9 replies to this topic

[Nighthawk]

Greetings, everyone.

Most of you within the YR modding community will likely have heard of Michael Vranic / "Oztronix" and his Red Alert Millenium "mod".

For those of you who haven't and need some generic exposition, here you go. Quite a while back, a community member called Oztronix (previously known for committing offences within the community) began posting news on several C&C community sites about a new mod that he had developed, called Red Alert Millenium. It was even snapped up and publicised by PlanetCNC as genuine. But, it turned out that this "mod" was really a shameless rip of Daz's highly popular It Came From Red Alert! mod, with a few of Oztronix's crude additions cobbled onto it. Once this was discovered, any news was removed, he was blacklisted on just about every C&C site of worth, and we hoped that would be the end of it.

However, he later resurfaced, publicising the same mod under his own credit again, and this time charging users to download it. What was even worse was that this "mod" also included the RA2/YR game EXE files, so Oztronix was essentially charging people for an illegal download (albeit a rather bowdlerised one) of Yuri's Revenge. Additionally, he was charging for a set of "tools" that he "created". These tools were none other than a slightly re-titled FinalAlert 2 map editor (by Matze), and the XCC Utilities (by Olaf van der Spek). Again, the relevant web hosts, and even EA, were contacted, and we believed him to be gone, confined to an existence of uselessly spamming and getting flamed on community boards. End exposition.

Following a tip-off from Allied General, it seems that like the generic incompetent villain in any B-movie series, Oztronix has returned. This time, he's hosted over at Google Sites, on a site that was previously shut down. Now he's requiring that you email him first to get a download link to the "mod". However, this time we've got a problem. Google Sites' "Report Abuse" feature is phenomenally useless, only letting you pick an option from a list, then send it off. While I could easily type up a convincing argument for Google to shut down his site, there is no such function to do this. Official copyright infringement notices can only be sent by the copyright holder, and even then only by physical mail, so that is ruled out. Additionally, I can't get in contact with EA because, a) there's no community adviser to contact, and b) their damn support system won't work properly.

So, this is where you all come in. Call it a community bonding exercise, if you will. Basically, we need as many of you as possible to use the Report Abuse function for Oztronix's site, and mark it down as containing inappropriate content (the other options don't really fit the situation).

It's an odd course of action, I know. But until EA can be contacted, or Google Sites develop a more useful way to report hostees, it's our only option. If enough people report the site, it'll get the attention of some folks at Google, the ball will start rolling, and the site can be stopped.

Commence bombing run.

Nighthawk.
C&C Guild Leader.

[Caspa]

Anything stopping us from individually flooding them with Abuse Reports?

[Nighthawk]

It records your email address when you submit a report, so I get the feeling that multiple reports from the same address would get ignored.

[some_weirdGuy]

Hey, i think i remember this guy/mod.

I remember the whole Final Alert with the credits changed all to his name deal.
What a prick.

[Caspa]

It records your email address when you submit a report, so I get the feeling that multiple reports from the same address would get ignored.

Don't enter your email then

[Nighthawk]

Hmm... didn't think that field would have been optional. Seems a bit silly. Oh well, flood away then.

[radaral]

There's screenshots and him claiming he's no longer using ripped graphics. It looks like he resized the stuff from westwoods Red Alert and put it in his game mod.

[Beowulf]

He's still stealing the RA-like terrain, which he didn't make. And he's still claiming authorship over tools like XCC and FA2. God knows why he'd want to claim ownership on that abortion known as FA2 though.

[Apollo]

Little kid just wants attention soo bad

[Hecthor Doomhammer]

Well, if it helps to stop a wanna-be modder, I'll help