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The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

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Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#101

Post by Jordan-117 »

I ran into something like this a few months ago. There was this new indie game, Idols of Ash, that had just released and was blowing up on streaming. I googled it and found what looked like a legit site, idolsofash.fun. It had detailed strategy guides, screenshots, and even an embedded copy of the game. But the embed was buggy, so I searched for the game's itch.io page and left a comment.

Turns out the "fansite" was unaffiliated, and after playing the real game, it became clear the whole site was AI slop. It got gameplay mechanics subtly wrong, the screenshots didn't always relate to the captions, and the embed was a shoddy decompilation pulled from the game's files (easy since it was built with the Godot engine, and presumably where the site's knowledge of the game came from). It's apparently something afflicting a lot of indie devs -- somebody uses Claude or similar to rip your game and spin up a detailed site where you can play it for free. Not sure what the angle is, though, since the site says it's unofficial in the footer, links to the official Itch storefront, and doesn't insert ads or malware. Could just be an overzealous fan, but the whole thing struck me as very strange.

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#102

Post by derektank »

carlosjobim wrote: post #96
pfcd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"FOSS" doesn't mean that you cannot monetize your program. It's just that people have taken different routes historically.

Sell the program or give it away for free, to me both is fine. But to release the source code for free, then complain that other people take it and sell it - that's ridiculous. If I give away my secret sauce recipe, I have no right to complain if somebody puts it in a bottle and sells it. Either you keep it to yourself or you don't.

> Either you keep it to yourself or you don't.

Governments have presented us with a third option, intellectual property, which allows a creator to release their intellectual contributions publicly while preventing someone else from reproducing it. Violating the terms of an open source license are generally considered intellectual property violations and allow the creator to seek damages.

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#103

Post by flexagoon »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #89
flexagoon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're against copyright protection, but also against AI using copyrighted work? I can understand both of those positions separately, but how can you combine them in the same statement?

I mean one can be for copyright protection but against the DMCA as a bad way to implement copyright protection.

Sure, there are plenty of things to dislike about DMCA or any other modern copyright law, but in this context the discussion was specifically about using DMCA to take down an unauthorized republishing of a copyrighted book online, which is a pretty normal application of copyright law. So I don't really understand how "AI is bad because it's trained on stolen work" but also "it's bad to take legal action against people distributing your work".

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#104

Post by lokar »

dylan604 wrote: post #83
lokar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are stealing from Amazon, so a public service?

How are they stealing from Amazon? They delivered a sale to Amazon, which Amazon has a program to reward the effort of delivering that sale. In no way should this be misconstrued as my supporting of the action, but I'm also not delusional making baseless accusations.

Consider the counter factual. The site does not exist, the people who found it (probably via search) end up at Amazon directly with no referral fee.

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#105

Post by zuzululu »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #58
zuzululu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think they give a shit > So let’s ask Webflow’s public relations dept. how cool are they with the fact their partner is a lier and plagiarist. I also frown upon bullying companies like this over something they can't control.

They can't control who their partners are?

i dont work for webflow, im not sure why you are asking me this

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#106

Post by nikanj »

dylan604 wrote: post #71
saghm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google and Apple are useless for dmca unless you have a court order. This is especially egregious in Google's case given how trigger happy they are with pulling YouTube videos with a simple claim that something is infringing. I guess unless you can lobby them at the level of the music industry, their default policy is to do nothing.

Let's consider an independent dev making claims vs the army of lawyers from RIAA/MPAA type claimants. Which one do you think evilCorps will pay attention to?

The lawyers from evilCorps are on a first-name basis with the key lawyers from the copyright lobby, because their fates are fully intertwined

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#107

Post by InsideOutSanta »

carlosjobim wrote: post #96
pfcd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"FOSS" doesn't mean that you cannot monetize your program. It's just that people have taken different routes historically.

Sell the program or give it away for free, to me both is fine. But to release the source code for free, then complain that other people take it and sell it - that's ridiculous. If I give away my secret sauce recipe, I have no right to complain if somebody puts it in a bottle and sells it. Either you keep it to yourself or you don't.

Every book contains all of its content. It's "open source" by necessity. Are you saying that if you buy a book, you can do with the contents of the book whatever you want?

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#108

Post by leni536 »

mcoliver wrote: post #54

A similar thing is happening to me. I worked on something for 3 years which I give away for free to help people and a thief took my software, ran it through ai to rebrand everything and relaunched as their own app. Unfortunately the ai missed a few Easter eggs I had hidden so the theft is undeniable. Google and Apple are useless for dmca unless you have a court order. They refuse to look at or arbitrate. So now I'm o…

> Google and Apple are useless for dmca unless you have a court order.

They deserve to also be sued too for the infringement. I don't think safe-harbor applies if they don't act on a valid notice.

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#109

Post by bryanrasmussen »

flexagoon wrote: post #103
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean one can be for copyright protection but against the DMCA as a bad way to implement copyright protection.

Sure, there are plenty of things to dislike about DMCA or any other modern copyright law, but in this context the discussion was specifically about using DMCA to take down an unauthorized republishing of a copyrighted book online, which is a pretty normal application of copyright law. So I don't really understand how "AI is bad because it's trained on stolen work" but also "it's bad to take legal action against peopl…

There seem to be people who believe that the DMCA is a morally compromised instrument.

There are people that believe that using a morally compromised instrument to do a moral end is always bad.

"AI is bad because it's trained on stolen work therefore we must never use AI, even if our ends are good" is such a belief that many people seem to have, and there seems to be some likelihood that the original poster might be such a person.

Therefore it seems to me reasonable to believe that a person who maybe believes that you must never use AI because it is trained on stolen work, could also believe that you must never use the DMCA because it is based on bad and corrupted law.

I myself do not exactly believe these things, although I consider they may have some arguments for them, albeit not arguments likely to persuade me in all instances, nonetheless I do not find any difficulty in believing someone could hold both opinions at the same time and I think, in fact, it is a reasonably consistent pair of opinions, especially given the apparent ability of people to believe all sorts of inconsistent things day to day.

Re: The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows

#110

Post by vkou »

kstrauser wrote: post #70
mcoliver wrote: post #54

A similar thing is happening to me. I worked on something for 3 years which I give away for free to help people and a thief took my software, ran it through ai to rebrand everything and relaunched as their own app. Unfortunately the ai missed a few Easter eggs I had hidden so the theft is undeniable. Google and Apple are useless for dmca unless you have a court order. They refuse to look at or arbitrate. So now I'm o…

Name and shame. I'd be furious if I were one of the thief's tricked customers.

You would, most consumers wouldn't.
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