Celestia renamed, repackaged, and being sold for $30!?

macweirdo42 · Post #1by **macweirdo42** » 11.03.2007, 16:12

What the hell? I just happened to stumble across this today, and I thought I should let people here know. It seems that somebody is selling Celestia under the name "VRtube." I apologize if this has already been brought to light, but better safe than sorry, I think.

http://www.vrtube.com/

Cham · Post #2by **Cham** » 11.03.2007, 16:59

Hummmm !

Thanks to let us know !

Post #3by **ElChristou** » 11.03.2007, 17:38

What is this sh%t?

Hungry4info · Post #4by **Hungry4info** » 11.03.2007, 17:52

That officially angers me. Lol.

ajtribick · Post #5by **ajtribick** » 11.03.2007, 18:00

Johaen · Post #6by **Johaen** » 11.03.2007, 18:13

SAVE OVER $100

Wow... that's messed up.

Post #7by **ElChristou** » 11.03.2007, 18:28

(to the sensible minds, sorry for the language...)

As I'm pretty sure the guy responsible of this sh%t is trolling the forum, a message to you, idiotic piece of sh%t, please close this web page and try to find a better way to earn money.

Cham · Post #8by **Cham** » 11.03.2007, 18:32

If there exist on the net a kind of internet cop organisation, we should reach them and make proper action against this ass hole.

Cham · Post #9by **Cham** » 11.03.2007, 19:02

I'm launching a seek and destroy sequence. Here's a place to start :

http://www.met.police.uk/computercrime/

Post #10by **t00fri** » 11.03.2007, 19:03

ElChristou wrote:(to the sensible minds, sorry for the language...)

As I'm pretty sure the guy responsible of this sh%t is trolling the forum, a message to you, idiotic piece of sh%t, please close this web page and try to find a better way to earn money.

PORN!

Bye Fridger :oops:

Cham · Post #11by **Cham** » 11.03.2007, 19:14

Here's a page about complaints and internet crimes :

http://www.ic3.gov/

Post #12by **ElChristou** » 11.03.2007, 19:29

t00fri wrote:
ElChristou wrote:(to the sensible minds, sorry for the language...)

As I'm pretty sure the guy responsible of this sh%t is trolling the forum, a message to you, idiotic piece of sh%t, please close this web page and try to find a better way to earn money.

PORN!

Bye Fridger

I don't think the guy is able to do that... :twisted:

bh · Post #13by bh » 11.03.2007, 19:40

I wonder if sales have been good? I doubt it somehow.

Post #14by **ElChristou** » 11.03.2007, 19:47

bh wrote:I wonder if sales have been good? I doubt it somehow.

This is not the problem; this site should be closed right now...

Post #15by **t00fri** » 11.03.2007, 19:51

While I despise all this, I still think that there is nothing illegal about selling a program published under the GPL.

BUT he HAS to include the GPL licence!!! Since then everyone would notice the fraud ($30), he surely took that out. This makes him violate the rules...

Bye Fridger

bh · Post #16by bh » 11.03.2007, 19:52

Oh yes I agree entirely... this sort of thing does not surprise me however.

Post #17by **t00fri** » 11.03.2007, 20:49

ElChristou wrote:
t00fri wrote:
PORN!

Bye Fridger

I don't think the guy is able to do that...

Don't be surprised: I was reading the HTML source code of his page. OF COURSE, here we go...

http://goggletv.net
http://internet-onlinetv.com
http://triple-x-girls.com <=============

http://vrtube.com

Enjoy (you must be 18+ ;-)

)

Bye Fridger

Post #18by **ElChristou** » 11.03.2007, 21:08

t00fri wrote:
ElChristou wrote:
t00fri wrote:
PORN!

Bye Fridger

I don't think the guy is able to do that...

Don't be surprised: I was reading the HTML source code of his page. OF COURSE, here we go...

http://goggletv.net
http://internet-onlinetv.com
http://triple-x-girls.com <=============

http://vrtube.com

Enjoy (you must be 18+ )

Bye Fridger

Puah!! what a fraud! this guys is really a piece of sh%t I'm sure all content is stolen... I was sure the guy was even unable to do some homemade porn!! :lol:

Definitively this virtua I don't know what site should be closed...

rthorvald · Post #19by **rthorvald** » 11.03.2007, 21:10

t00fri wrote:Don't be surprised: I was reading the HTML source code of his page. OF COURSE, here we go...

http://goggletv.net
http://internet-onlinetv.com
http://triple-x-girls.com <=============

That is not part of his page, it is served out by an embedded ad script delivered by Google - which means he has an account with them.

Anyway, as you say, it isn??t neccecarily illegal, just distasteful.

As far as i can see, since we haven??t seen the actual product - only the advertising for it - he is either in breach of the GNU licence OR false advertising cause of the Celestia screenshots. The only _obvious_ copyright infringement, then, is the stolen graphics on the webpage, which, if i remember correctly, were designed by ElChristou. But that should be enough to have his ISP take some action... Since his ISP is located in the US, which is very stern about such matters compared to many other countries: his ISP is http://freehostia.com/, located in Texas.

BTW, i also have looked up the full name, street address, phone number and email of the man that pays for the vrtube website. As one can??t rule out identity theft i won??t post it here, but i am forwarding it to Chris.

- rthorvald

revent · Post #20by **revent** » 11.03.2007, 21:36

Not that it isn't irritating, but without buying a copy of their program and looking at it, you can't really tell if they are violating the GPL or not.

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.

Not that their webpage isn't /grossly/ misleading, and that the webpage /itself/ doesn't violate copyright law, but they are allowed to modify the source code any way they want and redistribute it for a fee, /if/ they obey the terms of the GPL. Without seeing what they are actually putting on the disk you buy, there's no way to tell that. They do imply that you are buying a license to the software, not just a copy of free software on a disk, but that's probably not actionable. Unfortunately the GPL only specifies what you have to distribute with the software, not how you advertise what you're selling.

The webpage itself /does/ violate copyright law, though, by using the image from the Celestia splash screen without attribution to the copyright holder. That in itself could be justification for getting the page pulled down.

BTW, you can get professional advice (from lawyers) about this by contacting the FSF.

Here's the contact info for the guy who runs the site, if you want to let him know what you think.

(removed after the website was taken down)