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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.""
Imagine the hours of fun playing the GCN version on the Wii, smacking Jack Thompsons in the head with the Wii-mote..
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Why doesn't he just buy one himself?
Seems easier on everyone's behalf.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
So that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat luxury car driving in our schools.
Awsome - Rockstar have a new game - might check it out
Seriously, nobody gives a shit about him.
He's a self-promoting moralistic jerkoff. Stop giving him air by paying attention to him.
I think he just wants a free copy. I mean, who wouldn't?
when I invite Jack to take a nice vacation in the Sun. I mean physically inside the generally accepted diameter of the star.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
"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"
At the risk of sounding AOL:
Oooh - Me too please!
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
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.
Not that I agree with ole' Jackass, but how does that make things different? To devils advocate for a moment, people like JT are the ones who blame things like the Columbine shootings on video games, and that was related to bullying (in that the perpetrators were themselves bullied and perceived their actions to be revenge).
In Thompsons warped view of the world, games make children violent. This isn't a particularly rational viewpoint, but his actions here are consistant with it. What does he care that the game doesn't condone bullying? It's a Rockstar game (which he hates), and it's violent (which gives him a chance to get up on his soapbox and preach).
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Remember that old story about some tech support guy who, upon asking a user to send him a copy of a floppy disk, received a piece of paper with the floppy disk photocopied on it?
Rockstar should do that.
...the world famous comedian and one of the best actors there is.
Honestly, he has to be - he always makes me laugh with tears when he cracks one of his "how videogames [verb] the [noun]" jokes or when he retells the original classic "why videogames are root of all evil" one-liners.
Also, I really love the way he pretends to be the biggest, most bigoted dumbfuck on earth. I mean, this guy has pure talent - no one alive could be such an gigantic arsehole as he pretends to be.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Now we'll have 5000 posts screaming about this, most of them adding nothing to the argument. Why preach to the choir? Can someone explain it to me? Do people just like patting each other on the back?
To file a lawsuit you need a small amount of money. That's it. This doesn't mean anything. Trust me. They have no standing, they have no legitimate cause of action, this will go nowhere. Just calm the hell down people.
Takes a serious ego to think you have the right to make such a demand from a company, simply because you've set yourself up as the one to make sure video games aren't too violent.
I'd love to see Take-Two to tell him to take a flying leap.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
Video games don't make me violent...
Being pissed off at what an asshole Jack Thompson is makes me violent.
"me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze "
Assumeing that A means one.. did he just publicly emit that he plans on comitting copyright violation by either making copies and passing them out OR conducting a public preformace of a copyrighted work.
me things someone needs to send him a nasty gram
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
smacking Jack Thompsons in the head ...
No, no -- you need to aim for a vital organ.
But remember since colombine its not about preventing bullying. Rather than getting at the root problem they keep with the old kids will be kids line and dismiss the bullies...but with johnny who gets beat up everyday we need to get him into counseling and ostracize him further just in case he goes postal one day.
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
His mouth is in his head.
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.
Here's your copy. It'll be $54.95.
Money orders and credit cards only please.
I'd like to see this on a Take Two/Rockstar press release:
A warning for those of you lazy self absorbed and/or just plain inattentive parents: All the censorship in the world won't make up for bad parenting if your child is more influenced by our games than by Mommy & Daddy, both you and your offspring have much bigger problems than the gameplay. So before you go hauling us or any other studio into court, look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you did the best you could, because if you're considering taking us to court, you didn't.
Inspiration for above
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Don't put advice in your sig.
Lazy parents. That's the problem, not violent content in games. If parents would actually PARENT their kids instead of being all self absorbed and/or just wanting to 'be their friend'. The vast majority of parents are lazy, do not want to take responsibility for their children's actions, and pay little if no attention to raising them properly. As a parent of a teenager I can say it makes my job all the harder too.
Instead of going after media (games, movies, whatever), why not focus on the ONLY place where social problems can be adequately addressed...the HOME.
Personally, I kind of want him to win, so I can demand free stuff from every company in the world, and threaten a law suit. That'd be sweet.
Seriously, this just shows that he think he is above the law, and everybody else is below it. He just can't accept the concept of fairness, if he thinks he has any right to demand that a corporation give him something for free. Especially given that he cites a school board resolution as if that were a major legal binding precident...
Some of my favorites in his crazy person rant:
21. Take-Two is fraudulently and deceptively marketing this game not only because it desperately needs the cash from the sale of this controversial game, whose release has been delayed for over a year in large part because of the efforts of the undersigned petitioner, but also because controversy still swirls about the Bully game, and Take-Two is Hell-bent to defuse it.
Because, you know... No video game in the history of the world ever shipped late, except because of his crusade. It can't possibly be related to needing more time to finish the game. Crazy people like him think they are winning great victories whenever anything happens.
29. Florida Congressman Jeff Stearns, who recently chaired hearings in the United States House of Representatives, discovered how thoroughly flawed the video game rating system is, as the ESRB is actually paid for and operated, in effect, by the video game industry itself. This is a classic case of the fox guarding the chickens. Congressman Stearns has now introduced to Congress a Bill called the "Truth in Video Game Ratings Act" largely because of the illicit collaboration between the ESRB and Take-Two.
Right... Thank god for the Federal Book and movie censors... Because, you know, the MPAA isn't funded by movies. And, why the hell is nobody even bothering to ask the industry to self regulate books? I can read a graphic description of horrible bestiality gang bang child rape and decapitation with a chain saw without having to show ID. But, 30 polygons try to do it doggy style, and it's the end of the world.
Really? I coulda swore he was communicating out of the other end... :-)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
video game players are violent. You can get medieval on someone's ass playing the Telletubbies game if you try hard enough. What about all the times I crashed 747's into the World Trade Center in Microsoft FS2000? To be fair, I was trying to fly between them, but the frame rate on my Pentium ONE (with the floating point bug, thank you very much) was so crappy I often over-controlled and wiped out on one of them.
The converse is also true. I play World of Warcraft, an intensely PVP game but have never fought another player (mostly because they're all noobs and I'm too nice to pwn them severely). I could easily play an hour of GTA without killing a single NPC. It's not the point of the game, but I could do it if I wanted to.
Still, I'm thankful that the vast rightwing conspiracy is taking time off from the war on drugs, fighting against pr0n, opposing gay marriage, defending the rights of blastocycts, installing surveillance cameras, wire-tapping my home, and working feverishly to perfect SOME kind of mind-control device to protect me (a 47 year old man) from violent video games. Thanks, dudes!
So if I threaten to sue game companies I can get free prerelease copies of their games? Bring in the lawyers!!
As a father of 5 children, I counsel my kids that it's usually their fault when they are the victims. They are responsible for themselves and their own well being, and they are the ones who suffer when they don't ensure this.
Yes, bad people do mean things, and you can't stop that. But you can do many things to ensure that the bad people don't do those mean things to you. Whether by locking your bike, (so it's not stolen) avoiding dangerous situations, or by demanding respect early in a relationship.
There's a kid who lives nearby (whom I'll call Ray) who is a classic victim. It seems like, no matter what, things just don't work out for this kid. It's sad, really. But recently, this he has been hanging out at our house, and we've been counseling the him to stand up for himself. He really had no idea how much of his bad situations he had personally been contributing to, and the result is that, even though we aren't his parents, he's really bonded with us.
When a child is victimized, if the authority does nothing to teach the victim how to handle the situation from a position of strength, it reinforces their position of weakness. They are given the message that they need to be coddled by the authorities against the bad bullies, and I think that's just wrong. This then prevents the situation from actually improving long term, and when it gets bad enough, the victim pops and mows down a schoolyard with an AK-47.
Bullies should be punished, and frequently, so should the victims.
When fights break out among our kids, we punish both parties equally. While the aggressor gets punished for "taking things to the next level", the victim is punished for allowing it to happen to him/her. They can develop means to encourage aggressors to leave them the !@## alone, and they do.
Forget "fair". Life isn't fair, and law is just a set of consequences that only take effect when you get caught. Teaching towards not being in the victim role helps people avoid the pain of being taken advantage of, and being hurt by the very authorities put there to protect them.
For the record, actual fights are very rare in our household. Our children are usually described by others as unusual in how close, polite, and considerate they are towards each other. Said children range from age 9 to age 17.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Wait, you mean he's the bastard who has been keeping Duke Nukem from me for the last decade plus?
String him up boys!
There is a fundamental difference between training simulations, games, and the real world.
Training simulation try to keep as close to the original deal as possible in content and control. You will have cockpits set up to resemble or sometimes explicitly copy the cockpit of the actually vehicle, all the controls will be in the same place, the controls will have force feedback to simulate the true to life vehicles resistance, many time the simulation will even have hydraulics to simulate the vehicles roll pitch and yaw. This is all there so when you get in the actual vehicle there is little change.
There are some parallels to this in video games. Games can teach you how to sneak up to someone, the correct maneuvers to use in certain situations; it may help in some skill sets. However not nearly to the level of simulators. Games are not designed to teach how to shoot a gun or drive a vehicle; they are set up to be entertainment. The vast majority of the things you would learn in a simulation, you will not learn from a video game because they are not represented in the content of a video game. For example, go ahead and ask a counter strike player if they know where the safety latch is on a Maverick M4A1 Carbine, if they know it sure as hell isn't from playing counterstrike.
Simulations and game can make something feel familiar. However gaining skills in maneuvers and controls is not what this is about. The reason that videogames are under fire is because people believe that it will make children violent, it changes into killers. This just isn't true, and if you ask anyone who trains people on these simulation trainers they will say the same thing.
Video game and even military simulation can not teach killing intent, it can not remove moral and ethical values from the user and it can not make the user feel more inclined to use violence. They might make it easier to know where the trigger is, but they do not make it easier to pull the trigger
I grew up being the victim of bullies .. teachers, principals, guidance counsellors and psyciatrists all told me to ..
.. not video games (I do play violent games .. depending on how violent you consider Oblivion and most RPGs are, but they are in no way responcible for why I am and hopefully was violent)... that violence was one way to solve a problem and im still trying to get it out of my system. I know I shouldnt resort to it to fix a problem but 90% of the time its the only solution when everyone that tells you to ask for help doesnt help when you ask for it.
1) count to 10 - dont lose your cool
Always ended up in 10 more seconds of teasing and bullying
2) Walk away
Last I checked, bullys have legs too
3) Ignore them
Bullys find that to be more of a reason to tease/bully
4) Ask an adult/teacher for help
When I ask for help Im always told that hes not doing anything wrong and that I should be able to do the above 3 things to get rid of them
So unfortunately I ended up having to defend myself any way I could and the most effective being me beating the living snot out of them.
Of course this solution always ended the same way at school. The bully would get a slap on the wrist and be sent back to class ( if not bloodied up ) or sent home to be cleaned up and recover a little, and me being suspended/expelled from school because nothing the adults taught me worked.
I learned at a young age from adults
If it takes effort to do, let someone else do it.
I certainly didn't have a parent around me 24/7 while I was a child and I didn't grow up to be a bully or worse. Parenting does not require around-the-clock attention; it requires solid values and the teaching of right and wrong. If you're incapable of that, then maybe you should sterilize yourself and do the rest of us a favor.
I almost agree with ignoring him... but it's litigious asses like him that destroy fun. They won't stop until all video games are as fun as a night at Morman bible study. I don't think I'm exaggerating.
It's not just games. Lawyers have completely destroyed the fun of playgrounds. As a parent, that pisses me off. You definitely can't have anything that spins because someone might fall off or get dizzy. Nothing too tall. Big slides & swings? Not a chance. It's even hard to find sand in a playground anymore, because a kid might throw some in another kid's eye.
Getting hurt when you do stupid things is an important life lesson that lawyers are ruining. Elementary schools have banned nearly every competative sport. No baseball, football, handball, volleyball, tennis, running or tag! No after school programs. No skateboards, rollerskates, or scooters. And definitely nothing that might offend anyone for any reason at all. Maybe Columbine would be less likely to happen if people like Mr. Jack didn't make life suck so badly for the kids he wants to "protect."
Mortal Kombat didn't cause America's youth to murder their parents any more than heavy metal music did during the 80's. Despite all of the concerns about young people holding hands, dancing, watching violent films, listening to gangsta rap, and such... violent crime is down. Youth crime is down. Why can guys like this spout off to politicians when their "concerns" have absolutely no rational basis? I'm not for book burning and I'm definitely against censorship for no good reason.
If Thompson is allowed to continue his bogus mislead fight, games will suck bigtime... like playgrounds, school recess, and everything else about childhood that guys like him want to destroy. He wants to make sure that every kid is having a fun time the Jack Thompson way, and that scares the hell out of me.
I can read a graphic description of horrible bestiality gang bang child rape and decapitation with a chain saw without having to show ID.
This post useless without ISBN.
... how thoroughly flawed the video game rating system is, as the ESRB is actually paid for and operated, in effect, by the video game industry itself. This is a classic case of the fox guarding the chickens. Congressman Stearns has now introduced to Congress a Bill called the "Truth in Video Game Ratings Act" largely because of the illicit collaboration between the ESRB and Take-Two.
I guess Jack had better go after the Better Business Bureau next. After all, they're funded by the businesses who make up its membership. I think we need a "Truth in Business Ratings Act" to help counter this illicit collaboration between the BBB and its members.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It is my opinion that you are nothing more than a grandstanding egotist, with delusions of grandeur trying to draw attention to yourself, in an attempt to compensate for a childhood filled with loneliness.
Here's the problem.
There are people who see or read something and decide "Hey, I'd like to try that." Those people are choosing to do something, not being forced to do it and they aren't really copy-cats. They are only people who do not know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, nor have they been raised to have a sense of responsibility. If caught, they just say - "Uh, I played a video game, and it made me do it".... BULLSHIT.
If you do something, you and ONLY you are responsible for that action.
Why is that? I believe it is because of people such as yourself, who preach on about how "No one is responsible for their own actions" - they must have seen it in a video game, or a movie, or read about it in a book. You give them an out. If nothing else, all you are doing is making the problem worse. You're giving them their excuse to use before the judge. "Your honor, Jack Thompson clearly states that I only acted this way because of a video game!" You're making the problem worse, not better.
Let me tell you something else... There are a hell of a lot worse things to emulate on television. It's called the NEWS - maybe you should sit down and watch it some time. You know - the parts about people being blown to bits by terrorists or the military fighting the terrorists. Or the random acts of nature killing thousands of people.
Let's face it, what someone chooses to do is not the result of reading a book, or watching a movie, or playing a video game. None of these things *MAKE* anyone do anything. The people who do these things have not had a proper upbringing, where they are instilled with a sense of responsibility, and a clear deliniation between right and wrong, good and evil.
Schools are not responsible for this instruction.
Governments are not responsible for this instruction.
Parents are ultimately responsible for this instruction.
Jack - please, just - go away somewhere, and leave the raising of our kids to us. I don't care about your opinion. I don't believe anything you say. You have to respect someone for anything they say to have an affect on you. Trust me, you haven't earned anyone's respect by, in my opinion, acting like a blithering, idiotic, blow-hard.
** This used to be worded a lot harsher - however, I figured no one would take it seriously if I filled it with nothing but knee-jerk commentary.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
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.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
... by having the mentality that "you can get whatever you want by puffing your chest, threatening people (he threatened to sic the police on Penny Arcade after a spat about a charity donation), and abusing the legal system, you can get whatever you want." Which is probably a worse example for kids than the Bully game would be, since Jack (as far as I can tell) is a real live person.
Good job.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
No video game in the history of the world ever shipped late, except because of his crusade. It can't possibly be related to needing more time to finish the game.
No, no - let him claim to have caused excessive delays! If Take-Two decides to sue him for lost income due to his interference, I'm sure those statements are going to be rather helpful.
Florida Congressman Jeff Stearns, who recently chaired hearings in the United States House of Representatives, discovered how thoroughly flawed the video game rating system is, as the ESRB is actually paid for and operated, in effect, by the video game industry itself.
Gee, I hope no one tells Cliff Stearns about the MPAA movie rating system. Then again, the video game industry doesn't have nearly the presence in Washington's wallets as the MPAA members do, and Stearns' big contributors are the telecoms anyway, so it's probably not big on his radar at the moment. In any event, it doesn't help Thompson's case that he can't even get the Congressman's name right.
I wish this asshole Thompson would pull his lower lip over his head and swallow.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I think he just wants a free copy. I mean, who wouldn't?
Yeah, seriously, what an ass. Bastard should get it off Bittorrent like the rest of us.
I thought he was talking about the bible untill I saw the chainsaw bit... perhaps the talkmud.
no, he just recently took over delaying the release of dnf, before him came his father, and his father before that...
A mouse is a device used to point to the xterm you want to type in
Yes, and we all know how the boy scouts are against resemblence to the military, what with the uniforms, marching, badges, antihomosexuality... oh wait. Also, a friend of mine's boy scout troop did a target shooting trip, using actual .22 rifles, and thats less risky than paintball?
Because, as Douglas Adams put it rightly (a must read, absolutely), Books hapenned to be already very common arround when all those people were born. Therefor they consider them as normal. They did themselves read such books and see no harm in other peope doing so.
On the other hand, the 30 polygons used to be, for a very long time (in the life time of those speaking against video games), something reseved to scientists doing complex and dead slow simulations on horribly expensive hardware. The people currently shouting against polygons only encountered them late in their life, and therefor were highly suspictious about them. They insctinctivly start considering them as against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know.
In ten years, after this things turned gradually out to be alright really, those people will be up against the "Next Horrible Stuff That Instills Pervesity Inside Our Innocent Children(tm)".
The same has hapenned with music (Marylin Manson caused Bowling for Columbine ! Beattles pervets the youngs ! Communist must protect themselves from the depraved occidental music ! Jazz is the devil's work !
The same happenned with a lot of other form of creations.
There are even debate, dating from classical Greece, arguing that there is too much violence, rape and adultery in the theatre (sorry, lost the references).
Yes. The Theatre, that place were parent will be happy to see they children go to, instead of playing video games the whole day, was once touted to pervet the moral of the young.
So as long as new forms media are introduced, they are doomed to be critiqued by the older part of the population and be accused for "All Bad Things That Happen (tm)"
The sad part is, most of us slashdotter, that stand up against such absurdities in the video game world, will probably the first to shout at their children that they spend too much time in the Holodeck.
(That is, those
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thompson had grown so asinine, he wanted to retire. He took me to his office and he told me his secret. 'I am not the Dread Jack Thompson' he said. 'My name is Ryan; I inherited the annoying lawyer habit from the previous Dread Jack Thompson, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Jack Thompson either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Thompson has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.