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Atari C&Ds Emulators, Site About Asteroids
An anonymous reader writes "Atari Inc. has launched another round of cease-and-desist letters targeted at what remains of its fan community. Having threatened homebrewers for the Atari 2600 and 8-bit systems, as well as emulator authors for mobile platforms like Android, they're now upping the ante by menacing Atari emulator authors on the Dreamcast and sites with Asteroids in the name (though in fairness, that site apparently once hosted a version of the Asteroids game). The working theory is that the company is planning a big push into the mobile market, and is trying to eliminate everything it believes could threaten its latest attempts at reviving the brand name. However, the emulators in question appear to have no copyrighted content from Atari, so it's unclear what exactly Atari believes the infringing material to be."
Except they are spamming DMCA notices -- the C standing for Copyright -- and all of the claims made in the notices are about copyright infringement. I hope someone nails Atari to the wall for this bullshit.
+0 Meh
Bullshit. It's more legalized extortion. They know just the threat of a length and expensive lawsuit is enough to get these small operations to shut down, even when Atari knows damned well they don't have a case. Laws and rights don't mean shit if you can't afford to defend them. Welcome to America.