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Lawsuits That Changed the Games Industry
Gamasutra has up a piece looking at litigation that changed the way the games industry works. Deep, interesting questions like "Is modding legal?", "Are games covered by the 1st amendment?", and "Are games protected by copyright laws?" have all been decided in legal cases within the last 20 years. The site explores these issues, and ponders issues that are likely to affect the business of the games hobby in the future. From the article: "A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games. As a rule, be immediately suspicious of any legislation proposed in the name of 'security' or 'protecting our children.' The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty. To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees."
I know eventually someone's going to sue an MMOG for making them addicted. Probably someone related to those dumb fat people that sued McDonalds for "making" them fat. Ugh, some people. I think I should start a website where I take bets on how soon it'll happen lol. It'd at least be more entertaining than the "Protecting Our Children (from having fun)" bills.
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How about game companies recalling a product if they need to release a patch on the same day of the release? That should take care of the "ship it and patch it" mentality.
These days there is alot of money in the gaming industry. Where there is money, there are lawyers. You know the rest.
We are all just people.
The article does not cover that question, the only thing related was the case of idiots that tried to gather up a bunch of user generated maps for Duke 3D and sell it as a product (with out permission from the mappers or from 3D realms).
Now the interestign one is if there ARE any precidents on modding being legal/illegal. Obviously games where they give you the tools then it is legal (most FPS games these days, Warcraft, etc etc). But what about games that don't give you the tools? (GTA? Hot coffee?) or where it is actively fought (later versions of GTA). Or hardware type mods?
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Although the PS3 isn't selling that great, Sony removed rumble from the PS3 (although they cite some other reason) because they lost this case.
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Electronic Arts overtime lawsuit.
There was the Nintendo vs. Galoob (the Game Genie lawsuit), and the Sega vs. Accolade (meaning that, basically, other companies could make unofficial carts legally).
No reference to the first modder that I recall who ran afoul of Fox Studios intellectual property - the Alien TC mod for Doom.
... am I on crack? I could have sworn he was served with cease-and-desist letters to completely halt his mod given his usage of images/logos/intellectual property.
... getting "Foxed".
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http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Aliens_TC
And no mention of it here
Oh, here's a reference. Yeah, it coined a phrase for that time period
http://www.unfetteredblather.com/nucleus/index.ph
My brother's having a really hard time getting my niece to eat healthy. He screwed up when she was really young, and let her drink lots of HFCS filled beverages and eat lots of processed and fast food. The trouble is, stuff like HFCS and meats seasoned with MSG and other chemicals have much stronger flavors than normal food, so now nothing tastes 'right' to her except that junk. Even well prepared food made by a good cook tastes 'off' to her if it's not loaded with that crap. Funny thing about kids, what they eat in their first few years is what they'll want to eat for their whole lives
And as for me? I've just dropped 70lbs through a ton of diet and exercise, and as silly as it sounds, I went through what can only be described as withdrawal symptoms when I gave up fast food. Mild symptoms, but noticeable all the same. When I'd get stressed, I'd really want to hit a fast food joint. Not just any 'ole restaurant either, but specifically a fast food joint. Took about a month to get over the cravings, and nowadays I can hardly stand the stuff, but it was tough going the first month or so.
You've got to remember, this 'food' is chemically engineered to taste good, and to make you want more. e.g. That old slogan "No one can eat just one" isn't just advertising. Those chips are designed by a chemist to make you want another, and another, and another... Read Fredrick Pohl's "The Space Merchants" if you haven't already. Everything he describes in the book is already done on a slightly less overt and evil scale, but it's all there. Real science fiction, and this is comming from a guy with a background in marketing.
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A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games. ... The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty.
... some states are now having to foot the legal bills of the parties who took them to court in the first place. The ESA is trying to extract the $500,000 that Illinois still owes it and this past week Michigan got a bill from the ESA for $180,000 in legal fees.
No, the result is often not a "jumbo size bite" taken out of anything artistic or liberty related. The result is often a "jumbo sized bite" taken out of:
1. The time of the legislative branches of the states that approve these bills. Thanks to various politically aspiring politicians that write up, debate, and vote on these bills that they know will get overturned but make them look like they give a shit about your children, state legislators, who often don't work very much anyway, waste time that could be spent on anything else, maybe even stuff that would be constitutional.
2. The time of both state and federal judiciaries. They have to take the time to issue injunctions against these laws and hear the cases that result in said laws being found unconstutional 100% of the time, further bogging down an already vastly overburdened court system.
3. The tax payer's ass. From this earlier story's linked to article:
And this story in particular:
To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees.
And let's not forget it's not just the tax payers in the states in question that have to pay for fucktard legislation, though they do front the lion's share, everyone gets a little. When these cases come before Federal Courts on appeal, as is often the case, remember, someone pays the salaries of the Federal employees.
Not to mention the loss of all credibility a state suffers when it passes one of these bills, as it has been shown that these get shot down every time and do nothing but cost time and money that could be spent on anything else.
Score another point for dumbocracy and the retards that put these retards into power and keep them there.
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Nintendo vs Tengen over who owned the rights to produce Tetris on the NES. Without this lawsuit in favor of nintendo, would we have had Tetris for the Game Boy? (and would Nintendo have become king of the handheld market?)
Nintendo vs Bung over cart copying devices. I believe this was one of the first lawsuits filed under the newly implemented Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
There is another Nintendo lawsuit involving the copy protection for the Nintendo Gameboy. Basicly the gameboy will not boot a cart unless it has the Nintendo logo data in the right place on the cart. There was a lawsuit over this (I dont know the particulars or who the other party was) where Nintendo argued that copying the nintendo logo was a copyright violation. I believe the court ruled that (like in the Sega vs Accolade case) it was OK to use the copyrighted nintendo logo for the specific purpose of making gameboy carts.
I am surprised that Nintendo didnt use stronger protection on the Gameboy Advance (such as encrypting the cart data somehow and having decryption done on the fly by the GBA). It may not have stopped chinese pirates from decapping the GBA CPU or decryption ASIC and reading out the secret key. But it would have meant that anything to do with GBA en/decrption falls squarely under the DMCA.
Imagine store shelves and digital distribution filled with collections of user created content where the original publisher/developer has no creative control over the product or royalties on the sales.
Isn't that exactly the kind of innovation that patent law is supposed to encourage and protect? Why would I not want to go to the store and have lots of choices? Isn't this a bit like GM saying no one can sell me dice to hang from my rear-view mirror because it take "create control" of their product away from GM? Or like GM saying all the fuzzy dice sellers have to pay GM royalties?
And what's with the first amendment stuff? I've never understood how an amendment designed to protect words (speech and the press) somehow covers pornography, whether in games or not.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
You dudes have lawsuits all over the place
Not everything is black and white. Theres stuff that the IP owners will dislike. Stuff that some people will think is right, and others will think is wrong, and laws will say nothing or a unknowm thing.
To avoid gray areas Free Software work with greats effors, and avoid to "tain the kernel" and other ideas to work on white area. Modders cant avoid "tainting the kernel", because his work mean redistributing stuff that is already owned by somehome. Most modding is wellcome by the ip owner, so you can continue on the gray. But If the owner attack, you can be kicked...
Imho, Is nothing of the bussiness of the author of a game the mods. Mods is how the customer use the game, I think people souldt not stop people from having fun with mods, thats evil.
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It's covered under freedom of expression - which I believe is an extension of the first amendment.