Hybrid has a Bad Day

[Lohman446]

Its crap like this that serves no purpose whatsoever other than to start trouble, cause bad feelings and make paintball in general and the people who play it look bad.

No one here has ZERO to do with any of Hybrid/Copyright issue. It has ZERO impact on anyone's intellectual property, ZERO impact on their wallets and ZERO impact on their lives.

I dont know what SlartyBartFasts motives where for starting all of this. Maybe he was looking for attention, maybe he has genuine concern and thinks hes some kind of crusader. I dont care. This was NONE of his business. Its none of yours, and its none of mine. It is between Hybrid and whomever owns the rights to those images.

This has done nothing but cause trouble and arguments. The most that will come out of this thread will be a bunch of AOer's P.O.'d at each other.

One could make a pretty convincing argument that the following of a laws in an orderly society is everyone's concern.

[phantomhitman]

Evil, I have to disagree with you. You cannot honestly say that you would be happy getting ripped off. If you made, or paid someone to create, a logo for your store you would be fine with someone else using it to make money. Or would you be happy if your friend knew someone was using your logo to make money but did not tell you? Come on, fair is fair, and fair is no longer a word in the business world. I could honestly care less about slarty actions or why he took them. He did the right thing, all of the uproar is mainly from misinformed people or younger kids with no idea how the "real world" works.

I would love to see Hybrid pay everyone IF they stole the images, and I would love to see Hyrbid continue making products. It would be a win-win situation if the companies worked out a deal and made a whole new line of products with cool grip designs. Only time will tell.

[rkjunior303]

I've waited a while to comment on this, so I am going to keep it short.

Did Hybrid do something wrong? Of course. Copywrites are in place to protect not only property but intellectual property as well, including stuff such as artwork.

Did Slarty do the right thing? Well, that's a difference of opinion. The MORAL side of me says yes, because it was a blatent THEFT of intellectual property (in this case, artwork). BUT, do I agree what went on after the fact?

No.

I feel like this thread is a "look at me, look at what I caused" for almost bragging rights -- which, to me, is uncalled for.

/end rant
//long live the slashes
///the other white meat?

[wimag]

After reading through most of the million page threads, I have come to a pretty healthy conclusion:

Slartybartfest, you are a jackass.

However, I will not stand here and pretend to be some Hybrid fanboy, who is obviously just pissed you could have hurt his favorite company. No, although I like Hybrid, and think they make some cool products, will admit that they should most definitely not completely ripoff someone elses work.

With that aside... I think that anyone with a brain (obviously not some people...) can tell that he merely instigated this, hoping to stir up crap. Instigator. In this scenario, that is all you are.

Even if you were genuinly concerned, and actually gave a damn about the integrity of IOI (which I'm pretty certain you do not), that was not the first company you should have contacted. You aproached this entire situation hoping to create some drama, slap your dick in someones face, and smile while looking down upon the hoards of forum-goers going up in arms.

No... If you were REALLY concerned, you would have contacted Hybrid. You would have told them that you were CONCERNED that they could get into trouble, and that you didn't particularly respect the fact that (in your opinion) they were ripping off the Hitman image. You would have tried to come to some resolution that way, or hell, maybe even found that they had already made sure they were not in violation of the Hitman imagery.

By contacting them first, whether Hybrid gets into ANY trouble whatsoever, completely bypassed any problems that may ensue.

You don't give a damn, and don't pretend to. You are just a dick. The mere fact that you posted this on two forums, and made a seperate thread about it on one shows you just want to bring attention to yourself. Like I said before, anyone who isn't a total retard will see through your crap.

perfect. you nailed it. good work out of you

[phantomhitman]

Slarty mysterisouly stopped posting for a reason.....if he was a true attention whore he would be posting as much as me and saying random useless things. I can only think of 3 reasons for him to stop posting
1-He doesnt care about the attention
2-He doesnt want to deal with the people posting hate topics
3-He knows too much or is implicated somehow (legally)

3 is a far strecth and I seriously doubt it, but it doesnt seem like he is an attention whore. The whole snitch, rat, weasel, etc comments are opinions so there is no wrong answer. It would be next to impossible to sway peoples opinion either way if they are hard headed. You still get a gold star from me Slarty , hopefully Hybrid will announce something.


On a side note
Does anyone know the web tool used for looking up old sites? It might have been google, or it could eb another search engine. It catalogs sites by dates, so it would have a copy of Hybrids site before tey took it down. I am looking for hybrids email address.

[Muzikman]

http://www.archive.org/

[BigEvil]

One could make a pretty convincing argument that the following of a laws in an orderly society is everyone's concern.

Absolutely bro, I couldnt agree with you more. However, we are looking at something from a ver limited vantage point. How do we know that Hybrid does not have an 'understanding' of some sort with the owners of the material that is in question? How do we know that whomever used these images on the grips didnt have some claim to them? Maybe someone at Hybrid did some graphic or production work for an advertising comapny and has those images copyrighted? We have NO IDEA. If we were wondering about the legality of the use of those images(and rightfully so), the inquiry should have been to HYBRID.

I don't know SlartyBartFasts and connot testify anything about him. Maybe he is a minister, or a lawyer, or a judge. I dont know, and I dont want to seem like im putting the guy down because im not. Im just curious on the course of action that was taken.

I think it was notable that SlartyBartFasts had the sense to question the use of those images, but I also think that if it were me I would not have blabbed all over the internet about it. It looks bad, and it makes it looks like there are alterior (sp?) motives.

I am also wondering if it leaves him open to some sort of legal action

If laws were broken, then shame on Hybrid

Still, I gotta give Slarty the Brass Balls award. I think he earned it.

[Stix]

I don't know SlartyBartFasts and connot testify anything about him. Maybe he is a minister, or a lawyer, or a judge. I dont know, and I dont want to seem like im putting the guy down because im not. Im just curious on the course of action that was taken.

I think it was notable that SlartyBartFasts had the sense to question the use of those images, but I also think that if it were me I would not have blabbed all over the internet about it. It looks bad, and it makes it looks like there are alterior (sp?) motives.

Provided Hybrid did not come to an understanding w/ IOI (Key assumption here), SBF's character is not very relevant to this discussion imho.

For example:
Some guy thinks you're driving like a nut job, and decides to call attention to the cops. He could be doing it because

a.) He's a jerk and hates you
b.) He wants to play hero and likes power trips
c.) Honestly wants the roads to be a little safer

Resulted call gets the cops to come; cops think you are indeed a looney behind the wheel and you get arrested.

What's the end result?
1. Society wins out from getting a crazy guy off the wheel
2. Your arse is in the slammer (no pun intended)
3. Dude pats himself on the back

This occurs irrespective of whether or not he was either a, b or c. Note how only you, the offender are marginalized. Doesn't matter at that point why this person called you in; he's not in the wrong. You are. He didn't break any law. He could pat himself on the back for whatever he wants; THAT'S HIS RIGHT. He could be running around town telling everyone how he's a hero, he could hate your guts, whatever. Doesn't matter. You personally can hate that guy who tattled on you, but that isn't going to change anything; you don't have a right to drive like a nut job. He's not on the stand, you are. So why even get in a tussle about his character? You can't impact/change that.

That being said, everyone in business that I know, from schools to mom and pop shops to some CEO's I know disagree upon much, but they all agree on one thing. PEOPLE ARE OUT TO SCREW YOU AND MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE; REASON THEY DO SO IS NOT RELAVENT BECAUSE YOU'RE SCREWED whether the tattler is a nice guy or a jerk. What is relevant is its impact on bottom line. Therefore, one of the fundamental rules of any business/life/fighting... is CYA. Protect yourself at all times. Don't let people sucker punch you. Don't do stupid things that could quite possible end up owning your arse, literally and figuratively. Duh. A maxim that's been pounded into me since school, college, church and work. CYA. I know people who freakin' wear T-shirts that have CYA pressed on in huge embossed letters. Why? So they don't open themselves to dumb decisions all the time.

And for crying out loud, if you're gonna rip someone off, use less mainstream icons. I know no one is perfect and we all make bad business choices, but picking icons that have embedded themselves into American culture as we know it and not having an "understanding" from the owner is totally against CYA and smart business, and is just asking for a can-of-whoop-*** on yourself. It's not like you can even begin to deny that one was breaking the law (no "understanding" asummption given).

So after all that, Hybrid gets a -1 for just doing bad business and was opening itself up for disaster. Whether that disaster materializes is speculation for now, but why even put yourself in that position? You can give SBF the brass balls award, gold star, 500 e-cool points, the dumbass award, jerk award, etc. That is subject to debate. But if the lack of understanding claim is true, Hybrid definately gets the bad-business-desicion award, a stain that's much harder to wash off than any other adjective you can give SBF, and definitively tells us about their lack of foresight.

Wow, that was verbose.

[WARPED1]

read my effing post again. I called sbf a weasel, which I beleive is true. and everyone else starts calling me an idiot w/o me calling them names. Cause I call lohman an idiot or something doesnt give you grounds to call me names. I didnt make an attack on you, I made an attack on slarty. He can defend himself. get it.

You believe he is a weasel? Well, we believe you're an idiot..... and other things I can't post on AO.

[Eric Cartman]

Squid = a reasonable argument done without resorting to name calling, though I think fundamentally flawed.

...Slartybartfest, you are a jackass...

...With that aside... I think that anyone with a brain (obviously not some people...)...
...You don't give a damn, and don't pretend to. You are just a dick...
...Like I said before, anyone who isn't a total retard will see through your crap...

Good thing there was no name calling...

[WARPED1]

Good thing there was no name calling...

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, the word hypocrite creeps into my brain.

[-=Squid=-]

Good thing there was no name calling...

Ya, I was kinda wondering why he said that, too.

[WARPED1]

Ya, I was kinda wondering why he said that, too.

Um, because in your post you said "done without resorting to name calling". Then you resorted to name calling.
"slarty you are a jackass"
"You don't give a damn, and don't pretend to. You are just a dick"
"Like I said before, anyone who isn't a total retard will see through your crap"
YOU are the hypocrite ......................

[yakitori]

Um, because in your post you said "done without resorting to name calling". Then you resorted to name calling.
"slarty you are a jackass"
"You don't give a damn, and don't pretend to. You are just a dick"
"Like I said before, anyone who isn't a total retard will see through your crap"
YOU are the hypocrite ......................

idiot

[FSU_Paintball]

Might wanna tone it down a little bit, chief. How can you expect people to exhibit civil behavior towards them when you cannot yourself? It seems that whenever anyone does something you disagree with, it's justification for you to call them out on it and then do the SAME EXACT THING TO THEM in retaliation, I suppose to "teach them a lesson" or something. Good thinking.