6 ms·

City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

161 points by genedan 4y ago

speeder 4y ago
DMCA is such an epically shitty law. Only worse is that other countries are happily copying the law too.
- devmor 4y ago
  Lets remember that the DMCA is what allows providers like youtube to host content without being liable to the copyright infringement of its users. The takedown provision sucks, but its an essential law for the open internet to even exist.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    false dilemmas are seen to intentionally omit the possibility of additional options and approaches
  - throwaway1777 4y ago
    I thought the reason was section 230 not dmca.
    - ameliaquining 4y ago
      Section 230 doesn't apply to copyright infringement claims (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title47-section230&num=0&edition=prelim#substructure-location_e_2 https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim...). Immunity from copyright infringement claims relies on the DMCA's safe harbor provisions.
  - Oxidation 4y ago
    The legal requirement to act instantly on the automatic presumption of the claimants being both right and acting in good faith with no evidence required isn't required to avoid liability. They could have required some higher standard of proof of ownership and as long as they followed the process, YouTube would have the same protection. The system is specifically designed to be gamed by claimants.
    - SideQuark 4y ago
      It works the other way: it let's a site post user content without the user having to prove legal clearance for the content. Without this, there would be no sites allowing users to post nearly anything. In exchange for this freedom, the sites have to agree to some resolution format for when a copyright complaint is triggered. So the system is not designed to be gamed by claimants. It's designed to give legal protections to hosts of sites. But this is most definitely a carveout to protect sites. Without the law no one would face to liability of hosting user generated content.
      - catiopatio 4y ago
        The DMCA was passed in 1998. You do realize we had a fully functioning internet filled with user-generated content before 1998, right?
        SideQuark 4y ago
        Yet not one of the biggest sites with user content was formed before the DMCA. Why didn't any of those fully functioning internet user sites dominate? Certainly other, non-user content sites from then were big. Its almost as if providing safe harbor allowed such sites to grow......
        Oxidation 4y ago
        With as much evidence, one can say that it's almost as if the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 allowed it. Geocities, say, was huge before the DMCA and died after it.
        SideQuark 4y ago
        Geocities had ~1.8M users in Dec 1997. They were often sued for copyright (e.g., here[1]) infringement since then providers were liable. This made it harder for them to raise money, since as copyright holders became more saavy about what companies were doing on the internet, they were increasingly targeting them. After DMCA when those suits were gone, they raised $$$, became much more valuable, grew, and soon got bought by Yahoo. They went from the 5th most visited to 3rd, even with much more competition. They grew the user base. The same thing happened to Tripod and Angelfire from that time. Instead of trying to cherry pick one example, look at all companies before and after. That is the accurate way to see what happened. If you think the safe harbor content protection did not and does not matter, look how hard current companies are pushing to keep Congress from removing such laws. [1] https://washingtontechnology.com/1996/11/publishers-push-piracy-plan-on-providers/334487/ https://washingtontechnology.com/1996/11/publishers-push-pir...
  - Adraghast 4y ago
    Considering the open internet existed before DMCA did, I suspect “essential” is an exaggeration.
    - RockRobotRock 4y ago
      Internet wasn't that fast, consumers weren't informed, legislators weren't informed.
      - cld8483 4y ago
        The internet was more than fast enough for copyright infringement. Copywritten books, images, and even music were commonly shared online before the DMCA was passed.
      - Adraghast 4y ago
        The criteria was existence. It existed. Could the internet exist in a way that makes the RIAA/MPAA/etc happy without DMCA? Maybe not. But there’s no reason to assume their happiness is a requirement, or even desirable.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Lets remember that the DMCA is what allows providers like youtube to host content without being liable to the copyright infringement of its users. It arguably doesn’t actually allow sites very specifically like Youtube to do that, which is why YouTube has a separate and more draconian arrangement with major rights holders, created in response to previous litigation and litigation threats, and is also currently being sued by a variety of rights holders in a suit which hasn’t been easily been barred by the DMCA safe harbor.
- Oxidation 4y ago
  > DMCA mechanics just not works, seems like anybody can claim anything, the service provider is just forced to remove the content and in general not ask or nor the considering if the claims are real. It works extremely well, if you consider who the beneficiaries are (who also happened to write it).
- Ekaros 4y ago
  To me it isn't that horrible process. You are own a small forum or site. You get DMCA takedown, you take content down and are safe. Send notification to uploader. They disagree. You can put stuff back up. You are not liable for damages after this. And really shouldn't be expected to fight. Now it is up to the two other parties to fight it out. This is where the system fails, because whole process is long and expensive. But so is any other legal action. Maybe consider fixing that reality first.
  - noxvilleza 4y ago
    The safe-harbor part isn't bad. What's bad is that people can file an obviously bogus DMCA takedown request with zero repercussions. Companies that host content do basically nothing to actually verify that the takedown request is even from a real person (nevermind the original copyright holder). A better system would be one that allows the uploader to take the takedown issuer to court, and if the takedown request was clearly malicious and bogus then the takedown issuer would get a penalty. This approach would still allow a legitimate takedown request, but not be forced the issuer into taking a contested case to court.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > The safe-harbor part isn't bad. What's bad is that people can file an obviously bogus DMCA takedown request with zero repercussions. The takedown process is part of, and only relevant to, the safe-harbor provision. > Companies that host content do basically nothing to actually verify that the takedown request is even from a real person (nevermind the original copyright holder). Because not complying with a correct-in-form takedown puts them outside of the dafe harbor. The uploader can, of course, challenge the false takedown (and the host can decide they don't care about safe harbor, but they won't in practice, nor will they normally care as much about safe harbor against claims by the uploader, so counternotice compliance may be less enthusiastic than takedown compliance.) > A better system would be one that allows the uploader to take the takedown issuer to court You can do this. A false takedown is false, damaging statement of fact and actionable as such, it may also be actionable as tortious interference, and a number of other things.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say that this is necessary because transparency will allow bad actors to game the system, but their solution to this to make society into an oppressive panopticon; the cure is worse than the disease. Further, the ignore the degree to which the lack of transparency is already weaponized by bad faith actors.
  - cld8483 4y ago
    If the default most common way of complying with a law is shitty behavior, then the law itself is shitty. Good laws don't incentivize bad behavior.
  - Zak 4y ago
    The broken part of the notice/takedown/counter-notice process is that a takedown requires prompt action, but a counter-notice requires a waiting period. Removing the waiting period and relying on damages to make the copyright holder whole seems like a more fair process. I think the anticircumvention part of the DMCA is what's really shitty, but that's a tangent.
  - fivre 4y ago
    Yes. In general, DMCA was written by rightsholder lawyers early in the internet's lifetime to maximize their power and minimize their responsibilities or damages if they abuse it. The prevalence of systems like Youtube's contentID allowing (often real, but also often flimsily alleged) rightsholders to nigh-unilaterally capture all value on the barest suggestion of unlicensed use is abysmal and calls for a compulsory license system more akin to radio, but rightsholders don't want that because compulsory licenses don't let them negotiate megaprofit deals on their own terms. The anti-circumvention provsions are also a trash fire. DRM regimes are some hot consumer-hostile bullshit that have no (legal) alternative because the law is behind them and heavily weighted towards the needs and wants of major IP holders. Modern US copyright law is designed primarily to maximize profits and enforcement mechanisms for entrenched interests with little regard for anything that isn't, idk, Beyonce tier of actually needing that much licensing cruft. There's some joke somewhere about ours being the first few generations to systematically deny ourselves access to our own culture because biglaw is more than happy to cut off its cultural nose to spite its face so long as the money train keeps flowing for the few elites that really benefit from the current system. We have a walled garden that will likely never fall because life is peachy if you're inside the garden already, and anyone outside can't compete with the financial and lobbying muscle of those inside it without operating in legal gray areas at best.
wellthisisgreat 4y ago
It baffles me that there are no legal repercussions for abuse of DMCA / IP / copyright instruments. People who do this without grounds should be punished/fines for abusing the system proportionate to what they claim.
- jackmott 4y ago
  [dead]
- yeahbutiguess 4y ago
  I mean, there is. It's perjury. And the target of a false claim can sue the party who made the claim for damages and attorney's fees.
  - Someone1234 4y ago
    So if you're rich and have the time there may be consequences, but ultimately since anyone can file a false DMCA notice, there's really no assurance that you will ever get your own lawyer's fees back let alone damages (even if they were awarded). Perjury is a pretty terrible mechanism, frankly. The whole law was and is poorly conceived.
  - cesaref 4y ago
    I'm not so sure. It's a fact that he was involved in the development of this new feature, and it's his opinion that he originated the idea. Whether he did or not is for a court to decide, but he's not committing perjury by believing this. Now if he knows he didn't originate the idea and has brought vexatious proceedings, then sure, this may be perjury, but we are some way off knowing this, and i don't think we'll be in a position to determine this either way.
    - SideQuark 4y ago
      Ideas aren't copyrightable. If they're not using his code or art or actual copyrightable materials, then there is no copyright infringement.
    - 4y ago
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Maybe a case for EFF?
kyleyeats 4y ago
The fan is a lawyer too. What a nightmare.
lagniappe 4y ago
I'm curious what the legal precedent on this. If intellectual property, concepts, lore, can be protected, does this person have a claim here even though they didn't write the code? Is there a statutory norm for percentages in cases like these? This has to be terrible for small dev shops to face, I'd imagine enough litigating and good projects just fold up shop unable to afford their own defense cost.
- ww520 4y ago
  In general ideas are not copyrightable. Expression of ideas are copyrightable. Anyone can sue you for whatever reason. The court can throw the case out but it’s a nuisance to you.
fakedang 4y ago
Ironically, it seems that fan would fit perfectly as a bureaucrat in a Soviet Republic.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Maybe he'll be defenestrated instead of disbarred.
- 6510 4y ago
  If his realistic game mode is as good as his real world game mode they should hire him.
- itronitron 4y ago
  This is like a reboot of "Mazes and Monsters" [0] forty years later. 0. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/ 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/mediaviewer/rm1883108353/?ref_=tt_md_6 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/mediaviewer/rm188310835...
CodeWriter23 4y ago
I hope instead of accepting a settlement when lawyer boy starts to cry uncle they take it all the way to the end and bankrupt and disbar him.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Rebelgecko 4y ago
If this attorney is filing BS DMCA claims, hopefully they'll give a gentle heads-up to his local bar association
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Youtube takedowns aren't DMCA requests. There is no legal penalty for perjury. It's just a good old fashioned mob shakedown. In this case neither party is even subject to US law so even more irrelevant.
  - roughly 4y ago
    FTA: > Matters have now escalated to the point where the game itself has been taken off Steam due to a DMCA request, and the player is “now claiming that they own the rights to the [realistic] game mode”
  - kube-system 4y ago
    YouTube has an internal system for handing requests apart of DMCA but videos may also be taken down from YouTube via a DMCA request per law. “Takedown” is a word often used interchangeably for a video taken down via either method.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    What about Steam takedowns?
    - yeahbutiguess 4y ago
      Steam responds to DMCA, as far as I'm aware, and doesn't have a separate process.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Institutional remedies which require years of process for abuses that can be carried out in seconds or minutes are fundamentally inadequate.
swatcoder 4y ago
This is awful. But it’s also why many “old media” producers and companies in the entertainment and music industry have careful policies around refusing to receive or acknowledge ideas and content from outside the organization. It’s much harder for some fan-writer to pursue spurious legal credit for some plot idea or script content when you maintain an official policy to bin unsolicited submissions and to never acknowledge work shared in public. That’s tricky for “new media” companies since consumers now expect direct engagement with publishers, especially for “indie” artists, but the old system was designed to guard against stuff like this.
- tumult 4y ago
  These are apparently false DMCA letters. Attribution or payments aren’t really relevant. According to the article, the person filing the claims has no ownership of the copyright. Even if they were being ripped off (which it doesn’t seem like they are) that wouldn’t give them ownership of the copyright.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    The person is claiming rights to a version of the game not yet released because they wrote a game guide about how to do it and the game creators agreed to credit him in the new IP. This has led to him filing the DMCA requests and initiating a claim against the new product. The DMCA requests appear to be retaliatory. That's my understanding from the minimal information provided in the article. Note however we are getting one side of this story -- the developers. I have no idea what is going on and it is surprising how many times things swing around when both parties are heard (the Doom Eternal soundtrack issues come to mind)[0]. [0] https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-doom-eternal-5f98266b27ce https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-d...
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      "They" implies multiple, and you are starting the sentence with a singular "the person", and finish the sentence with singular "him". Just stop playing stupid grammar games.
sidewndr46 4y ago
I don't think these developers have much of a grip on reality. They stated that Valve could suffer financial harm if the game stays off Steam. I don't think they realize how much money Valve makes.
- klondike_ 4y ago
  I think they're talking about the bad precident it sets.
- RockRobotRock 4y ago
  Of course they have to say things like that to attract attention to their cause. I doubt they're that naive.
- eska 4y ago
  I don’t think they’re trying to say that he’s bankrupting Valve, but that he will be bankrupted by the damages he will have to pay..
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  What does the total income of valve have to do with it. Lost profit is still harm.
- yeahbutiguess 4y ago
  Valve could, hypothetically, be the target of a suit for damages if they do not comply with the DMCA counter claim. Odds are good that valve will just do everything it can to be by the book and get out of the way.
cratermoon 4y ago
"DMCA mechanics just not works"
fsloth 4y ago
It sounds the fan has no basis for their claim, but due to their background they are able to craft professional claims. I guess the lesson is always expect someone try to screw you via legal pathway (if you read about history of any field this seems to be a quite recurring pattern - if you have a business, you better lawyer up sooner than later).
alexander-wilms 4y ago
[flagged]
thomastjeffery 4y ago
My perspective: the fan is not "going rogue". This story is copyright itself brought to its objective conclusion. Everything here, the petty IP ownership claim, the expectation to have that ownership literally applied, the reactionary griefing, etc. is all baked in to what copyright is at its very foundations. This person is simply playing out the function of copyright as an ideology in their interactions with the game company and its business presence. They feel they have the right to monopolize the product of their intellectual work, because copyright says so. They feel they can interrupt the sales of the game because copyright says so. And most important, they feel that they should do these things, because the very existence of copyright, and it's foundational social purpose, tell them it's in their best interest, and their "best interest" is tantamount. This isn't just a story about copyright, it's copyright itself told as a story, just with real people as subjects. So let's stop pretending. This is ugly, frivolous, unhelpful, and damaging. This is copyright law. This is an exposition of the social malware that copyright is, was, and ever will be.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  No, it isn’t. The fact that you can make a false claim in copyright law and cause damage is not an indictment of the system of copyright.
  - stonogo 4y ago
    What evidence do you have that the claim is false?
    - filoleg 4y ago
      Why would a tiny Slovakian studio loudly proclaim that they are planning to continue fighting this lawsuit, if they believed that they were in the wrong? Especially given that the studio knows they are being directly sued by a lawyer who feels wronged and has a personal vendetta against them. Not even mentioning, above all, that DMCA strikes have been weaponized and abused by powerful players before. More importantly, I believe that the burden of proof is on the accuser, and so far the only thing the've done is filing DMCA takedown requests. Which have a notoriously low bar for what constitutes "evidence", thus making it a very useful instrument for harassment. Unless we discover that the developers simply lied in their official statement on the issue, the current situation seems like a fairly typical DMCA abuse case. Since they are planning to fight the DMCA takedowns, I expect we will find out the truth soon enough. Disclaimer: I am not trying to write some anti-DMCA manifesto, but just to simply illustrate the reality of the situation. DMCA is an imperfect solution to a problem, and I believe it certainly could be done better and/or improved. However, it is easier said than done, as I don't have a proposal in mind for a better system. Getting rid of DMCA entirely without introducing a replacement mechanism is just going to open up another problematic can of worms, so I am not going to advocate for that until I have something better in mind.
Havoc 4y ago
Bit like a patent troll except unstable jumped up lawyer fan edition...
isitmadeofglass 4y ago
[dead]

161 points by genedan 4y ago

speeder 4y ago

DMCA is such an epically shitty law. Only worse is that other countries are happily copying the law too.

devmor 4y ago
Lets remember that the DMCA is what allows providers like youtube to host content without being liable to the copyright infringement of its users. The takedown provision sucks, but its an essential law for the open internet to even exist.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  false dilemmas are seen to intentionally omit the possibility of additional options and approaches
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  I thought the reason was section 230 not dmca.
  - ameliaquining 4y ago
    Section 230 doesn't apply to copyright infringement claims (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title47-section230&num=0&edition=prelim#substructure-location_e_2 https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim...). Immunity from copyright infringement claims relies on the DMCA's safe harbor provisions.
- Oxidation 4y ago
  The legal requirement to act instantly on the automatic presumption of the claimants being both right and acting in good faith with no evidence required isn't required to avoid liability. They could have required some higher standard of proof of ownership and as long as they followed the process, YouTube would have the same protection. The system is specifically designed to be gamed by claimants.
  - SideQuark 4y ago
    It works the other way: it let's a site post user content without the user having to prove legal clearance for the content. Without this, there would be no sites allowing users to post nearly anything. In exchange for this freedom, the sites have to agree to some resolution format for when a copyright complaint is triggered. So the system is not designed to be gamed by claimants. It's designed to give legal protections to hosts of sites. But this is most definitely a carveout to protect sites. Without the law no one would face to liability of hosting user generated content.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      The DMCA was passed in 1998. You do realize we had a fully functioning internet filled with user-generated content before 1998, right?
      - SideQuark 4y ago
        Yet not one of the biggest sites with user content was formed before the DMCA. Why didn't any of those fully functioning internet user sites dominate? Certainly other, non-user content sites from then were big. Its almost as if providing safe harbor allowed such sites to grow......
        Oxidation 4y ago
        With as much evidence, one can say that it's almost as if the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 allowed it. Geocities, say, was huge before the DMCA and died after it.
        SideQuark 4y ago
        Geocities had ~1.8M users in Dec 1997. They were often sued for copyright (e.g., here[1]) infringement since then providers were liable. This made it harder for them to raise money, since as copyright holders became more saavy about what companies were doing on the internet, they were increasingly targeting them. After DMCA when those suits were gone, they raised $$$, became much more valuable, grew, and soon got bought by Yahoo. They went from the 5th most visited to 3rd, even with much more competition. They grew the user base. The same thing happened to Tripod and Angelfire from that time. Instead of trying to cherry pick one example, look at all companies before and after. That is the accurate way to see what happened. If you think the safe harbor content protection did not and does not matter, look how hard current companies are pushing to keep Congress from removing such laws. [1] https://washingtontechnology.com/1996/11/publishers-push-piracy-plan-on-providers/334487/ https://washingtontechnology.com/1996/11/publishers-push-pir...
- Adraghast 4y ago
  Considering the open internet existed before DMCA did, I suspect “essential” is an exaggeration.
  - RockRobotRock 4y ago
    Internet wasn't that fast, consumers weren't informed, legislators weren't informed.
    - cld8483 4y ago
      The internet was more than fast enough for copyright infringement. Copywritten books, images, and even music were commonly shared online before the DMCA was passed.
    - Adraghast 4y ago
      The criteria was existence. It existed. Could the internet exist in a way that makes the RIAA/MPAA/etc happy without DMCA? Maybe not. But there’s no reason to assume their happiness is a requirement, or even desirable.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Lets remember that the DMCA is what allows providers like youtube to host content without being liable to the copyright infringement of its users. It arguably doesn’t actually allow sites very specifically like Youtube to do that, which is why YouTube has a separate and more draconian arrangement with major rights holders, created in response to previous litigation and litigation threats, and is also currently being sued by a variety of rights holders in a suit which hasn’t been easily been barred by the DMCA safe harbor.
Oxidation 4y ago
> DMCA mechanics just not works, seems like anybody can claim anything, the service provider is just forced to remove the content and in general not ask or nor the considering if the claims are real. It works extremely well, if you consider who the beneficiaries are (who also happened to write it).
Ekaros 4y ago
To me it isn't that horrible process. You are own a small forum or site. You get DMCA takedown, you take content down and are safe. Send notification to uploader. They disagree. You can put stuff back up. You are not liable for damages after this. And really shouldn't be expected to fight. Now it is up to the two other parties to fight it out. This is where the system fails, because whole process is long and expensive. But so is any other legal action. Maybe consider fixing that reality first.
- noxvilleza 4y ago
  The safe-harbor part isn't bad. What's bad is that people can file an obviously bogus DMCA takedown request with zero repercussions. Companies that host content do basically nothing to actually verify that the takedown request is even from a real person (nevermind the original copyright holder). A better system would be one that allows the uploader to take the takedown issuer to court, and if the takedown request was clearly malicious and bogus then the takedown issuer would get a penalty. This approach would still allow a legitimate takedown request, but not be forced the issuer into taking a contested case to court.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The safe-harbor part isn't bad. What's bad is that people can file an obviously bogus DMCA takedown request with zero repercussions. The takedown process is part of, and only relevant to, the safe-harbor provision. > Companies that host content do basically nothing to actually verify that the takedown request is even from a real person (nevermind the original copyright holder). Because not complying with a correct-in-form takedown puts them outside of the dafe harbor. The uploader can, of course, challenge the false takedown (and the host can decide they don't care about safe harbor, but they won't in practice, nor will they normally care as much about safe harbor against claims by the uploader, so counternotice compliance may be less enthusiastic than takedown compliance.) > A better system would be one that allows the uploader to take the takedown issuer to court You can do this. A false takedown is false, damaging statement of fact and actionable as such, it may also be actionable as tortious interference, and a number of other things.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say that this is necessary because transparency will allow bad actors to game the system, but their solution to this to make society into an oppressive panopticon; the cure is worse than the disease. Further, the ignore the degree to which the lack of transparency is already weaponized by bad faith actors.
- cld8483 4y ago
  If the default most common way of complying with a law is shitty behavior, then the law itself is shitty. Good laws don't incentivize bad behavior.
- Zak 4y ago
  The broken part of the notice/takedown/counter-notice process is that a takedown requires prompt action, but a counter-notice requires a waiting period. Removing the waiting period and relying on damages to make the copyright holder whole seems like a more fair process. I think the anticircumvention part of the DMCA is what's really shitty, but that's a tangent.
- fivre 4y ago
  Yes. In general, DMCA was written by rightsholder lawyers early in the internet's lifetime to maximize their power and minimize their responsibilities or damages if they abuse it. The prevalence of systems like Youtube's contentID allowing (often real, but also often flimsily alleged) rightsholders to nigh-unilaterally capture all value on the barest suggestion of unlicensed use is abysmal and calls for a compulsory license system more akin to radio, but rightsholders don't want that because compulsory licenses don't let them negotiate megaprofit deals on their own terms. The anti-circumvention provsions are also a trash fire. DRM regimes are some hot consumer-hostile bullshit that have no (legal) alternative because the law is behind them and heavily weighted towards the needs and wants of major IP holders. Modern US copyright law is designed primarily to maximize profits and enforcement mechanisms for entrenched interests with little regard for anything that isn't, idk, Beyonce tier of actually needing that much licensing cruft. There's some joke somewhere about ours being the first few generations to systematically deny ourselves access to our own culture because biglaw is more than happy to cut off its cultural nose to spite its face so long as the money train keeps flowing for the few elites that really benefit from the current system. We have a walled garden that will likely never fall because life is peachy if you're inside the garden already, and anyone outside can't compete with the financial and lobbying muscle of those inside it without operating in legal gray areas at best.

wellthisisgreat 4y ago

It baffles me that there are no legal repercussions for abuse of DMCA / IP / copyright instruments. People who do this without grounds should be punished/fines for abusing the system proportionate to what they claim.

jackmott 4y ago
[dead]
yeahbutiguess 4y ago
I mean, there is. It's perjury. And the target of a false claim can sue the party who made the claim for damages and attorney's fees.
- Someone1234 4y ago
  So if you're rich and have the time there may be consequences, but ultimately since anyone can file a false DMCA notice, there's really no assurance that you will ever get your own lawyer's fees back let alone damages (even if they were awarded). Perjury is a pretty terrible mechanism, frankly. The whole law was and is poorly conceived.
- cesaref 4y ago
  I'm not so sure. It's a fact that he was involved in the development of this new feature, and it's his opinion that he originated the idea. Whether he did or not is for a court to decide, but he's not committing perjury by believing this. Now if he knows he didn't originate the idea and has brought vexatious proceedings, then sure, this may be perjury, but we are some way off knowing this, and i don't think we'll be in a position to determine this either way.
  - SideQuark 4y ago
    Ideas aren't copyrightable. If they're not using his code or art or actual copyrightable materials, then there is no copyright infringement.
  - 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Maybe a case for EFF?

kyleyeats 4y ago

The fan is a lawyer too. What a nightmare.

lagniappe 4y ago

I'm curious what the legal precedent on this. If intellectual property, concepts, lore, can be protected, does this person have a claim here even though they didn't write the code? Is there a statutory norm for percentages in cases like these? This has to be terrible for small dev shops to face, I'd imagine enough litigating and good projects just fold up shop unable to afford their own defense cost.

ww520 4y ago
In general ideas are not copyrightable. Expression of ideas are copyrightable. Anyone can sue you for whatever reason. The court can throw the case out but it’s a nuisance to you.

fakedang 4y ago

Ironically, it seems that fan would fit perfectly as a bureaucrat in a Soviet Republic.

DonHopkins 4y ago
Maybe he'll be defenestrated instead of disbarred.
6510 4y ago
If his realistic game mode is as good as his real world game mode they should hire him.
itronitron 4y ago
This is like a reboot of "Mazes and Monsters" [0] forty years later. 0. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/ 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/mediaviewer/rm1883108353/?ref_=tt_md_6 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/mediaviewer/rm188310835...

CodeWriter23 4y ago

I hope instead of accepting a settlement when lawyer boy starts to cry uncle they take it all the way to the end and bankrupt and disbar him.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Rebelgecko 4y ago

If this attorney is filing BS DMCA claims, hopefully they'll give a gentle heads-up to his local bar association

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Youtube takedowns aren't DMCA requests. There is no legal penalty for perjury. It's just a good old fashioned mob shakedown. In this case neither party is even subject to US law so even more irrelevant.
- roughly 4y ago
  FTA: > Matters have now escalated to the point where the game itself has been taken off Steam due to a DMCA request, and the player is “now claiming that they own the rights to the [realistic] game mode”
- kube-system 4y ago
  YouTube has an internal system for handing requests apart of DMCA but videos may also be taken down from YouTube via a DMCA request per law. “Takedown” is a word often used interchangeably for a video taken down via either method.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  What about Steam takedowns?
  - yeahbutiguess 4y ago
    Steam responds to DMCA, as far as I'm aware, and doesn't have a separate process.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Institutional remedies which require years of process for abuses that can be carried out in seconds or minutes are fundamentally inadequate.

swatcoder 4y ago

This is awful. But it’s also why many “old media” producers and companies in the entertainment and music industry have careful policies around refusing to receive or acknowledge ideas and content from outside the organization. It’s much harder for some fan-writer to pursue spurious legal credit for some plot idea or script content when you maintain an official policy to bin unsolicited submissions and to never acknowledge work shared in public. That’s tricky for “new media” companies since consumers now expect direct engagement with publishers, especially for “indie” artists, but the old system was designed to guard against stuff like this.

tumult 4y ago
These are apparently false DMCA letters. Attribution or payments aren’t really relevant. According to the article, the person filing the claims has no ownership of the copyright. Even if they were being ripped off (which it doesn’t seem like they are) that wouldn’t give them ownership of the copyright.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  The person is claiming rights to a version of the game not yet released because they wrote a game guide about how to do it and the game creators agreed to credit him in the new IP. This has led to him filing the DMCA requests and initiating a claim against the new product. The DMCA requests appear to be retaliatory. That's my understanding from the minimal information provided in the article. Note however we are getting one side of this story -- the developers. I have no idea what is going on and it is surprising how many times things swing around when both parties are heard (the Doom Eternal soundtrack issues come to mind)[0]. [0] https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-doom-eternal-5f98266b27ce https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-d...
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    "They" implies multiple, and you are starting the sentence with a singular "the person", and finish the sentence with singular "him". Just stop playing stupid grammar games.

sidewndr46 4y ago

I don't think these developers have much of a grip on reality. They stated that Valve could suffer financial harm if the game stays off Steam. I don't think they realize how much money Valve makes.

klondike_ 4y ago
I think they're talking about the bad precident it sets.
RockRobotRock 4y ago
Of course they have to say things like that to attract attention to their cause. I doubt they're that naive.
eska 4y ago
I don’t think they’re trying to say that he’s bankrupting Valve, but that he will be bankrupted by the damages he will have to pay..
s1artibartfast 4y ago
What does the total income of valve have to do with it. Lost profit is still harm.
yeahbutiguess 4y ago
Valve could, hypothetically, be the target of a suit for damages if they do not comply with the DMCA counter claim. Odds are good that valve will just do everything it can to be by the book and get out of the way.

cratermoon 4y ago

"DMCA mechanics just not works"

fsloth 4y ago

It sounds the fan has no basis for their claim, but due to their background they are able to craft professional claims. I guess the lesson is always expect someone try to screw you via legal pathway (if you read about history of any field this seems to be a quite recurring pattern - if you have a business, you better lawyer up sooner than later).

alexander-wilms 4y ago

[flagged]

thomastjeffery 4y ago

My perspective: the fan is not "going rogue". This story is copyright itself brought to its objective conclusion. Everything here, the petty IP ownership claim, the expectation to have that ownership literally applied, the reactionary griefing, etc. is all baked in to what copyright is at its very foundations. This person is simply playing out the function of copyright as an ideology in their interactions with the game company and its business presence. They feel they have the right to monopolize the product of their intellectual work, because copyright says so. They feel they can interrupt the sales of the game because copyright says so. And most important, they feel that they should do these things, because the very existence of copyright, and it's foundational social purpose, tell them it's in their best interest, and their "best interest" is tantamount. This isn't just a story about copyright, it's copyright itself told as a story, just with real people as subjects. So let's stop pretending. This is ugly, frivolous, unhelpful, and damaging. This is copyright law. This is an exposition of the social malware that copyright is, was, and ever will be.

lazyasciiart 4y ago
No, it isn’t. The fact that you can make a false claim in copyright law and cause damage is not an indictment of the system of copyright.
- stonogo 4y ago
  What evidence do you have that the claim is false?
  - filoleg 4y ago
    Why would a tiny Slovakian studio loudly proclaim that they are planning to continue fighting this lawsuit, if they believed that they were in the wrong? Especially given that the studio knows they are being directly sued by a lawyer who feels wronged and has a personal vendetta against them. Not even mentioning, above all, that DMCA strikes have been weaponized and abused by powerful players before. More importantly, I believe that the burden of proof is on the accuser, and so far the only thing the've done is filing DMCA takedown requests. Which have a notoriously low bar for what constitutes "evidence", thus making it a very useful instrument for harassment. Unless we discover that the developers simply lied in their official statement on the issue, the current situation seems like a fairly typical DMCA abuse case. Since they are planning to fight the DMCA takedowns, I expect we will find out the truth soon enough. Disclaimer: I am not trying to write some anti-DMCA manifesto, but just to simply illustrate the reality of the situation. DMCA is an imperfect solution to a problem, and I believe it certainly could be done better and/or improved. However, it is easier said than done, as I don't have a proposal in mind for a better system. Getting rid of DMCA entirely without introducing a replacement mechanism is just going to open up another problematic can of worms, so I am not going to advocate for that until I have something better in mind.

Havoc 4y ago

Bit like a patent troll except unstable jumped up lawyer fan edition...

isitmadeofglass 4y ago

[dead]