Authors CurseForge

Quote from Elkano

I think I've found another one:
http://www.brothersoft.com/publisher/wow-addon.html

Seems to be some sort of general software hosting, though.

Yah, there is a thread on the WoWInterface forums about BrotherSoft:

http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24853

Someone purporting to be from BrotherSoft using the name "pmats" did post in this thread:

I work for Brothersoft. Here is the thing. Somebody submitted and published addons for the World of Warcraft in Brothersoft.com. And we are totally not aware of any details about the author, the license and relvevant promotion conditions about that. But we are now dealing with some letters from authors indeed.

Moreover, we will be quite hopeful to keep these addons on the case that we get licenses from its author. Do anybody provide some pieces of suggestions? Thank you so much, guys.

When someone called out BrotherSoft regarding the unauthorized uploading of WoW AddOns, the so-called BrotherSoft rep had this to say:

First, we do the auditing work on publication requests from users instead of direct release on Brothersoft by somebody. If there is any kind of person fills and submits the software author information, this is really hard to identify.

Next, we will immediately handle it depending on the status verification once we get any email from real authors.

Finally, we Brothersoft do respect copyright of authors, and we are always aiming at providing the safe and fast downloading service for all the users.

Since then, BrotherSoft has been rather silent. Someone else did some digging on BrotherSoft and it appears to be Chinese in origin:

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BROTHERSOFT.COM
Created on: 12-Jul-02
Expires on: 12-Jul-13
Last Updated on: 10-Apr-08

Administrative Contact:
LiWei, Wang [EMAIL="ljzyh@vip.163.com"]ljzyh@vip.163.com[/EMAIL]
LiWei Wang [EMAIL="ljzyh@vip.163.com"]ljzyh@vip.163.com[/EMAIL] +86.13811079652
HanGuQu QiXingLi 17-2-304,
Tianjin, 300480
China
13811079652

Post where this info appears: http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/showpost.php?p=148320&postcount=22

Quote from Xinhuan

I'm not quite sure what to do with this, because I can't read or write German, and its a German site.

http://omen-threat-meter.softonic.de/ lists a review for Omen threat meter in German, giving a description how it works.

Technical they are on the save side, as it only has a description and later for downloading the addon they do link to curse. Thus they do not host the addon.

Money wise with a matching URL and keywords it seems to me that they want to 'steal' german users looking for omen (as google by default will prefer german sites to english for a german user). Thus he will end up on their page `+ their download link bring them an extra 2-3 add impressions while not generating content themselves apart from the 'thin' review.

The OS requirement for XP/Vista is plain wrong.

Looking at the other reviews the person wrote it seems they took all top downloads for curse and generated a translated german page: Lightheaded, Questhelper, Omen, Atlasloot Enhanced, Carbonite, Recount, etc etc etc. If you look at the download statistics for cartographer they gained 200 downloads / week - and therefore impressions for themselve.

http://www.softonic.de/windows/zubehor-sonstige

If they're not actually hosting the files, there's not much you can do about them. You could probably make a technical claim that it's illegal for them to use your description... but you'd have a hard time getting anything done, especially when the description is no longer in the original language.

My personal view on foreign-language sites that don't host the files is that they're providing something I can't. I don't understand German, Chinese, (much) Russian, or whatever language the site is in, so I can't write a description for my addon in that language, and even if someone else provides me with a description to post on Curse, I can't provide support in that language.

Either way, they aren't hosting the file, and they can't hotlink to the file, so Curse still gets traffic and ad impressions. Complaining that the German site also gets ad impressions strikes me as not much different than complaining that Google gets ad impressions on a search results page that links to Curse.

Quote from Ackis

http://forgeadvantage.com/faq/addons

It appears they are not only hosting addons, but charging for access to them. If you are the author of one of the addons they're hosting, you should definitely have a word with them.

The Curse guys may also want to talk to them about their use of the Curse.com "flame" icon.

Edit: Updated first post.

I tipped Kaelten off to that site months ago when some asshat posted on the UI&Macro forums about limited alpha signups for it and I noticed stuff about premium service in their EULA. Luckily the forum mods deleted that crap.

They do not have a contact form, but after emailing every address I could find on their website, I got a very prompt response. I've updated the first post with the address.

Pretty much. This is the response I got:

Hello Phanx,

How are you! I am really sorry for the troble we've made for you. I am Tracy, PR Manager from MMOsite.com. I have asked our editor to remove from our website page now. But due to we had uploaded your addon information to our server, we need time to clear it up. I would guarantee it should be done before next monday. Is it all right for you?

Anyway I would like to thank you for such fantastic addon. Our website is really interested in promoting your content to our 2,000,000 users. I will be great honor if i have chance to ask for your permission and let our users have chance to read. Or if you have any request, please let me know. I will see what our website could do for you.

Yours sincerely ,
Tracy
PR Manager
http://www.mmosite.com/
MMOsite.com-No.1 Professional MMO Game Portal!