That site should be shut down. There's no way he can get licenses to reproduce and sell those games. The fact that DOSBox is being supplied by such a nefarious person could work against the project and the team, let alone any relationships they might have with legitimate distributors (such as Sierra).

http://webwhois.nic.uk/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?quer … HOIS+Submit.y=0

Domain name: butterfly-media.co.uk Registrant: Vinson Pike t/a Epic Direct Registrant type: […]
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Domain name:
butterfly-media.co.uk

Registrant:
Vinson Pike t/a Epic Direct

Registrant type:
UK Sole Trader

Registrant's address:
21 Cheddar Road
Swindon
SN25 3HE
GB

Registrar:
Mr Paul Hughes t/a UKHost4u.com [Tag = UKHOST4U]
URL: http://www.ukhost4u.com

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 27-Jan-2004
Renewal date: 27-Jan-2008
Last updated: 16-Feb-2006

Registration status:
Registered until renewal date.

Name servers:
dns3.ukhost4u.com
dns4.ukhost4u.com

WHOIS lookup made at 03:28:41 29-Jul-2007

That site needs to be shut down immediately! Not only are they ripping off people, they are using free software like DOSBox (and others) to generate profit. I agree that this could work against the devs, or the project.

SKARDAVNELNATE, you should report the seller in eBay. With a little luck, they'll have their account shut down, forcing them to either withdraw from eBay, or to reopen a new account.

dh4rm4, didn't you say you live in the UK? Would you report the company to local authorities? In germany, there are central organizations you can report software related copyright infringements to. I don't think they care very much for "small" offences, but in this case, with someone obviously making money, there should be a interest in shutting down this "operation" ASAP.

I'm disgusted by the people running that kind of "company".

I assume you notified eBay?

Be aware, that this Butterfly media is only some kind of logistic middleman. The eBay seller pays Butterfly to handle the stocking, shipping and (what looks to me, very superficial) support.

I guess the eBay seller merely supplied them with a master ISO image and 2 JPEG covers for the the jewel-case.

It might be wise to notify Butterfly that one of their suppliers is trading un-licensed software and have him dropped as a customer.

I'm now law expert, but this "business model" stinks. The website gives very little information on what Butterfly is exactly doing. Even if they are "only" the middleman - they have to check if the stuff they're trading is legit. They claim to have a "Downloadable databases for all titles", so they seem to maintain a central product database. This means they should be well aware of what kind of software they are selling.

I guess the eBay seller merely supplied them with a master ISO image and 2 JPEG covers for the the jewel-case.

I did quite a lot of "real" CD/DVD productions in the past. With every order to a manufacturer, you have to send a signed paper to approve you're holding the copyright or licenses to the stuff in the ISO image you're supplying. There's no way you can "accidentally" order the production of "real" CD's/DVD's with pirated content.

EDIT: MiniMax, upon further investigation on the site, i'm pretty sure i understood that "Butterfly Media" is not only a logistic platform selling stuff supplied by other parties. They are stocking and dispatching the software. The eBay (or Amazon or whatever) sellers are acting as re-sellers for the "Butterfly Media" products catalogue. So, if i understand that correctly, "Butterfly Media" have full control of their product portfolio, and thus are fully liable for the products they're offering.

SKARDAVNELNATE, could you provide a little more information on your deal? Could you photograph/scan the CD and inserts, and post them here? I'm curious how that stuff looks...

Edit: some spelling

Message sent to the support:

I bought a game on eBay that was supposed to be Darkseed II. Instead I get a compilation CD containing a nonligit ripped version of the game missing the in game movies. The readme file on the disc contained a link to this website. Explain why the game is incomplete!

Their response:

Hi […]
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Hi

Thanks for your email.

We currently hold and distribute over 1000 CD-ROM titles, Most are fully packaged, whilst some are produced inhouse on professionally printed CD-R.

We do a range of Charityware CD's where the CD may contain more than one 'abandoned' game, these charityware CD's raise over £10,000 a year for charity. £1 from the sale of each of these CD's goes to charity.

The item your customer has received is the correct item, As stated on the sales pages and butterfly-media.co.uk, "ALL IMAGES ARE FOR ILLUSTRATION AND MAY DIFFER".

We are happy for the customer to return the item if he/she is unhappy with it.

Hope this is of some help.

Thanks again

Shaz

I don't think the seller is aware of what what he's selling. I've notified him and am giving him the chance to correct it before reporting him.

Seller:

Sorry to hear you are having problems, my supplier has a help site which hopefully will be able to resolve your problem. http://www.butterfly-media.co.uk/support for advice and help with this title.

SKARD:

Your supplier is distributing pirated games downloaded off the internet. I want a refund.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/4564/discst2.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2130/wrapul5.jpg

Minimax : Butterfly media is quite obviously the supplier and business originator. A quick visit to their website makes that clear almost instantly.

http://www.butterfly-topup.co.uk/join_now/bf-join_now.htm

I think it's highly unlikely that they don't know the games are pirated. I think it's far more likely that they don't care and wish to turn a quick profit. The whole site smacks of someone who thinks they're really smart and hopes to fleece people en masse.

Uh this happened to me once and I was VERY VERY pissed off! It involved a rare game that I bid on, and paid a rather large sum because others clearly believed it was the real thing too. (Big Red Adventure).

I don't give a flying fuck if they give to charity - the largest part goes straight to their pockets. It's obvious that the charity is to stop people from complaining. "Oh bad man! He's stopping charity from making money!".

Not only don't the ebay auctions clearly mention that this is an illegal copy, they are USING charity to cover their asses. This is simply inexcusable and I can't believe, out of the many many sales, that no-one got them shut down yet.

Here's an example: £5 - so they keep £4.
http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/BIG-RED-ADVENTURE-GAM … VQQcmdZViewItem

If you want me help to get them off ebay and stop making money from other people's hard work, lemme know.

I don't believe that "charity" rubbish. It's pretty obvious they're selling illegally downloaded games and are simply trying to worm themselves out of it somehow.

Yeah, that "charity" stuff is pure bullshit. It's unbelievable that a "company" like this can exist, in a country that (for example) takes DNA samples from people commiting minor crimes, or has the largest number of public surveillance cameras in the world. Oh well...

The problem i see is that tackling the eBay sellers will not stop this shit. As long as that "Butterfly Media" operation is active, there will be people willing to resell their stuff to make a quick €. The only way to shut down this operation for good would be to tackle "Butterfly Media". They are fully liable for selling pirated games. If they were a german company, i could send them a form of "cease and desist" order, costing them around € 5.000 each, for their website alone, as they do not provide a proper company adress, and some other data that's mandatory for german business sites. As long as there isn't a UK resident that's willing (and bold enough) to tackle "Butterfly Media", they will continue making money with pirated games and open source emulators. Welcome to the wonderful world of free-market economy. (;

Btw, SKARDAVNELNATE: thanks for the scans, and the information!

A lot of talk, but no walk:

http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=344 … 7d57cec54f46380

ADDiCT wrote:

The problem i see is that tackling the eBay sellers will not stop this shit. As long as that "Butterfly Media" operation is active, there will be people willing to resell their stuff to make a quick €.

There must be some UK copyright organization (like US RIAA) that can be sent a message to about BM's illegal operation?

JAL

RIAA are appropriate in such a case, Butterfly media may be uk based (at least co located) but many of the software developers and vendors are US based and US copyright law has been broken.

Send in the Marines! (;

ADDiCT wrote:

Send in the Marines! (;

I'm completely disgusted that these sellers are still on eBay. There are a lot of them out there. I got taken in by them too, red_avatar. And the "portion donated to charity" is really convenient, isn't it? A way to try to make someone look like a bad guy if they protest.

There's one right now on half.com doing the same thing; he was offering things like Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and Igor Objective Uikokahonia. They've really played a lot of people for suckers. Seems they went through websites where people were talking about rare games and chose those specifically.

I wrote to my seller, too, and he responded like he was the picture of innocence. Riiiiiiight.

MiniMax is right; we ALL need to write and be proactive here! I'll do anything I can to help in this effort.

Marian wrote:

MiniMax is right; we ALL need to write and be proactive here! I'll do anything I can to help in this effort.

So did anyone complain to e-bay? Gave the selling user a very low score? Etc.?

JAL

As i wrote above, tackling the "resellers" on eBay etc. won't really solve the problem IMHO. The only way to stop this mess is to go after the source of these CD's/DVD's, and that's obviously "Butterfly Media".

Besides, eBay has no real interest in disabling accounts - eBay is making a profit, no matter if the products are legit, or not. On another forum, i read a long discussion thread about someone who was selling counterfeit PC-Engine CD's. The eBay account was finally shut down, but it took many months, and a lot of effort of the people involved, to achieve that. After a short while, the same guy was on eBay again, selling more counterfeit CD's, with a different account. It's like fighting the proverbial windmills.

And the "portion donated to charity" is really convenient, isn't it? A way to try to make someone look like a bad guy if they protest.

I couldn't care less about charity. I want a copy of this game with working in game movies. I have no idea how the character unlocks the closet door and I'm probably missing half of the story.