WoW streamers who "sell" weakauras

[munkeyinorbit]

Oh dear.
First of all: Weak Auras is licensed under GNU General Public License, version 2. There's no section "4.6.2 of the GNU"

Second:
There are plenty of examples of GPL code being sold, commercially, completely legally.

The spirit of the GPL is to ensure that software remains free (as in "free as speech").
You can charge as much as you want, but you also have to distribute the software source.
The one thing that GPL is meant to prevent is making software proprietary and closed.

GPL doesn't restrict selling Weak Auras (the addon) or the Aura strings.
But Blizzard's UI/Addon Policy does.

Again - you guys are arguing this like fucking Matlock. It's not a huge license/court case.
This is (at most) a terms of service violation.

Sigh. It saddens me when a "normal" person tris to understand law.

1. There is section 4.6.4 of the GNU. I don't know what more to say. It is right there in google. Just type it in.
2. The code is sold, but the code using the code is till under section 4.6.4 of the GNU. In effect the user of the software that is the user of the liscence is not given any special rights and mnust obey the original GNU. With no licences, they are in fact in violation of it.
3.Matlock is a fucking legend and if you hate them then you are objectively a sexist.

[munkeyinorbit]

This is factually completely incorrect.
Even in the most openly interpreted US court where you might, if you're lucky, to be able to argue that TOS is legally binding contract.
But that is a very shaky case you're building here Matlock.

And I certainly don't know any courts that would take a case where the forseeable losses (to whom? Blizzard? Who is even the plaintiff here?) equals $5 USD.

- - - Updated - - -



There is no license called "the GNU".

*Sighs*
It is been argued that TOS are legally binding as long as there is sufficient evidence to show that there has been ample opportunity for someone to be aware of them. What you are confusing is the TOS applied to users in the 90s and early 2000s where they actually had to break the seal of the box to see the TOS. Breaking the seal in retail was a no no. You break the seal, you cannot bring the game back. Then there was court and it was shown that a user cannot be expected to agree to the TOS if the broke the seal. Therefore a TOS is legally binding if a user has ample opportunity to read it.

Foreseeable losses is irrelevant. If a party has been found wrong in such cases they may be liable for 100000s of dollars, not the $3 that was paid to them.

go back to your arm chair.

[Krazyito]

1. There is section 4.6.4 of the GNU. I don't know what more to say. It is right there in google. Just type it in.
2. The code is sold, but the code using the code is till under section 4.6.4 of the GNU. In effect the user of the software that is the user of the liscence is not given any special rights and mnust obey the original GNU. With no licences, they are in fact in violation of it.

Hey mister all knowing, how about you actually link a source to your claims about this section? Apparently us "normal people" don't know how to use Google properly to find it.

If it really exists please provide a source to your wisdom and quote the section here so we can fully understand your greatness.

[Krazyito]

Also it's funny how you're arguing about basically the same point.. Monkey just for some reason has this grand notion that people are going to jail for something that's not being enforced right now.

It's not going to the a huge deal until blizzard sees it as a huge problem where a lot of people are doing it or someone is making a huge amount of money from it. They literally can't police all these small things.

[Kantoro]

Let them charge, it isn't your place to dictate a capitalist market. Don't want to pay? Don't. No reason to be a dick.

[xindralol]

by all means upload it. if they’re related to mmoc you might wanna use a dummy account and vpn to post a link here though.

[Ssateneth]

I feel like this whole argument is part of the loophole like "buy this toothpick for $150,000 and you get a free house!". everyone knows you are buying the house and the toothpick is worthless. its the same here. "buy a sub to me and get a free WA" but nobody cares about the sub, it's worthless. you just want the WA.

surely you can get this behavior punished.

BTW if you thinking "no, that's wrong, its a free WA with the purchase of a sub", bro, stop lying to yourself.

[kek280]

Imagine getting banned on this Indonesian basket-weaving forum for posting the fucking weak aura of some random streamer, which has zero commercial, intellectual property protection or representation established to it.
Smart thing to do it is just to post them all on wagio.

Just sub, snatch and chargeback, do you know most of those streamers don't even make their own auras right?
Most of them have their own viewers that do it for free, just to sell them back, at other viewers, so the way I see it, I'm doing no wrong here.

[Fragnance]

Fragrance has always been kind of an asshat, pretty sure he was advertising for boost services too. Charging has only been a problem recently.

I don't advertise any kind of boost service no, did in the past though in all honesty.
& The WA's is rather a perk instead of spamming Sub Raid/M+ for Subs as an incentive. Since you cannot please every sub, and that concept is even more of a scam imo.

So the "UI" became something I would keep precious to supporters rather than yeah, pretty much "selling M+/Sub Raids".
Their call if they want to use the UI or no, or just to support the stream really.

xo jmy

[Donatello Trumpi]

If I were to share Sloot's weak auras in this thread, would that be allowed ? He has some really good tank weak auras.

I am interested in some of those weak auras. I would appreciate a PM if posting it here isnt allowed.

[Onikaroshi]

I don't advertise any kind of boost service no, did in the past though in all honesty.
& The WA's is rather a perk instead of spamming Sub Raid/M+ for Subs as an incentive. Since you cannot please every sub, and that concept is even more of a scam imo.

So the "UI" became something I would keep precious to supporters rather than yeah, pretty much "selling M+/Sub Raids".
Their call if they want to use the UI or no, or just to support the stream really.

xo jmy

Well, good on you for removing the boost thing :P I'll take back the asshat comment.

I agree on the M+/Sub raid thing... that's borderline against twitches policies to boot.

[Spotnick]

That's not the point. The point is we need to stop people from profiting off something that should be free. Imagine if every addon creator in wow charged you $5 to download their addon. It's absurd.

How is that absurd to pay somebody for the work they did?

You would pay 5$ for a popcorn at a movie theater but for a weak aura you'd use all the time it's too much?

Plus, Blizzard are the ones who sent a brand new computer rig to the author of DBM didn't they?

[Spotnick]

Except you don't "buy it".. you get it for free by subbing to a twitch channel don't you?

Oldest trick in the book.. buy a pair of sunglasses and you get 2 concert tickets for free...

Streamers do it ALL THE TIME to sell carries these days.

[Delrancho]

Free has many reasons in the law. As a lawyer myself who specializes in digital copyright I can assure you that the GNU GPL does include the restriction of selling code to a third party. Look at section 4.6.2 of the GNU and it specifically states that software made by "the software i.e. the addon" is not to be sold, traded, given, produced, copied or any similar actions without the express permission of the original owner of such software that was used to make such software. If software vendor is unavailable or unknown then permission must be grained from the annual meeting of the GNU alliance."

Essentially it means that you cannot sell anything related to Weakauras unless they say it is OK.

So how much are you being paid Delrancho? You sound like you are getting paid to attack factually right people.

Paid? And how did I attack anyone? My post couldn't have been kinder.

I am in the process of changing careers and just finished a FOSS class. The link I posted from the GNU's site literally says,

"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can."

While I am 100% certain you know more about the subject than I do (if what you said you do is true), how does one interpret this in any other way? Genuinely curious. Thanks for the response.

[xpose]

The URLs for Sloot's WA are private are the only way to get them is to subscribe or get someone who is already subscribed to send you them.

https://puu.sh/Dt4MZ/4eebc5b79a.png

He's charging for the WA, let's not twist words here. The subscriber only part of the discord is sub only for the very purpose of these WAs.

As I said. There is no paywall behind his weak aura. If you know the URL you get them for free. You're paying for access to a section that has the URL. Thats why he can sell it.

[Spotnick]

See 2) in the policy above.

I do.. it says the code can't be obfuscated.. meaning you cannot use algorithms to make the code unreadable.

Pretty much means don't compress it with minify algorithms.

[clevin]

The relevant parts of the policy below

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

2) Add-on code must be completely visible.
The programming code of an add-on must in no way be hidden or obfuscated, and must be freely accessible to and viewable by the general public.

4) Add-ons may not include advertisements.
Add-ons may not be used to advertise any goods or services.

5) Add-ons may not solicit donations.
Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.

Original here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/1021053914

1. "Hey, guys I made this cool Addon, you can download it over here for free! Please join my Patreon so I can eat and fix my teeth!" <- is OK
2. "Hey guys, here are cool screenshots of my cool Addon. If you pay $5 bucks, you can download it" <- is NOT OK
3. "Hey guys, sub to my channel. Subs get cool perks like PogChamp emotes and my cool WeakAuras" <- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(I think 2 and 3 are the same case, but I'm not Blizzard)

WA scripts are not addons. WA itself is the addon covered by that policy.

[Shakana]

So much talk for something so simple: If you think something is wrong:
1. Report it;
2. Artists, programers, streamers have the right to have a "premium" anything they want as long it's theirs
3. MMOchampion won't help you make justice for this

The addon is free, , the strings don't come with the addon, therefore, he didn't broke any "law", ain't even a law, but terms, ain't really "a law", so it's just a violation of terms, the person won't even get charged for it. They will be warned at max for violating and giving a proper ban, or something else, if what they are doing is indeed wrong.

[Evaddon]

Well they should be reported to the Addon Creator, who could either sue them or gain half of the profit since they're using a property they didn't make to profit from them.

Pretty scummy, another reason not to watch Twitch as if I needed more lol

[Radaney]

They're profiting of the time they took to make the string more than anything else.

Time is money friend.