respected the explicit manual license, which does not allow commercial use. That might be a good sign that he will stop his nonsense once we clear things up with him. I'm in contact with morthi (from the polish community), and we'll see what we can do about it.
I really hope this is just a mislead fan that misunderstood how this community works.

Anyway, if you're polish and can give us more information about this, please do. And if you're a mod/mapmaker, maybe you have an inside opinion.
In any case, and after the HeroesPortal discussion, it might be a good idea to add a small "license" part in your readme. Be it as permissive as you wish.
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Let me add that it's not the fact that he's selling "free stuff" that bothers me here. Of course, we might not like it, or wonder why people would pay for it while they can have it for free somewhere else. But if the content authors approved of the commercial use (through a generic license or a specific agreement), it's perfectly legal.
The problem here is that I doubt Radziu_666 has the authors' approval.

[Campaigner]

LOOOL this guy takes the price It's now proven that some people have no scruples

[Tristan-IJB]

Well it's only 15zł so it's about 4 euro, not a big price.
Anyway I think it's ok, he spend some time collecting this, he also claims that there are patches, a map editor, and about 200 maps. It took him some time to collect this. For me it's ok, the price is cheap and maybe some people would like to have all patches on a single CD.

[Avonu]

First, I don't know nothing about GNU Licence (how it works, etc) but I suppose that in this case using term of "GNU Licence" is false - he offfering also patches (Ubisoft's/Nival's patches) and they are software of Ubisoft and Nival.

Second, I learned about this today morning and also learned that Morthi (and rest of team from non-official patches and fan's manual translation) immediatly send mail to Allegro to cancel this auction. How it work, we will see (probably not till Monday).

Unfortunately, this auction is not first try of selling freeware.
From time to time someone (was) trying to sell WoG. Only method to deal with this is that we (polish community) send mail to Allegro to cancel auction. It always (as I know) worked - sometimes harder (mails from one or more persons), sometimes lighter (only one mail).
I hope in this case result will by same.

It is however one exception - if author of auction clearly discribe that he don't sell software but only his time spending on searching and downloading this software and also discribe that all these things are for free download.

BTW - in WoG's case GNU Licence was false and using this term didn't protected auction from being cancel.

Well it's only 15zł so it's about 4 euro, not a big price.
Anyway I think it's ok, he spend some time collecting this, he also claims that there are patches, a map editor, and about 200 maps. It took him some time to collect this. For me it's ok, the price is cheap and maybe some people would like to have all patches on a single CD.

But he didn't describe that these things are for free download - and he is trying to sell not his free time but someone's work.
No - it is not OK

[Angelspit]

A guy from Canada has been putting up auctions for maps for quite a while (link). I'm afraid that this is a fairly common practice.

[Campaigner]

Well AS since you're in Canada to can't you just seek him out and "convince" him to do otherwise?

Considering that Canada isn't that big and probably half of it is a frozen wasteland with polarbears and stuff....

[King Imp]

If people are dumb enough to fall for this and pay him for it, then that's their own problem. Heaven forbid someone does a search on Heroes to find that all this stuff is out there for free.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Well it's only 15zł so it's about 4 euro, not a big price.
Anyway I think it's ok, he spend some time collecting this, he also claims that there are patches, a map editor, and about 200 maps. It took him some time to collect this. For me it's ok, the price is cheap and maybe some people would like to have all patches on a single CD.

I think there is a problem.

I for one don't want someone selling my maps without my permission. Anyone is free to post my maps on their fansite but not to sell them on a CD unless I expressly give them permission.

I would bet that most mapmakers feel the same way.

GOW