Ethical questions - uploading profiles from another user

    Quote from Ingolf

    Yes but not its MAC adress, right?


    All identification proposals aside, how'd it be if the community could go on like before, without anybody staealing anything from anyone?
    It worked before, that's why I'm so upset it got spoiled by one person.

    And on your vacation no less... :(

    Gary ô¿ô

    you could always just open the file as text and edit it...or use the open source Python editor, right?


    IMO we just need a utility to scan the rig exchange for matches for the amp or cab profile. And a stand-alone one, so commercial vendors can protect themselves.

    Quote from Ingolf

    All identification proposals aside, how'd it be if the community could go on like before, without anybody staealing anything from anyone?
    It worked before, that's why I'm so upset it got spoiled by one person.

    Don't be worried Ingolf, cheaters seem to not have found a way to stay stealth. The community would probably catch any attempt at peddling fake profiles, within a few days, just like has happened now.


    IMO a bland, spontaneous, collective monitoring activity will be more than enough for preventing future attempts.
    I'd rather say that this episode (and the ease with which our young cookie-stealer has been unmasked) will be the strongest prevention for a few years to come towards any aspiring colleague of his.


    This might reveal not enough any more only when the number of the circulating profiles becomes so high that no-one will be able to follow what's going on.

    Quote from meambobbo

    you could always just open the file as text and edit it...or use the open source Python editor, right?


    IMO we just need a utility to scan the rig exchange for matches for the amp or cab profile. And a stand-alone one, so commercial vendors can protect themselves.



    It would be great if the RE had a tool - internally - to scan all uploads and compare them to what is already there. Probably a HUGE thing given the number of rigs. But I'm thinking, with a time stamp on each profile, it could determine which profile is the "original", and then the Rig Manager could show that one, with the derived rigs as sort of an expanded menu. Original on top, click the little arrow next to it to expand to see all the derived works. OK, now I', just repeating myself.


    Anyway, some wishful thinking here...

    The success of any ethics programme hinges on people being convinced of its merits. The rig exchange is not the sole source of profiles on the internet, as I'm sure everybody is aware.


    As such, policing is not going to have the desired effect, other than making these profiles "underground", which I think has become sort of dubious synonym for quality or desirability nowadays.


    In the first place, commercial profiles are not supposed to be publicly available. So how would you run a scan to determine whether a profile from the rig exchange is from a commercial user? And there are more commercial profiles being issued everyday. It just seems like an exercise in futility.


    Also, on the internet, things are so anonymous, how will you be able to pinpoint the person that uploads a commercial rig pack on a torrent website? More importantly, when things like software, movies and music are being pirated with impunity, why do you think that profiles will attract anything other than unwanted attention.


    At the end of the day, there has to be some modicum of trust in dealings on the rig exchange and on this website in general if you want ethics to prevail. I think that's what happened in the KB case, everyone was so trusting that it has caused quite a sensation when the truth was revealed.


    I honestly think that if KB actually tweaked rigs, including Lasse Lammert's, he was in the clear AS LONG AS HE DIDN'T EDIT THE TAGS AND PRETEND THAT HE WAS THE CREATOR. The problem was that he wanted all the glory for himself without giving credit where it was due. And I have a strong suspicion that some of those were commercial profiles, like it or not. It took Lasse to figure out that the profiles were stolen and he was the creator. How many commercial profilers do you think have the time to constantly go through the rig exchange looking for their work being plagiarised?


    We'll just have to put this unpleasant event behind us. I think banning the user from the rig exchange also establishes some sort of precedent and perhaps a deterrent for others to abstain from this kind of activity.


    As far as seeking permission from the original creator of a profile to post a rig, perhaps this is an area that needs work on the rig exchange. I have no idea how something like this could be enforced, especially with the ability to change tags.


    Perhaps the ability to edit tags should be done away with altogether. But then you'll see people using older versions of firmware to get around this limitation, editing software, etc.


    There's no way you can eliminate profile piracy altogether. But on the site, I think you'll see the same kind of healthy activity on this site that's always been there.

    Quote from Ingolf

    Yes but not its MAC adress, right?


    All identification proposals aside, how'd it be if the community could go on like before, without anybody staealing anything from anyone?
    It worked before, that's why I'm so upset it got spoiled by one person.


    Right and it's unique.
    It could be added to the profile's data.

    I know that I've personally edited rigs that use the profiles created by others (free ones, not commercial ones) and shared them with others, and never thought a thing of it. It surely wouldn't bother me if my own profiles were modified by others and shared. I guess my opinion is that the forum is a sharing mechanism, and is not for the profit or glory of its contributors.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer