Except that Miramax consider importing a copy of Hero a violation of their distribution rights and a violation of copyright and you're *stealing* yadda yadda yadda. Read the Wired article from the guy who was recently sent a Cease & Desist letter by them for linking to a Hong Kong site that sold legit copies of the DVD>
I'll agree on this. HMV's selection is far wider than my local GAME's selection. In fact, their console section is bigger than GAME's too. Granted the HMV store is bigger, but the area the games are in is about the same size as the GAME store.
GAME annoys the shit out of me. "Lowest Price Guarantee" stickers on every game. What a load of shit, the prices are exactly the same as any other shop I visit. Try telling them you can get the game cheaper online and they'll tell you their guarantee only covers locally.
Because if he has agreed to such a clause then he should be wary of these sort of situations.
Whether he programmed it at home or not, he now has the burden of proof, he has to prove that he didn't code the program at the office. Secondly, as someone already pointed out, the law isn't relevant to this as what he created IS related to work.
Sure he could have worked under an alias, he could have used a different name on the actuall app and used paypal OR he could have put the app and payment method (paypal, nochex, etc) under the name of a relative.
I'd assume Apple saw the app, became interested, checked the 'About' section to discover it's author, did some searching and discovered he was their employee. Either that or he tried to impress some higher ups with his 'cool little app' only for it to backfire on him.
How did Apple find out that one of their employer's had created this?
Did he run around Apple HQ boasting about it? Seems a pretty dumb thing to do, these kinda of clauses (where employers maintain rights to your creations) seem pretty common.
Erm, the phone companies stopped subsidising the phones (to an extent), they hiked the prices up about a year ago. Sure, you might think you can get a phone cheaper than buying it sim free, but it'll come with a hefty monthly tariff.
Which these fucked up agreements kinda make difficult. How do you line up a job a year in advance? I'm not saying it's not possible, if another company recognises you have talent and really want you then they might wait a year, but in most cases it's unlikely. I guess you could find yourself a decent job that isn't games related and hold out a year. You shouldn't have to though.
Ok, so they could get another programming job. And if they can't, your solution is to get any job, so long as it pays. Hmm, but what if their former job was a well paid job, that they'd been in for a number of years, and because of that they'd bought a decent house with a large mortgage repayment? Going from a $60k (or whatever is reasonable, I'm in the UK so I'd say 30-40k to 10k) to a $20k shelf stacking job could hurt them financially, they may not be able to keep up with the mortgage repayments, etc, etc.
So now these guys (or girls) are forced (by way of a fucked up contract where not signing guarantees you won't get the job) not to work for a year what the hell are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to get a menial job like shelf stacking? Or telesales? Or garbage collection until the 12 months is up? This is a joke, if companies insist on these strict arrangements then they should agree to continue paying the ex staff for those 12 months.
It's pathetic in my opinon. "oh my god... don't show that logo... they aren't paying us!!!"
It's a great example of what the world has come to. Just wait, few years now and we won't be able to watch TV properly because EVERYTHING will be blurred out, we'll just have actors heads floating about a blurry world.
Those are usually trademarks or copyrights that they don't want to acquire rights to use.
That's actualy rubbish. MTV blur it out because they don't want to give those companies free advertising. Kurt Loader even SAYS this on one of those 'Histroy of MTV' specials.
I'm actually watching it on TV right now. I think the biggest error has to be the 'Russian' submariners that all speak perfect English. With perfect English accents.
If you get the pop up giving you 60 seconds to shutdown and it's causing you hassle running the patch (ie, it happens everytime you boot) then I hear you can stop the shutdown sequence by opening command prompt and typing 'shutdown -a'
Whether this works or not I don't know as I managed to pach mine. Hope this may be of some help.
Erm, the PS2 has been out longer than X Box or GC, hence why it is still more popular in the far east. Have you chipped either machine? The X Box is simple to chip, 9 solder joints on the header that's absolutely huge and can hardly go wrong and one wire on D0 that may pose a problem to some people but it's just a case of tinning the wire, taping the wire to the board over the hole, quick press of the soldering iron and thats it. To chip a PS2 with a decent chip like Messiah or Magic you're looking at soldering 20-30 wires, half of them around the thickness of a strand of hair. It involves soldering to, not just the board, but even the chips. It's a job for an expert. I suggest you look up some images and compare each process. Not only that, the X Box is a lot more versatile in what it can do once it's chipped. DivX / Xvid, games to hdd, shoutcast, music, emulators, etc. As I said, the X Box is a piraters dream, it's simple to chip and provides countless options. Everyone I know with an X-Box has it chipped, out of all the people I know with a PS2, maybe 1 or 2 have a chipped PS2. The thing is, it's still very expensive to chip a PS2, most people thought "oh, it'll be just like PSOne, £15 at the most". When you tell them you want £80 - £100 to chip their PS2 (£40 for the chip, £40+ for the hassle) their jaw hits the floor. You can get X2 Lite chips for X Box for about £30, then either try doing it yourself or pay about £20 to have it done for you. And who cares about Asia anyway? I doubt Asia (Thailand, etc) are the sort of places the likes of Rockstar are thinking about when they're looking to SELL games. My point is, in the west, a lot more people probably own an unmodified PS2 and are more likely to buy the game whereas the X Box owners probably have a chipped boxen and will just get it pirate.
I think Rockstar are making a huge mistake if they go ahead with this. I seriously don't think they've thought it through. At the very least, Sony will sue them to hell, worst case sceanrio is that Sony block them from producing PS2 games. Turning your back on a multi-million selling platform to the console that is mecca for piracy is a bad mistake. Any idiot with a soldering iron can chip an X-Box (hell, I know, I chipped mine). The PS2 on the other hand is a lot more complicated. The majority of people I know with an X-Box have them chipped and rarely buy legit games. So to lose all those PS2 games sales just so you can produce for a console where the majority of owners will just rip off your game anyway would be like shooting yourself in the foot. I hope Sony persue this, it's a shady way to do business, I'm pretty sure Sony were paying bucket loads of cash for more than just the GTA name. In fact, I hope Rockstar get sued out of existence and Sony get ownership of the GTA brand. At least it will make a point that shady business practices will get you burned.
Ok, so I did some checking. Data East was responsible for Shadowrun on the SNES (I thought it was FASA but I believe that's where the license came from?). Anyway, yes, Shadowrun. This title seems to have been overlooked during this discussion about Data East (same at Penny Arcade forums too, no one seems to remember Data East being responsible either).
The game had a great story, seriously, you wake up in a morgue at the start. How many games can boast that? For those who completed it you'll remember Drake saying "See you in Shadowrun 2" in the ending. So what happened? Microsoft happened (I'm sure interest in this thread discussion will soon rise).
Microsoft bought the License along with the Mechwarrior series. So, the balls in their court. They could (should) release a new Shadowrun game, but it's unlikely.
They also made Shadowrun for the SNES (or published it, they were responsible in some way). This game was brilliant. Such a shame they never made a sequel.
Erm, Scooter? Not the German Happy Hardcore group that produces those cheesy songs with such lyrics as "Respect to the man in the ice cream van"? Please, god, no!
"Xbox gives you a headset microphone. People talk to each other the way they like to, with their mouth and their ears"
I don't know about you, or anyone else, but personally I feel uneasy about sat playing a game with a headset on and chattering away. For anyone that walks in, they're going to think you look like a total muppet. And, it's talking to complete strangers.... it just makes me feel... uneasy. I mean, talking on the phone is different, you more than likely know the person at the other end.
But as I said, sat playing a game shouting "oh my fuckin god, he's cheating, admin!!, admin!! kick ban!! now!!" just seems... silly.
It's all very well saying broadband is fast and cheap in Sweden, we all know that. It's the p2p warez capital of the world. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, broadband uptake IS slow because of cost. In the UK I pay £50 (USD$83) for a 2Mbit cable connection. My download is great, i regularly get around 300k/sec+ but my upload is capped at 30k/sec. There's no bandwidth limits though (as of yet). We get screwed. Who knows why, we just do. Man, I'd love to be like Sweden and have 26Mbit both directions for even less than I pay now. Shame it will never happen.
Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but PC's won't read X-Box games. I thought the only way to rip X-Box games was with a mod-chip, and then ftp into yout X-Box and copy the files over?
Slashdot Mirror
Except that Miramax consider importing a copy of Hero a violation of their distribution rights and a violation of copyright and you're *stealing* yadda yadda yadda. Read the Wired article from the guy who was recently sent a Cease & Desist letter by them for linking to a Hong Kong site that sold legit copies of the DVD>
I'll agree on this. HMV's selection is far wider than my local GAME's selection. In fact, their console section is bigger than GAME's too. Granted the HMV store is bigger, but the area the games are in is about the same size as the GAME store.
GAME annoys the shit out of me. "Lowest Price Guarantee" stickers on every game. What a load of shit, the prices are exactly the same as any other shop I visit. Try telling them you can get the game cheaper online and they'll tell you their guarantee only covers locally.
Doom III is Carmack, Romero is famous for Daikatana ;)
Because if he has agreed to such a clause then he should be wary of these sort of situations.
Whether he programmed it at home or not, he now has the burden of proof, he has to prove that he didn't code the program at the office. Secondly, as someone already pointed out, the law isn't relevant to this as what he created IS related to work.
Sure he could have worked under an alias, he could have used a different name on the actuall app and used paypal OR he could have put the app and payment method (paypal, nochex, etc) under the name of a relative.
I'd assume Apple saw the app, became interested, checked the 'About' section to discover it's author, did some searching and discovered he was their employee. Either that or he tried to impress some higher ups with his 'cool little app' only for it to backfire on him.
How did Apple find out that one of their employer's had created this?
Did he run around Apple HQ boasting about it? Seems a pretty dumb thing to do, these kinda of clauses (where employers maintain rights to your creations) seem pretty common.
Why didn't he release it under an alias?
Erm, the phone companies stopped subsidising the phones (to an extent), they hiked the prices up about a year ago. Sure, you might think you can get a phone cheaper than buying it sim free, but it'll come with a hefty monthly tariff.
Which these fucked up agreements kinda make difficult. How do you line up a job a year in advance? I'm not saying it's not possible, if another company recognises you have talent and really want you then they might wait a year, but in most cases it's unlikely. I guess you could find yourself a decent job that isn't games related and hold out a year. You shouldn't have to though.
Ok, so they could get another programming job. And if they can't, your solution is to get any job, so long as it pays. Hmm, but what if their former job was a well paid job, that they'd been in for a number of years, and because of that they'd bought a decent house with a large mortgage repayment? Going from a $60k (or whatever is reasonable, I'm in the UK so I'd say 30-40k to 10k) to a $20k shelf stacking job could hurt them financially, they may not be able to keep up with the mortgage repayments, etc, etc.
So now these guys (or girls) are forced (by way of a fucked up contract where not signing guarantees you won't get the job) not to work for a year what the hell are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to get a menial job like shelf stacking? Or telesales? Or garbage collection until the 12 months is up? This is a joke, if companies insist on these strict arrangements then they should agree to continue paying the ex staff for those 12 months.
It's pathetic in my opinon. "oh my god... don't show that logo... they aren't paying us!!!"
It's a great example of what the world has come to. Just wait, few years now and we won't be able to watch TV properly because EVERYTHING will be blurred out, we'll just have actors heads floating about a blurry world.
Those are usually trademarks or copyrights that they don't want to acquire rights to use.
That's actualy rubbish. MTV blur it out because they don't want to give those companies free advertising. Kurt Loader even SAYS this on one of those 'Histroy of MTV' specials.
I'm actually watching it on TV right now. I think the biggest error has to be the 'Russian' submariners that all speak perfect English. With perfect English accents.
Here's a newer one:
Penny Arcade
If you get the pop up giving you 60 seconds to shutdown and it's causing you hassle running the patch (ie, it happens everytime you boot) then I hear you can stop the shutdown sequence by opening command prompt and typing 'shutdown -a'
Whether this works or not I don't know as I managed to pach mine. Hope this may be of some help.
I'll let you off then. It's just that everyone seems to be jumping on the 'ergo' bandwagon
Erm, the PS2 has been out longer than X Box or GC, hence why it is still more popular in the far east. Have you chipped either machine? The X Box is simple to chip, 9 solder joints on the header that's absolutely huge and can hardly go wrong and one wire on D0 that may pose a problem to some people but it's just a case of tinning the wire, taping the wire to the board over the hole, quick press of the soldering iron and thats it. To chip a PS2 with a decent chip like Messiah or Magic you're looking at soldering 20-30 wires, half of them around the thickness of a strand of hair. It involves soldering to, not just the board, but even the chips. It's a job for an expert. I suggest you look up some images and compare each process. Not only that, the X Box is a lot more versatile in what it can do once it's chipped. DivX / Xvid, games to hdd, shoutcast, music, emulators, etc. As I said, the X Box is a piraters dream, it's simple to chip and provides countless options. Everyone I know with an X-Box has it chipped, out of all the people I know with a PS2, maybe 1 or 2 have a chipped PS2. The thing is, it's still very expensive to chip a PS2, most people thought "oh, it'll be just like PSOne, £15 at the most". When you tell them you want £80 - £100 to chip their PS2 (£40 for the chip, £40+ for the hassle) their jaw hits the floor. You can get X2 Lite chips for X Box for about £30, then either try doing it yourself or pay about £20 to have it done for you. And who cares about Asia anyway? I doubt Asia (Thailand, etc) are the sort of places the likes of Rockstar are thinking about when they're looking to SELL games. My point is, in the west, a lot more people probably own an unmodified PS2 and are more likely to buy the game whereas the X Box owners probably have a chipped boxen and will just get it pirate.
I think Rockstar are making a huge mistake if they go ahead with this. I seriously don't think they've thought it through. At the very least, Sony will sue them to hell, worst case sceanrio is that Sony block them from producing PS2 games. Turning your back on a multi-million selling platform to the console that is mecca for piracy is a bad mistake. Any idiot with a soldering iron can chip an X-Box (hell, I know, I chipped mine). The PS2 on the other hand is a lot more complicated. The majority of people I know with an X-Box have them chipped and rarely buy legit games. So to lose all those PS2 games sales just so you can produce for a console where the majority of owners will just rip off your game anyway would be like shooting yourself in the foot. I hope Sony persue this, it's a shady way to do business, I'm pretty sure Sony were paying bucket loads of cash for more than just the GTA name. In fact, I hope Rockstar get sued out of existence and Sony get ownership of the GTA brand. At least it will make a point that shady business practices will get you burned.
Well, unless you count killing Cypher and preventing him from killing evetyone on the Neb unimportant, then no, I guess he wasn't important.
Admit it, up until you saw Reloaded you would have been quite happy to just type 'therefore'. I think will Farrel summed it up during that VMA skit.
Ok, so I did some checking. Data East was responsible for Shadowrun on the SNES (I thought it was FASA but I believe that's where the license came from?). Anyway, yes, Shadowrun. This title seems to have been overlooked during this discussion about Data East (same at Penny Arcade forums too, no one seems to remember Data East being responsible either).
The game had a great story, seriously, you wake up in a morgue at the start. How many games can boast that? For those who completed it you'll remember Drake saying "See you in Shadowrun 2" in the ending. So what happened? Microsoft happened (I'm sure interest in this thread discussion will soon rise).
Microsoft bought the License along with the Mechwarrior series. So, the balls in their court. They could (should) release a new Shadowrun game, but it's unlikely.
They also made Shadowrun for the SNES (or published it, they were responsible in some way). This game was brilliant. Such a shame they never made a sequel.
Erm, Scooter? Not the German Happy Hardcore group that produces those cheesy songs with such lyrics as "Respect to the man in the ice cream van"? Please, god, no!
I don't know about you, or anyone else, but personally I feel uneasy about sat playing a game with a headset on and chattering away. For anyone that walks in, they're going to think you look like a total muppet. And, it's talking to complete strangers.... it just makes me feel... uneasy. I mean, talking on the phone is different, you more than likely know the person at the other end.
But as I said, sat playing a game shouting "oh my fuckin god, he's cheating, admin!!, admin!! kick ban!! now!!" just seems... silly.
It's all very well saying broadband is fast and cheap in Sweden, we all know that. It's the p2p warez capital of the world. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, broadband uptake IS slow because of cost. In the UK I pay £50 (USD$83) for a 2Mbit cable connection. My download is great, i regularly get around 300k/sec+ but my upload is capped at 30k/sec. There's no bandwidth limits though (as of yet). We get screwed. Who knows why, we just do. Man, I'd love to be like Sweden and have 26Mbit both directions for even less than I pay now. Shame it will never happen.
Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but PC's won't read X-Box games. I thought the only way to rip X-Box games was with a mod-chip, and then ftp into yout X-Box and copy the files over?