Popular free software sold on Amazon under other names.
Butterfly Media, a company that builds its business on the sale of open source software, was discovered on the Amazon website. They take other people's GPL-projects, rename and sell under their name.
GPL license terms seem to be respected. But the thieves violate the licenses of CC AT-NC-ND 2.0 / 2.5, under which the graphics and other art materials in the game, as well as user manuals and screenshots in programs, are distributed. The license prohibits commercial use (NC) and requires a reference (AT) to authors, which is absent.
For example, Butterfly Media sells a Dangers of the Deep submarine simulator called the U-Boat Simulator ( link ). Under the same scheme, FlightGear is sold under the name Advanced Flight Simulator 2010 ( link ) for as much as $ 25, although it can be downloaded free of charge from FlightGear.
They also stole the famous Scribus layout software, which is sold under the name Desktop Publishing Studio ( link ). The guys did not just copy the distribution, but they were not even ashamed to steal the screenshots from the developer’s website and place them on the product description page on Amazon. Here is a picture from Amazon , and here is the original .
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The popular graphic editor InkScape is sold under the name Photo Studio ( link ). Here, fraudsters behave especially arrogantly: they describe Adobe in the product description, and the real name of the program is erased in the screenshot on the site .
And this is not a complete list. Butterfly Media currently sells 34 different types of software on Amazon.
Although it looks extremely unpleasant, but the legality of the actions of Butterfly Media is a debatable question. On the one hand, Redhat sells the Linux kernel for big money under its name, they say, why can't Butterfly Media do the same with the GPL project? On the other hand, there is a violation of the Creative Commons license for related materials (screenshots, graphics, etc.).
There is a suspicion that Butterfly Media is not the only company that makes money in this way. With some programming skills, fraudsters can even change the name of the program in their code to their own, replace the artwork - and then you don’t bother with them at all. It turns out completely legal business.
GPL license terms seem to be respected. But the thieves violate the licenses of CC AT-NC-ND 2.0 / 2.5, under which the graphics and other art materials in the game, as well as user manuals and screenshots in programs, are distributed. The license prohibits commercial use (NC) and requires a reference (AT) to authors, which is absent.
For example, Butterfly Media sells a Dangers of the Deep submarine simulator called the U-Boat Simulator ( link ). Under the same scheme, FlightGear is sold under the name Advanced Flight Simulator 2010 ( link ) for as much as $ 25, although it can be downloaded free of charge from FlightGear.
They also stole the famous Scribus layout software, which is sold under the name Desktop Publishing Studio ( link ). The guys did not just copy the distribution, but they were not even ashamed to steal the screenshots from the developer’s website and place them on the product description page on Amazon. Here is a picture from Amazon , and here is the original .
')
The popular graphic editor InkScape is sold under the name Photo Studio ( link ). Here, fraudsters behave especially arrogantly: they describe Adobe in the product description, and the real name of the program is erased in the screenshot on the site .
And this is not a complete list. Butterfly Media currently sells 34 different types of software on Amazon.
Although it looks extremely unpleasant, but the legality of the actions of Butterfly Media is a debatable question. On the one hand, Redhat sells the Linux kernel for big money under its name, they say, why can't Butterfly Media do the same with the GPL project? On the other hand, there is a violation of the Creative Commons license for related materials (screenshots, graphics, etc.).
There is a suspicion that Butterfly Media is not the only company that makes money in this way. With some programming skills, fraudsters can even change the name of the program in their code to their own, replace the artwork - and then you don’t bother with them at all. It turns out completely legal business.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/112155/
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