Someone Is Selling Mods !

**PROMETHEUS** · 07-09-2006, 09:20

http://cgi.ebay.it/ROME-TOTAL-WAR-OL...QQcmdZViewItem

Basically on Ebay this guys is selling a service of around 500 mbs of mods made by others with the excuse that he is selling the service for the ones who cant wait to download , go around searching the mods or stuff like that , I dunno if this is legal and I would like to know and in case I think he at least should respect or ask permissions ..... :hmmm:

**william the bastard** · 07-09-2006, 12:02

I think you should contact Ebay and explain the situation and maybe the seller. For knowing RTR, he is surely a fellowship member.
I consider that like a good warning to the community, perhaps we should consider to organize ourselves distribution of copies for low connection owners, after all this guy selling work of others guys, even if this stuff is free and sales price low, I think it's a shame.
Even if intentions are goods, process look rubbish.

BTW, I forgot [COLOR="Red"]ALLEZ les BLEUS and [COLOR="Black"] FORZA [COLOR="Blue"]GLI AZZURI

French with Italian origins, my heart beating and brain turn schyzo

**Jambo** · 07-09-2006, 12:12

Most certainly it isn't legal. Anything related to Rome TW is the property of CA and Sega. Mods may be developed by individuals and they may claim ownership, but they cannot sell and profit from the mod.

**TB666** · 07-09-2006, 13:43

Without a doubt, not legal.
He is even selling patch 1.2.
And as Jambo said, the mods are in a way properties of SEGA and CA and are meant to be free.

**Lentonius** · 07-09-2006, 14:08

i dunno, if this bloke is shipping mods physically around, putting em on cds and stuff, there could be some confusion. I dunno, but if he is shipping these around on CDs to people, then theoretically the 5.99 euros he could just say is the cost of the shipping, and therefore non profitable. However, it is hard to clarify on things like this the legality of it all., but i suspect if in any way (and which i think it does) contain patches by CA and SEGA, then I suppose that is illegal. Although technically selling modified games for profit is illegal, they could simply argue they are only charging the 'postage fee'.

Anywho, I wonder who this person is?

**Quillan** · 07-09-2006, 15:27

This could be tricky, as I don't speak Italian, but is he selling the mods, or is he simply selling a service? If what he is selling is the service of downloading the things you can't download, burning them onto a disk and shipping them to you, and the price he charges reflects only the costs of materials/shipping and the service provided, it might technically be legal.

When I saw the thread, I figured X1 was at it again.

**Divinus Arma** · 07-09-2006, 15:31

Woah. This is actually a hell of a loop hole.

Think about it:

It takes hours for some people to download a mod on very slow connections. Some people pay to be premium members of public servers in order to get "bumped up" in line. Are they then selling the modification?

Therefore, someone could, hypothetically, sell the method by which it is distributed: namely via CD. As long as he does not sell RTW itself, this could be legal. After all, the modifications require the software from RTW to function. Again, he is not selling the intellectual property. He is only selling the method of its distribution. By the same token, somebody could host a super-fast server, bittorrent style, and sell the service, but only exclusively for downloading mods.

Woah.

If somebody decides to really run with this, they would likely end in court either way. Its just hard to say who would win, because the law gets fuzzy when dealing with the distribution of free software.