21 ms·

Chinese dev steals US HTML5 Game engine, US hosts won't close down the copy

132 points by hoi 14y ago

jfaucett 14y ago
This is interesting as I have had similar problems with hackers/copy catters, and it is true that the majority do come from an asian region, but I think its still important to note that the majority of the world's population is also in asia. For me, this article seems to concentrate the online IP problem specifically in asia/China, which in my opinion is simply not the case. For instance, are the Samwers really that much different from what the developer in the article just did? I think the real question is how do you respect IP at a global level where governmental laws can differ largely from one country to the next.
- franze 14y ago
  >For instance, are the Samwers really that much different from what the developer in the article just did? yes, stealing a product and selling a stolen product is quite different from copying, iterating on and subsequent scaling a business model.
  - Volpe 14y ago
    It is only 'different' because we have defined/framed copyright in the way we have. Infringing copyright is not that different from copying a business model. (You are still copying something from someone else).
    - franze 14y ago
      with this logic (and if it would have always applied) we would have 1 restaurant chain in the whole world, 1 car maker in the whole world, hey we would have only one merchant in the whole world - and worst of all - only one OS maker in the whole world.
      - Volpe 14y ago
        Reductio ad absurdum. Care to try to explain 'why' for any of those assertions?
        franze 14y ago
        the business model of a merchant is to buy something cheap and sell it at a more expensive price. if this business model would be copyrightable than nobody else would be allowed (not until he/she licensed it) to buy something cheap and sell it at a more expensive price. the one merchant who invented this concept would then be the only merchant in the world, and as the other guy who invented "licensing" would probably not have "licensed" licensing to the merchant (as the merchant would then have a license on licensing and would have just licensed licensing to other people) the merchant would be forever the only merchant in the world. note: yeah i know this is absurd, but not as absurd as the notion, that business models are copyrightable. (or should not get copied because of .... whatever)
        paulgb 14y ago
        Copyright would never apply to business models, patents would. Both copyrights and patents expire, so the scenario you describe wouldn't happen. I agree that business models should not be protected, though.
        paulhauggis 14y ago
        It's why we need copyrights and patents. If there were no protections, anyone that had lots of resources could just cherry-pick new technology and ideas (use the companies as almost free R&D) and beat them to the market before any small company even has a chance to get off the ground. The result would be a few huge companies.
        beagle3 14y ago
        It's a nice idea. And yet, in the 1980s and early 1990s, when there was absolutely no patent protection for software, the software industry flourished. And yet, Google, a small upstart, was able to rise well above all the other search engines, despite being (at the beginning) much less funded, and using an algorithm that -- while patented by them in 95 or so -- had been known for 40 years, and even used in exactly the same way with respect to academic references (who have, for all intents and purposes, "links" in the printed paper world). So, even though everyone who had a lot of resources could do that, it doesn't happen in practice - and in fact, the existing patent regime seems to be useless in this regard. Patents and copyrights are a very nice idea, but the existing implementations are so horrible, that it is not clear to me we're better off than without them.
    - codesuela 14y ago
      Carbon copying another persons work without putting in a minuscule amount of effort is different from taking a proven business model and rolling it out in a different market. It's not like the Samwers steal the sourcecode and design put a new name on it and call it a day. There have real offices, real engineers, real designers, real marketers. You might think cloning a business model is despicable but there is a real effort involved in executing it. Not to mention that unlike in the case of this article the Samwers don't go into already preoccupied markets but rather aim to tap new ones.
- Volpe 14y ago
  > I think the real question is how do you respect IP online and at a global level where governmental laws can differ largely from one country to the next. It's probably a hint that Copyright is a stupid way to sell software, but perhaps that is high jacking this thread.
  - grabeh 14y ago
    It is one thing to attack copyright for being used against consumers who wish to use media, however it is a different issue when a third party is copying your platform wholesale and then deriving revenue from that act of copying. I think in this case, copyright still has a role to play i.e. where a third party is monetising your copyright rather than simply using it.
    - Volpe 14y ago
      That's an interesting line to draw. Both breaches of copyright involve a monetary loss. This feels like a hypocritical stance, but I could be misunderstanding you. :\
      - grabeh 14y ago
        With a consumer, the loss is much harder to show as it's difficult to prove that if they hadn't downloaded for free, they would have purchased. But I don't think it's hypocritical to create that divide - after all there are many exceptions already in existence to the right to prevent copying. Private use would just be another addition. It also reflects what should be the reality, i.e. that in many cases, you will want to pursue the party that is making money from your creation, because they will be the ones more likely to have money to pay damages, plus it will be easier to show damage.
- krickle 14y ago
  The people brazen enough to copy .jars and source code seem to be disproportionately Chinese.
- tibbon 14y ago
  One of the biggest issues with this stuff in Asia/China in particular is the attitude of governments toward IP there. The problem isn't just that there's a large population there, and that its another country. Maybe its naive of me, but I think if there was something that was blatantly stolen like this in Canada or the UK, I could go through the channels to have it taken down, and a case pursued against them fairly easily.
grabeh 14y ago
The unfortunate reality is that even if Softlayer comply with the DMCA request, the site could be moved to a host in a more infringement-friendly jurisdiction. Perhaps a letter from a Chinese law firm could help to escalate matters. A basic cease and desist letter would be relatively cheap, but then again, from the infringer's stance so far, I can't imagine it would receive a particularly positive response...
- ceworthington 14y ago
  It may not help much but you'd like to think that Softlayer would at least make the effort.
ewillbefull 14y ago
As much as I hate the DMCA, when this happens and a U.S. host starts ignoring legitimate DMCA notices, start emailing their upstreams. Softlayer is probably doing this because they have an inexperienced tech handling your request. Email ATDN, Global Crossing, Cogent Communications, and many of the other companies they peer with and say the website has not been shut down despite emails sent to Softlayer. Those companies may threaten to nullroute the website's IP. If they don't do anything (unlikely) get an injunction. It's trivial for this guy to get it hosted elsewhere, however. This is just me, but I wouldn't expect to build anything in HTML5 that couldn't be copied-- the platform is inherently open. If the only creative and useful properties of your work is built in the open, there does not seem to be a compelling reason why you would be protected by copyright. This person could build a website around your "copyrights" in little time.
- grabeh 14y ago
  Just because a product uses open technology, it doesn't necessarily undermine the labour and creative skill that a person puts into creating a product from the open technology available. This could be the same skill put into a non-open source piece of software, just that the opportunity to copy isn't so readily available. Also, saying that the person who copied the website could build around the website in no time at all rather assumes that they have the skill to do so.
  - ewillbefull 14y ago
    > Just because a product uses open technology, it doesn't necessarily undermine the labour and creative skill that a person puts into creating a product from the open technology available. I never said it did, and that's what's unfortunate about this situation. His service has no backend that could not be easily replicated, and the frontend is portable. You cannot build software like this without being copied... by nature it is not practical to expect to limit others' behavior with open platform code. There are no laws that will protect you from sufficient copying effort. Whether the person is skilled or not is another issue. The OP would still be mad if somebody ripped off his website and made it just different enough.
ashwinm 14y ago
These Chinese copy everything !
- thinkingisfun 14y ago
  It's such an outrage! Don't they know that some token glass pearls go a long way?
  - thinkingisfun 14y ago
    The fact that the parent didn't even raise an eyebrow just makes this butthurt reaction even more hilarious. Keep on trucking, and don't worry; there's an idiot born every day, never mind silly old me. Hahaha.
pjmlp 14y ago
While I condemn what they have done, this is what you're open to if you try to create HTML5 games, as the whole UI is just one wget away.
- phoboslab 14y ago
  The un-obfuscated code and the level editor isn't available though. I believe the thief bought a copy of Impact to get all the source files - this could have happened with any product.
  - guilloche 14y ago
    Is it possible to sell just obfuscated library?
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      In theory, yes. In practise, developers wouldn't like it since they can't deal with bugs in it or debug easily with it.
- cykod 14y ago
  How is this different than any other commercial software library - once you have a copy, what prevents you from reselling it illegally? While HTML5 games can be easily copied wholesale somewhere else (as can Flash SWF files generally) - the code is usually minified and not terribly useful to try to do development on.
tmh88j 14y ago
There was a similar incident that someone posted on Reddit recently, however, not using HTML5. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_in_china_stole_my_game/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_i...
- xfs 14y ago
  The difference is that this is not plagiarism; this is just piracy. The Chinese studio does not claim authorship for this. They have even stated their upstream, making them look like an authorized distributor. They claim to be selling a localized "cracked" version. Shamefully, piracy with a price is not uncommon in China. It's not quite straightforward why they decide to sell a pirated version. They seem to be specialized in web game development, based on Impact and other framework. I guess they had used Impact for game development, during which they spent some time doing the localization, integration and documentation and felt that was a justification for selling for a price. Their customers, if there are any, are not unaware of the piracy, as in their product forum.
  - tmh88j 14y ago
    I said similar, not the same. Both people had their game ripped off by Chinese companies without their consent who are now selling them. I'd say that's very similar. >The difference is that this is not plagiarism; this is just piracy. How is one worse than the other ? Both people's products are being illegally sold by a company in China. Either way, both are losing out on potential profit. One product was straight up copied, the other was (most likely) re-created. Even if the plagiarized game was completely re-coded from scratch, they still stole their ideas, designs, etc...
    - xfs 14y ago
      I don't think I was disagreeing with you. It's purely relevant information on the other side of the story.
olalonde 14y ago
On the other hand, it's sad that so many startups are ignoring the huge market that China is. People on HN often critique the music/film industries for claiming to lose ridiculously huge amounts of revenues due to piracy. In this case, I am willing to bet that 99% of people buying from the Chinese website wouldn't have bought the original. Anyways, I'm not trying to justify what this guy did but simply suggesting that more startups should consider serving the Chinese market.
- richardw 14y ago
  What would a positive outcome of serving a group be when you know 99% of them won't buy anything from you? I'd be very impressed if any outsider managed to sustainably serve the Chinese market, without the very hungry local competitors improving on the solution. Support by itself would be quite a challenge.
  - iy56 14y ago
    99% of them would not have bought the original product because their English skills are not good enough. They would buy a localized Chinese version, which is what the Chinese site from the story was selling. The moral of the story is, Chinese customers want a localized copy of your product. If you don't provide it, someone else will, and that guy might not feel like paying you any license fees.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      You make it sound like someone who doesn't immediately produce a Chinese translation deserves what they get when someone pirates their app and adds a + to the end. Also, like translation is the only reason someone's app gets ripped off.
  - felipe 14y ago
    Not buying software does not mean that they won't buy anything. It simply means that particular business model (selling software licenses) does not work in China. But that's not the only possible model available, for example if you can package your software as training or something more tangible. I wrote an article a couple of years ago with some ideas to overcome this issue: http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/08/12/selling-your-software-in-china/ http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/08/12/selling-your-softwa...
gutnor 14y ago
As many people have said - with HTML5, you basically give your IP away and hope for the law to keep people honest. Making money is those conditions is the old open source conundrum. I would suggest the OP to sell support contract (sponsored features, priority bug fixing, ...) to the Chinese customers of his copycat. If the situation gets worse (eg: the chinese firm translate their website in English), the engine can be open sourced and try to recover with the support.
- hdctambien 14y ago
  If the Chinese site is selling the minified/uncommented JS code that you would get from "view source" then he probably wouldn't be in business for long. In this case, it sounds like he bought a copy of the engine/level editor/build scripts/documentation and is selling that. Is that any different than buying the Unreal Engine Source Code and reselling it for 50% off?
  - iy56 14y ago
    Yes. It would be like buying the Unreal Engine Source Code, translating everything into Chinese, and selling that for 50% off.
mmcconnell1618 14y ago
I had a similar issue a few years ago when someone from Asia had modified and resold my ecommerce application for years as his own. I lost at least $50,000 in sales to US customers who purchased this guy's copy of my software. The big problem that I ran into is the cost to litigate international issues. I contacted a bunch of law firms and they all pretty much said it would be a six-figure cost to pursue any international action and the hopes of collecting would be almost zero. Fortunately, the copying was so blatant that I didn't have a problem getting the US web host to pull down his site. Partially as a result of the incident I decided to open-source the code base. Other than locking up the code in a SaaS platform there isn't a 100% foolproof way to protect IP so why not embrace the copying and build a business model around reality.
- shiftpgdn 14y ago
  I know it's a bit late to suggest this but for future reference you could have always followed the VBulletin model of sending DMCA/Legal threats to people who purchase the bootlegged software. I realize this doesn't make you any friends but if enough of those customers disputed the charges with the person who had stolen your software you may have been able to put him out of business.
  - mmcconnell1618 14y ago
    I actually contacted most of them because the software was sold in a small community. I offered them immunity from legal threats in exchange for registering with me so that I knew how many people had purchased. The plan is to sell them official upgrades as their current unsupported versions become outdated. Thanks for the suggestion.
incision 14y ago
Reading this and the related stories of other products like Cloudstone [1] I'm immediately reminded of another, recent HN post [2] which suggested covering about half a dozen markets/languages with your initial releases. Something to think about. 1: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_in_china_stole_my_game/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_i... 2: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389468 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389468
guilloche 14y ago
Html5 code is so easy to be copied, and it seems not trivial to prove who copied who. If my website is totally copied, how can I prove that my one is original? Any idea?
- Cyranix 14y ago
  If you're really that concerned about it, 1) Print source code 2) Get it witnessed by a notary public
  - Achshar 14y ago
    As a techie myself, printing and code lie on opposite sides of the spectrum. Printing source code screams "wrong" in the back of my head. And how would one deal with updates, esp nightly updates.
- protomyth 14y ago
  Register your copyright http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html#website http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html#website http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ under Literary
  - guilloche 14y ago
    Did anyone keep registering their evolving javascript code for copyright? Is this a common practice? For images, logos, we can use waterprint as a cheaper alternative, how about javascript code?
    - protomyth 14y ago
      I don't know if anyone has done it, but the Copyright Office actually have rules for it. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf
axx 14y ago
The guy who made Impact is from germany, not the US.
zupreme 14y ago
I hope the op realizes that, by posting this on HN, he/she has just promoted the much cheaper copycat product to the very target market that alleged thief wants to reach...
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  Throughout the history of journalism collateral damage has never been allowed to stand in the way of a good a story.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  The opposite view is they are alerting potential customers to the counterfeit. If, somehow, you only knew about that version, it would be helpful to know you won't get support, but that a supported version is available.
- paulgb 14y ago
  I would bet that most of HN is ethical and aware enough to buy the original.
  - iy56 14y ago
    I bet most of HN isn't good enough at Chinese, so they'd rather pay more for the original, because it's in English.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      And also to support the original developer and definitely receive good support and updates.
    - michael_h 14y ago
      according to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428159 it is identical.
  - criveros 14y ago
    Millennials believe it's ok to illegally download anything.
ftwinnovations 14y ago
Within a month of releasing my very successful iPhone app TextPics, there were several Chinese clones using a slightly modified icon, all of my content, my design, layout, and with names like "TextPics Pro" and "TextPics(R)" or "TextPics+". As annoying as this was and confusing to my customers, it got even worse. Theft in China does not stop at the dev level, oh no. Comparing my Google analytics app usage to my Apple purchases in China was even more depressing. It turned out China was by far my biggest country for usage... And just about at the bottom of my list for revenue. The Chinese were simply stealing the app with their cracked iPhones. I see no way to win here. And this is no blind hate for the Chinese. I have a Chinese wife from the mainland, I study Chinese Rosetta Stone daily, and I've been to China multiple times for pleasure. I know these people. As a culture, they consider it laughable and stupid to pay for something they could otherwise steal. I've had this conversation with enough Chinese at this point. So seriously I don't see how I can take that country or it's people seriously from a tech biz standpoint if I can't trust their ethics.
- analyst74 14y ago
  This is very interesting. Genuine question: how is pirating PC games, songs and movies acceptable while pirating apps is not? Edit: this is not a question toward parent, but rather the general public, as I kind of get the sense that pirating is somewhat acceptable under certain circumstances while not others. Where is the line?
  - rodly 14y ago
    Where did he say pirating anything was okay?
    - chimi 14y ago
      It is funny how if it's copying a developers HTML5 game, it's stealing, but if it's a movie or song, well... that's just copying, because the creator still has a copy -- that's not stealing. The level of hypocrisy around here is incredible. The only occurrence of the text string "not stealing" in this whole tread is in my post right here.
gubatron 14y ago
How is this Hacker News, Chinese game portals are full of stolen games. No matter what you will do, they will reverse engineer and remove ads and blocks. It's china, the land of counterfeit.
khazard 14y ago
Hopefully I (as the only SoftLayer employee in this thread that I'm aware of) can provide a little insight. Before addressing the specific issue in the post, I want to share a quick overview of SoftLayer's Abuse Department and the processes of handling complaints. The abuse@softlayer.com address functions as more of a notification system than a medium for conversation. You don't have to be a SoftLayer customer to contact that address, and when reports of verifiable abuse are received, the abuse team will work with the customer responsible for the infringing server to get it resolved as quickly as possible. If the DMCA is properly formatted, the abuse team will work with our customers (who may, in turn have to work with their customers) to have the infringing material removed. If a complaint is submitted to that address that doesn't meet the legal guidelines of documentation we need before we can take action, we cannot take action. If we can't take action because of an incomplete or invalid complaint, we also can't provide any visibility or feedback to the complaining parties about what was incomplete/invalid, as that could fall into the "legal advice" category. Abuse tickets aren't handled by technical support, and they people creating and responding to the tickets are only responsible for abuse-related issues. Not only are they a distinct team, they fall in an entirely different part of the organization (alongside the legal, internal security and systems teams). As such, the way they respond needs to be extremely consistent from one issue to the next, and they're only able to make decisions based on the reports/evidence they have. I don't have visibility into the specific complaint that was submitted, so the only assumption I can make is that the complaint wasn't properly formatted or it didn't have the legal evidence we need to take action. Whether or not the copyright infringement is "obvious" or "unquestionable" from an outside perspective does not change our legal requirement of having a properly formatted DMCA complaint to take action. If there's a lawyer in the building who is willing to offer his/her services to the game developer, a resolution might be a lot quicker. When the DMCA is submitted, I'd love to be copied on it (khazard@softlayer.com) so I can immediately have it investigated and acted upon. -Kevin Hazard
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
The blog's identical, by the way. No effort to translate it.
clippit 14y ago
As a Chinese, I feel ashamed about these people. They said on their [forum][0] that "The controversy is inevitable. We offer services only for China so that Chinese customers can buy the same product with a low price." But please believe me there are a lot of good guys, contributors in China and many of them are so reclusive that you cannot recognize they are Chinese. [0]: http://www.kilofox.net/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=469&extra=page%3D1 http://www.kilofox.net/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&ti...
city41 14y ago
This is an exact use case that SOPA was designed to address. We vehemently hated SOPA, so what's the deal? We can't have it both ways.
- mratzloff 14y ago
  Personally, I would rather not have SOPA and have this guy lose a few sales.
- unreal37 14y ago
  The game developer is German, and the pirates are in China. How exactly would SOPA do ANYTHING to stop this? It wouldn't. A Chinese pirate selling pirated software to Chinese customers cannot be stopped by US law.
anuraj 14y ago
How do you prevent HTML and JS code from getting copied - obsfuscation may not help much. The standard had it coming.
strebler 14y ago
The situation is unfortunate, but basically inevitable at this stage in China's development. Take a look at the Chinese book publishing industry and you'll see a glimpse of the Chinese way - most books are put online for free by the authors (mostly in their entirety). The publishing companies pick the most popular ones, who get deals to have their books printed & sold in stores. Totally different from the west. Doing business in China, I have noticed that there is somewhat of a "creativity gap" (as I call it). I believe that as their society evolves and begins to create more of their own IP, the laws will eventually adapt to protect such developments. In the meantime, it's very difficult. But still, Cisco has had everything copied (down to the model #s) by you-know-who and yet still makes billions (also powering the great firewall). Like Microsoft & Cisco, there are ways to penetrate and dominate the market in the midst of the piracy. However, if your IP is some "easily de-obfuscated" javascript (and you're a startup), it's a very difficult position and my heart goes out to them.
hnewb 14y ago
I am Chinese (who resides in Bay Area). Yeah, I feel shame.
csense 14y ago
If the US-based hosting provider ignores DMCA requests, can't you sue the provider? You could also see if their payment provider is willing to help.

132 points by hoi 14y ago

This is interesting as I have had similar problems with hackers/copy catters, and it is true that the majority do come from an asian region, but I think its still important to note that the majority of the world's population is also in asia. For me, this article seems to concentrate the online IP problem specifically in asia/China, which in my opinion is simply not the case. For instance, are the Samwers really that much different from what the developer in the article just did? I think the real question is how do you respect IP at a global level where governmental laws can differ largely from one country to the next.

franze 14y ago
>For instance, are the Samwers really that much different from what the developer in the article just did? yes, stealing a product and selling a stolen product is quite different from copying, iterating on and subsequent scaling a business model.
- Volpe 14y ago
  It is only 'different' because we have defined/framed copyright in the way we have. Infringing copyright is not that different from copying a business model. (You are still copying something from someone else).
  - franze 14y ago
    with this logic (and if it would have always applied) we would have 1 restaurant chain in the whole world, 1 car maker in the whole world, hey we would have only one merchant in the whole world - and worst of all - only one OS maker in the whole world.
    - Volpe 14y ago
      Reductio ad absurdum. Care to try to explain 'why' for any of those assertions?
      - franze 14y ago
        the business model of a merchant is to buy something cheap and sell it at a more expensive price. if this business model would be copyrightable than nobody else would be allowed (not until he/she licensed it) to buy something cheap and sell it at a more expensive price. the one merchant who invented this concept would then be the only merchant in the world, and as the other guy who invented "licensing" would probably not have "licensed" licensing to the merchant (as the merchant would then have a license on licensing and would have just licensed licensing to other people) the merchant would be forever the only merchant in the world. note: yeah i know this is absurd, but not as absurd as the notion, that business models are copyrightable. (or should not get copied because of .... whatever)
        paulgb 14y ago
        Copyright would never apply to business models, patents would. Both copyrights and patents expire, so the scenario you describe wouldn't happen. I agree that business models should not be protected, though.
      - paulhauggis 14y ago
        It's why we need copyrights and patents. If there were no protections, anyone that had lots of resources could just cherry-pick new technology and ideas (use the companies as almost free R&D) and beat them to the market before any small company even has a chance to get off the ground. The result would be a few huge companies.
        beagle3 14y ago
        It's a nice idea. And yet, in the 1980s and early 1990s, when there was absolutely no patent protection for software, the software industry flourished. And yet, Google, a small upstart, was able to rise well above all the other search engines, despite being (at the beginning) much less funded, and using an algorithm that -- while patented by them in 95 or so -- had been known for 40 years, and even used in exactly the same way with respect to academic references (who have, for all intents and purposes, "links" in the printed paper world). So, even though everyone who had a lot of resources could do that, it doesn't happen in practice - and in fact, the existing patent regime seems to be useless in this regard. Patents and copyrights are a very nice idea, but the existing implementations are so horrible, that it is not clear to me we're better off than without them.
  - codesuela 14y ago
    Carbon copying another persons work without putting in a minuscule amount of effort is different from taking a proven business model and rolling it out in a different market. It's not like the Samwers steal the sourcecode and design put a new name on it and call it a day. There have real offices, real engineers, real designers, real marketers. You might think cloning a business model is despicable but there is a real effort involved in executing it. Not to mention that unlike in the case of this article the Samwers don't go into already preoccupied markets but rather aim to tap new ones.
Volpe 14y ago
> I think the real question is how do you respect IP online and at a global level where governmental laws can differ largely from one country to the next. It's probably a hint that Copyright is a stupid way to sell software, but perhaps that is high jacking this thread.
- grabeh 14y ago
  It is one thing to attack copyright for being used against consumers who wish to use media, however it is a different issue when a third party is copying your platform wholesale and then deriving revenue from that act of copying. I think in this case, copyright still has a role to play i.e. where a third party is monetising your copyright rather than simply using it.
  - Volpe 14y ago
    That's an interesting line to draw. Both breaches of copyright involve a monetary loss. This feels like a hypocritical stance, but I could be misunderstanding you. :\
    - grabeh 14y ago
      With a consumer, the loss is much harder to show as it's difficult to prove that if they hadn't downloaded for free, they would have purchased. But I don't think it's hypocritical to create that divide - after all there are many exceptions already in existence to the right to prevent copying. Private use would just be another addition. It also reflects what should be the reality, i.e. that in many cases, you will want to pursue the party that is making money from your creation, because they will be the ones more likely to have money to pay damages, plus it will be easier to show damage.
krickle 14y ago
The people brazen enough to copy .jars and source code seem to be disproportionately Chinese.
tibbon 14y ago
One of the biggest issues with this stuff in Asia/China in particular is the attitude of governments toward IP there. The problem isn't just that there's a large population there, and that its another country. Maybe its naive of me, but I think if there was something that was blatantly stolen like this in Canada or the UK, I could go through the channels to have it taken down, and a case pursued against them fairly easily.

grabeh 14y ago

The unfortunate reality is that even if Softlayer comply with the DMCA request, the site could be moved to a host in a more infringement-friendly jurisdiction. Perhaps a letter from a Chinese law firm could help to escalate matters. A basic cease and desist letter would be relatively cheap, but then again, from the infringer's stance so far, I can't imagine it would receive a particularly positive response...

ceworthington 14y ago
It may not help much but you'd like to think that Softlayer would at least make the effort.

ewillbefull 14y ago

As much as I hate the DMCA, when this happens and a U.S. host starts ignoring legitimate DMCA notices, start emailing their upstreams. Softlayer is probably doing this because they have an inexperienced tech handling your request. Email ATDN, Global Crossing, Cogent Communications, and many of the other companies they peer with and say the website has not been shut down despite emails sent to Softlayer. Those companies may threaten to nullroute the website's IP. If they don't do anything (unlikely) get an injunction. It's trivial for this guy to get it hosted elsewhere, however. This is just me, but I wouldn't expect to build anything in HTML5 that couldn't be copied-- the platform is inherently open. If the only creative and useful properties of your work is built in the open, there does not seem to be a compelling reason why you would be protected by copyright. This person could build a website around your "copyrights" in little time.

grabeh 14y ago
Just because a product uses open technology, it doesn't necessarily undermine the labour and creative skill that a person puts into creating a product from the open technology available. This could be the same skill put into a non-open source piece of software, just that the opportunity to copy isn't so readily available. Also, saying that the person who copied the website could build around the website in no time at all rather assumes that they have the skill to do so.
- ewillbefull 14y ago
  > Just because a product uses open technology, it doesn't necessarily undermine the labour and creative skill that a person puts into creating a product from the open technology available. I never said it did, and that's what's unfortunate about this situation. His service has no backend that could not be easily replicated, and the frontend is portable. You cannot build software like this without being copied... by nature it is not practical to expect to limit others' behavior with open platform code. There are no laws that will protect you from sufficient copying effort. Whether the person is skilled or not is another issue. The OP would still be mad if somebody ripped off his website and made it just different enough.

ashwinm 14y ago

These Chinese copy everything !

thinkingisfun 14y ago
It's such an outrage! Don't they know that some token glass pearls go a long way?
- thinkingisfun 14y ago
  The fact that the parent didn't even raise an eyebrow just makes this butthurt reaction even more hilarious. Keep on trucking, and don't worry; there's an idiot born every day, never mind silly old me. Hahaha.

pjmlp 14y ago

While I condemn what they have done, this is what you're open to if you try to create HTML5 games, as the whole UI is just one wget away.

phoboslab 14y ago
The un-obfuscated code and the level editor isn't available though. I believe the thief bought a copy of Impact to get all the source files - this could have happened with any product.
- guilloche 14y ago
  Is it possible to sell just obfuscated library?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    In theory, yes. In practise, developers wouldn't like it since they can't deal with bugs in it or debug easily with it.
cykod 14y ago
How is this different than any other commercial software library - once you have a copy, what prevents you from reselling it illegally? While HTML5 games can be easily copied wholesale somewhere else (as can Flash SWF files generally) - the code is usually minified and not terribly useful to try to do development on.

tmh88j 14y ago

There was a similar incident that someone posted on Reddit recently, however, not using HTML5. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_in_china_stole_my_game/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_i...

xfs 14y ago
The difference is that this is not plagiarism; this is just piracy. The Chinese studio does not claim authorship for this. They have even stated their upstream, making them look like an authorized distributor. They claim to be selling a localized "cracked" version. Shamefully, piracy with a price is not uncommon in China. It's not quite straightforward why they decide to sell a pirated version. They seem to be specialized in web game development, based on Impact and other framework. I guess they had used Impact for game development, during which they spent some time doing the localization, integration and documentation and felt that was a justification for selling for a price. Their customers, if there are any, are not unaware of the piracy, as in their product forum.
- tmh88j 14y ago
  I said similar, not the same. Both people had their game ripped off by Chinese companies without their consent who are now selling them. I'd say that's very similar. >The difference is that this is not plagiarism; this is just piracy. How is one worse than the other ? Both people's products are being illegally sold by a company in China. Either way, both are losing out on potential profit. One product was straight up copied, the other was (most likely) re-created. Even if the plagiarized game was completely re-coded from scratch, they still stole their ideas, designs, etc...
  - xfs 14y ago
    I don't think I was disagreeing with you. It's purely relevant information on the other side of the story.

olalonde 14y ago

On the other hand, it's sad that so many startups are ignoring the huge market that China is. People on HN often critique the music/film industries for claiming to lose ridiculously huge amounts of revenues due to piracy. In this case, I am willing to bet that 99% of people buying from the Chinese website wouldn't have bought the original. Anyways, I'm not trying to justify what this guy did but simply suggesting that more startups should consider serving the Chinese market.

richardw 14y ago
What would a positive outcome of serving a group be when you know 99% of them won't buy anything from you? I'd be very impressed if any outsider managed to sustainably serve the Chinese market, without the very hungry local competitors improving on the solution. Support by itself would be quite a challenge.
- iy56 14y ago
  99% of them would not have bought the original product because their English skills are not good enough. They would buy a localized Chinese version, which is what the Chinese site from the story was selling. The moral of the story is, Chinese customers want a localized copy of your product. If you don't provide it, someone else will, and that guy might not feel like paying you any license fees.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    You make it sound like someone who doesn't immediately produce a Chinese translation deserves what they get when someone pirates their app and adds a + to the end. Also, like translation is the only reason someone's app gets ripped off.
- felipe 14y ago
  Not buying software does not mean that they won't buy anything. It simply means that particular business model (selling software licenses) does not work in China. But that's not the only possible model available, for example if you can package your software as training or something more tangible. I wrote an article a couple of years ago with some ideas to overcome this issue: http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/08/12/selling-your-software-in-china/ http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/08/12/selling-your-softwa...

gutnor 14y ago

As many people have said - with HTML5, you basically give your IP away and hope for the law to keep people honest. Making money is those conditions is the old open source conundrum. I would suggest the OP to sell support contract (sponsored features, priority bug fixing, ...) to the Chinese customers of his copycat. If the situation gets worse (eg: the chinese firm translate their website in English), the engine can be open sourced and try to recover with the support.

hdctambien 14y ago
If the Chinese site is selling the minified/uncommented JS code that you would get from "view source" then he probably wouldn't be in business for long. In this case, it sounds like he bought a copy of the engine/level editor/build scripts/documentation and is selling that. Is that any different than buying the Unreal Engine Source Code and reselling it for 50% off?
- iy56 14y ago
  Yes. It would be like buying the Unreal Engine Source Code, translating everything into Chinese, and selling that for 50% off.

mmcconnell1618 14y ago

I had a similar issue a few years ago when someone from Asia had modified and resold my ecommerce application for years as his own. I lost at least $50,000 in sales to US customers who purchased this guy's copy of my software. The big problem that I ran into is the cost to litigate international issues. I contacted a bunch of law firms and they all pretty much said it would be a six-figure cost to pursue any international action and the hopes of collecting would be almost zero. Fortunately, the copying was so blatant that I didn't have a problem getting the US web host to pull down his site. Partially as a result of the incident I decided to open-source the code base. Other than locking up the code in a SaaS platform there isn't a 100% foolproof way to protect IP so why not embrace the copying and build a business model around reality.

shiftpgdn 14y ago
I know it's a bit late to suggest this but for future reference you could have always followed the VBulletin model of sending DMCA/Legal threats to people who purchase the bootlegged software. I realize this doesn't make you any friends but if enough of those customers disputed the charges with the person who had stolen your software you may have been able to put him out of business.
- mmcconnell1618 14y ago
  I actually contacted most of them because the software was sold in a small community. I offered them immunity from legal threats in exchange for registering with me so that I knew how many people had purchased. The plan is to sell them official upgrades as their current unsupported versions become outdated. Thanks for the suggestion.

incision 14y ago

Reading this and the related stories of other products like Cloudstone [1] I'm immediately reminded of another, recent HN post [2] which suggested covering about half a dozen markets/languages with your initial releases. Something to think about. 1: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_in_china_stole_my_game/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/yc02l/some_company_i... 2: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389468 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389468

guilloche 14y ago

Html5 code is so easy to be copied, and it seems not trivial to prove who copied who. If my website is totally copied, how can I prove that my one is original? Any idea?

Cyranix 14y ago
If you're really that concerned about it, 1) Print source code 2) Get it witnessed by a notary public
- Achshar 14y ago
  As a techie myself, printing and code lie on opposite sides of the spectrum. Printing source code screams "wrong" in the back of my head. And how would one deal with updates, esp nightly updates.
protomyth 14y ago
Register your copyright http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html#website http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html#website http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ under Literary
- guilloche 14y ago
  Did anyone keep registering their evolving javascript code for copyright? Is this a common practice? For images, logos, we can use waterprint as a cheaper alternative, how about javascript code?
  - protomyth 14y ago
    I don't know if anyone has done it, but the Copyright Office actually have rules for it. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf

axx 14y ago

The guy who made Impact is from germany, not the US.

zupreme 14y ago

I hope the op realizes that, by posting this on HN, he/she has just promoted the much cheaper copycat product to the very target market that alleged thief wants to reach...

jbigelow76 14y ago
Throughout the history of journalism collateral damage has never been allowed to stand in the way of a good a story.
tedunangst 14y ago
The opposite view is they are alerting potential customers to the counterfeit. If, somehow, you only knew about that version, it would be helpful to know you won't get support, but that a supported version is available.
paulgb 14y ago
I would bet that most of HN is ethical and aware enough to buy the original.
- iy56 14y ago
  I bet most of HN isn't good enough at Chinese, so they'd rather pay more for the original, because it's in English.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    And also to support the original developer and definitely receive good support and updates.
  - michael_h 14y ago
    according to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428159 it is identical.
- criveros 14y ago
  Millennials believe it's ok to illegally download anything.

ftwinnovations 14y ago

Within a month of releasing my very successful iPhone app TextPics, there were several Chinese clones using a slightly modified icon, all of my content, my design, layout, and with names like "TextPics Pro" and "TextPics(R)" or "TextPics+". As annoying as this was and confusing to my customers, it got even worse. Theft in China does not stop at the dev level, oh no. Comparing my Google analytics app usage to my Apple purchases in China was even more depressing. It turned out China was by far my biggest country for usage... And just about at the bottom of my list for revenue. The Chinese were simply stealing the app with their cracked iPhones. I see no way to win here. And this is no blind hate for the Chinese. I have a Chinese wife from the mainland, I study Chinese Rosetta Stone daily, and I've been to China multiple times for pleasure. I know these people. As a culture, they consider it laughable and stupid to pay for something they could otherwise steal. I've had this conversation with enough Chinese at this point. So seriously I don't see how I can take that country or it's people seriously from a tech biz standpoint if I can't trust their ethics.

analyst74 14y ago
This is very interesting. Genuine question: how is pirating PC games, songs and movies acceptable while pirating apps is not? Edit: this is not a question toward parent, but rather the general public, as I kind of get the sense that pirating is somewhat acceptable under certain circumstances while not others. Where is the line?
- rodly 14y ago
  Where did he say pirating anything was okay?
  - chimi 14y ago
    It is funny how if it's copying a developers HTML5 game, it's stealing, but if it's a movie or song, well... that's just copying, because the creator still has a copy -- that's not stealing. The level of hypocrisy around here is incredible. The only occurrence of the text string "not stealing" in this whole tread is in my post right here.

gubatron 14y ago

How is this Hacker News, Chinese game portals are full of stolen games. No matter what you will do, they will reverse engineer and remove ads and blocks. It's china, the land of counterfeit.

khazard 14y ago

Hopefully I (as the only SoftLayer employee in this thread that I'm aware of) can provide a little insight. Before addressing the specific issue in the post, I want to share a quick overview of SoftLayer's Abuse Department and the processes of handling complaints. The abuse@softlayer.com address functions as more of a notification system than a medium for conversation. You don't have to be a SoftLayer customer to contact that address, and when reports of verifiable abuse are received, the abuse team will work with the customer responsible for the infringing server to get it resolved as quickly as possible. If the DMCA is properly formatted, the abuse team will work with our customers (who may, in turn have to work with their customers) to have the infringing material removed. If a complaint is submitted to that address that doesn't meet the legal guidelines of documentation we need before we can take action, we cannot take action. If we can't take action because of an incomplete or invalid complaint, we also can't provide any visibility or feedback to the complaining parties about what was incomplete/invalid, as that could fall into the "legal advice" category. Abuse tickets aren't handled by technical support, and they people creating and responding to the tickets are only responsible for abuse-related issues. Not only are they a distinct team, they fall in an entirely different part of the organization (alongside the legal, internal security and systems teams). As such, the way they respond needs to be extremely consistent from one issue to the next, and they're only able to make decisions based on the reports/evidence they have. I don't have visibility into the specific complaint that was submitted, so the only assumption I can make is that the complaint wasn't properly formatted or it didn't have the legal evidence we need to take action. Whether or not the copyright infringement is "obvious" or "unquestionable" from an outside perspective does not change our legal requirement of having a properly formatted DMCA complaint to take action. If there's a lawyer in the building who is willing to offer his/her services to the game developer, a resolution might be a lot quicker. When the DMCA is submitted, I'd love to be copied on it (khazard@softlayer.com) so I can immediately have it investigated and acted upon. -Kevin Hazard

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

The blog's identical, by the way. No effort to translate it.

clippit 14y ago

As a Chinese, I feel ashamed about these people. They said on their [forum][0] that "The controversy is inevitable. We offer services only for China so that Chinese customers can buy the same product with a low price." But please believe me there are a lot of good guys, contributors in China and many of them are so reclusive that you cannot recognize they are Chinese. [0]: http://www.kilofox.net/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=469&extra=page%3D1 http://www.kilofox.net/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&ti...

city41 14y ago

This is an exact use case that SOPA was designed to address. We vehemently hated SOPA, so what's the deal? We can't have it both ways.

mratzloff 14y ago
Personally, I would rather not have SOPA and have this guy lose a few sales.
unreal37 14y ago
The game developer is German, and the pirates are in China. How exactly would SOPA do ANYTHING to stop this? It wouldn't. A Chinese pirate selling pirated software to Chinese customers cannot be stopped by US law.

anuraj 14y ago

How do you prevent HTML and JS code from getting copied - obsfuscation may not help much. The standard had it coming.

strebler 14y ago

The situation is unfortunate, but basically inevitable at this stage in China's development. Take a look at the Chinese book publishing industry and you'll see a glimpse of the Chinese way - most books are put online for free by the authors (mostly in their entirety). The publishing companies pick the most popular ones, who get deals to have their books printed & sold in stores. Totally different from the west. Doing business in China, I have noticed that there is somewhat of a "creativity gap" (as I call it). I believe that as their society evolves and begins to create more of their own IP, the laws will eventually adapt to protect such developments. In the meantime, it's very difficult. But still, Cisco has had everything copied (down to the model #s) by you-know-who and yet still makes billions (also powering the great firewall). Like Microsoft & Cisco, there are ways to penetrate and dominate the market in the midst of the piracy. However, if your IP is some "easily de-obfuscated" javascript (and you're a startup), it's a very difficult position and my heart goes out to them.

hnewb 14y ago

I am Chinese (who resides in Bay Area). Yeah, I feel shame.

csense 14y ago

If the US-based hosting provider ignores DMCA requests, can't you sue the provider? You could also see if their payment provider is willing to help.