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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.
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?
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.
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.
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 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.
The guy was distributing game manuals for Dig Dug and Frogger... when you read 20-year old video game manuals, you're reading COMMUNISM!
It might have been fairer for the DMCA to have had a cutoff point, like minus 10 years from the introduction of the act.
There are plenty of Commodore and Sinclair ROMs, manuals and diagrams on the net. They're available to keep such old gear working for future generations to see. What next, ban the distribution of classic car manuals and sue people for producing reproduction parts?
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.
A few years ago I read an article suggesting that a dark age of sorts could come about because we are storing so much information in electronic form only. IIRC, their premise was that information might not get rolled forward onto new media when its original storage medium becomes obsolete.
Originally, I thought this was just a little farfetched, but I worry a little about trends I see. Some companies now seem to desire the ability to turn a profit on any innovation for all eternity by maintaining everlasting copyrights, patents and IP rights. Maybe this will be one of the driving forces that causes the loss of knowledge about old technology and "unimportant" information.
I think the US will pay a big price in the long term by passing these "mediocrity protection" laws. I would not be surprised at all to see more and more smart people begin going to countries where they won't be blocked at every turn when they try to build on other people's work.
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