Megaupload down?

[jack_norton]

I asked them, though the reply was 3-4 years ago: they said as long as there is nothing "extreme", and is represented only through artwork (no images/video of real people) it's "OK". I'm guessing hentai that doesn't contain incest or other stuff should be good then (might be worth asking them again just to be sure).

[Funnyguts]

[start snark]Ah, yes, the TPB. The Swiss love storing things for questionable people without asking questions. Let's just move all pirated material on the internet to servers in Switzerland. I'm sure the Swiss will stay neutral and not take sides when other countries like the U.S. come knocking . . . . [/end snark]

The people running TPB are Swedish, not Swiss. And considering that they've gone through trials and had their servers seized, and are still running, I'm reasonably confident that if I stuck a torrent to a game I had made and wanted to share legally it wouldn't disappear like with Megaupload.

[Funnyguts]

[start snark]Ah, yes, the TPB. The Swiss love storing things for questionable people without asking questions. Let's just move all pirated material on the internet to servers in Switzerland. I'm sure the Swiss will stay neutral and not take sides when other countries like the U.S. come knocking . . . . [/end snark]

The people running TPB are Swedish, not Swiss. And considering that they've gone through trials and had their servers seized, and are still running, I'm reasonably confident that if I stuck a torrent to a game I had made and wanted to share legally it wouldn't disappear like with Megaupload.

Edit: All things considered, my ideal choice would be to have my own server space that I can provide direct downloads to. Adding torrents would be a useful way of spreading games without people necessarily having to know about my site before finding the torrent.

Another edit: I'm not sure why this created a new post. :/

[LateWhiteRabbit]

[start snark]Ah, yes, the TPB. The Swiss love storing things for questionable people without asking questions. Let's just move all pirated material on the internet to servers in Switzerland. I'm sure the Swiss will stay neutral and not take sides when other countries like the U.S. come knocking . . . . [/end snark]

The people running TPB are Swedish, not Swiss. And considering that they've gone through trials and had their servers seized, and are still running, I'm reasonably confident that if I stuck a torrent to a game I had made and wanted to share legally it wouldn't disappear like with Megaupload.

Edit: All things considered, my ideal choice would be to have my own server space that I can provide direct downloads to. Adding torrents would be a useful way of spreading games without people necessarily having to know about my site before finding the torrent.

Another edit: I'm not sure why this created a new post. :/

My mistake. I knew that somewhere in the back of my head. I had just got done watching a video with one of the Swiss government officials insisting they don't take sides on anything as a matter of national policy. So because I had that on my mind I mixed up my Sw-countries.

Pirate Bay does a lot of interesting things with torrents in general, and I hear it will soon not even host torrent files anymore, so NOTHING will be stored on its servers. It is supposed to be transitioning entirely to magnet files. Their peer tracking software also mixes in random IP addresses to give "plausible deniability" to pirates, since law enforcement will know for a fact that any list of IP addresses they obtain from the Pirate Bay will have innocent people's IP addresses mixed into the list.

Your own server space is the best choice, and is relatively easy and cheap to set up. Plus, unless you suddenly make the most popular VN in the world, network volume will never be an issue. All that and you will have total control over everything. It will also make it easier to keep track of just how many downloads your game actual has.

[Voight-Kampff]

Your own server space is the best choice, and is relatively easy and cheap to set up. Plus, unless you suddenly make the most popular VN in the world, network volume will never be an issue. All that and you will have total control over everything. It will also make it easier to keep track of just how many downloads your game actual has.

I have to agree.

Personally, after years of wandering the wastelands of cheap-ass web hosting, I've been extremely pleased with my current host: Pair. Their basic web hosting option is $10 dollars a month, and they usually provide discounts if you purchase hosting in advance. So, if you pay for six months of hosting, they'll shave a little off your bill. If you pay for a year in advance, they shave a little more off.

[papillon]

Buying your own hosting just isn't an option for all people, though, knowing some of the visitors we get to this board. However, specialised file hosting rather than general sites full of nonsense is. Whether Tom provides it or not, I suspect hosting could be found for most VNs from fellow makers who have bandwidth to spare.

(I already provide mirroring for a small number of free games from a different community, for example, and Spiky keeps mumbling about setting up free hosting for VNs but he's been being lazy about actually finishing it. )

[Scout]

I asked them, though the reply was 3-4 years ago: they said as long as there is nothing "extreme", and is represented only through artwork (no images/video of real people) it's "OK". I'm guessing hentai that doesn't contain incest or other stuff should be good then (might be worth asking them again just to be sure).

I contacted them about this yesterday, and they said it's okay for existing vendors, but they're not accepting any new ones right now. (Maybe that'll change in the future, their wording was kinda unclear.) So BMT's probably not really something to count on there.

[LeandroP]

[start snark]Ah, yes, the TPB. The Swiss love storing things for questionable people without asking questions. Let's just move all pirated material on the internet to servers in Switzerland. I'm sure the Swiss will stay neutral and not take sides when other countries like the U.S. come knocking . . . . [/end snark]

The people running TPB are Swedish, not Swiss. And considering that they've gone through trials and had their servers seized, and are still running, I'm reasonably confident that if I stuck a torrent to a game I had made and wanted to share legally it wouldn't disappear like with Megaupload.

Edit: All things considered, my ideal choice would be to have my own server space that I can provide direct downloads to. Adding torrents would be a useful way of spreading games without people necessarily having to know about my site before finding the torrent.

Another edit: I'm not sure why this created a new post. :/

I agree. The torrents are almost impossible to stop or seize, since you just need to have a place to download the .torrent and the rest is up to the seeders. Links die, especially without premium accounts. Almost all services offer premium but never offer a guarantee of keeping the file. Torrents do (depending on which content, child pornograhy is an obvious no).

I think that direct downloads should never be considered. Most places (blogspot, wordpress, etc.) don't allow them because the excesive bandwidth they consume is ridiculous (if the game weights ~100mb or more) It's better to stick with torrents and try to have some links.

[LVUER]

I see that some hosting sites are now only provide upload service but no download unless it's your own files. Some even wipe out all files that copyrighted even if those files are freely distributed files.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I see that some hosting sites are now only provide upload service but no download unless it's your own files. Some even wipe out all files that copyrighted even if those files are freely distributed files.

Which makes them nearly useless. You can't distribute files to a team or corporate structure that way, can't distribute files to the public, can't distribute files to family or friends, etc. If I need to move my own files to somewhere else, I'll take them with me on a flash drive - it's faster, has more storage, and is plug-and-go. And if it is just for storage? I have TBs of free memory on external harddrives. (Which are - wait for it - portable!)

And I assume there will problems with identifying owned copyright or not. What about Jack or Papillon uploading a version of their games under this new setup, maybe for backup or to retrieve it at a friend's computer. Will those files get deleted for violating copyright? It sounds silly, but it is difficult to prove copyright ownership a lot of times.

I run into this occasionally at Kinko's or another printer when I print posters or glossy portfolio versions of my digital work. I guess I should take it as a compliment when they think my work looks professional enough to ask me if I have copyright on the images - but it can be annoyingly difficult to prove sometimes. Sometimes no one asks, other times a simple 'yes' works for them, but at times on big print jobs that feature characters I have to jump through hoops to prove they're mine. I had one particular manager or supervisor who was bored or a rules freak that forced me to show him my webpage with the art on it, then my business card (which matched the site), then my resume on the site, then my ID to prove I was the guy on the resume. He then said "anyone" could steal an image and put it on a website. I glared at him. "Yes, spending hours designing the site, paying for hosting, ordering business cards and waiting for them to arrive was difficult, but my master plan to deceive you has finally paid off."

I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be to prove you own copyrights over the internet.

[papillon]

I glared at him. "Yes, spending hours designing the site, paying for hosting, ordering business cards and waiting for them to arrive was difficult, but my master plan to deceive you has finally paid off."

I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be to prove you own copyrights over the internet.

I have actually seen cases of game hackers making their own websites and claiming to own the games they stole, cracked, and slightly edited. No matter how paranoid you are, there's always somewhere that the paranoia is justified.

(Of course, I would have no possible use for a service like megaupload to transfer my own files to myself at someone else's house, and I absolutely would not TRUST such a site to hold any of my important data... or to delete it if I asked them to, which is the bigger problem. I have regularly argued with my husband about what is and isn't appropriate to put into Dropbox, for that matter, despite it not being such a hotbed of trouble.)

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I glared at him. "Yes, spending hours designing the site, paying for hosting, ordering business cards and waiting for them to arrive was difficult, but my master plan to deceive you has finally paid off."

I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be to prove you own copyrights over the internet.

I have actually seen cases of game hackers making their own websites and claiming to own the games they stole, cracked, and slightly edited. No matter how paranoid you are, there's always somewhere that the paranoia is justified.

(Of course, I would have no possible use for a service like megaupload to transfer my own files to myself at someone else's house, and I absolutely would not TRUST such a site to hold any of my important data... or to delete it if I asked them to, which is the bigger problem. I have regularly argued with my husband about what is and isn't appropriate to put into Dropbox, for that matter, despite it not being such a hotbed of trouble.)

That's true. I've even seen one my classmates at art school steal a professor's work and put it up on a site claiming it was his. (That didn't turn out well, for the student.)

I wonder how much Dropbox or other file locker services will change in response. Like how does Dropbox know whether or not you own the copyright to Cute Knight? And Dropbox is used by quite a few corporations. How does John Doe, intern for Generic Corp prove he has the right to upload that new book by Generic Corp to Dropbox?

I do think the mad dash and scramble by all the file locker services makes them look bad and guilty. Many obviously thought what they were doing was legal, but it looks like the Department of Justice doesn't think so. After all, when incentive programs for users to get more people to use your service can apparently count as money laundering, what can you sure of?

[Sapphi]

I run into this occasionally at Kinko's or another printer when I print posters or glossy portfolio versions of my digital work. I guess I should take it as a compliment when they think my work looks professional enough to ask me if I have copyright on the images - but it can be annoyingly difficult to prove sometimes. Sometimes no one asks, other times a simple 'yes' works for them, but at times on big print jobs that feature characters I have to jump through hoops to prove they're mine. I had one particular manager or supervisor who was bored or a rules freak that forced me to show him my webpage with the art on it, then my business card (which matched the site), then my resume on the site, then my ID to prove I was the guy on the resume. He then said "anyone" could steal an image and put it on a website. I glared at him. "Yes, spending hours designing the site, paying for hosting, ordering business cards and waiting for them to arrive was difficult, but my master plan to deceive you has finally paid off."

Kinda off-topic, but where do these people think art comes from? I'm nowhere near professional level and I still get skeptical people from time to time like "Did you actually draw that?" when something is digitally colored or looks the least bit polished. I mean, really... is it so hard to believe that artists are walking among you?! Did you expect us all to be living in some underground colony someplace where all animation and illustrations originate?! GAH!!

On-topic: I like the idea of a storage server for Ren'Py! I hope it works out ^_^

[Mink]

Artists are akin unicorns, don't'cha know. More people believe they don't exist than those that do, so when the skeptics meet a unicorn, MIND = BLOWN. ...Where was I going with that metaphor?

On topic: yeah, I like that idea too because I'm probably too cheap to get my own hosting any time soon, not to mention a poor college student.

Also on-topic (I guess), I should go double check that what I do have on Mediafire isn't anything A) I'm not willing to lose, or B) that's not also on my external hard drive. Juuust in case.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I mean, really... is it so hard to believe that artists are walking among you?! Did you expect us all to be living in some underground colony someplace where all animation and illustrations originate?! GAH!!

Artists are akin unicorns, don't'cha know. More people believe they don't exist than those that do, so when the skeptics meet a unicorn, MIND = BLOWN. ...Where was I going with that metaphor?

It's just that they don't recognize us without the easel.

Also on-topic (I guess), I should go double check that what I do have on Mediafire isn't anything A) I'm not willing to lose, or B) that's not also on my external hard drive. Juuust in case.

It is probably a good idea for everyone to back up any files they have stored at any file locker site until all this is settled.