joshbuhler.com

Last night I received the following email through my blog, referring to the Flash version of Duck Hunt that I built a few years back:

From: thanksbro@gmail.com

You know, it’s sort of annoying when people get arrogant and try to put in some terrible protection.

com.joshbuhler.games.utils.TheftBlock.checkURL("www.joshbuhler.com", this);

I’m sure anyone who wanted to host your game could just as easily decompile it as I did. I only did it to put it on a flash drive, as well. Having your name on the main screen isn’t enough?

Huh? A few things:

Arrogant?

Honestly? You’re going to steal content from my site and then complain about it? Since when is protecting something that you invested time in arrogant? I built it, I can do with it as I see fit. Seems to me that the real arrogance here is in the party trying to steal some content, and complaining to the author that they were inconvenienced in the process. (Of course, maybe it’s not arrogance, just idiocy.)

I know it’s easy to beat.

Congrats - you’re an ub3r 1337 haX0r who can decompile a swf.

I have no illusions that the small utility class (TheftBlock) I wrote is in any way, shape, or form bulletproof. I realize that it’s really just a minor annoyance to someone trying to host my content on their site. I don’t care. In reality, that’s what it’s supposed to be - an annoyance. Basically, the class checks the URL it’s running from, and if it’s not on my domain, it draws a large red box over the entire Flash movie, telling you to quit trying to steal my stuff. Shouldn’t that have been a hint that I don’t want to have this thing hosted anywhere else but on my site? Believe it or not, it’s actually been fairly effective in keeping the game hosted on my site, and a few others I’ve provided it to.

I’m Selfish

Yup. Even though I post several bits of code and other content freely on mine and other sites, there are a few things I want to keep for myself. If you really want Duck Hunt on your site, you could crank out your own version of this game in a weekend like I did. Or know what? Ask me nicely and I might send you a build you can host if you like.

I also realize that there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here, as technically the “content” here isn’t even mine - it’s Nintendo’s, as they created Duck Hunt in the first place. Part of the reason I even built it was because when I got the idea, I had seen several other Flash-based versions that for one reason or another I didn’t like, and decided to build a version that was as true to the original as possible. It was also a good project to start playing with ActionScript 2.0 at the time. However, as the IP belongs to Nintendo in the end, if they end up contacting me and asking me to remove it from my site, I will.

In the end, I know that whatever you put online, is pretty much freely available to anyone who wants to take it. It’s pretty much a given that it’s going to happen eventually. But still, who in their right mind steals something, and then complains about how annoying it was to do? Seriously.