Today, I discovered that five of my files were being illegally rehosted on the ti-bank.fr website. I send the following email, and I encourage you to see if any of your files were re-hosted as well. You're welcome to use my template; the email should go to info@ (that website's domain):



Keep control over your files!

If DoorsCS got on them torrent sites...

I can understand your situation since you own the files, own the file sharing source, and have a lack of copyright info in the files, but elsewhere on the site.

For me, my copyright allows redistribution, including commercial. Their site just fails as they don't support it :S

Heh, that's understandable. In their defense, I must say that they did act quickly in ceding to my demands.

Meh, TI-BANK. Not really surprised. You might remember the drama that happened something like a year ago, leading to the foundation of TI-Planet by the Ti-Bank admins that aren't Mic.

But looking at this case, the file have been there since 2008, way before this drama have been started. The french community tend to rehost files themselves so they can find it more easily in a language they can understand. Your files are properly credited so it clearly says it was you who made them, so IMO I don't see any problem.

Well, I see the problem as being largely one where they have out-of-date files. It's nice that they didn't try to remove Kerm's credits, but still, it would have been better to ask about it, first.

Kerm, glad you got your file situation taken care of

Thanks, _player. I should mention that I've been contacted asking me to remove this thread, and while I will obfuscate the email address in the first post, I believe it's an important point. I noticed that CasioCalc.org has the same problem: on this page at CasioCalc.org, some "mfischer" has been uploading random people's programs. As I recently said:

In the community PSP/Wii/ds/ps3/etc, this is often.

For "simple googlers" this is good because it helps reduce the number of broken links. 
For exemple in casiocalc.org there are many good programs with broken link because they were stored in external filesharing pages.

I assume (and hope) that the cemetech will not close in the near future, but it is always good to have a second mirror of files.
(btw: classpad.org, one of the classpad reference sites closed without any notice)

Another advantage of having the files on multiple sites is that they reach larger audience, since they are credited, developers are receiving due credits for hard work.

I think he should put a link to cemetech respective archive instead of host it, to keep files updated, and should remove requested files.

I have adblock and I can not see if ti-bank have advertising, but it is not very ethical to make money from the work of others. However, looking at the number of downloads of files (10-20), the potential profit he may have is not enough to pay for the server, i think.

Ps: i found other site hosting your files,...
(off-topic: why he has a nspire tutorials category in classpad folder? Fail)

Hmm... I am that "some mfischer".

Ah, I see, and I am sorry if I have upset anyone. I looked at the licenses and did not see anything saying I could not redistribute the programs.

Also, none of the programs are actually uploaded there. They link to cemetech's download pages.

I wouldn't mind knowing about that. At least they're under my correct name, so they're getting proper credit. I think everyone in the community hates n00bs who take our programs and put their own names on them.

Ah, then in that case the problem is slightly less. The casiocalc.org pages will still be out of date if one of the projects here gets updated, but at least once they click through to the Cemetech archives page, they will see the screenshots and description of the latest version. In that case I wouldn't mind if you left my programs there (although it doesn't look like mine are personally relevant to this example).

Yeah, also, I am only posted as the uploader. The author credits are still fine.

The main issue is that in the French TI community, it's considered right to upload author files on your own site to increase your archives database without their permission. This has been a common practice since the '90s. Omni did that with the RPG archives/program tools back in the mid 2000's, but that section has since stopped being maintained and back then it was only because Ticalc.org's BASIC/ASM sections were just one single folder, making it next to impossible to find high-quality RPGs and programming tools (it still is today, despite the directory split, but it's nowhere close to being as bad as a few years ago).

In France, file hosting policies and mentalities appears to be even more lax than most places. Heck, calc and emulation sites there even host ROMs since years.

I wouldn't be surprised if DCS was also available on several other French sites.

That said I think there's nothing worse than if a webmaster refuses to remove your files and instead change the author name.

If you can find any site that hosts the files, I would ask them if they can at least link to Cemetech archives instead, so that way the file is still available via there, but being hosted here it still gets visibility, while also allowing the user to get the latest update.

Also, maybe have them sneak in a cemetech.net link in the description.

DJ_O, agreed. My hesitation with making a fuss is that I appreciate the publicity from them mentioning my programs, but I don't want my work posted outright on their sites, for the many reasons I detailed above. I'll go through the French language sites (anywhere other than TI-Planet and TI-Bank I should check?) to make sure everything's cleaned up, and I recommend that the rest of you do the same.

http://www.ti83plus.online.fr
http://espace-ti.e-monsite.com/


Those seems to be the ones that got updated in recent years. Others most likely have Doors XP or something like that (or maybe it didn't exist yet)

As for my files I need to update the readmes because I think some still mention omnimaga.tk as site URL, which hasn't been used in 8 years.

Some time ago I requested some of my files to be removed from the same website. I did not want the owner to 'profit' on my files because of certain things he did towards close friends of mine.
He refused to remove the file entry, just changed the download link to ticalc.org. And he started throwing insults at me too. I didn't reply anymore, just too tiresome.

yes, they're getting proper credit, except a ahelper file, where author is "Unbekannt".

You must write a license for your files, prohibiting the redistribution.

All of my prizm addins are released under the GPLv3, except for the GP2X add-in, which just says made by AHelper since that code isn't mine, so I have the engine tutorial's license.

I don't want to prohibit redistribution. I don't have a problem with it when done properly.

The first is not updated, and the second don't hosts any file. (We use TI-Planet links on Espace-TI.)

I personnaly uploaded some of your files on TI Planet, but I quote your name.

I checked both sites, and didn't see any particular files I was concerned about. Regarding your second comment, aye, but the problem is that at least in the English-speaking community, it's generally accepted that re-hosting files on other sites without permission, even using the person's name, is at best not done and at worst illegal or in violation of the file's/files' license(s). I must thank Debrouxl for his diplomatic handling of the TI-Planet end of the situation, and take a look at what of mine is hosted there.