> I was quite annoyed when they were suddenly hosting the beta of our > Eradicators mod the day after we released it. I never asked them to host > is, nor gave them permission to. I wanted to keep it hosted on our own > site so that I could track the number and location of downloads.
Did you try contacting fileplanet.com to have them remove your file? Here's the legal agreement from the file submission page... Terms of Service for File Submission Page By submitting your file to FilePlanet, you agree to the terms listed below. 1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY By submitting this file to us, you acknowledge that you either know that the file has been made freely distributable by its owner, or that you are the owner of the file's intellectual property and that you are hereby granting us permission to distribute it. 2. DISTRIBUTION You grant FilePlanet the right to freely distribute it, without restriction, electronically or on CD-ROM/DVD, to our users. This includes those users who are subscribed to our premium download service. 3. POSTING AT FILEPLANET'S DISCRESSION FilePlanet makes no garuntees that the file will be accepted for posting on our site, or that it will remain on the site for any period of time. We reserve the right to reject or remove files at our own discression. ...notice the part that says "you acknowledge that you either know that the file has been made freely distributable by its owner, or that you are the owner of the file's intellectual property and that you are hereby granting us permission to distribute it." (also notice that they can't spell "guarantee"). :) If you didn't make the file freely distributable (whatever that means) or you are the intellectual property holder and you don't give them permission, they would have to remove the file (based on their own terms of service agreement). If you didn't bother to contact them, then they had no way of knowing that you didn't want them to host the file. Most people have the other problem, they have a file that they want fileplanet.com to host so they won't have to pay for the download bandwidth charges when 100,000 people download the file from their personal web site. On another note (not directed at the original author or anyone in particular), everyone complains about how much fileplanet.com sucks. Gamespy does a great service to the MOD community by hosting web sites for MODs and making download servers available to distribute MODs, demos, movies, etc. I wonder how many MODs would never have become publicly available if they were forced to pay an Internet hosting service to host their MODs and pay for the download bandwidth every month. I had been kicked off of free web hosting sites because people downloading files from my web site were exceeding the monthly bandwidth limit, and I wasn't hosting files any larger than 5 or 6 megabytes. I would hate to think what the download bandwidth charges would be for something like Counter-Strike in the BETA version days when they released a new MOD. Having thousands of people swamp your server trying to download a file 24 hours a day for the first couple of weeks after a MOD is released doesn't sound like something I'd want to have to pay for. When fileplanet.com introduced the download queue, people whined about that to no end. Having the download queue makes it MUCH more fair for everyone attempting to download a file. You decide you want to get something, you wait in line, then, when it's your turn, you get what you wanted. How many banks or grocery stores or other businesses have a system where everyone who wants something all tries to get it at the same time and only one or two of them are lucky enough to be picked to complete their transaction? Not any that I'm aware of, in all of these businesses, you stand in line (or queue up) and get handled in the order that you came in. Sure fileplanet.com charges to create CDs and they have the monthly (or yearly) charge for members that have download servers reserved just for them . But they also have public servers that don't require any monthly or yearly fee. All you have to do is sign up with a free account so that they can track how many people are using their service. A small price to pay for the ability to download huge files at very high download bandwidths. If you don't like fileplanet, that's fine. Don't use them. But there aren't that many alternatives where you can go to download the latest demos, movies or MODs. Sure you can try using bluesnews.com, or fileshack.com or any of the other gaming news sites, but on many of them, it's more of a hit or miss kind of thing trying to get a file you wanted and many times (not always) the bandwidth is between 10Kbps and 20Kbps (especially when the server is heavily loaded). With fileplanet.com, you click on the file you want, wait in line for 30 or 45 minutes, turn on the TV, crack open a cold one, and wait for the little download sound to indicate that your file is ready to begin downloading. You download the file (many times at 50Kbps or higher), close your fileplanet.com window, and start playing the game. Sorry for the long rant, but it's been kind of a slow week and there's not much else to do right now. I've already broken all of my Christmas toys and I can't start partying for New Year's Eve yet (or I'll never make it to midnight on December 31st). :) Jeffrey "botman" Broome _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
