Solved Someone Took My Plugin.

Discussion in 'Bukkit Help' started by Reptar_, Jan 9, 2014.

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    Reptar_

    I just got a PM not too long ago from a guy on Bukkit Dev. He said that someone sold him a plugin. He said he looked through the code and saw "[Plugin Name Retained] by Reptar_" This guys told me the seller changed the name of the plugin and the command it uses.

    I need help finding where to report this guy or who to contact.
     
  2. Offline

    DuoDex

    I would advise finding the page of the plugin he took, and then finding the author, and reporting him. Also, what license were you using?
     
  3. Offline

    Reptar_

    I am the author. And I just used the general license that most public plugins use.
     
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    Jake6177

    Reptar_

    MIT license? If so, they were allowed to change it :/

    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
    of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
    in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
    to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
    copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
    furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

    and the conditions that followed say that they need to add the same license in, so if he did that, he's well within rights unfortunately.

    If he didn't you might be able to smack him for that, but not sure.
     
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    Byteflux

    You have either provided a license or not. There is no such thing as a general license.

    If you released your software unlicensed, then generally the software is considered to be very restrictive although only a judge gets to say for sure and a lawyer may be able to advise you.

    If you did explicitly provide a license then that version of the software is subject to the terms of that license. As the above poster mentioned, if you released your software under the MIT license then there are no restrictions to how someone can use your software. They can rebrand it, modify the source, close source it or do whatever they want with it, even claim it as their own. The same applies to the BSD license.

    I suggest you understand what license you are using as it seems you are accusing someone of theft when it's possible that's not the case. For a good article on the many different types of software licenses please read http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html
     
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    Reptar_

    Dang I should start paying more attention to these license things. -m-
     
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    Wh1rledPeas

    In that article, under license types...
     
  8. Offline

    Reptar_

    I used the GNU General Public License.
     
  9. Offline

    Wh1rledPeas

    There are a couple versions of the GNU General Public License listed here...

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses

    Depending on which one you released it under, you may indeed have legal recourse against the other developer if all of the conditions were not met. For example, he can not charge for your original source, but can charge for changes, or other parts of the plugin that he created. He can also charge for copying and distribution, although it sounds as if the amount he charged was significantly more than would be generally acceptable in that case. He also has to include notice of your original work and copyright. During plugin-start up on the console, this must be specified as well (as much as I read in the first couple of paragraphs of the "terms an conditions" section.

    If you feel that you have lost considerable revenue due to this infringement, I would contact a lawyer who is familiar with software and source code copyright law and consult them to find out what your options are.

    -Peas
     
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