/sigh ... Here we go again

[Mike-N-Go]

They have the Spark downloader tool as well, so check if your addons have been removed from there too.

[Cairenn]

They've still got 50 pages of addons, most of which are ARR and still aren't 'claimed'.

[myrroddin]

Thank you to the one author (you know who you are ) who sent me a PM, but that makes anything legal I will pursue not worthwhile because of cost. I will still accept PMs, but for now, at least my addons are down finally.

[StormFX]

I sent them a request to remove mine. Thanks for the info!

[MoonWitch]

Can I just pose the question here?

I mean - I don't get it - I don't understand why they do these things? AddOns are free, donations are accepted. But that's it. Is there so much money to be made in ripping everyone's addons from Curse? Or am I just being world-shy here? I am trying to grasp the motivation to do it.

[SaraFdS]

As far as I know about this, it's mainly about ad revenue, getting more visitors/traffic, getting fans and a good reputation (hint: you're doing it wrong), becoming better known in general (which all adds to the first point in the end).

Must seem worthwhile to them, especially as they didn't have to build anything up, they just take what's already there.

[Othgar]

It's not that there's profit to be made from addon directly, but having a lot of addons on the site that are well known drived traffic to the site, and traffic generates revenue from advertising, the more visits the site gets the more likely they are to draw advertisers. So the profit is made indirectly. Also since they advertise the other sites they own on WoA then they drive traffic to the other sites and generate even more revenue that way. Basically anything that drives traffic to them potentially makes them money.

[MoonWitch]

Ok that I get. But it can't be *that* substantial, can it? Based on GoogleAds pricing for example. Can't be that much, or am I that off in number of hits?

[Othgar]

Well with SEO if you generate 50,000 impressions per day with a click through rate of just 5% you can generate $625 per day with an average earning of only .25 per click ( source ).

50k impressions seems like a lot but if they're driving traffic from search engines (and think about how many people play WoW and look for addons every day) and then from the main TTH site (this is just using WoA as an example) 50k impressions isn't that hard to generate especially if you count ad impressions from both sites. 2.5k uniquie visitors with 10 page views each per site per day would do it.

Getting ads on your site isn't that hard but driving the traffic is a little trickier. However WoW addons are a nice easy way to get traffic if you have enough of them and people know the addons you have. I can't imagine the number of people that just google search DBM or Recount on a daily basis but at least a small percentage of those almost have to end up at WoA and then a percentage of those will undoubtedly click an ad.

The income can add up fairly quickly as long as you're getting page views, and TTH has been around a while and has a loyal following.

[MoonWitch]

Ok, I withdraw my question then. I didn't anticipate that much actually. Makes for motivation, sadly.

[TheRealArkayn]

Wanted to bump this with some closure:

http://www.tentonhammer.com/woa-ps-message

[Resike]

There is one more site:

http://wowui.178.com/ui/547

I want to remove my addon from their servers since a year, but they never responded, i'm not even sure they can speak english. Since then my addon doesnt work on TW and KR realms.

I'm not sure what any other further steps to do, maybe you guys know.

[Phanx]

Their domain is registered through GoDaddy:
http://whois.net/whois/178.com

The administrative contact for their domain registration is listed as:
zhangyunfan@178.com

Their site is hosted by China Telecom Guangdong:
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/wowui.178.com

Send another DCMA takedown notice to the administrative contact address, and then send the same notice to China Telecom and GoDaddy.

Also, you should edit your post and uncheck "Automatically parse links in text" so you're not giving them PageRank by linking to them.

[Ketho]

I don't see any harm in Chinese/Korean/Russian sites rehosting AddOns, if they only cater to people that can only speak their own native language. They are not real competitors

Ofcourse you have all rights to send DCMA notices, but this is like ... bashing your foreign/eastasian userbase just because most of them can't speak (proficient) English. DCMA only applies to the US law, so it would be less effective to say the least

To me it feels like there is too little to win for too much effort

[Phanx]

I'd say it is more harmful than helpful when the addon doesn't actually work in those languages, as Resike mentioned the addon in question does not -- while the users of those sites can read the site where they downloaded the addon, they can't actually use the addon. Those sites also tend to grab whatever version is current when they launch, and then never update, so they end up offering a version that's months or years out of date and doesn't work with the current version of WoW in any language.

Also, if someone on the site is modifying the addon to work in Chinese, for example, not only are they further infringing on the author's rights, but they're also harming all of the users who get their addons from the sites where the author actually hosts it. Their efforts would be better spent submitting their translations and other changes to the author for inclusion in the official version, so that all Chinese players could use the addon, not just the few who are visiting some random leech site.

[Marthisdil]

Originally Posted by Phanx Their domain is registered through GoDaddy: http://whois.net/whois/178.com The administrative contact for their domain registration is listed as: zhangyunfan@178.com Their site is hosted by China Telecom Guangdong: http://www.whoishostingthis.com/wowui.178.com Send another DCMA takedown notice to the administrative contact address, and then send the same notice to China Telecom and GoDaddy. Also, you should edit your post and uncheck "Automatically parse links in text" so you're not giving them PageRank by linking to them.

Sending a DMCA request to China is about as worthwhile as asking a politician to tell the truth....

[Resike]

Originally Posted by Ketho I don't see any harm in Chinese/Korean/Russian sites rehosting AddOns, if they only cater to people that can only speak their own native language. They are not real competitors Ofcourse you have all rights to send DCMA notices, but this is like ... bashing your foreign/eastasian userbase just because most of them can't speak (proficient) English. DCMA only applies to the US law, so it would be less effective to say the least To me it feels like there is too little to win for too much effort

I'm fine if they traslate it, and like point a link to my curse or wowinterface host, but rehosting and getting millions of downloads and hundreds of dollars per month by ads is not fine by me, instead a chance for the actual donation/support for the proper author.

[Resike]

Originally Posted by Marthisdil Sending a DMCA request to China is about as worthwhile as asking a politician to tell the truth....

But that doesnt mean if i have a server in china, then i can do anything.

[Vlad]

Unlike the English sites, most of the user-base of Chinese and Korean sites don't speak English, so they need such sites to get their addons, or at least be able to read descriptions and such of what the addon does (they usually translate those parts, and sometimes the addon itself, into their language).

Perhaps IP blocking could have something to do with this as well, don't ISP block certain IP-ranges in China and Korea?

Anyway, that's how I look at the situation, I don't really mind those sites as much as "spark" - I at least don't think they should be put on the same line when compared, even if legally you might cite laws to back up your case, I disagree that their purpose is as foul as with "spark".

[Resike]

Originally Posted by Vlad Unlike the English sites, most of the user-base of Chinese and Korean sites don't speak English, so they need such sites to get their addons, or at least be able to read descriptions and such of what the addon does (they usually translate those parts, and sometimes the addon itself, into their language). Perhaps IP blocking could have something to do with this as well, don't ISP block certain IP-ranges in China and Korea? Anyway, that's how I look at the situation, I don't really mind those sites as much as "spark" - I at least don't think they should be put on the same line when compared, even if legally you might cite laws to back up your case, I disagree that their purpose is as foul as with "spark".

But that doesnt mean you need to rehost the addon, you can get a proper link to the newest version both on curse and wowinterface. They can even make a shiny chinese donwload button for it.

http://addons.curse.cursecdn.com/fil...ound_3.9.1.zip

www.wowinterface.com/downloads/download19569-PVPSound

Problem solved.