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

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

Its funny what happens when you run around in Zelenogorsk

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?

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...

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.

“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?”

It's not like it's hard to search for videos. I don't know why none of you were able to find it. Tch, internet peoples...

Having talked with the French group on their own forum, we are now happy that this incident is resolved and that all parties are satisfied with the outcome. It was an unfortunate situation where the server administrator shut down the server after he died as he had finished playing for the night. Had this occurred a couple of hours earlier, there would have been no problems. Unlike any other group, the BoB clan shut down their server at night. Whilst this is against the rules and aggravated this situation, we are not seeking any sanction. I can only offer our thanks to the members of BoB for their honourable and generous nature in trying to resolve this issue fairly.

And that's that. You've seen the video. There was no hacking in that. You've checked the logs. There was no hacking there. So players were banned unjustly after someone cried "hackz!" when they couldn't believe they were being shot. This is how Elysium conduct themselves. I can appreciate that there is a desire to protect the server from hackers and that it can be difficult to police at times, but one has to wonder just how many hackers Elysium have caught compared to the number of players they've banned. That the bans were quickly rescinded is neither here nor there. Elysium broke the server-hosting rules and got caught doing it. I'm quite sure nothing's going to happen to them for so doing. But we've all seen how this server is run - does anyone want to play on a server where the resident clan hoards every vehicle and decent item of loot? So we're left with Aadic banging on about how he doesn't give a shit - methinks the lady doth protest too much. I know it's not cool to seem like you care about anything these days, but what do you give a shit about? Playing computer games with people half your age and using mangled high school-level English to harangue anyone who has a different opinion to you? And what's Tod suggesting? That the Teamspeak recording may be a fabrication. Oh Tod, that remark's unworthy of even you...

I understand that that is explicitly allowed. As apparently that now ex-member had long been known to be a spy, I don't see that it matters either way. Everything we did was in accordance with the rules. So it was thought that teleportation had occurred, whereas in actual fact it hadn't? That would be fair enough; just an honest mistake.

Why were the bans enacted? Seriously, I'd like to know. We all understand that admins have to react to hackers. And I'm sure most of us can understand that sometimes the suspicions may be incorrect but were acted upon for all the right reasons. It just seems odd that in this case the bans were handed out at a time when your clan were attacked. There is nothing wrong with proactive administrating, but is it really the case that when even one clan member shouts "hacker" that the server is stopped and bans handed out? So just what were the suspicions in this case? We were challenged to come on to your server and fight your clan. That when we did so in a completely fair manner the server was stopped and players got banned just seems odd. Please tell me it was a co-incidence that there were legitimate hacking concerns at the same time.

These Elysium kids sure do make a lot of noise telling everyone how little they care. If I was playing a game where I met every outcome with indifference, I would stop playing the game. So doesn't it seem more than a little odd just how vehemently Aadic and Jerek bang on about how little they care - Aadic's even got a special little phrase that he likes to repeat over and over. It also seems quite at odds with the way the clan start shouting "hacker" and banning people at the first sign of trouble. But all this is getting away from the original matter. People (yes, plural) were banned and there's been some vague insinuation that something suspicious was going on (some have even stated it as "fact"). I listened to the Teamspeak feed and it seems clear to me that the admin did not feel that there was a hacker - he repeatedly asked if the server should be taken down after someone else cried "hack". It's also been said that the logs will be available for inspection by the devs. What I'm wondering is: why wait? Many hours have passed since the allegedly suspicious activity. Surely the logs have been checked and the hacking identified. So can we all see the relevant section, please? Just post it up here and all will be clear. Unless of course there was no hacking and there was just a knee-jerk reaction to getting shot at. But that would never happen, would it?

We don't cares about our stuffs, we gives it away, bro. We has every car on teh servurr becos we give it alls away. You is totally a bad spy cos we didn't kick you out when you smashed our stuffs and stole stuffs and got us killed. Reel spiez don't do nuffin 'cept take the sc33nshotz. You is stoopid - we lose our choppaz bcos we're so leet. Duh! We all gets killed and shuts down the servurr and screemz hacka and bans every1 (dont tell teh devs) cos we're totuhlly l33t. You is teh loserz and liyarz. Elyz1um PRO 4 eva! Hord the stuffs, get all the carz and kill all the n00bz! Wurd.

I don't need no stuffs because I'm super leet and I gets all the stuffs all the times. My camps ain't shit and I don't care cos I got so much stuffs. If you kills me or my friendses it doesn't count because of all my stuffs and we'll just reset the server to gets it all back. Everyone who isn't me is a hackers. You is all the immatures cos I am leet.

As do you.

Uh huh. It's okay to post personal information about others? Keep telling yourself that. Oh, you just innocently asked about him going to school in Denver when you've exhibited nothing but hostility towards him? Uh huh. You just keep telling yourself that. Sure it's known to some of the people in the clan as Aelus posted that information on there himself, but you chose to post it on a public forum. Nice. Oh my phone. My fingers slipped. They slipped back to this thread and then slipped across an earlier post and then slipped in a manner that edited it down to a full stop and confirmed the edit. That's one hell of a phone... Maybe it's a camp they haven't told you about, but it is an Elysium camp. Deny it all you like.