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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."
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
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 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.
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?