[Sadao]

Originally Posted by Scag Dropping my 2 cents. The main thing about custom servers (VSH, FF2) is that the "custom" part of the server is almost completely publicly available through downloads (materials, models, sounds, etc). That is simply the risk that you take by running publicly available servers. For example and slight digression, I sometimes hear CS:GO server owners complaining about other servers "stealing" their plugins. And by "stealing" they mean people going onto their server, typing sm plugins into their console, and googling the plugins that pop up then adding them to their own servers. It isn't "stealing" as everything is already publicly available in most all cases(usually). These server owners being "stolen" from think that if they block the sm plugins command from their servers, then they won't have that issue. This is the wrong response since you are erasing the work that plugin and content creators put into releasing free and open source software. Back to my main point: what you as a server owner are doing is hosting publicly available files. You can do quite literally nothing about that without erasing the content of hard-working individuals. Yes, these content stealers are scummy. They are also uncreative assholes. However, they aren't breaking any laws or any rules. They are just taking what is publicly available and using it for themselves. They don't need permission from anyone. Config files aren't public. They can't steal that. But they can google. I bet 90% of server owners here use config files and abilities that are publicly available on this forum. There is nothing you can do about that. The main takeaway from my rant is that there is very little you can do about content stealers when you take the risk of publicly hosting files on a server. The only thing that you can really do is keep people aware of who is the real owner of the server content and to educate them on who the content stealers are. And even then you'll find yourself in drama which isn't much of an improvement. The true solution is to be unique, to make your server uncopyable. Now for some they most likely can't do that as that would take time, money, and then some. That's the only actual solution I can think of.

Pretty much what needs to be said, but i believe this thread was made to spread awareness over a group of individuals, not to take them down or anything.. right?