kodabar

I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed...

Well, five Makarov shots, but who's counting?

The way he listed the links he wanted taken down provides some clues. Here are my links and one other (he posted hundreds in one dense block of text - I enclose one of the others for clarity). He's using Feedburner somehow and his links include the source document from where he found the links (my blog). I don't know how he's searching though. I'll be sure to post an article to my blog detailing what happened, just in case he's subscribed to the RSS feed. I don't quite understand how he gains from this. I suppose it's possible that he touts for new business by claiming he's taken down infringing content already. Oh, mind you it has just occurred to me that performers such as Tupac do have a tendency to write "dayz" instead of "days" in their song titles. It could be that he's searched for "Mediafire + dayz" so maybe he just doesn't give a fuck that innocent people get caught up in his wide net. http://www.mediafire.com/?wtzefzfim6um6qu (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-offline-single-player-practice.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar)) http://www.mediafire.com/?jv5cm7e6qvy5n4j (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-how-to-get-on-server.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar)) http://www.mediafire.com/?rinerqzsrxgc0jg (http://kodabar.blogspot.fr/2012/05/dayz-how-to-get-on-server.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Kodabar+(Kodabar)) http://www.mediafire.com/?qidupe06u51auu8 (http://themuzinc.blogspot.de/2012/09/big-jess-honorable-mention-vol-1-2012.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheMuzincBlog+(The+Muzinc+blog))

Actually, that's not a bad idea at all. I may well make a video. Thanks for the suggestion.

Update: This took a while. I submitted a formal counter-claim on September 11th. Mediafire did not respond within the fourteen business days mandated, so I had to follow it up a couple of days ago. They wrote back just now I did finally manage to get hold of Mr Lemaire on the phone. I began by asking (in French) if he was an agent or representative of Bohemia Interactive or Dean Hall. He said "Non." Although I had introduced myself, I didn't explain why I was contacting him, so perhaps he thought I was a prospective client. I then asked why he had filed an incorrect DMCA claim against the files I had hosted on Mediafire. He ummed for a second or two and then hung up. When I called back later on, his mobile phone was turned off. I haven't been able to contact him since. But here's the reply I got from Mediafire: The counter-claims were not made too long after the files were suspended; Mediafire just didn't bother to deal with my counter-claim when they were supposed to. They also failed to notify me by email (as their policy states they will) when the DMCA claim was made. So 10/10 for doing the right thing in the end, but 1/10 for not following their own policies and ignoring a DMCA counter-claim until hassled about it. The matter is now at an end, but now I can say that Hervé Lemaire is a liar.

I can't take all the credit. I just made the video. The script was handled by Teh Unknown (yeah, that's what he likes to call himself). It was done in a customised version of single player. I'd like to do the Thriller video, but it would take a lot of time and hassle and I wouldn't want to do all that and have YouTube block the vid for copyright violations on the audio.

Oh and while I'm at it...

Its funny what happens when you run around in Zelenogorsk

So I was running around in Zelenogorsk and this happened:

Update: When I posted the initial message to this thread, I also sent an email to both the contact email address listed on LeakID's website and Mr Lemaire's own address (listed by another poster above). I explained the situation and asked him to assert that he was acting as Bohemia's agent. Answer comes there none. This morning, I called the offices of LeakID with the phone number listed on their website (http://www.leakid.com/). A very nice lady answered the phone and she told me (in French) that she has nothing to do with LeakID and that the phone numbers changed long ago. I called the mobile phone number that was listed in Mr Lemaire's DMCA notice. Unsurprisingly, it was not answered. I left a message (in French) on his answering machine and I'm waiting for the phone to ring. I somehow doubt it will. But I'm going to keep on at Mr Lemaire until I get a response. In the meantime, I have filed a formal DMCA counter-notice with Mediafire. One of the neat things about Mediafire's upload system is that it checks to see if files have already been uploaded. If they have, then it doesn't upload them again, just links them to your account. And when I've been uploading beta patch files and DayZ files, I've noticed that it has done just that. So it's not just me that has been caught up in this, but other Mediafire users too.

Thanks for all your thoughts and advice. One of the more curious aspects of this situation is the internationality of it all. I'm British, living in England. LeakID are French. Bohemia Interactive are based in Czech Republic and Rocket is from New Zealand. That Mr Lemaire is using a piece of American legislation (the DMCA) is only of relevance because Mediafire (the site on which I hosted the files) is based in Texas. I'm going on holiday for a few days. When I come back, I'll be phoning Mr Lemaire of LeakID to ask if he is indeed an authorised agent for Bohemia Interactive Studios and Dean (Rocket) Hall. I rather suspect he isn't. But I shan't be calling the man a liar until I have an opportunity to discuss the matter with him. Should our conversation fail to conclude that Mr Lemaire and LeakID have legitimate title to act as agents for Bohemia and Rocket, I'll be filing a counter-DMCA notice. I note with some humour that a search for "LeakID" on Google (well, in the UK at least) prompts this page as the fourth result.

Thank you. I'm relatively sure this is nonsense and that Monsieur Lemaire is claiming title to works that he has no rights to, but I thought it as well to check before I phone him. It seems that LeakID has a reputation for claiming rights to works for which they cannot possibly have any title or rights of representation, but it is possible that Bohemia have contracted him to protect their products and he's been a little too enthusiastic.

Some of you might know of my installation guide for DayZ http://kodabar.blogs...rma-2-free.html It's been used by approximately 400,000 people, so I think I'm justified in saying it's quite popular. As part of the guide, I include links to a couple of files. In one section, I provide links to the beta patch page and I also provide links to Mediafire where I host copies of the beta patches. The beta patch FTP server seems to go down from time to time, so I try to make the beta patches available elsewhere otherwise I get a lot of comments from readers saying that they can't access them. I also have another article about the (now discontinued) single player file from Kronzky. This is an old article from quite some time ago. Back in the days of 1.7.0, some people were having difficulty in getting the single player file to work, so I provided a link to a mirror of the 1.7.0 DayZ files, again hosted on Mediafire. Today, I received a notice from Mediafire saying that Hervé Lemaire of LeakID was asserting that he represented the rights owners of the following files and had asked for their removal under the DMCA: ARMA2_OA_Build_95389.zip dayz_code_v1.7.0.rar Here's the notice I received. I apologise for the atrocious English, but the mistakes are Mr Lemaire's. Despite not providing an email address, I did find one on LeakID's website (and yes, the English is just as mangled on there). I've written to him asking if he does indeed represent Bohemia Interactive and Rocket. It would seem to me highly unlikely that he does. As Mr Lemaire's address and phone number as given in the notification do not match those on the website, I can't be sure that the email will reach him. So before I attempt to telephone him (I do speak French), I was wondering if anyone knew if he does indeed represent Bohemia and/or Rocket. I was also wondering if Bohemia and Rocket object to the distribution of these files. I can understand Rocket not wanting links to old versions of DayZ out there. The link came from an old article that no longer receives much traffic and I would happily remove it if he should so wish. But I find it hard to believe that Bohemia would disallow the mirroring of OA beta patches, especially as they are available on many other sites. Does anyone have any idea what's going on before I parlez Francais with Mr Lemaire?

“One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright?”