Hitman Pro using SpywareBlaster - is this legal?

Hi,

A program called 'Hitman Pro' has become very succesful in The Netherlands. It combines several tools, among which SpywareBlaster. Unfortunately for most of you, the official Hitman Pro site is in Dutch: http://www.hitmanpro.nl/

Does the author of Hitman Pro get permission from Javacool to offer SpywareBlaster as a part of his own program? In other words: is this legal?

 

I think it is not a part of Hitman Pro, because Hitman Pro is not a program. To me it is sort of interface for some well known toys and intend to be used by the average home user.
Just my 2 cents.

Gerard

 

Yes, I know Hitman is not really a stand-alone spyware-remover but rather a 'shell' which combines some well-known antispyware-tools. Yet, I can't help but wonder if this is legit. Hitman Pro is very successful in The Netherlands and the author (Mark Loman) gets a lot of donations. But shouldn't these donations go to the people who created programs like AdAware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster in the first place? Mark Loman seems to be getting the credits (AND the donations!) for software that was not developed by him but by, among others, Javacool, Lavasoft, and PepiMK...

Yesterday, a well-known Dutch newspaper published an article about Hitman Pro. No credits were given to Javacool, Lavasoft and PepiMK at all... Hitman Pro was simply presented as "the ultimate spyware removal tool developed by Mark Loman". I would think that, above all, the authors of AdAware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster deserve a great deal of the credits...

By the way, the official homepage of Hitman Pro does not make clear at all if Mark Loman has gotten permission from Javacool, Lavasoft en PepiMK to use (or 'abuse'?) their software in this way.
Hitman Pro doesn't even have a privacy policy...

So, to me, there still seems to be enough reason to ask the question: is this legal?

 

I suspect Javacool is the only one who can answer on this matter for sure.




snowbound

 

Rizla (i use it) and Snowbound you are both right with your question and statement. Might be interesting to hear from Javacool and the other guys about this issue, to me it was never a question who develops these great progs. I think what newspaper you are referring to, and it is sad they dont look further than the lenght of their nose
Cheers,

Gerard

 

Yep....because the only way someone can use Spywareblaster for this purpose is to request permission from LICENSOR.

Code:

[I]said by [U]license.txt[/U] file:[/I]
5. Limited Permission to Copy: 

You may make copies of the SOFTWARE PACKAGE for backup purposes, or
give the SOFTWARE PACKAGE to individual friends for personal and
educational use IF AND ONLY IF ALL FILES REMAIN UNCHANGED AND INTACT,
AND NO FILES ARE ADDED.

If you wish to mirror this SOFTWARE PACKAGE, or include it on any
compilation medium, you must request permission from LICENSOR 
by sending an e-mail to the address listed on the Contact page of
www.javacoolsoftware.com. You may NOT include this SOFTWARE
PACKAGE on any compilation mediums where you charge more than
the cost of the medium itself (i.e. you may not charge for this 
SOFTWARE PACKAGE, but you may recoup the cost of the CD-ROM
or other media it is placed on).  ALL FILES MUST REMAIN UNCHANGED
AND INTACT, AND NO FILES MAY BE ADDED TO THIS DISTRIBUTION.

 

Indeed - and no permission was given.

In fact, attempts were made a while ago to contact the author, with no success.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

If Javacool here says no permission was given, then I'm quite sure no permission was given. You see, there is no "they" in Javacool - just the one man and that's him making that reply. Now you have contact with him so rectification seems in order.

 

There's no "pro" version of SpywareBlaster - rather, we rely on donations and AutoUpdate subscriptions to help cover costs. (And we're very thankful for everyone who has helped us! )

Back in April of 2004 (before the new website and location). No response was ever obtained.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

J-P IT is right. I "invented" the program called Hitman Pro and began working on this handy tool in August 2004. The tool was used by my friends who were delighted that I build it since the tools Hitman Pro controls are next to unusable for the average computer user in The Netherlands (no flame intended).

But the fact is, Javacoolsoft has NEVER contacted me. So if they contacted me in April 2004, what was that for?
As a matter of fact I contacted Javacoolsoft in December 2004 for Hitman Pro 2. Since I want to build a German and English (and perhaps French) version so the world can enjoy a spyware-free computer. But to this day I have not heared from them. I proposed to Javacoolsoft if I could use and how I should implement a referral to SpywareBlaster - in fact some sort of "alliance".

On the subject of the publicity Hitman Pro got in popular news paper in The Netherlands, I have not written any of those texts nor did I had any insight prior to publication. They called me and asked some questions and I clearly stated that it uses other freely available tools on the Internet.
And it is clear that the majority of the readers have not read my site at all because on my site it is quite clear that my tool is just a shell for launching a series of actions using well known anti-spyware tools. Nothing more.

It is not my intention to make money out of this, what I also mentioned in my e-mail to Javacoolsoft in December 2004. My purpose is to give people a handy tool they can use to get rid of spyware, which is becoming a great problem in the computer world. It is neither my purpose to discredit or receive credits for actions performed by tools made by others.
I do not know who the user Rizla is on this forum but where does he get the information that I get a lot of donations? I can barely keep the site up and running with all the traffic (50 GB a month, not even counting the downloads of the hitmanpro installer which I estimate on 4 terabytes (!) a month which is the reason I have the installer on a different server which is a bit cheaper for me). Just because of the attention I receive lately.

Edit: Some spell errors.