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Jack Thompson Files Take-Two, Rockstar Lawsuit
rtt writes "Jack Thompson is back on the video game scene and has followed through with his threat to file a law suit against Rockstar, Take-Two and Walmart for Rockstar's upcoming "Bully" title. bit-tech was sent a copy by the man himself which started as follows "Take-Two has until five o'clock p.m., Eastern time, Monday, August 14, 2006, to inform me in writing that it will forthwith provide me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat violence in our schools.""
...what the fuck? Did he watch the trailer? This game is about defeating bullies, not being one. Hell, from the looks of it, it's a comedic game, not GTA+School
Wait... how can you bring someone to court for something before they didn't do it? He is saying that rockstar has practiced fraud in the games advertising and be brought up with the "Florida nuisance law" and his evidence in this is that they haven't sent him a copy.
This has to be thrown out of court.
The language from his suit is designed for media consumption, not to sway a judge.
Here's a random clip from his statement of facts:
Lawyers vary in how they make their statements of fact, but a long litany of statements like this make you sound unhinged and guilty of gross hyperbole. Maybe that's why he's been so stupendously unsuccessful in all of his anti-game lawsuits.
I also wonder at the letter he sent to Take-Two and Wal-Mart. The opening paragraph certainly sounds like a bald attempt at extortion. He's already skated on thin ice with the Florida Bar and with various judges. I wonder how much longer he'll be able to push the envelope with these vague and poorly constructed lawsuits before he gets nailed to the wall for it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
So how do you fight Jack? Well first off all you don't fight him directly. He's like the fucking Candy Man. Mention his name and you give him power. Arguing with him is a waste of time. Jack or someone like him will always be there beating their chest and begging for air time. You'll never change his mind. What you can change is the validity of his arguments and we don't do that during a televised debate.
...
All we have to do, is not be who he says we are.
-Gabe out
I really wholeheartedly agree. Giving him attention when he pulls this stupid crap is not going to make him go away. He's an attention-whoring lunatic. He WANTS us to get worked into a tizzy.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Bah, where did I ever claim that I wasn't preaching?
The irony I was refering to is Jack getting up on his soapbox as a bully, bullying a game about fighting bullies.
And of course he uses the argument that standing up to bullies is the cause of violence. How convenient for him:
I'm sure it'll come out something like; "You can't countersue me; there are already too many silly lawsuits!"
KFG
There's some degree of truth to this, but lawyers who consistently file suits that are found to be baseless can end up losing their license to practice law. JT has already been investigated by the Florida Bar Association and one judge in Alabama revoked his temporary license to practice law in the state.
While I think that Take Two/Rockstar is pretty safe from Jack, he might not be safe from himself...
I thought it was illegal to use threats of a lawsuit. I don't remember where I read or heard it, but the jist was saying "you must do this or that or I will suit" was illegal. Any law professionals here?
Anonymous Cowards suck.
I had to read your post a couple of times to get what you were saying. At first I thought you were advocating "stand up to bully" violence, but after a re-read, you say discipline your kids for fighting (no matter which one started from the postion of power).
I agree that the answer to kids being bullied is not to be 'coddled' - 100%. But standing up to bullies is sometimes what they are after.
I moved from NZ to Northern Ireland when I was 12, and because I was 'foreign' became the target of a few of a couple of the school bullies. I pretty much always managed to talk my way out of it. It'd have been a pretty dangerous situation for me to 'stand up to them directly'... most of these guys were pig farmers and victims of home violence. No punch I could deliver was even going to make them wince, and they could easily gather more friends than I had made in the first month or so. So, I had to use quick thinking, even quicker talking and a little avoidance here and there. In the end I got these guys working for me. I started selling potatoe chips (crisps) at school, undercutting the cafeteria and these guys were doing the leg-work and chasing up the outstanding debts.... win win. They just needed a bit of guidance and a little 'motivation'....
5) Laugh at them
Almost always caught them off guard. For some reason, if you're not taking the bully seriously, their balls shrink to the size of rasins.
'Course, this never works when you're being attacked by a fucker and his cronies. The only way to deal with that group is to jam the angry end of a pencil into the thigh of the loudest fucker there. Sure, you get suspended, maybe even a psych eval, but you get the rep for being 'crazy', and you can always make up your grades.
That one got me through high school. Didn't have a pencil in middle school, but there was a bottle laying on the ground next to the group, so I just grabbed it, broke it and swung it like a retard. That got me in less trouble, oddly enough, and still got me the nutjob rep.
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The Boy Scouts of America have never allowed scout troops to organize paintball games for precisely that reason. No one can deny that paintball is a game based on a military theme.
This post useless without ISBN.
Try 080213422X (The Painted Bird). I'm pretty sure it has everything mentioned and more, except for chain saw decapitation. All from the point of view of a little boy. It was on the reading list for my 12th grade English class....
I have heard this argument before when I was a kid. A friend of my mothers said the same thing about me going paintballing and playing laser tag games every weekend.
I might be inclined to believe there is some truth to it if I had grown up into a gun toting psychopath but as it is am a boring pacifist who finds all violence abhorent and campaigns against a war in any forum they possibly can (see previous slashdot rants)
With hindsight I think that by the time I reached me early teens I had learned to differentiate between fantasy and reality and so I knew that the repurcussions of me shooting my friends with a laser tag pistol or paintball gun were very different from any repurcussions I might have faced if I had shot them with a loaded firearm.
Interestingly though the American military obviously agrees with some of the points made in the parent post as they currently publish my favourite video game (Americas Army) for training purposes. I like it for its realism but I think that eventually the US army will realise it is not actually helping recruitment as most of the people who play are neither US citizens, nor are they prime candidates for military service.
PS - Anyone who likes first person shooters and hasnt played it can find a link to the AA site below. Check it out.
http://www.americasarmy.com/
I dont read
What makes me feel like being violent is dealing with fundamentalist fascistic self-appointed *"morality" crusaders who try to reduce every artistic, creative or unusual work of art or media that they don't understand to their very low level of artistic literacy (IE lowest common denominator) and who attempt to control what others can see, do, or experience.
One of the things which help me deal with the violent impules which these hypocritic ass-clowns arouse in me is a little bit of time playing some violent video games, or possibly enjoying some other form of entertainment which Mr Thompson would no doubt publically try to gain political momentum by denouncing.
Any respectable artist or organization should not be the least bit intimidated by this sort of politicized "campaign for censorship."
* (Morality: Morality to these people has nothing to do with true morality, as far as morality meaning "Virtuous" or "conformity to ideals of right human conduct." for these people "Morality" means that you act and behave exactly like they do, which in many cases has nothing at all to with right and ideal conduct and everything to do with dogma, their backward ass "religion" and guilt driven behavior control.