Slashdot Mirror

mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

Thanks to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for their article discussing a lawsuit filed again The Pokemon Company by Wizards Of The Coast, following Pokemon USA's taking-over of the (formerly?) lucrative WOTC-helmed Pokemon collectible card game franchise. The suit "alleges patent infringement, breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortuous interference with a business relationship, unjust enrichment and other claims", and mentions that "at least nine employees" have defected to Pokemon USA, and that "...all of the employees had signed non-disclosure agreements in which they agreed not to reveal confidential information to competitors." MSNBC has more information on this story, and while a WOTC spokesperson "expressed confidence that the issue... would be resolved", Pikachu declined to comment at this time.

I've been following the Jesus Castillo case for a while. The case itself is an obscenity charge for selling an adult comic to an adult undercover police officer in Dallas. Recently, the US Supreme Court denied his appeal, with the notion that obscenity is a state-level affair, despite the First Amendment being a Federal law. There's also an interview with the head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and some good ruminations from Neil Gaiman on the subject. Bad precedents for free speech - the CBDLF donations and giving to the EFF are Good Things.

I've been following the Jesus Castillo case for a while. The case itself is an obscenity charge for selling an adult comic to an adult undercover police officer in Dallas. Recently, the US Supreme Court denied his appeal, with the notion that obscenity is a state-level affair, despite the First Amendment being a Federal law. There's also an interview with the head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and some good ruminations from Neil Gaiman on the subject. Bad precedents for free speech - the CBDLF donations and giving to the EFF are Good Things.

Alan writes "FiringSquad just posted an import review of one-on-one Japanese street racing game, Sega's Initial D: Special Stage for the PlayStation 2, as based on the popular anime/manga series. They seemed to like it, with reservations." The arcade version of Initial D is a break-out title in terms of popularity, even with the limited amount of machines that have made it to the U.S., and especially with the magnetic card which "..allows players to build a totally unique custom tuned car that is personal to them". The PS2 version (here's another, more positive review from NTSC-UK) definitely looks intriguing, but is so far very unannounced outside Japan.

aronc writes "In a case of speedy justice a jury today ruled that Neil Gaiman was in the right on all 9 counts in the case he brought against Todd McFarlane. More details at ComiCon Pulse and ICv2. This case revolved around ownership stakes for Medieval Spawn, Angela, Cagliostro, and further contracts involving the rights to Miracle Man."

saitouhajime writes: "Matsushita is reporting that they've developed a method of storing 100 Gigabytes onto a standard sized dvd. Articles can be found here(1) and here(2)." 100GB on a disk would be a nice way to store backups -- but since the DVD consortium hasn't made any promises, this format may remain just a demo technology forever.

Deltan writes: "Akira fans rejoice! According to ICV2.com a game based on the classic Japanese animated film Akira is being developed by AIA for release in August, soon after the Akira remastered Video and DVD are released."