Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules For Connectix, Against Sony
Robotech_Master writes "According to this article in Wired News, a court has just dismissed many of Sony's charges against Connectix in the Virtual Game Station emulation case, noting that 'both copyright and trademark law favor broad consumer choice.'"
There was one news story in the last day that may prove to be extremely important, although it was not in slashdot. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Violence Against Women act, because they said that Congress had no authority to pass the act. Congress said that the law derived its authority from the instetstate commerce clause, and the Supreme Court said, in effect, "no way."
Violence against women is an awful thing, but justifying it on the grounds of interstate commerce is almost offensive. It feels like almost a direct reference to the idea that virginity or chastity is property, and to rape or attack over sexual reasons is a violation of that property. That's as bothersome as the bloody sheet that gets hung out for the village to see that the new wife was a virgin--it's Just Not Cool.
Now, the real justification that the federal government seems to want to use is, "When a state is unwilling or unable to effect Justice within its territory, the federal government may interdict and enforce its jurisdiction on the uncontrolled territory." State, in this sense, seems to refer to both State of the Union and State in the World.
And, to be honest, I'm just not that sure that's a bad thing. Should require some pretty extreme violations of justice, though.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
http://www.detonate.net/blade/index.php3?page=18
There are a couple things to consider if you're Sony when you look at bleem! and VGS and then throw the bleem! port to Dreamcast into the mix.
Sony has more of an issue with the VGS people reverse engineering the PSX copy protection scheme than emulating the machine itself. This is quite significant in that bleem! couldn't afford to fight Sony on this one and consequently bleem! backed down and does not check the integrity of playstation cd's.
Of course it is widely known that console game companies make more money selling the games than the consoles themselves. I personally think it is a misconception that Sony wants to quaff emulation. I just think that they want to make sure that they get a piece of the profits. If VGS had licensed the copy protection from Sony and Sony had gotten a kickback from the sale of each copy of VGS, lawsuits would have probably been a non-issue as all that VGS could possibly do to Sony is broaden their market and their popularity. It is the REVERSE ENGINEERING that they take issue with and NOT EMULATION. Sony's methods of copy protecting playstation disks are patented and protected and in this particular case there's not much of an argument against that particular fact. No matter who argues for the "freedom of information," "Broad customer choice," or whatnot, it's very difficult to argue that an emulator should be able to play a backup copy of a PSX game any more than a legitimate Playstation should. (Especially when Sony will send you a replacement disk if your original copy breaks or otherwise becomes unplayable.) [Personal note: I think that emulation software and all legitimate playstation hardware should also be able to run original software/demos/etc.]
Sony's case against bleem! and VGS was to protect Sony's rights to their copy protection system. Granted, they also went after the emulation aspect as well, but the copy protection was the major thing. The media and the public seems to mangle these facts every time Sony vs. the Emu's comes up.
Sega is obviously condoning this (as they gave bleem! a development license) -- and they get a kickback from sales of bleem! for Dreamcast. If you look at the bleem! for Dreamcast situation, Sony would have much to gain by not having made such a fuss of this whole thing from the beginning - e.g. if bleem! for Dreamcast had copy-protection measures then Sony would lose much less money to piracy than it obviously will now.
Sony shot itself in the foot with emulation. It should have jumped in to help VGS and bleem! (which could have very easily included contracts to distribute the emulation software with copy-protection measures.) They would have had a lot to gain doing that.
~GoRK
There was one news story in the last day that may prove to be extremely important, although it was not in slashdot. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Violence Against Women act, because they said that Congress had no authority to pass the act. Congress said that the law derived its authority from the instetstate commerce clause, and the Supreme Court said, in effect, "no way."
Congress regularly uses the Interstate Commerce Clause -- which says that Congress has the right to regulate interstate commerce -- to pass laws that really have nothing to do with interstate commerce. The Supreme Court has gone along with this practice for a long time, but the current court appears ready to impose limits.
If the court has in fact decided to end the "interstate commerce loophole", then huge bodies of federal law will be vulnerable and may be challenged, as much of federal law has no constitutional basis besides the thinly stretched doctrine of "it somehow affects interstate commerce."
and that would have enormous consequences.
Frankly, I don't understand why Sony ever filed these charges in the first place. How are they hurt by emulation? They sell playstations at a loss! They make all their money on the games. When you have a playstation emulator for your PC, you end up buying the games without buying the playstation, which Sony actually loses money on anyway. It seems to me that they are better off with emulation.
Understand that this isn't the same as somebody like Nintendo suing the makers of an emulator. In that case, since the Nintendo systems use cartridges, all the games anyone will ever acquire for a N64 emulator will be pirated. But with a playstation emulator, you just buy the game and stick the CD in your computer. Sure, there are ways to make copies of the CD and then run these copies with your emulator, but there are ways to do that with a playstation console as well.
So I just don't get it. What is Sony trying to accomplish with lawsuits like this? Is it simply a matter of control?
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
In fact, Judge Legge is a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the federal trial court in which Sony sued Connectix. He had previously granted a preliminary injunction in favor of Sony and against Connectix on the basis that Sony was likely to succeed on its copyright and trademark claims. The Ninth Circuit (the federal appeals court which hears appeals from the Northern District of California) instructed Judge Legge to dissolve this preliminary injunction in its February 10, 2000 opinion:
In light of the Ninth Circuit's opinion, Judge Legge has now ruled that these claims by Sony (though not all claims by Sony) are deficient as a matter of law. Readers may judge for themselves whether they should be surprised by this turn of events.
The opinion in Sony v. Bleem, No. 99-17137 (9th Cir. 2000), is available online at the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals web site
So what's gonna happen if they stole trade secrets???
It wouldn't be good.
Depending upon the statute, the court could grant an injunction against using the product, an award of damages, treble damages, an award of attorney fees and court costs, or worse.
A finding of misapproporiation could also expose Connectix to criminal penalties, including the substantial civil forfeiture provisions of the EEA.
So the obvious question that comes to my mind is: isn't this great news for the Dreamcast? Bleem is coming out with a Dreamcast port of their software. People will now be able to play a vast array of Playstation games on their Dreamcast, with the games looking better on the Dreamcast than they looked originally on the Playstation.
Using Bleem, Dreamcast owners will have access to 400 or so Playstation games, along with a projected 200 Dreamcast games, before Playstation 2 is even released in the US.
This could make things interesting!
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
"The electronics giant also claimed that Connectix tarnished the PlayStation trademark by selling the rival Virtual Game Station product."
"Dilution by tarnishment occurs when a famous mark is linked to poor quality or unwholesome products, or otherwise displayed in a derogatory manner.[46] If the use of the mark does not result in negative associations for the senior trademark user, then there is no dilution by tarnishment." - http://www.loundy.com/JMLS-Trademark.html
It sounds like Sony was really reaching to try and get Connectix on any of these kinds of accusations. I doubt that the dismissal of those charges were in any way a shock to Sony. I'm guessing they've been aiming to nail Connectix on the theft of a trade-secret all along, and these other trumped up charges are just for filler. As a result, I don't think the dismissal of these issues is really a positive sign for Connectix at all; rather, it probably bodes that the legal battle is going just as Sony has intended it to all along. With the verdict on the trade-secret theft pending, I wouldn't be popping marguaritas at Connectix any time soon....
Earlier this year, the court issued a ruling upholding Connectix's right to use a process known as reverse engineering to develop a product for playing PlayStation games on home computers.
Wonder why Sony isn't hiding under the umbrella of the DMCA like the MPAA with DeCSS. Perhaps there was no protection (to parallel with the weak encryption used by CSS) to be broken in order to reverse engineer?
This whole thing gets sillier all the time. "You can reverse engineer, except things we protect so that you dont."
TO stay somewhat on topic, I don't really see why it upset Sony so much. They sell the console at a loss (initially anyway) and make the majority of the revenue from the licensing of games. You would think that:
More people able to play PSX games = more games sold = more licensing revenue.
I could see Sony going apeshit about people developing (more importantly, selling) unlicensed games, but trying to stop an additional way to play licensed games seems counter-productive.
But then again, since when has corporate paranoia made sense? :)
Sooo..if Connectix can reverse engineer Sony software and hardware, what's the difference between that and reverse engineering CSS? Or is this strictly a DCMA thing and Sony didn't sue under that law?
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Nice troll, but it's important to note that this case has nothing to do with Intellectual Property at all, it's solely about reverse engineering, which is an extemely important issue today.
Realistically, true artists produce art because they have to -- something in their souls move them and won't allow them to not create. I think that a lot of programmers are similar ... most of the open source projects began because (a) someone had an "itch" they had to scratch and (b) once they had begun to scratch it, they weren't opposed to helping others scrath their itches, too.
If economic value is the only value you recognize, of course, this makes less than sense. In fact, it's downright scary. That's why the suits and the drones and droids absolutely despise and (I think) secretly fear the FSOS movement. They don't understand it, because it's not entirely driven by economic profit. But if you free your mind from those sorts of blinders you begin to see that such things can make sense.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach