I'm sharing another bitter piece of news. While 2023 was a year of explosive growth for SPUM users, I have already experienced two copyright infringement incidents related to NFT images since the beginning of the year.. Now, I've even been subjected to source code infringement..
The incident began when I became aware of it on October 2nd.
SPUM isn't an asset that sells incredibly well, but it's usually a small asset that sells steadily.. On October 1st and 2nd, sales were zero. Literally zero.
Below is the graph visible on the Unity Asset Store statistics page, but as you can see, the sales for the 1st and 2nd days are 0. Of course, one could say there are plenty of days when nothing sells, so what's the fuss about... However, from the perspective of someone who has been developing, publishing, and selling apps directly for nearly 10 years, this kind of signal is usually an "abnormal signal." Since there is a probability that something has changed, I need to check it out.
One of my personal principles is that in modern society, especially in the world of IT development and deployment, statistical data does not lie. If there are many lies or events, the ecosystem for sales and advertising promotion cannot take root.
As expected, the statistics did not lie this time either.
SPUM typically ranks high in the Unity Asset – > 2D – > Character category, with the top 1-4 spots occupied by established assets with little fluctuation. However, an asset I hadn't seen before appeared. It is called '2D Pixel Unit Creator'
Below is the store information for 2D Pixel Unit Maker, i.e., SPUM. The name is almost identical, and it appears to be an asset that roughly performs the same function. It looks quite suspicious.
There's no guarantee that you must use my asset for making Pixel characters, and the name... well... if you need to do marketing to promote sales, you might have to steal traffic, so you could also name it similarly..
However, the app was clearly too similar, and the internal structure was almost identical (parts, save and load systems...), so I thought perhaps a user using SPUM or someone who knew about it had made it... and just felt bitter about it.
I didn't think they would infringe on the source code.. I just thought that since I made it, I wanted it to be made even better than what I made so that it could be helpful to others. Looking at the design quality, it's a bit different from SPUM, so since it's a matter of preference, it's a choice, so from the user's perspective, having more diverse menus would be good because it widens the range of choices, I guess..
However, just in case there are users who might misunderstand, I wanted to post a notice (to inform that the asset is unrelated to me), but when I went to the user community, Net had already posted a message a few days ago stating that such an asset appeared.
However... However... let me tell you.
Someone purchased the asset and looked at the source code, and it was almost identical to SPUM.!!! (Ding)
What? What did you say?
The source code is almost exactly the same and.. the file names are the same and.. is it almost similar?
At that point, I was so panicked in the middle of the night that my hands and feet were trembling and I was shaking all over, so I decided to buy it myself to check.
While I can't say it's exactly the same.. the part composition, naming, and script structures I've seen many times before..
Compared to the paid SPUM currently in service, this was composed quite simply, giving the impression that it was made up of resources at the level of the SPUM Free structure I had released for students & amateurs to use for non-commercial purposes.
The free-to-share SPUM Free Version
https://github.com/soonsoon2/SPUM
Well... I can't say it's exactly the same... but I can reference it to some extent... I guess it's at the level of being a guide... so I opened the script file... AAAAAAAAH
As the reporter mentioned, the code was composed of quite a lot of code at a near copy-paste level...
I reached out to Net, who is the most active member of the SPUM user community, to ask for their opinion, wondering if I might be the only one thinking this way..
That's right.. if you have written some code or analyzed it, you will likely sympathize, but unless you copy and paste someone else's code, script work is a kind of personality? The worker's tendencies or style inevitably come through.
Especially Net, being a programming master, was someone who often lamented SPUM's pure style code structure.. "There was no need to do that.." <- Evidence that they used my style as is..
Anyway, that asset was just using the main code of my asset by copying and pasting it.
Of course, there were different parts in between, so I can't say they were exactly the same, but the core code was almost at a copy-paste level..
Shocked, I posted this on the cafe.
This can't be..
Someone commented on my post and received a fairly long email in the middle of the night saying that sales have been suspended.
However, here I could see quite an interesting phrase...
"Any programmer could come up with something similar."
In 2022, after getting into a tussle with Web3 and NFT people, I experienced a variety of quotes and blunders I hadn't encountered in nearly 40 years of living, and then I saw new quotes updating those.
However, we decided to say that they “stole it.”
As a programmer, I believe that if something looks similar, one should check the source origin, verify the license, contact the creator, repackaging it, or reference only the functionality; there are other choices to be made.
“Similar” is a word that cannot be used to package the theft of another person's creation and effort.
Of course, young students, amateurs, or beginners often make mistakes because they don't know much, and especially recently, with so many references floating around and even the concept of 'cloning' appearing, it has become a world that churns out developers, so there are many developers who have the wrong mindset for development and creation.
Of course, this is the fault of one person or one team, but having been involved in lectures, reviews, and mentoring since last year, I feel that as more people enter the coding world, the rules regarding how to reference and utilize others' code, open-source usage, and understanding of licenses—which have been upheld until now—are collapsing. It is truly regrettable.
Anyway, the party has stopped selling, so it cannot be checked on the Asset Store.
So, what exactly is the problem with this incident?
Even intuitively, the fact that the original creator (me) had their source code utilized and sold on the Unity Asset Store without my permission is certainly a problem.. But what exactly is the issue?
Those who know me will understand that, thanks to some NFT infringers in Vietnam, I had to painstakingly analyze the Unity EULA license at the beginning of last year. Based on this, I communicated with lawyers from Unity's headquarters legal team multiple times, and with the help of domestic copyright specialists, I was able to resolve the issue.
In other words, I happen to have quite a lot of knowledge and experience regarding the utilization and sale of digital assets and copyright infringement.
Personally, I believe I fully understand the core of the issue and how to resolve it, as well as having the experience of winning.
Furthermore, this issue is not merely a copyright infringement problem; it is an incident that could escalate into a significant problem involving contracts made and sales conducted on other platforms (Unity Asset Store) without securing rights (there are users who purchased the Unity Asset Store trusting it).
This part will be discussed again after the Unity license is released.. ( Otherwise the text might get too long )
Ultimately, while I have received an apology from the infringer and the asset sales have been suspended, the resolution of the problem may only just be beginning. For now, I have not yet decided how I will resolve this issue as the copyright holder.
I take pride in having spent nearly 12 years working with and using the Unity development tool, making efforts to distribute and share my acquired experience and content for free, create tutorials, and inform others. During this process, I spent a lot of my money and time; of course, as a result, I also gained reputation and additional income, and I believe I made many interesting connections, such as well-developed teams that sold companies for huge amounts, developers with whom I still interact and collaborate today, and so on.
However, nowadays shared knowledge is being exposed to more people than ever before, and I feel that the shared knowledge culture I love and cherish is being attacked and infringed upon by those who are learning to develop incorrectly and misunderstanding licenses in places I don't know and haven't experienced.
As a result, I am deeply hurt and shocked.
It feels like my philosophy and will have been somewhat broken?
So, I want to properly finish and resolve this issue.. At the same time, I don't want other users who love and use my asset or source code correctly to suffer or find it difficult. I don't want that..
As a result, I have been thinking a lot lately...
Anyway, I rambled on for a while.. I hope you make the right choice.. (me)
I need to get some strength.