Hello everybody,

sorry to bother you with unpleasant details but we just realized that a guy (quattro) has been stealing our carset and proudly claims that he makes the cars.
This behaviour is simply unacceptable. I hope that this guy can be banned from the forum and/or something else is done about it.

We created the carset to use it online in the GPFun67 tournament, which we believe is still the only gpl tournament that uses personalized liveries online.
We obtained explicit permission from gplea to post the liveries for their cars.
Here is the link to our site [LINK REMOVED]

In a thread in the forum quattro writes something like:
people like the red white blue eagle so I decided to make a cooper like it (not literal) and even "third times the charm" (literal).
The reason why the cooper was made is very different and very simple: the driver that uses that livery started to drive the cooper in our races. I can announce that the next car of the carset (or the next one that quattro will claim as his own) is a brabham with the same paint scheme.

GPL has a great community that makes and shares all sort of files. There is nothing wrong with this, quite the opposite, and there is nothing wrong in using other people's work.
THere is everything wrong, however, in repeatedly stealing other guys work and taking credit (and proud) out of it !

As I wrote, I hope that "quattro" can be given an appropriate "punishment".

Any advise on how we should proceed on the matter is welcome.

Thanks for reading,
Luca and Stex68

dangermouse EDIT: Link removed - Go HERE to find out what I think of these guys and why the link was removed.


.

Never ever claimed as my carset. Sorry for the misunderstanding. But like others I had done before I thought I had asked permission. But again I didn't claim as my own.
Well I'm at a loss now.Most were not complete so I went ahead and completed them and still did not claim as my own. Damn I might have presented as story like putting together in my garage(but like a real car) but again finishing them off.
All along I thought I would help others out by putting these cars together for a easy install into the game, just helping out others who might have found that to difficult to do.
But again I was never stealing these and claiming as my own.
Keith sorry for this but you decide what you want done here.
They want me out of here then so be it.
Walt

Luca and Stex68,

Thanks for writing and noting this. Quattro has been puting many different skin, interior and wheel combinations together to make it easier for people to use. I have gone through a few of his threads where he has made mention that they are not his skins and has mentioned the original makers, but it seems that for your skins he has ommitted this. Seeing his above post it seems he was of the understanding that he had asked permision to post them. I have taken all the threads which have car addons by Quattro offline so I may review them later.

From my perspective it looks like you are being a little harsh in calling him a thief, but it is obvious that you feel agrieved by the situation. I should have been keeping a closer eye to make sure the original makers were mentioned. I can say quite confidently that it would not have been his intention to portray them as his own skins. I can go through them all and compare them to the ones on your site and delete them if you so wish.

Please accept my apologies for this mishap.


keith

Please do put the threads back online or send them over to me if it doesn't take you too much time. I had only the chance to look at a couple of them and I'd like to read more myself.

You do not need to apologies since you had no part whatsover in this.
From what I've seen, however, I do not feel that writing what I did is harsh at all. If anything I have been way too soft.
I have very few elements, not having seen all the threads, but please do read the following.

I came about an image of one of "our cars" in another forum. I was curious to know how it ended up there so I read through the thread. People were complimenting Walt (which I understand is quattro) on his excellent work, use of shadows etcetera. They also mentioned a "mz carset", which is how I got here.
Much to my surprise I found a whole bunch of cars "by quattro"; all the ones I saw came from our carset.

Not only he didn't acknowledge the author, but that he was proudly accepting praises for other people work (from the little I read so far). He wrote, as I mentioned, something along the lines of "I decided to make a cooper", when the words should have been "they made a cooper, I decided to take it over [so that you can compliment me a little more?]".

This, I repeat, is utterly unacceptable!

It is not a misunderstanding and I do not accept any of the pathetic excuses that quattro wrote in this thread. It is not assembling a car in a garage, it is stealing and I believe it is intentional stealing.
I do not believe that he should be sentenced to death for this but I do find extremely irritating that there seems to be any attempt at all to justify his behaviour.

It takes very little to put a link at our carset for people to find it, like he did here:
https://gplmz.speedgeezers.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=812

It takes fraudulent intentions, I am convinced, to "publish" cars from our carset one at a time.

Sorry for all this, it is not my intention to cause troubles but I do feel strongly about the matter.

Bye,
Luca

How did you manage to install them into the game yourself? Surely not by unzipping the downloaded files and following the simple istruction posted together with the file itself, did you?

A simple apology would have gone a long way more than a botched attempt at justifying your wrong doing with "helping others" and "incomplete cars".
By the way, what is an incomplete livery?

I am profoundly disappointed and right now have very little respect for you, to be generous.

Luca

i dont want to get into this too much but i would just like to say this..

Lucav: if you knew Walt (quattro) as well as myself and some other guys around here you would know that he would never intentionally "steal" anyones work.
It would seem there has been a bit of mis-communication somewhere along the lines tho

Let me ask you a simple question: where did you think that the incriminated liveries came from? Honest answer, please

Bye,
Luca

i honestly cant say where they have come from.


Sorry..i should stop now...as i have nothing to do with this situation!

Keith,
as I see this is the same thing what happened to my works.

Here and now I authorize Walt (aka Quattro) to re-use any of my skins:
the previously posted Antique Cooper, Velvet Cooper, Foxheart76 Cooper and the yellow waved black Eagle (named Flaming Nora by Walt)
and all the others that can be found on my old website (https://ahis.uw.hu/4005/page_downloads.html)

Please set back the topics that was opened for these skins.
https://gplmz.speedgeezers.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1632
https://gplmz.speedgeezers.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1627
https://gplmz.speedgeezers.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1620
https://gplmz.speedgeezers.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1757

Thanks!

Regards,
Janos

Hi Luca.

Quite honestly, there must have been some major mis-interpretation, major mis-communication, or something, somewhere.
Quattro wouldn't knowingly do that.

Let me reiterate, for clarity.
People in other forums thought that the liveries were made by quattro.

What about this forum? I haven't read all threads, as I said. Were people under the impression that it was his work and he did he let them believe so, as I gather from the little I saw? A simple answer to this question, which I already posed, will explain a lot in one way or another.

There are threads started by quattro with links to other people sites yet he has posted "our cars" over time without ever putting a link or mentioning us. It seems weird.
Thinking the worst is a sin but you often get it right that way, as a famous italian politician used to say

Some skins even have names and personal logos on them; I am curious to know if he just erased them, and for which reason, eventually.
If only he had asked we would have probably sent him the photoshop files with layers, much easier to manipulate.

One other thing: each car has an accompaining file with details on how to install it (as your car or as computer car) but, more importantly, with the name of the driver that the skin "belongs to" and the name of the author. Maybe he didn't see those files, but it would be just fair to have them go with the cars. If you make an anderson 67 skin you mention it; why shouldn't you mention if the livery belongs to an online racer?

Bye,
Luca

PS: if you think I am harsh wait until stex68, who did basically all the work, manages to get a translator

Hi Luca!

Well, I don't really remember reading the particular threads in question. But I can understand how the wires could get crossed in this area of editing stuff for GPL.

As Quattro stated, he thought he had asked & received permission.
Now, I do a little editing myself, and can see how something like this could very easily happen.
Quattro does alot of editing in various areas of GPL. If he's got several projects going, and has recieved the O.K. from different authors, but got the O.K's mis-matched to a certain project.......See where I'm going with this Luca?

And I'm sure that once this is straightened out, Quattro will be more than happy to add permissions\acknowledgments to those particular posts.

Absolutely not. I would rather get a straight answer to my question or read the threads myself.
Maybe I am just gettting this wrong, but it doesn't look that way so far.
What I know for sure is that a member of this forum has acknowledge "walt's work" on another forum.

Hey, we would have needed somebody to make a purple honda for me in the gpfun67, or a brabham with the pepsi color scheme (that's how we call the red/blue/white skin); it would have saved stex68 some work and we would have thanked him.
He could have done that... but he preferred to lift the new cooper and send it here writing "people liked the eagle so I decided to make a cooper".
No, I don't understand where you are going at all !

Bye,
Luca

Luca and Stex68,

I have looked at a couple of the files and they look, to all my abilities, the same as yours.

You are obviously extremely upset and I can understand that. Yes he should have put links to where the skins came from or for that matter the wheels or anything else modified. It is easy to put a link and he didn't.

That his threads have been thought to be his own work is a shame, and noticed that the fajanko skins were not acknowledged either. Believe me when I say that he is not a thief but has been extremely remiss and used poor judgement when not acknowledging the work or puting a working link (since your site is working). You have seen the other posts from people who also know him and have vouched for him.

I have decided that all the addon threads that have your cars are now deleted. Should Quattro (aka Walt) decide to do anymore or redo any cars he will have to have approval from the authors (if there are still live links) before posting them.


keith

fajanko,

Thank you for your approval for the use of your skins, but for the same reason the threads with your stuff will stay offline until the posts are ammended and there are acknowledments to yourself.


keith

Stefano & Lucav: I'm very Sorry for this as I honestly thought I had seeked permission
for doing the cars I had done just like the others I had asked permission. It was not my intension to go out and steal your work as this was my attempt to just make matters simpler for others to easily install and have the great choice of cars of yours to use.Your work I thought would reach a wider group of people this way.
I'm sorry to everyone and to Keith and all my friends I've made here I'm sorry as most know me this is not the type of person (no excuse I know) but this was a Great mistake on my part.

Stefano & Lucav thanks for your work and I hope you can forgive me.

Sincerely Walt

If you had put the whole carset in a single file and uploaded it without permission it would have been one thing, putting cars out one (a few) at a time looks very different. Having linked other people works but not ours is even more disturbing.

You wrote about "completing the cars". I couldn't download "your versions"; who did so tells me that they are completely identical, in some cases you just didn't include the original helmets.

More importantly, when people started to compliment you on the cars and refer to them as "walt's eagle" or "walt's brm", why didn't you ever mention that they were not, infact, your cars?
If you honestly just wanted to "make a service to the community" you surely woul have behaved differently, isn't it ?

Has anybody ever asked what the "style" on the #13 red white liveries (ferrari 70s style) means, for example? Probably not, but you wouldn't know the answer anyway.

I am sorry but I cannot accept your explanations.
I think that you behaved extremely poorly and I do not like at all the fact that you can basically get away with it.

Having written this and what I wrote before, the matter is closed for me. I will answer direct questions and that's it.
You will hear something from Stex68, who is still looking for a translator

Just add all the necessary information in the future (not just for "our cars"), permission or not permission. State clearly if you do not make the files yourself and give appropriate credit/links.
It's not about legal matters and small prints, it's about decency.

A formal apology of yours, with appropriate credit given, in the forums involved would be nice as well. The alternative is for us to go around and tell all the bad about you, if I'd do this you would still get away with nothing in comparison with what I have in mind

Bye,
Luca

Luca,

We are not in the business of suspending/banning people - where possible.
I understand your frustration but this is as far as I will go on this matter. Walt has apologized twice in this thread for the errors he committed and I have deleted the appropiate threads.

I, and others, have tried to point out to you that this is not Walt was trying to do. Another skin maker who had not been acknowledged has also replied here. I sent you a PM asking you which forums the comments were being made in so that I could pass the information on to him so that he could make a public apology in those respective forums. I am also willing to post and say that these threads have now been deleted but you have not replied to my PM.

Clearly you will not find it in yourself to accept his apology nor any other persons comments in this thread.

We value Walt's contribution to the forum environment and as a moderator, and will be taking no further formal steps, but rest assured he knows from us that he has been very silly. He is deeply embarrased by what has happened and he will not do something like this in the future.






keith

Hello everybody,

I understand that the thread about quattro stealing a carset has been closed but I didn't have the time to put my word in. Being the one that did most of the work I believe it is fair that you give me the opportunity to write this.

I had a chance to look at the now deleted threads and I must say that, unfortunately, quattro is not the nice guy you are trying to portrait. I am, infact, very disappointed in the justifications and lack of condemnation that I read here !
I was hoping for a simple admissin of wrong doing, I found a number of lame excuses!
Quite the opposite, he's a liar that keeps lying even after being caught.
I wanted to accept his explanations but the evidence is compelling; you might have your reasons for not banning him from the forums but I will report his behaviour to gplea and any other interested party that springs to mind. People that behave like this are *not* a valuable addition to the gpl community !

Let me give you some quotes that clearly show the issue. If you don't want to go through them just read the final paragraph, please.

Walt says in his apologies that he did it for the good of the gpl community and that never took credit for it, amongst other things. Not true at all.

Quattro speaking about my purple brabham:
>hold of my pal Tommi asked for another favour and poof she's ready to be >launched. So out of the paint booth as I had extra paint leftover from one >of my fleet of Ferrari's and here's the final result.

One has to wonder where the extra pain came from, I'd better check my supply.

Quattro speaking about the pepsi cooper
>I did this car twice already today maybe third time will be a charm

>Well my third time was a charm. This paint job was liked by some >on the Eagle so it should work on the Cooper as well and at the end of the >day I'm pleased with it and hope you are too!

Somebody complimented him:
>Nice cooper, Walt
and he answered
>Thanks Tommi:

About the pepsi eagle:
Compliments> very cool colour combo
Quattro:
>Now I'm proud of the last Eagle as it turned out very good in my eyes but >I've another one equally as good and you can cool your jets as I might >even pullout a Dutch Orange Eagle for you Sunshine

The orange eagle, of course, was another one part of the carset that he had graciously lifted.

and more in the same thread
quattro>Thanks Thomas means alot mate!

Quattro speaking about my lotus#21
>Been awhile since last doing a car (yeah right Walt) so here is another >Lotus 49



And the icing on the cake !
Dangermouse> Nice looking Lotus You'll be getting quite a reputation you know.
Quattro>Reputation you say Guv! Sorry mate but my Reputation precedes me

I'd say !


As hard as I try I cannot believe what nice was said about quattro in the other thread.
He might be the nicest person, I have no idea, but he has been way worst than "silly" in this incident.
A simple "I did wrong", maybe with a couple of "he did wrong" would have settled the whole matter. The lies, misrepresentation and excuses just convince me that I can not tolerate such behaviour and such lies !


Yours appalled,
Stex68

I have merged your post into this thread.



There has been a resolution to this matter. We hope this matter can teach us all that any material coming from another source should always be acknowledged.

Look over HERE for the continuation of this saga and how two faced some people can be.