Originally Posted by Disaron
(exact copy for the first part)
Let's say you're a painter, and you paint a lovely forest scene. You choose a local art gallery, and display your painting there, and sell prints through them. When someone in a distant location orders a print of your painting, they can choose to have the painting shipped via either FedEx or UPS. Would you, the artist, object to this and say you did not grant FedEx or UPS permission to distribute your painting? Of course not; that's absurd. In this scenario, the painting is an addon, the gallery is WoWInterface, and FedEx and UPS are the browsers users visit and download with.
(corrections here to make it accurate)
Now let's say you go visit a relative in another city. While you're there, you decide to stop by an art gallery there and see what's popular in that area. To your surprise, you discover that the gallery has a list of paintings available from the gallery you are selling your paintings at! But instead of using FedEx and UPS, they deliver prints with their own special shipping company that specializes in delivering paintings. You did not explicitly grant this gallery permission to list your paintings, however they give a wonderful description of it and even give credit to you! (Most likely covered under fair use in copyright law) Your gallery is still getting the sale, but this time you have to use their delivery service and not FedEx or UPS. Would you say that their role in this is the same as the role of FedEx or UPS in delivering prints from your local art gallery? Pretty Close!; instead of shipping anything, they only ship paintings, and since they like your paintings so much, they've gone so far as to have a catalog at their gallery showing off your work!
There -- This example is now pretty close to what is actually happening with wowmatrix. I've pointed it out on the wow forums...and I'll do it again here really quick. Wowmatrix is not re-distributing. To do that, they would first need to download it to their website (ie, take it and have it in their gallery) which they don't do. They simply provide a list of addons (a line or two in a catalog) and provide a specialized downloader that only downloads addons (delivers paintings exclusively) . The distribution goes directly from wowinterface to you via wowmatrix (from the gallery to you via the specialized shipper).
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Ok, the second gallery is only displaying a list of paintings that you can get from them. The fact still remains if you order from them, they go to the first gallery and take the painting from them without asking. And even though they aren't using FedEX/UPS, the first gallery still has to pay shipping and handling charges as though they did ship it.
Now add to the fact, Let's say the ads are an admission fee. The first gallery is no longer getting a fee for some (a lot) people browsing the paintings, but still have pay shipping and handling for each painting going out. And the second gallery even has the nerve to ask for added donations from people looking at their list of paintings from somewhere else, in addition to their admission fee.