Slashdot Mirror
36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist
Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."
Sony still sells Lemmings across various platforms. He had to see this coming.
Besides directly calling it Lemmings was even more stupid move. Sony has to defend the Lemmings name too, and if the port is low quality it hurts the whole Lemmings brand.
No, their claim rests on the fact that they published the Lemmings games, or licenced out the ability to publish them, and this is a port of one such licenced product. The trademark is within that context of video games. Even if they couldn't trademark it within that narrow context, that still leaves the first part of "he's created a port of a licenced product." The trademark infringement is a separate part of it.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Yeah fuck you Sony for protecting your intellectual property!
Much as I welcome any opportunity to highlight what a generally crappy corporation Sony is, and how little regard it has for its customers, I have to say there can't be anyone who didn't see this coming. But then if the point of the process was to get a little self promotion going then he's achieved that, he can comply with the cease and desist and for the sake of 36 hours of his time he's got the kind of publicity big companies pay big agencies big monies to attract, so depending on his motivation, maybe he fully expected this outcome but for him it's still a win.
And of course, once the code is in the wild it pretty much doesn't matter that it's removed from the original source, Sony's lawyers might be busy playing Whac-a-mole for years to come.
Not if you then try and sell it to a shit load of people in a shop, no.
Perhaps for your own use and enjoyment, but making a port (copy of original gameplay) and then putting it in apps-stores? how is that not a trademark/copyright violation? If sony owns the rights to lemmings, they alone should be allowed to port it to the iphone for common distribution.
Now i realize in this case it kind of sucks since the intrepid geeky developer acting alone and (at least partially) out of passion and fanaticism for games/programming gets beaten back by the big soul-sucking mega-corp, but this works both ways, these laws also prevent sony from taken this guys' original games and shamelessly putting them on the PSP without paying him.
From a geek/nerd point of view, the whole '36 hours to port to several platforms' action was cool and all, but in all other aspects, pretty stupid, especially if the guy knew he was gonna violate sony's rights
People, what a bunch of bastards
Yeah, exactly. We issue them with monopoly powers, so they can continue to enrich our culture. What do they do? They sit on them, let them stagnate, and when somebody actually does act in the interest of the public, and makes them available on platforms the original provider has never supported nor, it seems, ever intends to, they shut him down.
So yes, screw Sony. They obtained their "intellectual property" under false pretences, and are now using it for the exact opposite of what it was intended for.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
And this is why modern copyright is a complete failure. It is used today not as a tool to enrich both the copyright holder and the public through dissemination of ideas, but as a lock and key to prevent anyone else from using it by very intentionally not disseminating said idea..
The port also seemed to include a lot of the original artwork, which they definitely do have copyright on. This is much nicer than Sony needed to be - in the US they could claim massive statutory penalties for distributing the game knowing that it contained copyrighted materials that he did not have a license for.
Of course, now that he has complied, the best thing for Sony to do is offer to buy the code from him. He's demonstrated that there's a market for Lemmings on various mobile platforms and already done the hard work of making the code work on them. It would also give Sony some great PR, and they could treat the existing downloads as a promotional offer.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Also...seriously...how often do you use "lemmings" in everyday conversation? I honestly can't remember the last time I used it in the context of referring to the animal, or in the context of describing herd mentality. (Sheep fit much better once you know the truth about lemmings). In fact the last time I even heard the word "lemming" (outside of the context of the video-game) was on the show QI.
What I find most amusing is that he states:
DISCLAIMER: "iPhone" and "iPod Touch" are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.
as if Apple are going to try and sue him for mentioning their products, yet all the while he flagrantly copies/reproduces SCEE's IP.
Oh, and the original, copyrighted, artwork...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
The popularity of the game led to development of numerous ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 in 2006 and 2007, and the creation of several sequels.
Source: Wikipedia
How do you or Mobile1UP know that Sony wasn't planning on porting Lemmings to iPhone/iPad/Android? Firstly, you don't. Secondly, it's irrelevant! It's not a condition of copyright, patent or trademark law that you have to make your work available on all platforms past, present and future. The intended purpose of patent and copyright systems is indeed to provide incentive to produce, and therefore advance the state of the art, or enrich culture. However, Lemmings on the Amiga did that. Job done. They (now Sony) have copyright in the original game. That's what they get for developing the game (or rather..buying the developer of the game).
Besides which...you can buy a Lemmings game on a current generation console! How is that letting the property stagnate? And how in the name of Zeus' butthole did you get modded insightful? To have the bare-faced cheek to rip off a game, which, with the exception of a single-screen disclaimer that it's not authorised by SCEE, is indistinguishable from the original Lemmings, and then to try and distribute it through the Apple App-Store is possibly the most retarded thing I've ever seen since Sony tried to install rootkits on their customer's machines. We all love to support "the little guy" against "evil corporations" but this was the single most obvious outcome since that guy tried to play Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol.
Nothing is stopping Mobile1UP from making their own version of a "Lemmings" game, with their own graphics resources/levels and their own music etc. Do you think they'd be happy if someone came along and made such an exact copy of one of their original games and started distributing it through the App-Store?
Word to the wise: your first words to SCEE should be "Sorry", followed by "Thank you".
It sounds like you think you didn't really do anything wrong. Uh, no. No, sir. You are guilty as original sin.
SCEE could have bitch-slapped you from here to breakfast, and they really should have done so in order to protect their trademark. Sure, all you have to do is to change the name and the graphics slightly to be fine, but you chose not to do so. As they noted, you chose wilfully to infringe on their trademarks (name, distinctive images) and their copyrights (the EGA graphics).
Don't get me wrong: as hobbyist game developer myself, I admire what you've done and I wish you the best of luck in getting it licensed. But as an ex-professional game developer, I can assure you that I won't view SCEE as being in the least bit evil for defending their rights.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You seem to miss the fact that he submitted it to an App Store! That's totally illegal in all countries which recognize copyright - even Scandinavian countries (where it might be permitted for personal use). You also don't take into account the fact that Sony might be intending to release it for that platform and that's the entire point of copyright - to allow you to do that without another company doing it before you and taking all your revenue.
Yes there is. Copyright is not intended as an incentive to create, it is intended as an incentive to publish. Society does not gain anything if you create the best ever novel but never let anyone read it. Society benefits greatly if you create this novel and then circulate it widely. Copyright is a bargain struck between creators and consumers - the consumers agree to grant a time-limited (in theory) monopoly to the creator, in exchange for the creator, in turn, publishing the work.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News