SlideShowPro News

11.24.05 | Bizmodules.net

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Update (11/29/05): This situation has been amicably resolved. Bizmodules.net is no longer selling the software in question, and has removed all mention of it from their web site.

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I've been receiving emails from SlideShowPro users concerning Bizmodules.net, which I wrote about one post back from this, and their sale of a DotNetNuke module named "Ultra Photo Gallery."

For the record, Bizmodules.net is illegally reselling SlideShowPro as their own product. The developer is not licensed by Dominey Design to resell the component, a SWF or FLA containing the application. Yet the developer, Peng-Tsen Rogers, has refused to remove his product, and I have since learned is now responding to queries from people recognizing SlideShowPro that he verified this module with me ahead of time, which is flat out false.

The discrepancy is classic lost in translation. He sent me an email a few weeks back asking if it was okay to "distribute an FLA and SWF to his customer" and other related questions. (English is not the developer's native language I should note). From the tone of the email it sounded as though he was asking permission to give a client, or customer he developed a web site for, the original files used to create their site. Clients often ask for these materials in web projects, and while I'd rather owners of SlideShowPro not hand over an FLA, I realize there are situations where it is unavoidable. So I replied that it sounded okay to me.

But when it became clear yesterday what he was actually doing, I immediately asked him to remove the product because it was a violation of the license agreement, and not at all what I had agreed to. Peng-Tsen Rogers is refusing to comply, claims it is my fault for initially saying okay, and (thus far) sees no reason for removing it.

I'm wildly offended someone would have the nerve to flat out copy someone else's work, resell it as if it were their own, then turn around and claim I am the one at fault because I agreed to something without complete information.

So let their be no doubt -- Peng-Tsen Rogers and Bizmodules.net are breaking the law. He is not licensed to resell SlideShowPro, nor does he have permission to do so.