Slashdot Mirror
Infogrames Serves Civ3 Fans With Cease and Desist
janolder writes "According to multiple articles on heise online (German only), the leader of an effort to localize Civilization III for Germany, Kai Fiebach, has been slapped with a cease and desist letter, including $500 lawyer bill from Infogrames Germany. A grassroots effort to help Kai and tell Infogrames off is forming."
"Background: Most European versions of Civ3 are late. With a slated release for March 2002, Kai and a group of Civ3 fans decided to translate portions of Civ3 to German and to make the result available as a set of files to be applied to the US on time for Christmas. Kai informed Infogrames of his effort and even offered to join forces with their localization team if only the game would be released sooner. Sadly, Infogrames reacted by sending Kai a cease and desist letter, alleging copyright infringement. The home page of the translation effort has already been taken down.
The reason for Infogrames' reaction seems to be that Infogrames Germany doesn't make a single penny on the US version of the game sold through Amazon Germany and other vendors."
Watch out for those I tags, there, Chris.
Cheers,
levine
Kai and a group of Civ3 fans decided to translate portions of Civ3 to German and to make the result available as a set of files to be applied to the US on time for Christmas.
Well, I hope I have time to finish typing this before das ereignet.
i think its great that people are pushing forward on things like this (translating resources), however, under most EULA's - reverse engineering or modification is looked down upon.. its unfortunate for the german civ3 translation - but, maybe they should have kept it to themselves (or, setup a private group for obtaining the translated versions)
seems to be that the game is not yet available in Germany and that the effort going on will cost Infogrames a lot of money (the heise article, which, btw, is here says so, too). Also there will be issues with support. And it is there intellectual property. So, by altering a closed source program without permission they stepped over some border line. Wouldn't it be prosecuted here in the US under DMCA?
- Just my 0000010 cents
Important news, someone violates copyright and gets in trouble for it!
If Infogrames has the distrobution rights for civ3 then this would cause them to lose money. Losing money is ussually considered bad by most companies.
The Slashdot Effect: A new for
Hello. I have made several posts in the last days about a friend who found himself in similar trouble with Sony.
If someone can recommend a page will more information in English (or even better Japanese ^_^) I will gladly do what I can to help. It hurts me very much to see dedicated fans and hobbyists be threatened and intimidate for doing things that will only benefit the company in the long run.
I do not wish to see this lawyer paid but if it must come to that I will gladly help do a small bit to assist. I will even pay to assist in the German localisation, assuming that it will continue after this unfortunate incidence.
Please reply with additional information if it is available. I wish to know more but I have plenty of trouble with English, to say nothing of German ^_^
R. Suzuka
It's a nice gesture to offer to work with the official translation team, but they are probably (hopefully) have the entire process planned out. So it wouldn't be of much help to have some random guy "helping out."
Besides, even if I had to wait I'd rather have a real version instead of a hacked up patch that comes with no guarantee.
i dont see how you can help in this situation. doing binary modifications is not considered "a good thing" by anyone (how would you like it if someone modified your apps - and, put idiotic phrases instead of instructions)? infogrames does want to release a german version by the looks of it, and, something like this "in the wild" will cause conflicts with users at a later date. could you imagine having to go through support with a user who had an translated german version (as opposed to the official german version)??
what infogrames should have done, is work with this guy. they have done the translation(s) - and, they are german.. who else is better to do translations to german? infogrames can win out of this if they play their cards right. and, the last thing we need is what happened with the "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" episode when translations go wrong.. badly wrong...
A shame, yes. But not all the world is Free/Open Source friendly.
This is a proprietary game. The authors do get to say what happens to it, and who can and cannot contribute.
I find the $500 lawyers bill to be insane though - I mean, seriously, the guy was just trying to help, no?
Too many lawyers in the world, and too little common sense I think.
Prisoner #655321
A clarification here.
:)
Providing patches for a binary-only software product may be a violation of the EULA, but that doesn't in itself make it a COPYRIGHT violation.
EULA violations are purely civil, there might not be any statutory or punitive damages, etc. (depends on the local laws). EULAs are based in CONTRACT law.
Copyright violations can be civil or criminal (FELONY (*) in some cases), there are statuatory damages (you can be ordered to pay even if they weren't harmed AND you didn't benefit), punitive damages, contributory and vicarious infringement theories (which don't seem to exist with EULAs) which judges follow, etc.
The DMCA may apply in both cases, depends on the country and the judge. If you get Judge Kaplan, you might as well sell all your stuff and live on the street right now and get it over with. 1/2
Ask a lawyer (in your jurisdiction) for legal advice.
(*) In the US. I don't know the situation in other countries.
P.S. If a company acts so irresponsibly as to try to assess a $500 bill for sending a cease and desist letter because you were trying to be helpful, then to hell with them. Asking you to pay for the costs of their legal attack is unconscionable.
But what I heard about the laws in Germany, that practice seems to be blessed by the gov't there.
"abmahnung" I believe it is called.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
As an infogrames stockholder (via GT Interactive) I wish this were a non-issue with Civ III being released in Germany (and elsewhere) simultaneous with the American release.
I cant say the current situation will help their lackluster stock price. Perhaps this will spur inforgames to release localized versions faster (and maybe help get some of my money back!)
Kai? Isn't he a dead assasin of the Divine Order and last of the Brunnen-G? When did he start programming computer games?
Forget the old slashdot, this is the new, fast-paced, slashdotzoom!
Kai was not doing anything malicious. He wasn't try to compete with Infogames, trying to hurt their profits, or even trying to make a profit from himself.
Instead, he was trying to help his fellow German gamers with localization. Infogames should have overlooked the fact that his might have been copyright infringiment.
In the end, it is horrible for their PR, if nothing else.
At least you had the brains to post that as anonymous COWARD. They have just as much right to speak german as you do to speak english. Secondly, you are blaming something that started in Germany that is long over on the people who live there now. Just because someone speaks german does not mean they supported WW2. It doesnt even mean that they are german. Austria and Switzerland are two more german speaking contries yet the people there are not germans.
How bout a simple reply to his e-mail saying the same thing? There was no hostile intent in his original letter, here's a fan asking to help, and they immediately feed him to the lawyers? Nice.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
would have been to first inform Mr. Fiebach that distributing a translation was illegal and only then , if he didn't remove the files, send an official cease and desist with the associated lawyer cost.
The texts in the game are copyrighted and obviously they cannot be redistributed even once translated. But I wish people would learn to solve their problems without going through lawyers. *sigh*
True warriors use the Klingon Google
This is in germany... and that something similiar (opportunistic lawyers using a german law to fatten their own wallets)
see what happened to Kontour (was Killustrator because of a similiar german lawyer tactic...
it's like ambulance chasing but for intellectual property... so... don't necessarily jump on infogames case, because they didn't initiate the cease and decist...
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
With CivI and CivII, the dialogue for the boxes was always included as plain text. I remember happily editing the intro dialogue to CivI to do parodies of various things (as did others; the Douglas Adams parody was incredibly popular in its time). I and others also edited some of the various dialogues, not only into foreign languages, but into certain statements that can't really be said in a family site like this one. What Infroggrames is doing is destroying an eleven-year-old tradition. Of course, Infogrames has a habit of doing that.
Civ fans form one of the most dedicated computer gaming communities around, rivaling Quake and Half-Life, not to mention with a great deal more history. If Infogrames wants to keep that fandom on their side to purchase more copies of Infogrames games, this isn't the way to do it.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
If they would have asked him to stop and explained the legal situation he would probably have done it too ... asking him to stop while at the same time throwing their pack of lawyers and a 500$ bill at him will quite easily cost them much more than 500$.
Wether they are right is not so much the issue here IMO, that a company is so lawyer driven that they throw out all common sense when dealing with issues like this is.
So where can I pick up my 'Boycott Sid Meier' shirt/Tshirt/bumper sticker?
back to CTP2 for me!
IANAL, so it is not clear to me how copyright applies in the case of the translation of a book, video game or whatever. It is clear that you cannot copy parts or the whole of the original authors script other than for some special purposes that are covered under fair use. But in the case of a translation, you are not copying anything. You are reformulating and sometimes interpreting the ideas of the original author, which would seem to be covered under fair use.
In the case of civ3 it seems to be even unclearer, since Infogrames probably has the right to distribute the German version, but the translators are not distributing the game. Is there a right of translation? And since Infogrames distributes the English version as well, at least in Europe, what is their financial damage in that case. Isn't it rather a gain, when more people buy the game, especially if it puts the release date of the "German version" before Christmas instead of March?
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Why? He is not reducing the number of titles sold by infogrames. He is probably increasing it. Since you can buy the English version in Germany, which is distributed by Infogrames. So what is the problem?
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Which of the following are you trying to say?
- It is/should be illegal to modify a closed source program. For example, if you were to take a hex editor, open up Windows, and change the string 'Recycle bin' to 'Rubbish bin', that would be an illegal and immoral act.
- It is illegal to distribute patches to a closed source program.
- It is illegal to redistribute a closed source program, or parts of that closed source program, without permission.
If you are trying to say #1 above, what are you smoking? If i bought a book, would i not have the right to cross out certain words and write other things in? Or cut out pages and make paperdolls with them? How can you legally distinguish between writing in the margins of in a book and overwriting text data on a hard drive? i assume this is not what you meant.If you are trying to say #2 above, which i assume you are, then what basis do you have for that? If it is legal for i who own civ3 to alter binary files i own a license to on my hard drive, and legal for you who own civ3 to alter binary files you own a license to on your hard drive, how could it not be legal for me to give you a tool which alters the binary file for you? How can you legally distinguish between an open-source file patching program and a sheet of paper with instructions on how to alter a file manually? Wouldn't giving *instructions* on how to change something on your hard drive be considered free speech? How not?
If you are trying to say #3 above, then, well, you're right, but what does this have to do with anything? I would be highly surprised to learn the civ3 translation people are redistributing parts of civ3, since they have no need to. All they need to distribute is patch files containing their changes. Why would they include parts of the binary program?
What the hell are you trying to say, and why are you at score:3?
It's not like the entertainment companies have to worry about alienating their fan base. It's pretty well been proven that they can fuck their fans over without vaseline or K-Y and the fans will still line up and pay them for it the next time something comes out. And doing that is fine but please, a little less whining the next time they get the giant legal dildo out and tell some part of the community to bend over. We seem to feel that being mildly entertained for an hour or two is worth the price of having to bend over for that dildo, so I don't think we have the right to complain when they stick it up our collective ass.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I find the $500 lawyers bill to be insane though - I mean, seriously, the guy was just trying to help, no?
According to the heise article (in Krautish, sorry), the $500 bill has been declared void by Infogrames. They still threaten with a $10,000 fine if he won't cease working on the translations and remove all the work done so far from the 'net.
But CIV3 is copy-written.
The word is copyright, referring to the right to control copying; not copy-write.
I know of two unofficial fan translations of Harry Potter books into German. This high quality, multi contributor one was torpedoed before completion. However, this one man effort hit the web early, and was allowed to stay up by a court because it was inferior to the official translation.
And there's the problem. A translation can be treated as a derivative work with enough original content to protect it under copyright laws. It doesn't have to be worse, it can be better - it just has to be different. However, if the copyright holder (in another language) has not yet done a translation, it becomes problematical to prove that your translation is substantially different.
As this is a civil case, it'll come down to a judge deciding what is (here comes that word again) a reasonable delay of the official version before translators can take a shot at it. A three month delay is probably reasonable, a three year one probably unreasonable, but it will be decided on a case by case basis (at least in the UK, I'd be interested to hear if there's a specification of duration in Germany)
So, if the translators waited for the official CivIII German version to come out, then produced their own resource files that differed from the official ones, that would be allowed. But they can't force the copyright owners to hurry up.
What a tangled web we weave.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Infogrames Germany have released a statement about this issue on their homepage.
Google's translation is astonishingly readable, but just in case, here's the text in a nutshell:
- It's a clear violation of the copyright and Infogrames is required to enforce it.
- The official German localization is already in a pretty advanced state - its advantage over the "guerilla translation" is that it covers the entire game while Kai's translation only deals with certain parts of the game. [At least that's how I understand this part]
- In general however, Infogrames are very pleased about fan initiatives and plan to support them more in future. They are still trying to work out ways to cooperate with them.
(how would you like it if someone modified your apps - and, put idiotic phrases instead of instructions)
I'd love it! Less work for me!
If, according to some of the posts, an inaccurate translation is the safest way to go, then they should have used Babelfish.
"You have discovered the wheel."
"You have discovered metal employment."
"You have discovered waffle pigeon."
In my opinion, if what some people state might be the case, Infogrames isn't aware of the ongoings within their company, then they're incompetent. If they are aware, then they're malicious bastards. Either way, it sours my opinion of them.
That is an interesting point. 2 diffrent trasnslations would make tech support a whole lot more difficult. Translation is not easy, and often requires profisinals to do it correctly, how many of us have seen the horrible translaitons of Anime DVD imports or Kung Fu movies?
I've delt with the Civ3 tech support crew, they have enugh problems dealing with English. While I don;t think that this problem required the services of lawyers, I do see why Ifogrames saw it nessesary to do this.
Sleep is for the weak!
As can be read at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/daa-18.11.01-0 03 it seems like the project had initialy an official support from infogrames. The former site at http://translation.civ3.de/ is now closed. As it looks to me and with the information i obtained there is a legal terror ongoing: the laws meant to protect the citizens are used against them. Despite the fact that Kai Fiebach not also informed them previousley, not also got positive response- wich included a possible license option for his team' s translation -he also pointed out to help infogrames to get this game out on the shelves before X-mas and donating eventual to a UNICEF project called "bring the children trough the winter" (http://www.unicef.de/index_from_teaser.php?node=a kt&content=cont.html) - what could a fan do more?
;-) can do and is now facing a lawsuite right before X-mas just being a bit to kind. Happy X-mas to all! And thx to Infogrames to take so much care about customers and handle it the gentlemen's way.
h tml
So there's IMHO no discussion about a mistake from Mr. Fiebach! No he did the best a man
Disscusion also at: http://www.infogrames.de/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000006.
Actually, I wanted to post a serious reply but I got an "Invalid formkey" or whatever and my text was gone. THATS WHY IM GONNA POST CRAP
Wouldn't it be prosecuted here in the US under DMCA?
I don't think so.
Creating a patch for an existing piece of software isn't nesacarily volating the DMCA.
It might however be a violation of the license agreement. But that's somthing differnt.
this is what i think... i don't like it, but i don't care!
. .
reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts
reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts
If somone uses Babelfish to "modify" their copyrighted website?
Recent times have shown a mass defection of Linux users to the FreeBSD camp. Reason:
Linux stability, or rather: the lack of it.
While Linux has done a lot in building momentum for the open source movement, users,
programmers and administrators world wide are gaining insight into the reality of
Linux. Unpredictable behavior, unstable systems, beta code being incorporated into
the stable source tree, all these are causes of the general aversion against Linux.
An aversion which is growing amongst the community.
While Linux has had the edge sometimes in the past, especially regarding driver
support, FreeBSD has gained stronghold in this area. USB support was available on
FreeBSD when Linus, Linux' founder and maintainer of the kernel source, still found
it an unnecessary I/O facilitation for PC's.
Linus' lack of vision is starting to show it's nasty side when Linux tries to be
accepted as a mainstream solution. Not only regarding priorities given to certain
features like USB, also on the core kernel development front conflicts between
highly skilled kernel contributors and Linus are starting to damage the OS. Although
the one man show style of development - where one person decides the contours of the
complete kernel - worked very well when the project was small, it's became a burden
when it grew and demanded more sophistication. Software engineers are getting
frustrated from being spoken to by a Linux maintainer on a pedestal who downplays
their ideas. Usually, in the end their ideas prove to be superior to the mediocre
hacks the maintainer forces into the kernel.
Regular computer users are disappointed by the sluggyness and clunkyness of a system
which should - as was told to them by Linux advocates - be a better alternative to
Windows. The people who bought Red Hat boxes an mass - mislead by a team of
almost professional grass root supporters - are now fleeing from the product in
droves. One could say the only good thing Linux has now is the support of a bunch of
hackers who fell in love with their operating system and who are blind for the needs
of people who actually need a working and consistent system.
Among most of the computer users out there, the momentum Linux once gained is
collapsing into a complete disarray.
When Apple released the Macintosh in 1984, the system was heavily based on the use of resources (it still is). Apple's User Interface Guidelines pushed keeping all strings in resources to make it easier for third parties to localize the software.
Reading these at the time, I didn't experience any cognitive dissonance. I thought that, surely, nobody could object to a third-party's deliberately increasing one's market share, for free. I imagined that EULAs of the future would specify that anyone who made such modifications should submit them for approval by the original author.
How times have changed!
is that the only thing you know about these countries....??
France has second largest army of Europe... they only lost one war with a major defeat, WW2 because they couldn't use tanks... if USA or uk were next to germany they would have lost too...
Danish
Norwegian
Spanish
they were not nazis , they were ATTACKED by nazies moron
Italian
Japanese
not nazies either, but fascists
Swedish
why you call they nazies??? they were neutral in WW2
germans arent nazis anymor
Portuguese
Portuguese (Brazilian)
dirty and hairy people??? they are the sae as you and me, except their language is more beuatiful
than yours
Hungarian
Polish
Romanian
Russian
"colmmies"?? they were ATTAKED by communists and russia is now capitalistic
Dutch
potsmoking faggots? atleast they dont fight a WAR (ON DRUGS) AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE
British hygiene is better than USA, and they still have colonias everywhere
The controversy over the translation of the US play Civilization 3 (Civ3) by fans of the play escalates. The company Infogrames, which possesses international rights to distribute the game, sent the 39-year old project manager Fiebach additionally for the provisional order an omission assertion and a lawyer bill of over 1,000 Marks...In the omission assertion Fiebach is requested by the lawyer of the company, Stephan Wiedorfer, to omit any processing of the computer program Civilization 3 and to cease distribution of 'processing' created so far. With an offence against this agreement Fiebach would have to pay a contractual penalty at a value of 20,000 Marks as well as attorney's fees.
The rub is that Fiebach is also being nailed for further distribution of his translation over the internet (not sure what copyright law precedent is in regards to this sort of thing):
(He is being held) responsible for further files which are based on his translation which are distributed by third parties over the internet.
Infogames' German-language version of Civ3 is not due to be released for four months, at least:
The Supreme Court has long held that producing a parody or satire of a work does not violate the copyright.
Someone modified the images and sounds in Juri Munki's "Heart Quest" to make an affectionate parody called "Jerry's Guitars," which has Jerry Garcia trying to catch guitars instead of a butterfly trying to catch hearts. This would probably not be seen by the courts as an infringement, either on Munki or the estate of Jerry Garcia.
I wonder if something like this could be argued as a parody. One would have to put some humor into the translations. However, since none of the actual original work is used (the files would be patches to the original work), I don't think a copyright claim could be used in court.
As for reverse engineering, well, translating the strings in resources file hardly qualifies as reverse engineering. If the strings are in the actual code, then that might apply. Of course, Win32 resources are nowhere near as sophisticated and open as Mac resources, so this may be a gray area.
The controversy over the translation of the US play Civilization 3 (Civ3) by fans of the play escalates. The company Infogrames, who possesses world-wide the rights to distribute, sent to the 39-jaehrigen project manager dock Fiebach additionally for the provisional order an omission assertion and a lawyer calculation at a value of over 1.000 Marks. The calculation called, requires Infogrames fast groundless however further the delivery of the omission assertion. Fiebach needs more time according to own specification however, in order to confer with its lawyer over the individual points exactly.
In the omission assertion Fiebach is requested Stephan Wiedorfer, by the lawyer of the enterprise, to omit any processing the computer program Civilization 3 and so far created to ' processing ' no more to spread. With an offence against this agreement Fiebach would have to pay a contractual penalty at a value of 20.000 Marks as well as transfer the lawyer costs.
Fiebach could not fulfill these demands according to its predicates -- however the condition to be responsible for further files which are based on its translation which distribute third over the network. " as I am to control ", express myself Fiebach annoyed opposite heise on-line.
Besides it is impossible in opinion of Fiebach to consult within the set period its lawyer. It is annoyed about the behavior of employer speaker Michael Wetzel, which guessed/advised it to the lawyer assistance, it however for it no extension of the period not described more near enables in particular. " Mr. Wetzel even guessed/advised me to switch a lawyer on. Mine is however in the vacation and I at present knows myself not, as I with restraint is ", does not deplore myself Fiebach. The demand, Civilization 3 might be translated not through third, is to opinion of Fiebach besides in the glaring contrast to the comments and the initial assistance of a support coworker of the Civilization developer Firaxis. This had helped Fiebach at the beginning of the translation work and even for its Community support had praised.
Likewise under bombardment the operators of the German-language Civilization-3 largest according to own specification are guessed/advised - Fansite Civ3.de , which is led even on the Firaxis homepage in the column Fansites. The two operators likewise received an omission assertion. Fiebach explained in the meantime, he respected the decision of the Site operators to delete the project web page and lock the FTP acces.
Infogrames speaker Michael Wetzel understands the disappointment of Fiebach, does not want however despite the protests of the fans not from the course to deviate and a time extension grant. In a discussion with heise on-line it made clear that it concerns itself with the play around property of Infogrames. Therefore be out of the question a translation through third, particularly since Infogrames Germany counts on not insignificant incomes with the sales starting from March 2002 of the available German version of Civ 3.
The fact that the fans of Civ3 do not agree with the behavior shows various forum contributions to the Infogrames Website.Auch those daily more than 200 Mails, which achieve the enterprise according to firm speaker Wetzel daily, makes by the majority their displeasure over this situation air -- partial in quite harschen words ( daa / c't)
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Off topic but should be noticed. Civ3 code sucks, there's about 30% new features (besides graphics) when compared to civ1. But it takes about 100x more processor power to run it. My 900mhz Athlon takes about 30sec calculating computer moves in 1100AD when my 33mhz-386 with Civ1 took only few seconds, unbelievable!!!!
.... has been slapped with a cease and desist letter, including $500 lawyer bill from Infogrames Germany. ..... copyright
Guys, Germany has some really weird laws. Anybody can send someone a "you're violating a copyright" letter, and tack along a bill for the effort of writing that letter. I won't be surprised if this is a stupid German Lawyer who started this. (without any need to contact Infogrames).
I can't find any "originals" so... I don't know for sure what's going on....
Roger.
I am homo from turd world country!
I have no soap to wash!
I fuck my sisters yeast-infected pussy!
I have no toilet!
I can be seen in a pedophile movie!
I was almost kidnapped by gipsys!
I was robbed by the orphans who live in sewers!
Civ 3 multiplayer will cost $100
$50 for original game
$50 for expansion pack with multiplayer
or, 2 years later you can also buy
$75 Civ 3 Multiplayer Gold Edition
!!!
There we have it -- conslusive proof that lawyers are robots after all. (And what the HELL does the previous sentence mean?!)
No one said they were doing that. They are doing translations and releasing patches. You'd still need the software in order to play the game.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Although with the DMCA and the new laws that are in the pipeline, it seems those EULAs are fast becoming more and more legally binding.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
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That's "Rock over London, rock on Chicago."
Holy shit! I didn't even know my computer knew how to make those, um, characters. But unless there's a lot of arithmetic being discussed, it doesn't know how to make all of them.
Does this mean people who are working on translations of Japanese game ROMs are going to stop for fear of lawsuits? I hope not.
Maybe it's time for a career change. Those lawyer cocksuckers make a bundle for nothing more than being sheer assholes.
-Legion
He obviously also speaks (or at least reads English). Perhaps for the benefit of those of us who don't speak German, he could post in the language the rest of us are using. I see many posts from people for whom English is obviously a second language (or they graduated from one of the poorer U.S. public schools), but guess what: they post in English anyway, so we can all follow along. And I'll bet a lot of them don't speak German either.
Hahaha, I wish I had mod points. Thanks.
...ask for a world map, two technologies, and half the treasury, then gone to war anyway.
Yeah, I guess I've been playing too much. ;-)
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Here's one method off the top of my head: Put the files on a Linux filesystem, exported via SAMBA. Add a hook that intercepts text, routes it through the fish, and sends it on the the game system. The first time the file is accessed, things will be slow, but the file server can cache the translations so that subsequent accesses will be much faster.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
OK. That doesn't seem to be at all what the original poster was saying, but i'll bite.
I would consider it rediculous if the law would say that if you and i both legally have copies of a book, that i would be banned from giving you a translated version of that book-- since no copyrighted material would be distributed to anyone without the copyright to that material-- but let's imagine for an instant that you're right.
This is a game. It's Civilisation 3, for crying out loud. All that has to be translated is simple, short commands-- "the barbarians are attacking" or "you have discovered bronzeworking". The strings to be translated are short and *INFORMATIONAL*-- nothing "created" by the Civ people.
Are you saying that Sid Meyer can copyright, say, the names of the technology advancements in Civ3 to the point where he can ban someone from distributing a list of those technology advancements in any language? (Because that's all the patch needs-- a list of words that correspond to technology advancements, and where to put them). I'm sorry, that's just too flimsy.
I'd say that you could split up the strings in civ3 into two groups-- short enough thatyou couldn't possibly claim a copyright on them (say, the word "Bronzeworking"), or long enough that instead of directly translating what sid meyer's game says, the translators could just rewrite them totally such that they are no longer "derivative works", but simply similar writings that happen to be in german. Remember, this doesn't have to be an exact translation-- it just has to say things at the right moemnt to the point where the game makes sense.
And if it does, legally, come down to that somehow sid meyer can ban anyone from distributing a file compiling statements equivalent to but not equal to statements that happen to be in the civ3 executable- which is all the patch needs to be to make the game playable-- then well, hell, who cares? Just write a short babelfish-like program that searches through the civ3 executable for strings, translates to german, then writes those strings back into the executable. A small set of complicated rules of how to translate idioms and such could be written to be tailored specifically to the KNOWN strings in the civ3 executable. This would not be effortless but it would be at most a project that would take a couple of days for a talented fourth-year CS student who's taken a couple AI courses-- write a program capable of recognizing and translating a small set of known linguistic patterns without actually including those patterns vertabrim (since they're copyrighted) in the executable.
Your (4) is a valid issue, but nothing that can't be readily worked around.
No?
Please, *do* fuck me like a dog My ass, your cock You fuck, I suck
(and I swallow, oh yes sweetie, I am cum guzzler #1 !)
PLEASE, email me at mraftken444@hotmail.com, we need to see each other!!
This just goes to show you, that if you don't want to get sued, you should host your website in russia or some other country.
That's because Slashdot automatically inserts spaces to keep you from screwing up formatting. Unfortunately, it's not smart enough to recognize HTML entities, so it puts spaces right in the middle of the number.
If you don't go after copyright violators, you can lose your copyright.
I know that hindsight is 20-20, but it would have been much smarter not to have gotten in touch with the company. In that case, the company might have been able to overlook the violation. As it is now, they cannot without legal risk.
A lot of people are in here arguing that "Infrogrames has a right to make money", as if this were a piracy issue. Had you read the blurb on Slashdot more closely, you would realize that this translation is only for people that legitimately bought the US version of the software, usually online.
Infrogrames may not be making money specifically the way it wants (small licensing fees going through Infrogrames Germany and into the US Infrogrames)... but they're actually making more money this way than they would be on the official German translation of Civ3.
I translated Final Fantasy 5 in 1997 with a Japanese friend without Square's permission, and we never got a single cease-and-desist order from Square Costa Mesa, a whole 6 miles away from us.
If it weren't for the DMCA being overly broad, this would not be illegal. A patch file is a list of instructions.
Would a document that told you places in a book to white out words and write your own be illegal?
Koitsu
It's true on both trademarks and copyrights. It may have been a bit before your time, but Tolkien actually lost the copyright to LOTR in the U.S. because Ace stole it and published it, and Tolkien didn't pursue them vigorously enough. Tolkien had to make substantial changes to LOTR in order to get a copyright in the U.S.
Also, the first season and a half of Star Trek, under the Desilu distribution, was public domain, because it wasn't released with a copyright notice. Of course, Paramount has claimed copyright on all the re-releases and new prints, but if you can find an old print, you can do what you like with it. Ironically, this helped computer gaming, as all those Star Trek games were legal.
American copyright has been somewhat better since we signed the Berne convention. For instance, you now don't lose copyright if you fail to provide a notice, just the ability to sue for damages. But still, after the dismissal of Apple's suit of Microsoft (as well as Xerox' suit of Apple), not on the grounds that they were stupid but because they hadn't brought them earlier and vigorously enough, people are understandably cautious.
Did you give them written notice that you were going to do it? If you had, you might have been bothered by them.
This is the only post I've seen yet that gets at the real crux of this situation. The insanity of most copyright laws is just this: that in a wired world, most copyright laws PREVENT the spread of information instead of ENCOURAGING (or subsidizing) it, as they were intended. The Napster case showed this very clearly. Even though Napster did not profit from the distribution of MP3s, they were found guilty of copyright infringement under legal precedents that treat "devaluation" of property rights the same way as outright theft. It's like Microsoft suing UPS because someone ships a copy of Windows through it. (Okay, I know it's not exactly the same, but in extreme cases, such as this one, legal theories such as those involving "devaluation" demonstrate their limitations.) What happens when DVD's can be translated by computer and the Consortium's "Region" classifications become the same sort of bottleneck to progress?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Here's the address you can send your displeasure to:
askthecivteam@firaxis.com
Please be civil.
Remember, if you _own_ a product, you are not _copying_ it or infringing Firaxis's rights in any way. As long as the patch (which I believe will involve a translation of the "Text" subdirectory) will not work unless you have the real thing, I can't see how Firaxis can lose... unless they heavy handedly stomp and piss on all their fans. Of which I am one.
For shame, Firaxis!
Andrew van der Stock
If the local agent isn't doing the work. Sorry, they lose the business!
See my journal, I write things there
Regarding Civ III and Infogrames, I've got a gripe with them Stateside.
They marketed a "Limited Editon" which promised designer notes(which were pretty much the only worthwhile goodie added). They shipped the Limited Edition, which said it contained the designer notes, and they never included them. Just plain forgot to include them in all 75,000 of the "limited" Limited Edition.
People have squawked about it, but Infogrames and Firaxis (Sid Meier's company) have been silent on this rip-off. This is particularly galling as Firaxis used to be a real standout in terms of standing behind their products with patch support and decent documentation.
Sometimes you wonder how the bean counters really can manage to screw up a thing of beauty.
evanchik.net
It's interesting that Infogrames is going after this mod when there are already several mods that use the original files as building blocks.
Here are a few examples:
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread full of modifications to the original resource tile graphics to make them more easily identifiable.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a mod that adds some information to the production queue that makes it easier to understand the implications of your production choices.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a modification to the original wonder graphics that gives some useful information about what the wonders do for you.
I Could cite some more examples, but this gives an good picture of the selective enforcement of this part of the EULA.
Its not Firaxis, its Infogrames. If you think developers (as opposed to publishers) have much in the way of a say over what is done with the properties they develop, you are misinformed.
If a 3rd party releases a patch, who is making the derivative work? The patch-maker or the person who applies the patch?
Of course that leaves open the fact that the patch maker had to have a modified version from which to make the patch (possible infringement) and that the patch itself could be contributory infringement (contributes to the user's infringement).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I think in Civ4 we'll see a 'foolish corporate lawyer' military unit. Just imagine opening a hut and finding that "You've released a horde of irritated slashdot readers"
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
So you think Firaxis should be punished for what Infogrames Germany has done? I would much prefer if people didn't send email to that Firaxis address, because the programmers there should be spending their time working furiously on the patch that Civ3 desperately needs, not reading a bunch of mail that has nothing to do with them.
...
It's the truth, and establishes that this fact matters little to any company since we truly are sheep lined up, begging for the slaughter.
His imagery is a little crude, but accurate.
Metamod, don't forsake me.
This is slightly off-topic, but if the site has been taken down, it is most likely still viewable at The Internet Archive
Next time, post the URL so that we can view the page...
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Who woulda thunk it? ;)
I hope they fix the monitor problems for the translated versions. The english version sets the monitor's refresh rate to the highest possible. But some drivers have not been updated for Win2k or XP and the monitor will then use the default driver. The default driver's max refresh rate is 120Hz and that will fry you monitor if it can only handle up to 100Hz.
:-) )
Off topic perhaps, but I just had to buy a new monitor this week, and I shall gladly pay some slashdot karma to prevent this from happening to someone else (and maybe that'll give me some REAL karma
...and i don't think it is.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
That's clear and blatant copyright infringement, and Infograms is well within their rights to defend it. Get up in arms about true injustices, not people don't ill-advised things and then getting in legal hot water for it.
max
(Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons...)
I once translated a certain Japanese Famicom RPG into English; though I never distributed it--I did it just for the fun of hacking the program--I did contact the company that made the game and ask if there was any way I could help with "official" translation; I even went so far as to send them a part of my translation.
Not only did this company not pull out the lawyers on me, they referred me to the vice president of localization at their USA branch, who actually called me up (or maybe I called him after he provided me his phone number, I can't remember which way it went) and we talked about several things including possible future employment. (Which I now somewhat regret turning down given the low quality of translations coming out lately, but oh well.)
Is it that Japanese companies are more intelligent than Western ones, or is it just changing times? I dunno, but whichever it is, it's unfortunate.
Right out of the \text\ directory:
"INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSLATORS!"
So, eh... uh?
; Sid Meier's Civilization III
;
; Dialog box scripts
;
; Copyright (c) 2000, 2001 by Firaxis Games, Inc.
;
;
; INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSLATORS!
;
; 1) These files must not be saved in "Microsoft Word Format", or they will
; be ruined. They MUST be saved in "Text Only" format.
Is it just me or do the Russians not have laws on intellectual property. That's why they couldn't get Dmitry over there right?
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Just like people to moderate things they don't agree with as Flamebait.
Actually - he is affecting sales. They WILL eventually release a German version. With him doing this, people won't purchase said version.
I'm lucky, Civ3 is likely never to be translated into Finnish. Thus I can play it in english _when it comes out_, not six months later.
In Germany software purchase is a special purchase. Those sucking "license agreement" à la MS are invalid, the only considerably are the UrHG., 61ff.
At best read the license conditions which everyone throws away or has never read.
** those you only get to read if the game is already unpacked? Nonsense.
Those are already invalid because:
1. you cannot read them before the purchase, and
2. a contract locks with the dealer and not with the manufacturer.