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Feedback Asset Theft

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Nancy_Gold, Jul 18, 2019.

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  1. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    Just for your information.
    Typical Russian developer asks at a Russian gamedev forum where he can steal cracked Unity assets and if his apps will get deleted for that:
    gcup<removeme>ru/forum/55-100265-1

    He gets several answers from his more piracy savvy mates on how to do it properly and prevent copyright holder from reporting him for copyright infringement.

    They have several torrent trackers distributing all of your assets for free, after they were purchased using stolen credit cards.
     
  2. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Okay, and? There's really nothing that can be done about this aside from people filing DMCA claims if their assets end up in a game.
     
  3. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    How about pressing these piracy haven countries to uphold the law?
     
  4. Xitech_

    Xitech_

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    There's nothing you can do about it up untill he will publish it and earn money for it. In all honesty - see it as free advertisement if he takes something from you :).

    Right now I have recently published my first game called Bridge Builder Racer - it costs less than $4 and yet they uploaded it to the internet. If people wanted to buy my game they would've rather than tried to download it illigaly anyway.
     
  5. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    His comrades say nothing can be done even after he earns the money. That is how all these countless fake asset swapped games end up flooding Steam. Gabe has turned his site into money laundering operation.
     
  6. Xitech_

    Xitech_

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    If you have proof you've created it, and was the first one to upload it to Steam. I think there's more than enough proof you own the rights, and not them.
     
  7. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    After you spend several months fighting with Steam, Russians will just create a new Steam account and reupload all the stolen stuff. And it is even harder to prove the theft of some single asset, like a 3d model. I suggest embedding some hidden watermarks into your models and textures, maybe even a serial number.
     
  8. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Okay, and so what about the people who have legally bought the assets then? Then they have to worry about this same watermarking.
     
  9. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    There is even a Russian site 100assets<dot>ru that resells stolen $40 assets for $1.
     
  10. Mauri

    Mauri

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    I'm sorry, but you are asking this in a public game dev forum that revolves around the Unity game engine, run by the company that created the said engine. Unity Technologies isn't the government.

    And Unity Technologies can't really do anything about it. If you have created an asset that has been pirated and ended up on that side, then it's up to you. DMCA claims are a thing.
     
    Bunny83 likes this.
  11. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    You can embed watermark using steganography (i.e. using color data inside of transparent areas or lower bits of the blue color bytes) and texture/model files have special wields to store additional info.
     
  12. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    Unity can at least try to shot down the 100assets site. But yeah, wider political and international support is required to actually change anything.
     
  13. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Once global warming melts siberia and unlocks access to the oil there, then the russians will have all the wealth they ever wanted, and they wont need to steal 3d models to make a buck.

    That's gonna happen sooner than anything from this thread here. Good looking out and all, but like others said, nothing this isn't an appropriate channel.
     
  14. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    And how do you act on this? How can you ensure they won't just strip it out on their own?

    You are trying to apply 18th century techniques to a 21st century problem.
     
    Bunny83 and MadeFromPolygons like this.
  15. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    They have a lot of resource already, but common Russians see nothing of it. Everything is getting plundered by the corrupt government. But no, my compatriots don't want to fix their government, then want to steal instead :-(
     
  16. Nancy_Gold

    Nancy_Gold

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    If they don't know what to strip, they can't strip. Also, these thieves don't modify anything, just mixing all the stuff into a game, using some hired programmer, or a student freelancer working for free. On the same forum numerous crooks try to hire artists and programmers promising them money, but when the work gets done, they just vanish.
     
  17. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    If they don't modify anything, then you can just file a DMCA claim.
     
  18. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Punishing legit customers, or otherwise making them jump through more hoops, will do more to hurt your brand than some obscure site selling your assets cheap to people who were never going to buy them at full price.
     
  19. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    Are you perhaps infringing on the registered trademark "Bridge Builder"?
     
  20. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Switching data centers is relatively trivial these days. By the time you've started dealing with one country the pirates will have migrated to a data center in a different country, and that's just the ones that have physical servers for storing data.

    For pirates using torrents there are no physical servers to take offline as everyone with a copy of the program is supplying it to everyone else. Best case you might take the tracker offline for a short period of time before someone else with it puts it back up and points people to it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
  21. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Discussion of piracy is not allowed. Also, bringing a discussion from forum to another is kinda pointless. As well is discussion of politics, etc. Closing for many reasons.
     
    Circool and Xitech_ like this.
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