Does your site host your own addons, or ones created by other authors? If you host other authors works, who is allowed to submit addons to your site? How do you handle questions of copyright or license violations?
Some quick background; our 'site' is at Google Code. It's currently hosting our ticketing system and wiki. We've removed Titan Panel from the download page (see below). Our 'portal' is www.titanpanel.org which is where people can go to get additional information about Titan Panel but it does not host any downloads. So currently, we only post our own plugins to Titan Panel that needed a quick update for functionality such as abandoned plugins or something that a lot of people are requesting. Once an author updates their plugin on the download sites, we remove the download from our site (Google Code).
So far, only team members are able to place an addon on the download page and no one has requested we make their addon available on our site (Google Code). Our portal (www.titanpanel.org) does not have a download section.
These are escalated to me directly. I research the potential violation and address it as necessary.
Were you aware that WowMatrix is scraping your site for new versions of your addons, and allows users to download directly from your server without visiting your site?
Yes. After 3.1 was released, our Google Code site which still hosted a Titan Panel download showed that it was downloaded over 200,000 times in less than four days. It was shortly after that enlightenment that we decided to remove the zip file from Google Code.
Were you aware that WowMatrix shows ads in their client, but potentially bypasses the ads shown on your site?
Yes.
Did Wowmatrix ever contact you to tell you they did this, or ask permission?
No.
Are your addons licensed for free distribution (for example, GPL)?
Titan Panel was (GPLv3) before this all began. We decided that a new license was necessary to protect ourselves so we currently have a "limited BSD" license in effect and show this in an included license.txt file that includes the following: "Redistribution or providing means for redistribution of a release package (in compressed form or otherwise) is prohibited without prior written authorization from a representative of the Titan Panel Development Team. Release versions (packages) hosted on officially endorsed websites are excluded from this clause. The Titan Panel Development Team reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to authorize additional websites to host the Software at their location and provide redistribution services. In addition, the Titan Panel Development Team reserves the right to cease Software updates without prior notice or ask for removal of versions of the Software, from specific Internet locations that were previously authorized to host the Software."
If the addons are licensed for free distribution, did they ever ask or inform you that they were providing them through their client? Do they host it themselves, or pull from your site?
Here is a timeline. WM started listing Titan Panel in their application. I contacted them and asked them to remove it. They asked me why. I explained why I wanted it removed and explained that our legal team was prepared to demand it's removal. They "complied" by removing it from the available list on their site. However, they continued to allow it's download within their application. After they became aware that Titan Panel was GPLv3, they once again listed it on their website with the "(GPLv3)" tag after it. This is what triggered our relicensing. Finally, no they never asked.
They were downloading it from our site at Google Code.
If your addons are NOT licensed for free distribution, did WowMatrix ever come to you and offer to host your addons on their server?
No, they've been sending users out who are demanding that we allow WM to host on their servers. As you've seen from some of my replies over at Curse and on WoWI, I tell them to get bent.
Did you contact WowMatrix and ask them to remove your addons or stop scraping your site? Did they respond? Were your addons removed?
Yes, as mentioned above.
Initially with a "why" and then after my follow-up, I've heard nothing else from them.
Not really as previously mentioned.
Did you ever ask WowMatrix to compensate you for the bandwidth their client uses, or did they ever offer? Do they compensate you?
No, they were sucking Google Code bandwidth and as near as I can tell, Google doesn't appear to mind this.
Not relevant as we've never asked for it but no.
Have you seen significant bandwidth increase that you believe is due to WowMatrix, especially since patch 3.1?
Once we removed the Titan Panel zip from Google Code, all hell broken loose and we started to get the end-user complaints so we know where they were scraping it from. At least it wasn't one of the download sites (WoWI/Curse).
Do you agree with Curse and WoWI blocking WowMatrix from their servers?
Most definitely.
WowMatrix says: "Although we do not agree with their actions, we respect their position in this matter, and so WowMatrix does not currently download AddOns from either Curse or WoWInterface." Do you feel they've respected you, your site, and your addons?
No and they've gone out of their way to disrespect the entire WoW AddOn community. The only people who are upset are those users who are too lazy to update from additional locations. I have always maintained that manual updates are safer and continue to encourage that.
Do you want your addons available through WowMatrix? Do you feel this decision has been influenced by the recent events?
No. I felt this way before. The recent events have only reinforced my belief and strengthened my resolve.
Do you have any comments you would like to make about the current situation with WowMatrix?
In effect, I expect this will kill them. Too many of the big names in the AddOn community will never host on their servers because of their poor behavior. This will limit the number of high-end addons available on their servers and should, if market forces still work today, kill them off slowly. I suspect they will fade away and someone will swoop in a purchase them for a fraction of what was offered by Curse originally. We've seen this sort of thing happen in the past.