‘Free Ares Vista’ rips off p2pnet
p2pnet view P2P:- Back in January last year, a “Creative Commons license is handy, but it’s not a silver bullet when it comes to people using other people’s materials without permission”, I said in p2pnet, going on:
“That’s the bottom line following p2pnet’s re-print argument with Ares, a P2P application sales site which’d run our stories without acknowledgement or permission.
“It was never our intention to use p2pnet’s articles without the proper accreditation,” said Ares. “This was a programming error in our RSS feed. We apologize for any hassles this has caused you. Rest assured, we are currently working with our programmers to have this problem corrected as soon as possible.”
And correct it they did.
Now another ‘Ares’ company has popped up running not only p2pnet stories, but also posts from p2pnet sister site a2f2a.com.
This one’s called Free Ares Vista
Says the Ares P2P site on Sourceforge:
“Ares is a free open source file sharing program that enables users to share any digital file including images, audio, video, software, documents, etc. You may now easily publish your files through the Ares peer to peer network. As a member of the virtual community, you can search and download just about any file shared by other users. Latest versions support BitTorrent protocol and Shoutcast radio stations. With Ares you can also join chat rooms or host your channel and meet new friends.”
Cool. Open Source is good. Sharing is good. Creative Commons is good.
However, that doesn’t mean grabbing CC material from another site and running it under your own copyright is acceptable, which is exactly what Free Ares Vista is doing.
Under “Latest Blog Posts” are
- Ares Download: Which Version Is The Best?
- Ares Windows 7: 3 Reasons File Sharing Community Has Embraced The Software
- p2pnet World Headlines: Feb 23, 2010
- New Zealand ‘three-notice regime’
- University pres ‘retires’ after plagiarism charges
The last three are, of course, p2pnet stories.
And every one of its February Archive items is, Yup, from p2pnet.
And they’re all under Copyright ? [guess their copyright symbol is broken 
) 2010 Free Ares Vista. All Rights Reserved.
Oh Rilly?
There’s no contact info, and I couldn’t find anything when I did a search.
So how clued in are the people behind this latest Ares item?
They name Suprnova as one of “the most popular programs that use the bittorrent client”, linking directly to BitTorrent.
And according to Free Ares Vista, Morpheus is a “popular file sharing program”. It, too, is linked to the BT site.
In my other Ares story, “I have no problem with p2pnet stories being quoted in full or in part elsewhere,” I say, going on >>>
The idea is to get the message out and obviously, the more people carrying it, the better.
That’s why I publish under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada license.
“Given that, is it cool for anyone, anywhere, to use p2pnet, or anyone else’s, material without any kind of reference? Is the message all that counts?”
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – p2pnet and Ares: sorted, January 13, 2009
March, 2010
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March 5th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
If you are republishing anything and are concerned to respect everyone’s rights (but not their privileges) here are four questions you must answer in the negative:
1) Are you endangering anyone’s life?
2) Are you violating anyone’s privacy?
3) Are you impairing anyone’s apprehension of the truth?
4) Are you constraining anyone’s liberty?
There are of course cases when you may answer yes to one or more questions and still be respecting people’s rights, e.g. when you may need to publish something that violates someone’s privacy in order to protect someone’s life. However, in the bulk of simple cases of republication you can usually answer all four in the negative.
In the case of Ares we have to question whether they’re impairing anyone’s apprehension of the truth in terms of the authorship of the articles they’re publishing, and whether by attaching a copyright notice they’re attempting to constrain anyone’s liberty to make copies or derivatives, or misrepresenting their ability to do so.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
@ Crosbie:
One might also construe this as plagiarism – using ‘copyright’ to imply someone else’s work is one’s own.
Cheers!
March 5th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Well, strictly speaking, copyright doesn’t concern authorship, but who owns the transferable privilege of a reproduction monopoly on it.
A newspaper can put copyright notices on all stories it has the copyright to, whether through authorship or contracted transfer.
So copyright doesn’t imply authorship (except to people who mistakenly believe copyright to be an authorial right).
Someone putting a copyright notice on a work they do not have the copyright to is still committing a falsehood, but it’s not plagiarism.
Plagiarism is falsely claiming authorship (explicitly or implicitly).
If a site produced many of its own stories (with its own in house authors) and included your stories without indicating they weren’t written in house and without your authorisation, then that would be plagiarism through implicit misattribution.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
@ Crosbie:
“Plagiarism is falsely claiming authorship (explicitly or implicitly).”
That’s what they’re doing.
Cheers!
March 5th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
@Jon – Arrange a licensing deal with them which could help support p2pnet maybe?
March 5th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
@ Rabbit80:
I’ve asked the person listed in Whois to deal with this, so we’ll see what happens.
As for p2pnet, stay tuned. Good news coming in a couple of days, I hope (keep your fingers crossed).
Cheers!
March 5th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
It would be ironic if someone else is able to make money from your posts when you can’t talk readers into supporting you.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I think the $1K makes your point “pointless” RW.
Jon: perhaps in a story or two include some “posted by p2pnet” text somewhere in the article and see if it shows up on their site. That would be a good way to tell if they’re just blankly ripping you off
March 5th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I think it’s pretty cheeky to put a copyright on someone else’s work. What’s next, they send a DMCA take down notice to p2pnet?
March 5th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
“It would be ironic if someone else is able to make money from your posts when you can’t talk readers into supporting you.”
You really should stay out of it when the adults are talking.
Just shows how green around the edges you are when you don’t.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
It bears repeating that this is a scam site, not the real Ares Galaxy (@ http://aresgalaxy.sourceforge.net)
Scam sites rip off unsuspecting users looking for the genuine product, infecting their computers with spyware and/or charging fees for what is supposed to be a free (opensource) software program. These counterfeit websites also routinely refuse to reveal their source code, as required by Ares Galaxy’s GPL. As in most free products on Sourceforge, the developers of Ares are unpaid volunteers who don’t have the money to take legal action against these scam artists.
It’s not surprising that someone who steals the Ares name and sourcecode would also steal news articles.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
“It would be ironic if someone else is able to make money from your posts when you can’t talk readers into supporting you.
-Reader’s Write-
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
-Mark Twain-
March 6th, 2010 at 5:36 am
@Bill:
Very similar was an Abraham Lincoln quote…
‘Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, then to speak out and remove all doubt.
In any case, your use was very appropriate.
[tips hat]
March 6th, 2010 at 6:49 am
so we now have 4 ares versions I will attempt to distinguish which versions are the real versions according to sources I have came across. I will have to do some digging. I will post my update
March 6th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Download Ares Galaxy from the original project site here http://aresgalaxy.sourceforge.net . Its free, no spyware, no adware, nothing fishy. Also a more updated version. I dunno who has control over ares.net but it is presumed not the official version which is at sourceforge.
Also there are other working versions of Ares but they are filled with trojans and malw as most other fake official programs are. I have to say that they do work often not before you have to pay out some cash. Before you go about saying something is official, only working, etc, can you please do research on the subject first for whoever post these kind of links as official version. I have installed 4 “of the versions from the sites above as test and they were either virus, malw, tro, or didn’t allow you to download but only search unless you paid. The aresgalaxy.sourceforge.net is the creators/etc.
Hope this helps everyone out.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Yep This is plagiarism! No doubt about that!
There has been many cases of plagiarisms comitted by the talentless artists signed with the corporation of entertainment parasites with their benediction!
Who are the thieves?
March 8th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
1. Considering that Jon used “BY-NC-SA” as the CC license for p2pnet, they’re obvious violating at least the “by” condition, by not attributing the stuff to p2pnet. Actually, that’s even arguable on the ones that say “p2pnet news headlines”, but you get the idea.
2. Having said that, I’m with Crosbie on this one — barring the State-granted monopoly privilege of copyright, “licenses” — even better ones like Creative Commons — would be neither enforceable, or “needed”. I can see your gripe here, Jon, but ultimately, I gotta side with Crosbie on this one: if we really *do* support p2p technology, view the monopoly privilege of copy”right” with skepticism, or suchlike, then getting intense about something like this might seem a bit…..ironic?
3. Again, I gotta agree with Crosbie: when it comes to news and such, the “message” is bigger than the “messenger”.
What do I think is a good solution?
1. Ares changes whatever they’re using to scrape p2pnet for content, either to link back to p2pnet, or just insert a “via p2pnet” disclaimer.
Problem solved: p2pnet gets acknowleged (thus complying with the CC license terms), the ‘message’ (p2pnet content) gets disseminated/mirrored somewhere else — REALLY useful considering potential issues with hosting and finances and such), and — most importantly — nobody gets to call you hypocritical for advocating “free culture” for others, but getting all pissy about “your” content being re-used in an “unauthorized” manner.
No offense meant here, but I figure we’re trying to get *away* from the kind of culture where “authorization” is relevant (after initial publication). After all, the basic claim of the IP “maximalists” is that “online pirates” are using “their” (monopolized) content without permission/authorization. (The fact that they continue to bribe public officials into granting them ever longer copyright terms just indicates that their basic power-trip).
March 8th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
@Jon/Henry:
I think Jon’s response to Henry’s comment went to the wrong page.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/36693#comment-1000788
March 8th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Thanks DA.
@ Henry:
No offence taken.
“Ares changes whatever they’re using to scrape p2pnet for content, either to link back to p2pnet, or just insert a ‘via p2pnet’ disclaimer”.
That’s all I’m asking for, and it doesn’t seem too much to me.
Cheers!