Copying, imitation, re-selling, leeching and copyright violation.

Ok, we have quite a debate every time somebody is trying to either resell another's products, or their modified versions, or otherwise. Concerned "owners" are raising the alarm and "requesting" (not very politely, normally) us to take action and protect their copyrights. So, here's our position:

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First and foremost - we are NOT a copyright enforcement agency, court or legal authority. We have no right or resources to identify the legitimacy of any copyright ownership claims. Hence, if you believe that your work was stolen and is being unrightfully distributed by somebody - go ahead and protect yourself. BoonEx is not a participating party here. We provide advertising, publishing and a communication platform only.

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Second - we do have the right to remove things from Unity and establish our own rules. We realize that copies and stolen stuff brings no good to the community. So, at our own discretion we may or may not delete items that look dodgy, BUT until there's a cease and desist ORDER (not letter) - we don't have to. Which means, that if you want to have your rights protected you may request, but not stipulate or dictate, your request for us to take action.

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Third -  it is my personal belief that a "virtual" product, like software is not that much of a value by itself, but more important by the people that stand behind it, in the form of support, further development, security and peace of mind. So, I think that if your work is stolen, you're not in big trouble - there's almost no chance that the thief would be a success. We've had our stuff  stolen numerous times, we used to go crazy about it, but now it has all turned out to be a waste of time - leeches just perish by themselves.

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Fourth - very often people are confused about their rights. For example, the graphic design of a page is very hard to patent, because it's a highly reused combination of very generic pieces and it's almost impossible to define "distinctive features". This is often true about code as well. And, trust me, we all benefit from that "anarchy". You don't want to be locked out from the making of "blue tabs as navigation at the top of a page", right? We see lots of mods that are a quick re-package of somebody else's products, often open-source, or license-protected. Do you think we can really examine everything and protect you? Like I say, we can't really tell if a "friends inviter" was written from scratch or was built upon a commercial product. We will, however, collaborate with a vendor if they file a protest and support it with evidence.

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All in all, the idea is:

- we try to help, but we don't promise help;

- you may patent your work or you can protect it by building a reputation, which sells as part of the package;

- we don't spend much time talking about this, and we don't jump on forum discussions about this, because it doesn't go anywhere, and we'd rather code.

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"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

Charles Caleb Colt