A word from Martin Schweiger - Orbiter on ebay

[EtherDragon]

I've contacted E-Bay customer support with the following message. I encourage all faithful users of Orbiter to do the
same...

Quote:
I am contacting you on behalf of Dr. Martin Schwieger at www.orbitersim.com who is the intelectual property owner of
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator 2006.

Recently the user "tcbteam" listed items 180099105849 and 180098106114 under the title "Brand New
_VisionQuest_SPACE FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2007!!!!"

If you examine the screen-shots provided by tcbteam in the above listings you will find they are identical to screen
shots found at www.orbitersim.com

The software being distributed under the title "Vision Quest Space Flight Simulator 2007" is an illegal redistribution
of "Orbiter Space Flight Simulator" copywrite 2000-2006 by Dr. Martin Schweiger. Martin can be contacted at
martins@mephys.ucl.ac.uk
:End

The voice of a single small copywrite owner may go unheard, and the fees of hiring a lawyer may go unreturned... but
the voices of many legal users of this great free software will make the operators of E-Bay take notice. So, I
encourage you all to contact E-Bay with a similar report by going to http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index_selection.html



Post Edited ( 03-25-07 19:08 )

[ar81]

Wow, that's nice, eBay only allows members to make reports.
It means that for non regulars, it is not allowed to report.... If only they had a form to fill.
Probably they don´t like spam.

[sunshine135]

It appears ebay has removed this seller and all listed items for the seller tcbteam. Serves him right!

[ctmueller]

People that do this stuff truly deserve jail time, in a cell with Bubba.

Ripping off people's hard earned work, *especially* since it's free, is contemptible.  These people need a conscience.  

I'm with EtherDragon, the Orbiter community needs to step up and prosecute these people.  If we don't stick together and go
after such fraud, people are going to stop offering this stuff for free.  Everyone will get punished for the actions of a few.

[ar81]

If the criminal reads the post at the main orbiter forums by Big Jim, he could realize that messing with the Orbiter
community in a piracy incident is a plain huge mistake.  He doesn´t know who he is messing with.

[Tachyon]

Dan - about the needing lots of money to pursue this ... in America .... you don't. Because it's criminal case the start is
the pursueing body on behave of Dr. Martin. (example) It's the state (or federal if it's a federal offence) that flips the
bill and man power to go after the numb nutz.  Then the full power of tax payer's funds come to bare on the case.  
And you'd be supprised just what things are actually a "federal" offence.

[EtherDragon]

Whatever the federal law... we got the result we wanted.

The unliscensed sale of Orbiter was removed from E-Bay.