62 replies to this topic

[Dogga]

My last post here, even though i started the thread. Maybe I can answer my critic’s issues to some degree namely K11. Firstly being called a thief and being disrespected in the way you have with myself is wrong, on many levels, casting aspersions that I would keep money donated to other for their work also wrong also on many levels. If you wish to continue be man enough to send me your personal details.

I stated I would get agreement form PP before this happened, that’s respect, as understanding that designers deserve tipping if that’s what people want to do, and indeed if they have no issues, hence the post YES or NO, that’s respect.

As for the legal nonsense I have put my case forward and referred you to PP for clarification, given you clearly have no respect for the fact that you used course forge under certain conditions “fact”, I say no more.

I have posted my intention regarding wanting to Licence elements of PP software, that’s between me and PP and no one else, they have my proposal, your ALL entitled to do the same, or continue to use non-licenced software with whatever that entails. Don’t understand that people’s ignorance of such matters lie on my shoulders, I won’t be bullied.

Our new site will soon become www.theperfectgolfgame.com which by the way I offered to give FREE to PP on completion, and have indeed stated it can also be owned by the community that’s you lot! I believed it would be a good starting point to show PP in part I know something about marketing a product and how to present it well to further my relationship with them.

I would like to thank the majority of designers for their co-operation in line with Andrews request. I believe I have been respectful in my approach and will continue or should I say attempt to do so, clearly the rules of the forum are not adhered too and that’s a matter that also need clarity.

I will repeat my offer, if members of the community want to get involved with the sites development for the betterment of the game and the community get in touch, decisions will be made proportionately on an equal vote scenario 1 man 1 vote….

[olazaboll]

There were/are not many sites that host courses for Links. When you asked the moderators to remove your/my courses they did it without any fuzz. .....no matter what my reasons were ..... ..... legal or not legal 

 If this is the way the ball is going to be played , there is not  chance in hell that I will bother to even open unity and/or CF once it is released.

@ Dogga : Get a grip !!!

[mebby]

Indeed, I so am the trouble-maker, mebby. How dare I design golf courses and then insist on picking who may use them for what? Or even take responsibility for what happens with my intellectual property? Oh, the nerve of me!
You are right about PM's being a better medium: Ordinarily I'd agree, but this goes beyond an isolated incident. The rights and interests of the designers are at stake here, and in my capacity as longest-serving of the designers I feel it's time to lay down some ground rules on behalf of all of them. And this is why the community is invited to take part in the debates and contribute. This is important, trouble needs to be made.


If Dogga gets his way to take whatever he wants - without even asking permission, presenting a coherent vision and being clear about his intentions and strategies - what is to stop somebody else from, say, doing the same and asking players to pay money to download courses, to register for seasons or compete in online tournaments? Even to add a donation button only to pocket them as well, for all I know. Slippery slope... As far as I'm concerned, this matter requires a conclusive clarification at best, right about now - and some resolute bud nipping at worst.

"US the players"? Yeah, right... If any of you guys enjoyed user-made courses, please spare a thought for "US the designers": We aren't your content slaves.

I can't tell if you genuinely took.offense by my post or if you're being sarcastic.

So I'll just reply with the facts.

I do not think you're being a trouble maker. The way I constructed my point was poorly done.

I DO think that perhaps you have shown that you can be a bit picky about how your courses are distributed. But that's solely up to you so do what you wish.

I agree with you that if you don't want your courses on Dogga's site then he should simply remove them.

[clubcaptain]

Short but common sense view.

In all the golf games I have been playing and designing with, there have been a number of independent sites making the courses available to the general public to download and play. Never have I seen anywhere that these sites have had to request permission to do this so why is it an issue here.

 

As far as K11 is concerned I don't understand his position but it's up to him. Generally speaking all designers know that if they publish their courses anyone can play them. To be able to play them there has to be an access point - common sense. Once again, never before have I seen any designer say that anyone can obtain and play my courses except for.....I really struggle with that concept.

 

PP's situation on user made courses has to be that they have no position. Like Microsoft or Adobe, if creation software is sold for public consumption they have no control over what users do with such software.

 

There's a lot of unnecessary legalise and positioning here in my opinion. I buy, I create, I give.  What else is there.

 

My only exceptions to what I have written are two fold.

 

1. Is the independent site changing the creation. The answer is no.

2. Is the independent site passing off the work as it's own in full or in part. No again.

[DPRoberts]

My last post here, even though i started the thread. Maybe I can answer my critic’s issues to some degree namely K11. Firstly being called a thief and being disrespected in the way you have with myself is wrong, on many levels, casting aspersions that I would keep money donated to other for their work also wrong also on many levels. If you wish to continue be man enough to send me your personal details.

I stated I would get agreement form PP before this happened, that’s respect, as understanding that designers deserve tipping if that’s what people want to do, and indeed if they have no issues, hence the post YES or NO, that’s respect.

As for the legal nonsense I have put my case forward and referred you to PP for clarification, given you clearly have no respect for the fact that you used course forge under certain conditions “fact”, I say no more.

I have posted my intention regarding wanting to Licence elements of PP software, that’s between me and PP and no one else, they have my proposal, your ALL entitled to do the same, or continue to use non-licenced software with whatever that entails. Don’t understand that people’s ignorance of such matters lie on my shoulders, I won’t be bullied.

Our new site will soon become www.theperfectgolfgame.com which by the way I offered to give FREE to PP on completion, and have indeed stated it can also be owned by the community that’s you lot! I believed it would be a good starting point to show PP in part I know something about marketing a product and how to present it well to further my relationship with them.

I would like to thank the majority of designers for their co-operation in line with Andrews request. I believe I have been respectful in my approach and will continue or should I say attempt to do so, clearly the rules of the forum are not adhered too and that’s a matter that also need clarity.

I will repeat my offer, if members of the community want to get involved with the sites development for the betterment of the game and the community get in touch, decisions will be made proportionately on an equal vote scenario 1 man 1 vote….

 

Dogga, it appears you are correct according to the letter of the law. Interestingly, most of the issue created here lies in the fact that PG does not house all the downloadable content like another golf game, TGC, by HB Studios. Once a course is published in TGC, it is playable via the game interface through their server. So, there is no squabbling over content rights. I wanted to focus on something objective on your visionarygolf.com site that effects the way I view your approach. You post a course by Matthew Rose, Blackwolf Run, and then add his description text supplied with the course files to your site with the tag line Written by Dogga. To me, it appears you are taking credit for the statements. It could easily be rectified with the leading line - Blackwolf Run, by Matthew Rose - his words regarding the course, "....." Your anger and randomness of posts cause me to question you being "respectful in your approach." Unfortunately, your actions seemingly contradict your words in these instances. I see a large problem in the fact that your intentions are to get something up and running and be off. I don't know why or to what end and it does not really even matter. These sites will only exist if there are individuals willing to put in the time to keep them alive. As others have noted, the community may not be large enough at this point to do that. This would place the need to keep the site viable in your hands, which I'm not certain you care to do. If I ever publish anything, I would be happy to have you post it on your site or sites (and you don't need my permission!), as it appears another is around the corner. The photo below is from visonarygolf.com by the 19th Hole. http://www.visionary...ater-run-river/

[mebby]

My very simple opinion is that there's a right way and wrong way to go about both sides of this equation and both have gone about it in the wrong way so... sparks are gonna fly.

[garynorman]

Dogga, it appears you are correct according to the letter of the law. Interestingly, most of the issue created here lies in the fact that PG does not house all the downloadable content like another golf game, TGC, by HB Studios. Once a course is published in TGC, it is playable via the game interface through their server. So, there is no squabbling over content rights. I wanted to focus on something objective on your visionarygolf.com site that effects the way I view your approach. You post a course by Matthew Rose, Blackwolf Run, and then add his description text supplied with the course files to your site with the tag line Written by Dogga. To me, it appears you are taking credit for the statements. It could easily be rectified with the leading line - Blackwolf Run, by Matthew Rose - his words regarding the course, "....." Your anger and randomness of posts cause me to question you being "respectful in your approach." Unfortunately, your actions seemingly contradict your words in these instances. I see a large problem in the fact that your intentions are to get something up and running and be off. I don't know why or to what end and it does not really even matter. These sites will only exist if there are individuals willing to put in the time to keep them alive. As others have noted, the community may not be large enough at this point to do that. This would place the need to keep the site viable in your hands, which I'm not certain you care to do. If I ever publish anything, I would be happy to have you post it on your site or sites (and you don't need my permission!), as it appears another is around the corner. The photo below is from visonarygolf.com by the 19th Hole. http://www.visionary...ater-run-river/

 

My guess is that is a simple Wordpress issue and not Dogga trying to take credit.  When you use Wordpress you have to log in.  When you add a post (which this page will be) the template that he's using has this 'written by' section which will add his username automatically.

 

I think changing the 'written by' to 'post added by' may avoid confusion here...  Either that or remove the section entirely...

[M Rose]

I've been trying to refrain from posting in controversial threads, but obviously this caught my eye.

 

I would kindly suggest putting something at the top of that, maybe something like "designer's notes / description" just to make that more apparent. Obviously the text there is taken verbatim from the readme file I enclosed with the course zip folder, and if he wants to use that, that is fine. Perhaps it is not intentional that the "written by" segment comes across the way it does, but it is confusing, and probably unnecessary.

 

I think Dogga's intentions are good, and I felt like once Andrew encouraged our support that I should go along with it... but I think there have been times where the communication hasn't been the greatest, in terms of what kind of content would be needed / provided by us, and also in some cases, he just went ahead and put a lot of things up on his own. Perhaps this whole thing would have gone smoother with some better clarity up front.

 

I don't have any particularly strong feelings one way or the other about copyright when it comes to this sort of thing,  just because 1) I do not own the software or have anything invested in it, other than I've been allowed to test it, and 2) the course is a real course designed by a real person who is not me.... I'm basically a musician doing a cover of a famous song. I guess my feeling is that I don't have an issue unless the developers have an issue, or if Pete Dye or Herb Kohler decided they had an issue.

 

I had a Simpsons website shut down by Fox lawyers when I was 19 years old. It was a pretty disheartening and eye-opening experience and one I don't ever want to go through again. So I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize myself legally or certainly Mike or Andrew. I've already caused both of those guys enough grief lately, lol..

[slouis]

Here is what I don't understand Dogga, on July 1st you posted the following directed at K11.

 

Hello Mr Obscure

Then i would like to ask you, may i feature your courses please...

Regards Andy

 

Why even bother asking if you are going to ignore K11's request that you remove all references to his courses?

[Dogga]

K11 your courses have been removed, if I have missed anything in reference to your courses please email me personally and it will be removed. I beleive it to be in the best interest of of the community to do so. Never came here to cause issues. You have raised issues beyond my control, and that's the only reason they have been removed.

[Dogga]

My guess is that is a simple Wordpress issue and not Dogga trying to take credit.  When you use Wordpress you have to log in.  When you add a post (which this page will be) the template that he's using has this 'written by' section which will add his username automatically.

 

I think changing the 'written by' to 'post added by' may avoid confusion here...  Either that or remove the section entirely...

Gary you are indeed corrent, the very reason I offered access to designers was to avoid this issue. When I get time I will attempt to alter the authors name to the designers, sure it can be done somehow.

[Kablammo11]

I can't tell if you genuinely took.offense by my post or if you're being sarcastic.
 

 

Neither, mebby. btw, I can't tell either way with you either, sometimes - Your post was just perfect to link up with and to segue into driving the debate forward. And as I came back this morning to have a look at the battlefield, low and behold: very little mud has been flung and there is a necessary debate taking place, with contrary opinions and respectfully restrained participants. Perhaps my drama-queening did help to identify a potential area of conflict and to start the search for a solution. This is the community at work.

 

K11 your courses have been removed, if I have missed anything in reference to your courses please email me personally and it will be removed. I beleive it to be in the best interest of of the community to do so. Never came here to cause issues. You have raised issues beyond my control, and that's the only reason they have been removed.

 

 

Thank you, Dogga. If there is just one thing we have in common, it is indeed the best interest of the community. I can now officially retract the "thief".

[garynorman]

Gary you are indeed corrent, the very reason I offered access to designers was to avoid this issue. When I get time I will attempt to alter the authors name to the designers, sure it can be done somehow.

 

If your database follows usual Wordpress templates you would struggle to amend the poster each time because the field in the wp_posts table for that data (most likely post_author) is linked to the wp_users.id field, meaning that you would have to add a new user for each designer and then log in as them to post or write an update script to amend your user id to the desired one based on the post id.  In my opinion you'd be better off just changing the text on the template to 'posted by' and have a 'written by' line in the main text.

[JBrown247]

lol if the designers of real courses started accepting money for them, they would open themselves up to serious legal problems. Now, the fantasy courses designers could charge for their courses (would probably have to work out a deal with PP) or even sell the designs to PP.  

 

That being said, I knew "dogga" was up to something all along. 

[Buck]

lol if the designers of real courses started accepting money for them, they would open themselves up to serious legal problems. Now, the fantasy courses designers could charge for their courses (would probably have to work out a deal with PP) or even sell the designs to PP.  

 

That being said, I knew "dogga" was up to something all along. 

 

Not sure anyone thinks it's a good idea to necessarily tie anything about a donation to "access" a specific course, but rather a general donation for their efforts...on any particular project and never in a way that restricts access "unless you donate", etc...

[Acrilix]

Not sure anyone thinks it's a good idea to necessarily tie anything about a donation to "access" a specific course, but rather a general donation for their efforts...on any particular project and never in a way that restricts access "unless you donate", etc...

 

It doesn't matter whether a donation is tied to access or not. If 'real course' creators start taking money for their efforts then they are profiting from the creation of these unlicensed courses and are, as JBrown247 says, increasing their chances of legal action being taken.

[Buck]

It doesn't matter whether a donation is tied to access or not. If 'real course' creators start taking money for their efforts then they are profiting from the creation of these unlicensed courses and are, as JBrown247 says, increasing their chances of legal action being taken.

 

The chances of that being an issue are incredibly remote, especially since almost no course creator is going to make only real courses and hardly anyone will donate anyhow.  There has to be something worth even pursuing for "legal action" to be worth the effort...at least anything beyond a simple cease & desist.

 

The reaction to this concept is totally overblown. Was just a thought to kick a few free beers of coin to some designers for making *any* courses.  This would never become any sizable amount of money anyhow.

[tlvx]

I think that if course designers want to set up donation buttons, they can set up their own individual websites to do so.

Otherwise, this idea of commingling of funds is highly suspicious.

When people offer to collect money for someone else's interests, they're typically not doing it out of the kindness of their heart.

Nevertheless, if everyone had the course designer, like we're already supposed to... individual courses would potentially have somewhat less value, anyway.

That said, if someone was able to make perfect replicas of relevant Major Championship venues, with good frame rates; including crowds, grandstands, brand name ads, TV towers, transport vehicles and such... then I could make a case to setup a donation button for something like that.

As it stands, however, the vast majority of courses look like they're made using generic Unity assets; which is probably why so many of the courses can hardly be differentiated from the rest.

Also, course surfaces are not quite smooth enough, as of yet. There are far too many squared off areas, that are supposed to be gradual undulations.

When these protruding jagged edges effect the greens, it can be game-breaking.

If someone figured out a solution to all these issues and omissions... that ran with solid frames; then we could talk turkey.

[FixAmer1st]

The chances of that being an issue are incredibly remote, especially since almost no course creator is going to make only real courses and hardly anyone will donate anyhow.  There has to be something worth even pursuing for "legal action" to be worth the effort...at least anything beyond a simple cease & desist.

 

The reaction to this concept is totally overblown. Was just a thought to kick a few free beers of coin to some designers for making *any* courses.  This would never become any sizable amount of money anyhow.

 

Doesn't seem very remote to me.  Just look at what happened to the Augusta Course released for JNPG.

Jerry

[Buck]

Doesn't seem very remote to me.  Just look at what happened to the Augusta Course released for JNPG.

Jerry

 

That was really a different issue that wouldn't have existed at all if they'd just not insisted on naming it Augusta National.

Completely different issue than this thread talking about donations for course designers making real & fictional courses.