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Atari Targets Retro Community With Cease & Desist
svenski writes "Atari User reports that Atari Inc. have begun to target the retro community and have now turned their attentions to atari2600.org, a website first registered in 2000, demanding the domain name be handed over."
Why bother?
Eleven years of no enforcement means they effectively gave up all rights to the name. See you in court, Atari.
Shoot in the foot. What's the point?
when a new MBA arrives at a company.
There seems to be news like this in abundance. When corporate profits start to sag, or don't skyrocket the legal teams start looking for people to mess with to rack up billable hours. It's disgusting to say the least how willing these companies are to alienate fans in pursuit of profits.
I got here through a series of tubes
I guess companies can register a trademark, *then* go after persons that have used the name?
After all Atari didn't exist for a lot of years.
Isn't there some expiration of a trademark when it's not defended for some number (11, in this case) years?
Because they couldn't find a better way to look like assholes.
They can't steal atari2600.org just because they feel like it's theirs. Make them take it to arbitration, they have no case.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Do they still exist? I thought they went bust decades ago.
i've just written this to the blog-writer: Please use the "Estoppel" Legal Defense. There's no way that Atari have not known of the existence for 12 years of the atari2600.org domain name.
The "Estoppel" defense states that if you ignore something, it is tantamount to "acquiescence" - i.e. "silent consent".
thus it can be claimed that Atari has "Silently Consented" to the use of this domain name, by virtue of them not having done anything for well over a decade.
It's not even the same Atari, is it?
I'll start a company called "www." and then sue every website in the world which has my name in its entirety in its website address.
Profits!
They may be able to force domain owners to take down content that is in violation of trademarks/copyrights owned by Atari, but I'll be damned if they can take a domain name from its owner.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
oh look we have fans, kill's, all
Sure... some MBA lawyer douchebag ressurects the name Atari to make money off the Atari fanboys, and then proceeds to shit all over the exact fanbase he hopes to profit from. I assume this guy used to work at Sony?
I say we go out and register ATARI*****.com (replace asteriks with whatever suits your fancy), and under contact info assign all rights to Nolan Bushnell.
Let's see how smart these douches are.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
There's no way i'm buying the nextgen Atari console now!
citation needed. I bought both witcher and witcher 2 off GoG with no DRM of any kind.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Really? I bought Witcher 2 and it required that you login/register via the launch client to prove you own the game.
any one else sense a visit from anonymous?
This is clearly Atari's admission that they plan to become a nonprofit organisation, and qualify for the .org TLD.
This isn't even really Atari - It is Infogrames wearing the skin of Atari's corpse!
I navigated to atari2600.org It doesn't look like the author is really using the domain. It is nothing but a title and a few links to another domain www.taswegian.com No blog, no community, no content. Just let them have it.
Trademarks are special in that you lose them if you don't enforce them. That's not the case with copyrights, patents or trade secrets. If you don't defend your trademark, then the law holds that your mark becomes part of the language, so that you don't own it anymore.
I learned of this when Saks 41st Avenue sent a C&D letter to a small clothing store called Sacks 41st Avenue in Capitola, California. It made the front page of the local paper. Saks' attorney told the reporter who asked about it that they had to defend their trademark or they would lose it.
The problem though is that whoever administers the domain name dispute resolution policy may not apply the trademark law. It is possible that Atari could take the domain because they registered their trademark before the website registered their domain. Because their trademark is no longer enforceable, they have no rights to the domain, but ICANN may not heed that fact and so force the register to hand the domain over to Atari.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
They're also sending letters to any hobbyist showing an Atari logo... even in a demo scene production.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/186151-ive-got-email-from-atari-today/
-m.
I've been working on an iOS app for a while. While Objective-C and Cocoa Touch are pretty nice to work with, I am sick to death of Apple's corporate control freak mentality. The fact that I cannot run code I wrote myself on an iOS device I bought with my own cash is, frankly, offensive.
Now I can pay $99 to be an iOS developer, which gives me a digital certificate that allows me to load my own binaries on my devices. I can also get certificates that allow for Ad Hoc distribution on other devices for beta testing. But both of these certificates have expiration dates. What that means is that I cannot give a binary directly to an end-user and have it continue working forever on their device. The only way to achieve that is for my users to get my app from Apple's App Store.
From now on, I'll develop for iOS if a client pays me to do it, but for all of my own titles, I'm going to focus on Android. Apple knows very well that so many of its developers are sick of being treated like this, and so like me are moving to Android. Rather than playing nicely with others by easing its restrictions on who can install what on iOS devices, or where end-users can obtain apps from, they are trying to prevent the loss of iOS developers by putting an end to Android entirely.
That's Just Wrong.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
It is not a real website. I looked at it. It looks like something a domain name squatter would make. It is a 1 paragraph description followed by about 8 links to another domain. Nothing of value would be lost if this site goes away. No links would be broken. No content lost. This guy is just hoping for a buy out.
Did you buy it on Steam or GOG? http://www.gog.com/en/support/the_witcher_2/_b_product_faq_b_
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
You have to defend your trademark to keep it, but that doesn't mean the mere existence of infringement over any given period of time nullifies the trademark. And defending a trademark does not necessarily require sending a C&D to every person who ever makes any use of your trademark. For example, there is a site called segaoa.com (3 seconds on google). The existence of this site and the lack of a lawsuit by Sega does not mean that Sega no longer owns the trademark to their brand. You could find a similar example for any company in the world, as it is possible to legally use someone else's trademark for a fan site or other non commercial product. Where Atari would lose their trademark is if they knowingly allowed someone else to use it for commercial purposes, which clearly didn't happen here. So bottom line, trying to argue that Atari does not have a legitimate right to the trademark Atari is simply a non starter.
Now, tangential to full Trademark law, ICANN has provisions that allow trademark owners to claim ownership of domains that have their full trademark in the domain. As this is not a true legal proceeding but instead an ICANN provision (that you agree to when you register a domain name), estoppel wouldn't really be applicable, and the fact that Atari has let this guy have this site for 10 years doesn't really matter, they can claim it anyway (hell, they didn't even gain the legal right to claim it until much less than 10 years ago).
Holy shit, it's Crawford. Do you have wifi in the ward or did you use your Hitler mind control rays to convince them to let you out? Either way, it's great to have you back. How's rippit?
Nintendo, Sony, MS--they've all had their heydeys. But the next generation will be ruled by the Atari Jaguar Series 2. They're going to launch with new versions of "Adventure" and "Combat" that will make everyone who even sees the trailers orgasm uncontrollably. You heard it here first.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I have been told that he removed a bunch a content after getting the C&D.
How about we boycott anything relevant to atari and its subsidiaries/parents ? i bet it would be quite an exciting experience for their stockholders.
corporations need to learn not to take consumers as herdable cattle.
Read radical news here
I am sure that Mr. Rolfe would love to articulate how bad many of the Atari videos games were(hello E.T.), and it will be entertaining to boot.
Hell, send the information to him and he can add some scathing lyrics, aimed at Atari, in his theme song.
The cease and desist letter from the lawyer would have cost more than the sites worth!!
Leave the boys alone, as if they are gonna take revenue from you... dickheads
Eh...if these companies are going to be like this, then the current owners should just turn the sites into something completly unrelated and undesirable to the company before they get them. For example...I would totally turn the site into a pron site of some kind before they could get their hands on it. Then see how hard they battle for it in court and see how much they want it after is been marred.
Atari used to be a smart company in the past. They have now become much more stupid, a kid of "company Alzheimer's disease".
If Atari is pushing to collect contempt and scorn from it's users, they'll succeed.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Whole lotta content there....
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Such long copyrights and brand names being traded around is pure laziness. The people buying brands and capitalising on IP created nearly 30 years ago.
Personally I see that there's a case for having all patents, copyright and other IP die with the company when they go bust. It offers an incentive to be creative and not take massive risks.
I will not purchase any game published by Atari. I invite you to join me.
You're missing the point -- Apple wants to sell the thing that always works. Keeping things pinned down minimises crashes. Minimising crashes means higher user satisfaction, which builds the brand.
User freedom is also known as "enough rope to hang yourself".
Apple have been very clever and relied on the "appstore goldrush" to ensure that millions of different app developers can produce enough to satisfy the hundreds of significant use-cases of the phone. The ecosystem is saturated, so the loss of a few is no problem at all.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Not really Apple's fault that it takes you, what, 2 years+, to do what most people would do in a few weekends.
Unless the brand has changed hands again, it's just that, a brand name only, in the hands of a French [queue nationalist jokes] game publisher named Infogrames. The name "Atari" has been just as meaningless as "Memorex" for quite a long time.
Back when atari2600.org was registered, was the .org TLD only available to non-commercial entities? That would have precluded any action from Atari to take the domain then.
Can't have any fansites out there that could possibly leak our ancient content for free! Everyone must pay to download our new app featuring all our old games!
Because their trademark is no longer enforceable, they have no rights to the domain, but ICANN may not heed that fact and so force the register to hand the domain over to Atari.
They're not supposed to according to the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy:
All registrars must follow the the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (often referred to as the "UDRP"). Under the policy, most types of trademark-based domain-name disputes must be resolved by agreement, court action, or arbitration before a registrar will cancel, suspend, or transfer a domain name. Disputes alleged to arise from abusive registrations of domain names (for example, cybersquatting) may be addressed by expedited administrative proceedings that the holder of trademark rights initiates by filing a complaint with an approved dispute-resolution service provider.
To invoke the policy, a trademark owner should either (a) file a complaint in a court of proper jurisdiction against the domain-name holder (or where appropriate an in-rem action concerning the domain name) or (b) in cases of abusive registration submit a complaint to an approved dispute-resolution service provider (see below for a list and links).
Scene: A man with a square jaw wielding an arrow jumps in the back of a green duck-billed monster, waiting until its mouth is closed to kill it with a single touch from his weapon.
Scene: The square-jawed man with sweat on his brow concentrates as he holds a magnet out toward the magic chalice. The chalice moves slowly towards him.... but wait! A giant bat swoops in, steals the chalice and vanishes!
Scene: The square-jawed man touches a black portcullis with a while key, and the portcullis opens automatically.
Really Atari? 11 years later and NOW you want the domain? Go scratch your ass you f'in douchebags.
I've reported lots of iOS bugs to Apple.
I even had my iPhone kernel panic right at the start of a demo of my app during a job interview. I had to forcibly reboot my phone while the clients waited impatiently. They cut the interview short and would not let me complete my demo, no doubt thinking that the kernel panic was a bug in my userspace app.
I am not at all impressed by the quality of the apps that I've downloaded from the App Store, not even the ones I've paid money for. Even if you don't have an iOS device, go have a look at the star ratings and user reviews by browsing the app store's website. They are overwhelmingly negative. It is uncommon for apps to be positively rated or to have positive user comments.
Apple makes the claim that they require inspection of your app before it goes on sale so that they can keep the quality up, and maintain a really great user experience. I don't buy that. Apple requires that inspection because there are certain kinds of apps that they don't want in the app store.
For example the app store approval guidelines specifically say that any mention of competing mobile platforms in your app is grounds for rejection. While my app can advertise my services as an iOS developer, it cannot also advertise my Android services. How does that restriction maintain the quality of iOS Apps, or improve the user experience? It does not in any way. It just enhances Apple's profits while diminishing my opportunities for promoting my company from within my apps.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
A friend of mine named his daughter Atari... I suppose he'll have to hand her over as well?
I'll develop for iOS if a client pays me to do it, but for all of my own titles, I'm going to focus on Android.
Here's a sample of letters you might get:
Dear Mr. Crawford,
I want to try your application, but I don't plan to subscribe to smartphone service. My current dumbphone with $5/mo Virgin Mobile USA service handles my mobile voice needs acceptably. If you ported your application to iOS, I could use it on an iPod touch. But as it is now, there really isn't an Android device comparable to the iPod touch, namely a pocket-size computer with access to the platform's most popular software distribution platform and without the exorbitant price typical of unlocked cell phones. The Archos 43 doesn't have Android Market, and Samsung's Galaxy S-based product appears unavailable in my country. Do you plan to make your application available on Amazon, AppsLib, SlideME, or Soc.io, or as a direct .apk download?
to sue hobbyist is like shooting urself in the head , in this era once u go against the public your pretty much screwed. I already erased them from my child memory and replaced it with my Coleco vision memories. On another note who care anyway its a crap corp , they release 1 working game out of 5 since the 90's
The arcade side ("Atari Games" aka "Tengen") got absorbed into Midway and then into Time Warner. I wasn't aware of this side getting bought by Infogrames.
Wait until you see the rad remake of Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy! It's extreme!
Another case where estoppal applies - they've let homebrewers use the fuji logo for decades now without a single takedown notice.
Which makes me think about another subtle method of protest: Write "Atari" in the font of the logo of Fujifilm. "Can't use your Fuji? We'll use another Fuji."
Laches is the legal term for sitting on your ass while your rights are being violated. After too much ass-sitting, you'll be equitably estopped from asserting any legal rights that you had.
Add Atari to my do not buy list.
Go back further. He used the domain for his game Qb, and he started having problems with his host around 2004.
I find it interesting that they targeted a barely used domain instead of going after http://www.atari2600.com/ which actually sells merchandise or http://www.atariage.com/ my guess is that they're going after the low-hanging fruit first.
I know what i would do.. Take a dump on the letter, put it in a box, and mail it back to them.
This just in: Nokia N800, a half-decade old, can boot Android, and except for a WVGA screen, is equivalent to the first two generations of iPod Touch. The newer N810, a QWERTY slider with a transflective WVGA screen, and otherwise similar hardware, launched a month after the first iPod Touch, and also can boot Android. Until they *finally* crammed a decent screen in it last year, the iPod Touch was a spectacularly lame tag-along, with the prevalence of iPhone Apps its _only_ recommending quality.
I can't name any more currently-produced units of the same type (other than the Archos and Samsung you mentioned), since Nokia moved the next installment, N900, to the high-priced smartphone world, and the better-late-than-never catchup move on screen resolution makes the iPod a contender these days, but this market segment's not as bare as some people think. There's still plenty of NOS N810s around (about $150) for anyone who really can't afford a smartphone, but the fact is anyone who can afford a $230 iPod Touch could take their pick of cheap Android phones, turn the phone radio off, and use it the exact same way. This is why Apple's legitimately scared of Android capturing developer mindshare -- if it ever does get ahead, people might do just that.
The iOS has hardware memory management and mush the same kernel as Mac os x does. It should not be possible for a sandboxes userspace app to panic the kernel.
The iOS was clearly rushed to market with inadequate design and testing. That's unlike my experience of Apple on the desktop.
Look man, if you are a truck driver and the steering fails on your truck and kills someone, how would you feel if someone were to say the same to you if you complained that your truck was mechanically defective? That's
just asinine.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
There are more Android devices sold than iOs devices. I don't see how it is to my advantage to stay with a platform that is losing market share. Maybe there is no Android answer to the iPod Touch, but I don't expect things will stay that way.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Atari should foster the use of their name in communities like this. I've recently refurbished 2 old 2600's and got a lot of help from the threads and community in atariage.com
Does this now mean that Atari's lawyers will be all over this site too?
Most of those Android devices are cheap pieces of shit too. If Apple allowed iOS to be put on any shitty hardware that could barely run it, I expect their numbers would go up as well.
Atari still exists?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I really regret ever having not only been in the opening wave of 2600 owners, but supporting your company with all those games. All of a sudden you want to try to suck up your abandonware like litigious jews? You should have made good use of the community, not turn them into your haters and drive them underground with determined will to make you eat shit and die and keep the ROMs flowing where not even RIAA and MPAA can do anything.
That's because all the rich craftsmen can afford better tools. /ducks
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Try this
Uh oh.
Don't trust any concentration of power.
Atari who? By now "atari" is just the Japanese word for "check" in the game go. When was the last time you saw a machine by Atari?
The Archos 43 doesn't have Android Market
Nokia N800, a half-decade old, can boot Android
Just because a device "can boot Android" doesn't mean it has access to applications that are exclusive to Android Market. Every iPT has the App Store; few pocket-size devices priced for sale in the United States without an expensive voice and data contract have Android Market.
There are more Android devices sold than iOs devices.
This is true of phones, but is it true of the Wi-Fi-only device that a mom is likely to buy for her children? An iPod touch competes more with a Nintendo DSi: something on which to play games and music, possibly carried along with a separate dumbphone on the cheapest available prepaid plan that lets the child call home in an urgency.
Maybe there is no Android answer to the iPod Touch, but I don't expect things will stay that way.
Then in what quarter of what year do you expect the Galaxy Player, or Galaxy S Wi-Fi, or whatever Samsung is calling it nowadays, to become widely available in the United States?
Earlier link. Admittedly, it does change back to only that logo after 2004.
Because that is all it shows.
Look harder
The idea that a business or corporation has a right to a domain name just because it contains the name of the corporation or business is just plain wrong and stupid!! The first person to register a domain name should be able to hold that domain forever if they wish, and there should be nothing anyone can do about it!
Its just like (cr)apple thinking that they can own the word Pod, and any word containing the word Pod.
My name is Nonya F. Biznes
Email: nonya@nonya.org
Address: 123 Nostreet
Notown, FU 77342-090
I didnt even own your garbage when it was "new" we got a coleco, since then you have trashed your shallow and pointless game heritage, your 15 min of fame in the pc world, and have done nothing but shit on your name for the last 25 years day after every fucking embarrassing day as your traded around like the broken whore you are.
GTFO and die, you obviously have nothing else to show for yourself, your pathetic old cunt.
And everybody knows this always turns out in a reasonable way when one side is a large, multinational corporation and the other side in an individual.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
atariREALLYSUCKS.com
Ford missed it.
Blogging because I can...
This another example of 21st century SEO created by the DMCA.
If you search Google for Atari,. their mark, there are a bunch of pages that show up on Google search that are not Atari.com. I'll bet that totally pisses off their marketing/sales department, esp. so they send their legal folks off to "fix it at all costs"
IOW.... possibly PR / "marketing effort" in preparation for new products.
How long before companies start threatening to sue people for sending Tweets or status updates with their company's brand name?
There was no web-based front-end, but the domain itself was very active, hosting the [stella] Atari 2600 programming list from 2004-2011.
Just because there isn't a snazzy top-level website doesn't mean a domain isn't being used. He probably used it for other stuff, too -- for example, I see in Google that the DASM Atari assembler is also linked off that domain.
There are Android phones available that are as cheap as the iPod Touch (if not quite as capable) and can be used on PAYG. This is especially true in countries other than the US with decent mobile providers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6r8L-YrrM
--deckert
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He's so badass, he can carry an entire bridge with his bare hands.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
As long as they don't go after atari2600.com, nobody will notice a disappearing parked domain.
But cease & desist is not the only way to protect a trademark. They merely have to show enforcement of the trademark. This includes licensing. If the infringing party is a small mom & pop shop in the middle of nowhere the trademark owner can simply license the name to them (usually with a single use/location clause). The license is basically an acknowledgment of the infringing party that the name/phrase/whatever is wholly owned and controlled by the trademark holder.
It's not as if the site is currently a home-brew fan site where people share pictures of their atari's.
It's a squater trying to sell it for money. And it's pretty standard procedure that when you take a protected name as a URL and try to SELL it, the owner of the name gets to take it away from you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Either someone else already successfully opposed it, or they didn't pay their fees in a timely manner. "It's dead, Jim!"