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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.
"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?"
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.
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!
Is it just me or does it seem like these DMCA claims are always targetted at people who can't really fight them?
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".
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...
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:[.]
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.
John R. Halls book "Programming Linux Games" is now awailable freely on the web. Go to his site for a copy or order it from No Starch Press.
- Baffle
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
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!!!
... 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.
Cheers,
Ian
Certainly sir, now if you'll just give me all your bank details so I can send you the money...
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...
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
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.
Underdogs only posts stuff that they have permission to post. Not all the game publishers are hoarding every bit of IP they can.
No, they post whatever they can get their hands on, and hope that publishers don't take legal action against them. Didn't you read their FAQ?
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
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.
The DMCA forces the ISP to take the complaint as legitimate and take down the content or risk being included on a future suit, leaving the site owner responsible to prove his innocence before being allowed to put the material back up. With no penalty for unjustly accusing someone of copyright infringment, it make is too easy for lawyers "representing" IP holders to crawl the web looking for names that seem similar products they own and send out automatic threatening emails, with no human ever checking to see if the content is actually what is alleged, that it was not placed there with the owners permission, does not constitue legal use, or that the copyright owner just doesn't care.
In all likelyhood, this warning was sent based on a robot that assumes that the site was hosting ROM images. Redistribution of the technical manuals might (though unfortunately, probably not) constitute fair use, especially if the owners of the games are no longer selling said manuals (since it contains information require to make the machine you own work). Finally, people who actually have the authority to make the decision on whether they want this stopped probably don't care, and if they do, they shouldn't.
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.