theceo95

I'm aware of a partnership between TurboSquid and Ford for example, but I think there more than a few issues with this:
Ford make it pretty clear that what you, as someone buying a model has, is a limited license - that they retain ownership of the model and your license is simply use of the model. There is a lot in the license that looks to be incredibly incompatible with a game like GTA.
 
I think there are many complications in there.  The license seems to be intended for someone to use a Ford vehicle in a media project or demo, not as a mod in a third party game which surely has its own legal implications.

Quick note on the copyright conversation - for those of us who purchase base models from places like TurboSquid or Hum3D, those purchases include a license from the auto manufacturer to use the likeness of their product. So, most of those types of models are being used with a purchased license from Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, etc. 

I hate that I am even posting here, cause I tried to avoid all this as best as necessary, but I thought I might clear this up a bit.
If someone has made a custom skin to a model that is made by a real automobile manufacturer, then they may retain the rights to the skin, cause it is their own creation. However, there may be an instance where the model itself could be in violation of an automotive company's copyright. I have actually pulled a section from the Ford Copyright section of their terms and conditions and it states:
"All text, images, graphics, animation, videos, music, sounds and other materials on this Site are subject to the copyrights and other intellectual property rights of Ford, its affiliated companies and its licensors" 
That can be found in the Limited Licenses section.
As for my stance, again I can see this situation from both sides. The Owner and other Management members can only do so much as to stop people from downloading without a login, and potentially ban anyone who has been proven to have stolen content. However, I do see why content creators are upset. They have indeed spent a lot of time working on their projects, and I understand if they just want a little peace of mind from this website, in the website saying they will at least try to protect their work here.
 
That is my two-cents.
 
You all have a lovely and bright day! 🙂

My $0.02 and not that it's worth anything...
 
I used to be apart of another incredible modding community. It was for a racing simulation called NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. The ABSOLUTE BEST there was and actually in many ways still is. Anyway, my thoughts are I can see both sides of the argument here. With not referring to what another mod had said about the situation, I don't see how the creators and website owners of LSPDFR can make it any clearer. The only thing that can be done is hopefully get the host of the ripped content to delete it from their websites.
 
On the other I can completely understand the feeling of having hours of work taken just to get credit for it. I used to paint cars for NR2003 and I got quite decent at it. Even had some requests by people to make paint schemes. Luckily none of my stuff had ever been ripped, shared or what have you.
 
One main thing all you "modders", model creators etc have to keep in mind and correct me if I'm wrong... you all do NOT have rights to be making and posting models of real manufactured cars and using the name of said cars as well. Not to mention other things as well that are made for LSPDFR. I'm quite certain that if Ford, Dodge, Chevy etc got wind of this website and the content the party would come to a halt. So honestly those complaining about creating content are hypocritical. You were never given permission to use the actual design and name of said manufactures cars. No you're not doing it for profit but you are claiming that it's "YOUR" work. And honestly, it's not.
 
Just like we all did with the mods, cars, paint scheme of NR2003.... make them and share because you want to and enjoy seeing the happiness of others using your content. If not, don't and stop whining about it.

After reading a good portion of this thread, I can see things from both perspectives. Staff seems to feel as though putting any kind of restrictions in place wouldn't stop the problem so what's the point? The community devs are asking for restrictions because (it might stop some) and  (even if it didn't) it shows support from the staff team for the developers. It seems like right now, the doors are wide open to these problems. While simply closing the door won't stop people from simply opening it and walking in, it at least shows some kind of effort. I think a huge concern now is the general principle. It's not just to completely stop it or even mostly stop, it's to show that something is being done in response to these wrongdoings. I saw someone mention before a really good analogy. Laws might not stop all crime, but just because it doesn't stop all crime doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws or shouldn't enforce them. This comes from someone who is truly third-party since I don't do any kind of developing nor staffing for this site. 

Its not fantasy land. Also no not all those cars are ripped from other games. If it was always that simple me and medic wouldnt have something close to $3k invested in models. 

As for the second part, if enough information can be provided showing say you go on live stream showing your login name on LSPDFR and you admitting your stealing peoples models you dont feel that is enough evidence to warrant banning you from this site? It doesnt matter if you will attempt to circumvent said ban, the point is they show they are attempting to do something. 

Where did you get that from?  Fantasy land?  If someone takes your stuff without permission, gather the evidence and report it.  If someone downloads your stuff and then rips it, what can be done to stop it.  And plus, arnt these cars being used ripped from other games?
 
  What are they supposed to do if it isnt posted on their site?  Invade the other site?  Ban people from this platform that have the same name as someone else on another site?  What can they do?  Your not going to make it difficult, they find ways and it wont be difficult.  Your just asking for imaginary protection.  Its literally a download.
 
  I guess they can ask what their intentions are prior to allowing the download.

The problem is, while a person who is forum banned can certainly ban evade, if they continue their ban-able behavior, such behavior is done publicly, which can allow the next account to be identified and banned as well. Therefore they can realistically perform a rolling ban of that person as long as they continue their ban-able behavior, without even having to identify that the accounts actually belong to a singular person.
 
For a ripper to ban evade, all they need to do is create a second account, and not disclose the new account that was created. The actual ban-able behavior is neither done publicly, or in view of the websites logs, and therefore the person ban evading, cannot be identified after the initial ban evasion unless they themselves do something to make it obvious.
 
Im not against banning someone who is ripping content, but reality is such a ban is merely security theatre, where-as forum bans can realistically encourage someone to change their behavior to stay, or get bored and leave. The staff are rightfully so pointing out that nothing they do will realistically prevent someone from taking content that is made public, and changing,  or utilizing it in unintended ways once the content is on that person's hard-drive.
 
Sadly, changing websites for content security purposes won't actually result in that content being secure, as long as the content is still public.
 
 
 
 

The sad part is... when you're good at the work, people want more... and if you start producing more, then you quickly transition from a hobby, to a business... and that business has to be supported somehow. The answer is usually charging, because just relying on donations doesn't cut it. 
 
I personally have nothing against those who do charge. That is their operation to run, has no impact on me, and really isn't anyone's business. But when it comes to dev models and parts, I come into it knowing that I'll likely have to pay to use it... because the guy who bought it from TurboSquid or whatever also paid for it. And you either take the loss if you can afford it, or you find means to offset your expenses. Not everything is free in life, nor should it be... that's just not how it works. 

First of all, im really disappointed that some big names have left and are selling thir mods behind a paywall ( damn muricans and their capitalism). I've always thought that people who make mods, do it in their free time because they like doing it. No one is forcing you... Now all of the sudden y'all are trying to make a living out of "modding". I understand that it takes hours, i've tried making car models myself and i understand that some very very high quality models are behind a paywall, but boycotting the site and deleting all your mods then making them behind a paywall is fucking dumb. Secondly, i dont know what part of "we cant control what happens outside of our site" you guys dont understand... Do you want Sam to take an ar and start hunting people who rip off mods? The only proposals i've seen from you completely go against the nature of lcpdfr.com... From all those years in this community, now you understand that uploading any file to this site makes them PUBLIC????? ANYONE can download that and the staff can do nothing about it. They arent the fbi, cia, interpol, kgb or whatever. If you want to make a living out of your mods, go for it. In conclusion, If you don't want your mods ripped off, go ahead and put them behind a paywall, enjoy making( what, 100 euro a month or smth?) from them. Uploading mods to this site makes them available to everyone and if someone wants to make harm, they will anyway. I advise forgetting all about this and bring back the pleasure of making mods becuase you like doing so and not because you are trying to make 40-50 euro per sale, cuz im sure there are less than 20 people here willing to pay so much fucking money for mods. I understand the hardwork but i think ive made myself clear. Lets bring back the positive vibes in this community. Peace out.
 
ps. about ezra tho.... never seen his "controversial" post, idk what to think ( so link it to me or send ss)

Honestly, I dont know what happened, and I dont really care. You people are the undisputed queens of drama. The vast majority are completely incapable of simply communicating their issues in a civilized, intelligent manner, and certainly incapable of having any patience at all with a staff that does this entirely in their free time.  I get people are upset over something, but going on a rant and attacking staff is simply not the answer. Grow up and have some patience.

Man, this thread is a dumpster fire full of ridiculousness.
 
Having read through the majority of the comments, I have yet to see a single reasonable request of the staff of the website. I have no idea how people expect their work to be made public on any website, and also be protected from theft, etc. You're trying to impose an impossible task upon the staff, of which the only solutions are to not post the content, or to only allow a select list of pre-screened people to download the item (Which is a nonsensical solution for a website of this nature).
 
The staff hosting the content on your behalf, only makes them responsible in so far as whether the content breaches their own rules, or applicable laws. That's like expecting walmart to prevent people from renting the movies purchased at their store to other people, or from people taking their item purchased on sale from  Walmart, and trying to return it for full price at Zellars. The site is a point of distribution, not a content management system on your behalf.
 
The effort required to circumvent additional security measures, such as requiring a membership, is so laughingly small compared to the effort to rip models/extract source code/etc., that it would only actually serve to hamper legitimate users. I also have no idea what the expectation of people is if they were to actually move to a different site to publicly release their model's. Public by nature means they will be accessible to the very people you wish to be protected from, as they are an unfortunate part of said public.
 
I also find it funny that content creators here are using the excuse "well, have you ever had your content stolen?", as if that provides any special perspective on the situation. Im in the opposite boat, in that I can't release any of my created content (only skins), because each one borrow's from someone else's work in some capacity, and i respect the author's wishes of the borrowed content. I don't need my content to be stolen, to have the perspective that having content stolen sucks.
 
Even banning a person becomes an iffy proposition, as different people can have the same username for different applications. Evidence only goes so far to say that a person named billy-joe-bob on discord (As an example) ripped the files, when the same billy-joe-bob on here could be from an entirely different country.
 
As to the way staff treated "the community", I didn't see the original thread, however this thread really isn't making me sympathize, as reasonableness is quite clearly not a requirement for entry.
 

Stuff gets a little different when you start handling multiple terabytes and tens of thousands of users per day. However, we have plans in place to make our CAPTCHA system a little less annoying for members.

I didn't read all this topic, because I don't like flushing my time down the toilet. But I just have to comment on the expectations of users that this site should pursue your content on other sites, on other servers, in other jurisdictions.
 
Here is a bullet point of GitHub's DMCA procedure:
 
If your content is stolen, you, your lawyer or some other designated person is responsible for making a DMCA claim against the site or hosting provider hosting it. Not me, not Sam Houser, not your great aunt's dog. YOU!
 
Just as I have filed DMCA requests for my mods. I didn't demand someone else who's hosting my mods do it for me.
 
Just as has probably been done when LCPDFR or LSPDFR are hosted elsewhere without permission or decompiled.
 
It's unlikely that most vehicle mods even are valid copyright claims anyway. Surely EA, Ubi or whoever should be making that claim against a vehicle taken from their game. Or Ford, Dodge or whatever company owns them trademarks. Or the emergency department or company who's logos are being used.
 
And if locking mods is no longer effective, maybe complain to Oleg that your overpriced ZMod subscription doesn't feel worth it any more. But I'm sure he'll tell you that it is impossible for any file to be protected against reverse engineering, decryption, ripping, decompiling, etc. without preventing users from obtaining that file in the first place.

I am indeed serious. And its not that I don't care enough. As hard as it may be for you to believe, I do actually care. As I said, i have friends who doe vehicle modeling. I myself do ELS modeling. However, i know this is a risk, which is why I don't release. I only make them for good friends. Also, im not against "better security" for this website. I just don't know how you would be able to do it. Theres literally no way to prevent this. I wont lie, i do agree that you should HAVE to make an account to download anything. Will it help with this problem? Ehhh maybe, but probably not. Now, when it comes to proof, here's the problem with screenshots and stuff (I know someone posted one up above, but don't recall who). Those can easily be staged to "get back" at someone for something. I can make a new discord account, with your exact name and go around saying "I just ripped your model and im going to send it out". Someone sees that and reports it to staff on LSPDFR. You get banned because an account on discord matching YOUR name said they were doing it. How would you feel? How would you like that to happen. And you know what, maybe snowflakes isnt the proper term to use, youre right. Ill be civil and wont do any name calling, as that would ruin an argument (I will actually edit my post and take it out). As to your comment of " this site would be nothing without those who showed real dedication to making the vehicles we have now", you are completely correct! Without modelers or even modders in general taking time out of their day to make stuff to enhance this game, this game would be really boring. My point is this, I understand your frustrations, but dont go crying (not saying YOU specifically are) to staff on a PUBLIC website about something they cant control and something that didn't even happen on their website. Im sure there's more bans then you think because of stuff like this. We just don't know because we aren't staff. I would agree with "better security", but don't know how you would go about that... 

Im just here to watch all these developers try to tell a STAFF MEMBER or MODERATOR how to do their jobs. To all the staff in this post, as you probably know, you will never be able to explain any of this to the dense, close-minded people within this thread.... no matter how much you dumb it down.. They will never understand the fact that you have no control over anything outside of your site. They must think  you have legal right to everything on the internet... I enjoy watching all these people threaten you guys with "leaving LSPDFR", these snowflakes, are far outnumbered by the CIVIL modelers and the modelers who actually do this because they enjoy it. now, dont get me wrong, a world with no modelers for GTA V, would suck. But that would never happen. there will always be modelers mature enough to continue doing what they do. Now, to the modelers out there. i understand your frustrations, I really do. I have a couple buddies who model and have had stuff taken from them. But you know something? They dont constantly harass LSPDFR staff about it. You know why? Because there nothing they can do. they can not force "legal action" or ANYTHING along those lines outside of their site. That is the job of the modeler to do. Hide certain things within your models to prove its yours. Then, when you see it posted on another site, dont contact LSPDFR staff about it, contact the staff of that site it was posted on and show proof its yours and get it taken down. Nobody in this world can control the actions of anyone. You put it on the site, knowing theres a chance of this happening. Dont cry to LSPDFR staff when it actually does happen.
 
 
As to the "block people" or "require an account" comments. That wont stop anyone... Anybody can use a VPN or anything along those lines and create another account and get through the ban. Anyone can create fake accounts just so they can download stuff. If you are going to release anything, understand the risks involved. Dont cry to someone about it....
 

Hey guys sorry to interrupt!
 
I fully understand how bad it is to get your mods stolen, ripped, leaked, whatever it may be, and from the perspective of a modder I understand all the outrage with the ripping that has been going on in both FR and the modding community in general.
 
However, what actually do you think the FR staff can do about this? Honestly, tell me what you think they can do to stop all ripping in the FR community. There is no answer, and the answer certainly isn't moving all your mods to a different website... That's just... fucking stupid. You still mod for the LSPDFR mod, and every one of you started with FR so let's not forget that, and maybe try to work together with the staff to try and stop it? Idfk that's just what im thinking as a concerned third party!

Dear all, 
 
As many of you will have noticed, my activity in the LSPDFR scene has decreased significantly over the past few months. There are many reasons for this, the details of which I won't bore you with. It mostly comes down to being busy with other things in my life, as well as LSPDFR becoming less interesting for me having played it for so long and the introduction of frameworks allowing modded GTA5 multiplayer environments.
 
How times have changed since when I joined the community in 2015, from me taking an interest in learning to code in C# to having multiple plugins released on the site. It's been one heck of a journey here. I recall well the first 'mod' I uploaded for the LSPDFR community, which was called 'More Jail Points' at the time. This was first published for RAGEPluginHook 0.20. This later evolved into 'More Jail Points & Prisoner Transporter' and is now known as the all-so-familiar Arrest Manager. When I was contacted by @dbock1989, who was so enthusiastic about my More Jail Points & Prisoner Transporter plugin at the time, I couldn't quite believe it. He had been so kind as to create a variety of images related to the plugin (see below)! It frankly couldn't have been a more exciting moment at the time and, alongside other overwhelmingly positive and welcoming feedback, served as a major motivation factor for me to continue learning to code and create plugins.

 
Following this, I was looking to give more purpose to the LSPDFR traffic stop system. And so, Traffic Policer was born - a plugin originally intended to add a few ambient events related to traffic offences. This has now grown into one of my most feature-packed plugins to date. By this time, some YouTubers started using my plugins in their videos. Not only was this a great way for me to obtain feedback on my mods' user experience, I also watched @Zachary Houseknecht with great pleasure while my ANPR Hit AI lit many of his police vehicles on fire... An absolute howler: https://youtu.be/4D8HshZzWMQ?t=606
 
Some weeks on and Assorted Callouts was next in line. This was originally created out of a callout idea by  @CaptainSugarFree  and turned into what is now known as the Pacific Bank Heist. This took about 4 weeks of intensive development to fully complete (and am I shocked at the code quality looking back at it now... works though). As the first of its kind, the callout featured voice-overs and an intense, detailed SWAT based LSPDFR callout. I was incredibly proud for this to be featured on @Jeff Favignano's channel and I see now that the video in question has amassed over 1.9 million views... breathtaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIXKvUyzylA
 
Moving on again. At this point, @FinKone had managed to get me into YouTube. After having released British Policing Script, longing for an LSPDFR experience closer to home for me, many longed a version of the plugin for international and American users to incorporate the traffic stop improvements and a court system. With that, I released LSPDFR+ by doing my first ever YouTube live stream, which was quite the experience. After this, I released Siren Mastery, PoliceSmartRadio and a variety of other tools and smaller plugins. Many hours of coding, effort, stress, giving support and obtaining feedback had been put in by this point. I was absolutely chuffed to then achieve one million downloads on my published files...
This figure has since risen to over five million.
 
Following some negative coverage of LSPDFR in some of the Australian media, I'm also very happy that Wired UK decided to publish an overwhelmingly positive article on the whole GTA5 police modding scene: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/gta-5-mods-lsdpfr-british-police?utm_content=buffer9ca53
 
After PoliceSmartRadio's release - with the infamous April FoolsRadio download giving four thousand people a perhaps frustratingly good laugh - I placed the whole modding scene lower in my priority list. As mentioned previously, this has since been pushed far further down.
 
Some thoughts on the community's development over time
I would describe the LSPDFR community as healthy. @Sam @LMS and all the other contributors have created something very special for all the right reasons and this is largely reflected in the attitudes of the staff & moderation team and community members. With publishing mods on a popular website like this, unfortunately, comes some drama and negativity - and while I have not always agreed with the way and speed the moderation team dealt with my reports relating to me and my work, they have done a good job overall. The few issues that I experienced were all resolved. From my experience in the plugin side of the modding scene, this continues to be the case now.
 
One thing I noted during the months that passed is that both experienced but particularly newer modders are now frequently treated with disdain in the scene. The modding scene has grown massively since when I first started and unfortunately, in this area, it shows. Everyone starts somewhere and the fact someone is spending their free time creating something for all of you to download, for free, has become massively underappreciated and taken for granted. Sure, a new modders' release may be full of bugs and be nowhere near as feature-rich as more developed plugins, but this takes time to solve. Had I received the negative feedback I've seen on many a new modder's release page back in 2015, you can rest assured I wouldn't have continued my development here. When providing feedback, by all means, point out the issues, but do so in a friendly, constructive manner, not in an entitled, toxic one. Have a look at the first few comments on my Arrest Manager download page to see what that is like - this was a major factor for me to consider continuing development! It is essential for the development of the LSPDFR modding community that this attitude is changed back to what it was in the 'good old days'.
 
With all that said, I also hope the release of LSPDFR 0.4 kicks a breath of fresh air into the now somewhat stale core LSPDFR modification. With over 2 years having passed since the latest update of the core modification, I'm sure we all agree that an update would be a very welcome step. From the various preview posts released by the development team, it looks that we all have something great to look forward to there.
 
'Retirement'? So does that mean you're permanently done with the LSPDFR modding scene?
No, but I won't be actively developing plugins for LSPDFR any more. To be fair, nothing's really changing much now compared to the past few months. I intend to remain as a member of the LSPDFR Testing Team and I'm sure I'll be drawn back in at some point to explore some of the new development options in the 0.4 API. I'll also stay around on my discord and occasionally the forums and I intend to continue publishing occasional videos on my Youtube channel. If my time and motivation levels allow, I may publish some minor updates to my current mods before 0.4 is released. The fact remains, however, that I would currently classify myself as 'inactive' in the scene. With so much other stuff going on, I simply don't have the time to commit that I used to. It would be a pity to say the least to let all my work slowly deteriorate and waste away. Therefore, I've decided to publish the source code to some of my plugins to https://github.com/Albo1125/. At the very least, I would like it to be a learning resource for other ambitious plugin developers in the scene. At best, I hope other developers will take it upon themselves to improve the code where necessary (yes it is very necessary!) and create pull requests to share those improvements. These can then be merged and released, with credits obviously included for contributors.
 
Back when I started developing for LSPDFR, very few learning resources were available bar the great example project by @LukeD . This hasn't really changed since, despite the creation of the LSPDFR API repository by LMS (https://github.com/LMSDev/LSPDFR-API) and some posts aiming to document the LSPDFR functions by myself in the API development subforum. A noteable step was the creation of the LSPDFR Developers Discord server thanks to  @Stealth22 A full post with current development resources can be found here: 
I'm planning to publish the source code to a number of my plugins one-by-one to improve this and give something to the community:
Arrest Manager: https://github.com/Albo1125/Arrest-Manager  Assorted Callouts: https://github.com/Albo1125/Assorted-Callouts Albo1125.Common: https://github.com/Albo1125/Albo1125-Common Traffic Policer: https://github.com/Albo1125/Traffic-Policer LSPDFR+: https://github.com/Albo1125/LSPDFRPlus British Policing Script: https://github.com/Albo1125/British-Policing-Script  
By no means do I claim that any of the code I post is perfect or amazing - on the contrary, far from it. With the experience I have now gained, reading through some of my old code makes me want to tear my hair out. This is only to be expected, though - most of my plugins were created as part of my learning experience of C#. Prior to this, I had no coding experience or knowledge. It's fascinating to see how the quality of my code has evolved over time by looking at my various different plugins in order of initial release date.
 
Wrapping up. I hope this post provides some clarification and closure for those of you wondering where on earth I've been over the past few months. It's been an absolute blast and a pleasure. To all of you who were a part of my journey here, thank you.