Slashdot Mirror
IDSA Forces Arcade Game Manual Archive Offline
AtariKee writes "The IDSA and the DMCA has struck again, this time forcing the maintainer of Stormaster.com, a coin-operated video game manual and tech information archive, to shut down. Stormaster has been an invaluable resource for collectors of classic coin-operated video games for years, and this loss further demonstrates the idiocy that is the DMCA. I can understand ROM images to some extent, but 25 year old coin-op operator/tech manuals? The full text of the IDSA's letter can be read on Stormaster's site." Previous Slashdot posts about IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) show that this is typical of the organization.
Well, I notice that the IDSA letter does not demand that those 25 year old manuals be taken down, or that the site be shut down -- the letter refers only to a list of 7 "game products" (which are presumably ROM images).
At the bottom of the page/letter:
"
Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the
person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or
privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination
or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by
persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you
received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from
all computers."
Isn't posting it on the internet the same as retransmitting or disseminating?
Wow, I didn't know Tron 2.0 was in the arcade!
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
I believe this is their number... Attention: Piracy Enforcement Ãââoe DMCA Officer Telephone: 202-223-2400 Fax: 202-223-2401 E-mail: dmca@idsa.com
The Underdogs has manuals of many old (but better than most of the newer ones) PC games available for downloading. You can also have the games for some of the manuals, but don't tell anyone.
Uh, last time I checked, copyrights lasted longer than that. How is this wholly the DMCA's fault?
Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
:P. Anyway, is that a valid clause? IANAL but you can't tell me something in confidentiality and strip me of my right to repeat it unless I've signed an NDA or some such thing.
So I guess we're breaking the DMCA by reading this...
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
"Any reproduction... by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited."
He's the "intended recipient", so he can do ANY of the actions listed. Get a clue. Learn to read.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
So far this law has been used to prosecute sewing pattern pirates. Now it is being used to go after videogame websites. If Orrin Hatch has his way, the RIAA will be able to destroy your computer. More and more it looks like Richard Stallman might not have been that far off.
I fail to see the motivation in some of these cease and desist actions by large companies; Blizzard recent shutdown of Freecraft is another example. What's the point? Simply showing they can?
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
It looks like what he's being accused of is having warez on his site, not manuals. Of course, if the manuals also included schematics for some reason (repairs?), then by having the schematics up on his site he would be allowing someone to reproduce the game. I'm not sure what was in the manuals, since I never got a chance to see them...
Why not just give the site content to somebody living in a country where "freedom" still means something.
Looks fake to me, look at the address it was sent from:
dmca@idsa.com
Who would use that address?
Probably IDSA's DMCA lawyers.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
208.195.115.176/stormaster.html
Scary legalesse talk!
I'd like to see some specific references to this. Clearly, sites like InternalMemos.com have no problem reproducing and disseminating internal correspondence within a private company. I wonder whether copyright law prohibits public postings of private emails. On one hand I'd say no, because we've all seen memos, cease and desist letters, and leaked emails posted tons of places. But what if an email should contain something like a poem? Wouldn't that be protected by copyright law? Wouldn't the letter in itself, as a unique form of expression, be protected? Is there a difference in copyright ownership between a letter sent by a lawyer vs. an internal memo at a privately owned company vs. a letter sent by me to grandma?
Just curious.
-Laz
Prohibited by what?
The recipient received this notice unsolicited. There was no prior agreement in place that the recipient would maintain the contents of the notice in confidence. Therefore, barring national security interests, I can't see any reason why the recipient shouldn't be free to do anything they want with the notice, including expose the sender to public ridicule and derision.
It's meaningless boilerplate.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
If the site originally hosted tech manuals for the games and not the actual game ROMs themselves, it doesn't appear that the site would have to be taken down. The letter appears to refer only to the software, not information about the software.
Then again, this could be the operative phrase:
any such game titles, copies, listings and/or other depictions of, or references to, any contents of such game product, are hereinafter referred to as "Infringing Material"
If the IDSA was smart they would sponsor the site instead of trying to shut it down. There are a couple of concepts known as good faith and goodwill. It would behoove them to start practising both.
If you read closely the prohibitions apply to persons or entities other than the intended recipient. I believe the idea here is that the intended recipient is obligated to be truthful (at lawyer-point), but if his ISP sees the letter going by in the "suspicious mail" folder and does a routine SPAM reveiw on it, the ISP cannot then publish what he found.
In fact to state that the intended recipient is not allowed to have the letter "reviewed" by a lawyer would be contrary to their purpose of using expensive lawyers to handle what should be done by decent thinking people.
As a previous poster noted though, the letter does not include specific references to the manuals for those games, and it wasn't and endless list of games.
If I had to take a wild stab at it I'd wager the site-owner is just frustrated by running a non-profit site that isn't doing any actual damage to anyones business and getting kicked in the teeth for it by lawyers anxious to justify their billable hours.
"Look! We stopped another person from freely sharing information that will never be of use to anyone! That'll be $1200 dollars please."
The notice tells the owner of the site to stop offering for download a few specific items that the letter claims were on it's site. There was nothing in the letter which stated the entire site must be taken down.
I can understand ROM images to some extent, but 25 year old coin-op operator/tech manuals?
Read the letter. It doesn't say to take down any manuals. The person who shut down this site shut it down on their own accord. They could have just removed those specific items for download and they would be in the free-and-clear.
Such a site is illegal under copyright laws going back to at least the Copyright Act of 1909, and probably back well before that.
The guy was distributing game manuals for Dig Dug and Frogger... when you read 20-year old video game manuals, you're reading COMMUNISM!
You can make games from Schematics alone?!? How can I do that?
Were I in their shoes, I'd take the site down and move it over to freenet.
Everything will be taken away from you.
"Any reproduction... by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited."
We're guilty until proven innocent now. Lovely.
Is it just me or does it seem like these DMCA claims are always targetted at people who can't really fight them?
and no one knows how to use it.
Don't forget to donate a few bucks to keep the site up!
You're snipping out the context:
Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
(emphasis mine)
I believe posting it on a publically-accessible website qualifies as making it availible for review by "by persons or entities other than the intended recipient".
Okay, now I'm not aware of what was on the site beyond what the letter on the site and the /. story say, however...
In today's litigation happy world, why even risk having ROM images available? Such things are just begging for trouble. The cease and desist letter sounds like some copy of the game itself (beyond tech manuals) was available.
If it was just tech manuals, then yeah, it's stupid. For ROM images, whoever put them there is stupid. It doesn't matter what we think about the software in question, if it's still protected by copyright, then you invite the wrath of lawyers.
this is my sig
There is still an archive from the 4th of July 2002 at the Wayback Machine. Mirror it and make a Freesite on Freenet.
I think this is a bot; the IDSA has gone after tons of innocent game sites before with their scripts. I severely doubt a real human would confuse "manuals for download" with "ROMS for everyone".
>You can make games from Schematics alone?!? How can I do that?
Easy. Get a bunch of TTL chips, put them together properly, and you will have pong.
>>> Insert brain here <<<
Here it is 9 days early, enjoy.
Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne
I'll try to post more torrents are they come out. Help out the community by reposting this.
BAM! Your ISP staggers for half a day or so, but you'll probably enjoy residual traffic as a result of the exposure...
Not saying that's the case here, but what if...
Perhaps this has happened already?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
you broke it by reviewing it, not him. He can reproduce it all he wants and distribute it as he sees fit. And you not being able to review it wouldn't hold up in the court of law any way.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Here, look at this (2002) entry in the WayBack machine. I feel they may have had roms:
/ /s tormaster.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20020604154107/http:
There is a stormaster.com/roms
http://web.archive.org/web/20020604154107/http://s tormaster.com/
Here's what he had up a year ago. Looks like manuals and ROMs for arcade and pinball games (since there were some questions about which it was).
bad sig...no donut.
Key words there are "by persons or entities other than the intended recipient". So they are free to do anything they want with it.
Looking at the manufacturers of the games in question -
Dig Dug - Atari/Infogrames
Donkey Kong - Nintendo
Frogger - Konami
Mario - Nintendo
Pac Man - Midway
SWAT - Sega
Tron 2.0 (game)
Okay I think I may understand the Tron 2.0 given that a new PC game is soon to be released. The only other game that is still "current" with successful sequels is Mario. I can understand protecting all rights with those two. Frogger? Every sequel has sucked monkey nuts (Swampy's revenge anyone?). Dig Dug Deeper? The other games have found their way to the Best of Arcade CD's that retail for 9.95 at walmart and they don't even play as well as the cabinets.
In all reality they're going for the arcade game manuals though.. Not even the ROMs, so they're not even allowing the lawful owners of cabinets to get manuals without having to pay $9.95 to buy reproduction for a damn Frogger manual. I don't get it.
Has anyone tried to buy an original manual and then sue the IDSA for the difference between official/out-of-print price and the retail price? I'm tired of the "corp/little people" thing. I'm tired of the corporate squeeze on the most asinine stuff.
-B
This is an area of copyright law which may not be intuitive, but it is well established. Republishing e-mail you receive without the permission of the sender is illegal. In this case there is no doubt about the situation; permission is expressly denied in the letter itself.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
...if somebody releases the information in a different manner, i. e. not images of the manuals or the original text, would the DMCA still apply?
The bit about "other than the intended recipient" is not giving the intended recipient permission to do whatever he wants; quite the opposite, it is notifying anyone he might hand the letter to or who might get a look at it inadvertently that they don't have permission to publish it, either.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
This may sound a bit silly, but as I was reading the replies to this article, I began to wonder if the state of the art of programming has matured to the point that a video game framework has been implemented such that writitg a game, or an extremely similar game, such as Dig Dig or Donkey Kong is not that difficult. If there is some kind of virtual-machine game program with a development platform and a good framework, perhaps an extremely-similar but GPL'd version of these classic arcade games are within the reach of a decent coder.
If I want to do this (write a gpl version of digdug) where should I begin to look? I mean, has anyone else thought of this and if so what resources are available?
With the MPAA, RIAA, and the IDSA engaged in such ludicrous behaviour, I cannot spend any more money on movies, music, or games. To hell with these markets. These people need to be destroyed for our nation's own good.
25 year old manuals are still copyrighted for many years to come, and is fairly common worldwide (not that that equals good, but anyway).
The parts I really don't like about the DMCA is that is makes it illegal to use my own property, like play my DVD under Linux, or make a back-up of it for my DVD-less laptop.
Soon it'll get here too with the EUCD. Sigh.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But Pud never let a little thing like that deter him. It's a civil tort so it's only as illegal as the sender's willingness to sue you. I suspect FuckedCompany is counting on the companies involved to not want to stir up a shitstorm with him.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
a coin-operated video game manual and tech information archive
... and don't you dare post a ??? PROFIT!!! joke after this...
Instructions
1) Select manuals to be read.
2) Insert coin(s) to buy time.
3) To extend time, press the red button and insert more coins...
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
True and like any prophet, people were willing to burn him at the stake because his ideas as best inconvienced them. At worst it made some of the things they liked to do impossible.
Freedom costs.
Step 1: Contract with web host in Vanuatu
Step 2: Move site to their server
So what is the problem?
It should be standard practice now for any site admin based in the US who thinks their site has any chance of violating the dmca to host it in a country such as Vanuatu, and keep the owners identity unknown.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Read it carefully again:
"Any reproduction..."
The web server under his control is making copies, but your PC and ISP are violating this, because: the ISP may cache it for you, making a copy, your PC will RAM cache it, making a fast access copy, and, your PC (especially if it has IE) will make a disk copy of it. If it's IE, it'll be hard to find, too.
Just did a search and I'm seeing similar results - c64 had a dmca notice for Diablo,Dig Dug,Donkey Kong,Frogger,Mario,Pac Man,Soldier Of Fortune, Spider-Man (Game),Tron 2.0 (game). Same with mame.net for Pac Man They're even chasing dcc's eDonkey .. They're chasing eveything. The most interesting thing is the Incident #'s. Most agencies prefix their incident #'s with year, but this isn't the case.. their #'s are linear. Have they already submitted almost 1,000,000 ceast and decists?
-B
and reeks of shotgun tactics with cease and desist letters.
I'd say ignore their asses, repost the manuals and let them deal with it in a more personal manner. This smells like what happened with that one university that got lettered by the MPAA for hitting on their movie script archive.
Besides, If i ever got my mitts on a rare cabinet of Gorf, or a Atari Hercules pinball i'd like to have a source for a shop manual when the need arises.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
If I don't say it, someone else will.
When will used-book stores have to collect fees? I've been "freeloading" off original purchasers for _years_!
Maybe we need a law that if someone sells old National Geographics at a rummage sale, there are fees to be collected. Five years federal pen sounds like a standard for non-compliance.
Remember annoy.com (or something similar to that), where they were issued with an injunction and a gag order that prohibited them from even consulting with an attorney? It seems that large companies can prevent individuals from consulting with a laywer if they know the right legalese and enough corrupt judges.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
He "violated the EULA on the letter"? Since when do letters carry end-user licence agreements? It's a fucking letter.
If you mail me something, it's mine, and I can do whatever I want with it.
-ben
(BTW, I make a point never to use the "EULA" acronym, because it makes me feel like I have been inspired by Microsoft. Didn't they coin the phrase or at least introduce it into common language? Yuck.)
myselfmusic
... they can still sue him. Quote from the end of the email:
Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
This has nothing to do with the DMCA, such activity was copyright infringement even under Berne.
By reading this post on Slashdot, you must now wire me $10 million in US funds from a Nigerian prince. Failure to do so will result in endless harassment and pestering. Any review by persons over 18 and under 34 will result in an immediate and violent bowel movement.
I think you can put anything you'd like at the bottom of your e-mail and unless an agreement was conceived beforehand it's just extra sig spam.
~S
he's right...
people need to understand that just because someone sends you a letter in the mail or makes you click on an EULA... these are not the words of God.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Cheers,
Ian
You can't stick an enforcable EULA on an E-mail. Opening an e-mail doesn't create any contract with the sender.
Tech Public Policy stuff
This may well be a case of an automatic script generating a cease and desist letter. However, what the site is doing, by merely offering manuals for download is, strictly speaking, most likely breaking copyright. In the US, material published before 1989 has to have a copyright notice on it to be in copyright, otherwise it is public domain. However, if the material has a copyright notice on it, then it is not public domain, and will not be until 95 years after it is published. Outside of the US, it will be public domain 70 years after the death of the last author of the manual.
Abandonware, of which this is a form, sounds nice, but it is breaking copyright laws. Lobbying to change the copyright laws to formalise abandonware is probably a good idea. However, big entertainment companies are likely to counter-lobby a great deal harder. If there is another 20 year extension to copyright when Mickey Mouse is about the come out into the public domain in 15 years time, then there will be a definite pattern to things.
perhaps you could just point out that guy's mistake instead of flying off and saying he needs to learn to read. this isnt middle school.
is that as opposed to the ANALOG software we all used to use? Analog software always runs warmer. Digital software runs so strident.
That is a confidentiality notice, and it simple means "If you are not the person we are obviously sending this to, you can't do anythign with it, including use the information contanied in it for your own benefit. In other words, pretend you never saw it"
Standard, boilerplate statement.
While the above is specifically New York, other states have similar laws.
So the recipient can actually do anything he feels like, including wiping his a** with it...
Anyone who works for DMCA would have to pay triple licensing fees.
This is my sig.
That's bullshit, sorry. What you say does apply in some circumstances... but not all, and not with the knid of force you make it out to have.
It clearly states, by the way, njobody OTHER THAN THE RECIPIENT can redistribute it, etc.
by your logic, every forwarded email in existence is probably illegal and everyone should go to prison.
But then you have to go through the trouble of writing letters to your isp, and responding to the lawyers, etc, or possibly end up in court.
He's probably taking it down because it's a pain in the ass to deal with, and he really doesn't care.
This, btw, is one of the things about the DMCA that erally sucks; rather than forcing the complainer to get a proper court order to down the site, where they would have to show some evidence of harm, etc, they can just send out letters and force everyone into defence.
Is this a case where offshore web hosting might be a good idea?
Come to think of it, for any content even slightly "controversial" (or heck, the way the DMCA is being used, that might mean all content), would hosting it completely offshore on offshore servers actually help anyything?
Does the DMCA apply overseas?
**FREE** Track and view your phone's via CellID and/or WIFI and/or GPS
This is not a DMCA issue. Those manuals are copyrighted works, and they have at least another 50 years on them. The Directors of the corps involved could easily be sued by their shareholders for not properly protecting their intellectual property if they didnt ask the work be taken down.
P.S. Btw the same legal theory can be used against the operating officers of SCO for not properly protecting what were the property rights to unix for the 10 years linux was out.
I know with private correspondence, say a letter from me to you, it is certainly the case that republishing without permission is legally-uncool, and there are some reasons for that I can agree with.
I would also wager that there are lawyers who for fear of bad P.R. for their sponsors would love the concept that they can bully people and automatically gag them at the same time. I also understand that they may have included this clause with that hope in mind.
What I can't see as likely is to go before a judge and attempt to convince them that a notice of copyright infringement posted to the webmaster of a publicly accessible website has a reasonable expectation of privacy. If they aren't being bullies and they genuinely believe they are doing the "right thing" in good faith then what damages can they claim are occurring as a result of having their notice publicly posted?
The simple version of the logic is: If shrink wrap lic. agreements don't stand up in court. I don't see that a "Note:" at the bottom of an e-mail is going to do any better. Especially if they can't prove it was untruthful.
If there is a sound legal backing for such silliness, every spammer in the world should use this technique, and complain if any of their mail gets handed over to abuse@yahoo.com that it is a violation of their âoenote:â clause and therefore illegal.
Abandonware, of which this is a form, sounds nice, but it is breaking copyright laws.
Abandonware does involve copying a copyrighted work, but the fair use of a copyrighted work is not an infringement. Look at factors 1 and 4 listed in 17 USC 107. If the owner of copyright in a published work refuses to sell more copies of the work, it could be argued that the copyright owner has thereby admitted that the work no longer has substantial market value. In addition, a not-for-profit site would more likely be able to pull off a fair use defense. Though factors 2 and 3 probably lie on the copyright owner's side, the courts have tended to count factor 4 double.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Note: I am not giving /. permissiong to republish this. It's for the lameness filter's eyes only!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Take a look at the google cachel yvp_IJ: www.stormaster.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:crQ8C
What's that, a link for ROMS?
people need to understand that just because someone sends you a letter in the mail or makes you click on an EULA... these are not the words of God.
:D
Unless you happen to be getting e-mail from god, in which case I think you have bigger issues than copyright law!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
ACTUALLY.. The WRITER owns the copyright to the letter and by allowing access to a 'forbidden' for reveiw 'they' are involation of the writer's copyright/distribution agreement at the bottom of the letter.
SO... Posting it for access by ANYONE then the INTENDED reader is also a violation for the DMCA.
Actually.. The data pattern sent from his/his server's hard-drive to anyone but the person the AUTHOR intended is a COPY.. and STILL violates DMCA.
Prohibited by COPYRIGHT law.. Yes, believe it or not, the LETTER sent to the site is COPYRIGHT ( even if it's not labeled as such. )
And as for FAKE.. I've seen two other sites shut down by the EXACT same letter...
Ta..
Actually HE did break it. He allowed the letter to be redistributed to ANYONE but the intended target of the AUTHOR.. ( also, a violation of DMCA - it's a digital media file ( e-mail ) and he's passing out copies of it. )
It's a copyright letter... Copyright owned by the author - You are bound by the 'eula' even if you don't like the 'eula'. It can always just be deleted.
First, it's not the DMCA, it's the C&D's EULA. Second, it's a server under HIS control, and he has permission to make the copy. Once it leaves his control, though (hits the ISP), THEY are in violation for transmitting the bits, every owner of every router along the path is in violation, your ISP is in violation, and you are in violation. Shit, he just found out how to /. the entire Internet.
This analogy might work, if you only had to worry about contract law. Contract law requires both parties to, at least implicitly, agree. Therefore a one-way message usually would not be binding on the recipient. However, in this case, the notice is simply referencing prohibitions automatic to all recipients of copyrighted content (and all content is automatically copyrighted by default).
IANAL:
Common sense here. When you send a normal, unsolicited message to someone, you no longer own the message or have any rights to it. Think about about the volumes of published letters of historical figures. That's why you are supposed to think twice before hitting the send button, the modern equivalent of having Mary Lincoln let the President's scathing letters season overnight.
Suppose I send you an email calling you a bastard, and put some legalese at the end. It just doesn't matter. The fact is that I called you a bastard, and you can tell anyone you want about it, and show them the email to prove it.
Obviously the situation is different if there is a formal relationship of trust or duty between the parties. Likewise, if the government wants you not to disclose something (e.g., a letter authorizing a wiretap order you as an SP are required to perform)--that's another story.
--
I was thinking that Tron 2.0 wasn't due for release until august 23 or so...see http://www.tron20.net for the web site for current information.
I put that book on my amazon.com wishlist!!!!
I believe it would be more accurate to say We stopped another person from freely sharing information that will never be of Profit to anyone!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Their are thousands of warez sites on the web, a few major p2p programs with millions of users, a flourishing IRC network used mainly for warez trafficking and the only sites that are brought down are the unique, special nische sites who serve a small community that are just trying to share their unique hobby. They will never stop piracy that way. The only thing that they are going to do is show us their stupidity and upset some decent people while they are doing that.
How do you think people make remakes of those games? Do you think Japanese Company X has working backups of the source from 20 years ago, or did the remake team get "inspired" by MAME?
While walking past a pub yesterday I saw a sign in it - eat in our upstairs bar, where the communist manifesto was proposed - just a normal pub on a small street. I'm not sure if Borscht was on the menu or not...
When will they learn that the majority of the population of the world do not agree with them and their enforcment of outdated copyright laws, esp on old software.
I think that the copyright laws should be changed, at least for software etc to 7 years, and then it should become free to the community.
After 7 years, most software is obselete, and unsupported, so why souldn't the community have access to that software and source code to use to benifit the advancement and education of the human race, rather then the money hungry few getting richer by suing those that wish to re-live their child hood by playing games that can no longer be sourced by any other means, or educate themselves by understanding older coding. (and a tech manual for f#$k sake, come on, the horse has been dead now for a long f#$ken time!!!).
L.C.Data
Sydney, Australia
afaik, DMCA cannot harm me, as i live in Finland ;) ;) ;) Tho, they can bitch to the surfers, but can they REALLY afford to hunt down single users, especially when they cannot see the server logs?
;) correct me if i'm wrong, but i've understood that DMCA attacks against human rights also, and heavily, hindering free information flow etc..., and i really hope that if i'm wrong, somebody correct me and i can re-evaluate my opinions;)
So any US residents keeping up an site with something DMCA lawyers wants to bill ya --> contact me when you are looking for hosting
AFAIK, they cannot even do anything to ME nor people hosting their sites on MY server if an US resident views the pages and they do not like it, thanks to human rights, right here in Finland
DMCA sucks a big time, what harm can some manuals do to any business, i cannot understand that point >_ anyways, a game older than what, 4-5years, do those still generate even SOME revenue? well, perhaps some, very little, put do they end up to profit from it still? i doubt.
Perhaps, some day DMCA will be dropped =)
(3 days later, 3 men with black suits arrives to my door: 'We are from DMCA & Human rights humiliation Agency, please open the door immediately!'......
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
You can republish letters sent to you as well as repeate anything told to you in private.
Or at least nobody has ever been sued for repeating stuff.
E mail is presumed to be personal coraspondence. I know people do tend to throw in that "no disclosure" thing but if memory serves this went to cort ages ago and the judge said the recepiant of the email can do as he likes. The obveous exceptions being prior contract and pre-exsisting intelectual property.
I don't actually exist.
The disclaimer actually refers to privileged material not copyrighted material. This is a standard law firm email disclaimer. It is actually only applicable to attorney-client communications which are legally protected, but is usually attached to all email coming from a lawfirm as a CYA measure. It is not intended to prevent publication of a letter.
funny enough... I get e-mails from my brother at work (in a pharmacy of all places) where almost this same exact text verbatum is automatically attached to the bottom of the letter automatically by their system.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
"Learn to read"? Legalese? This is not intended to be read by mere mortals. It is crouched in confusion, encoded in entropy, secreted via syllables.
Unless you have attained the exalted station of "lawyer", true understanding shall ne'er be yours, and the paltry thing you foolishly call "understanding" will, I trow, bite you in the ass.
he browses at +1 because all the rape victims too scared to come forward with a non-anonymous account all complain about him AC. And since he cant stand the tortured cries for resolution and justice, he must browse at +1.