They don't own the code that the Freecraft guys wrote though. Damn. Now I have to find a troll to remove from my foes list, I'm out of room, and you definitely qualify.
Agreed. Once again, I am reminded of my favorite Heinlein quote:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit." -- Robert A. Heinlein
" Not all FPS games are clones of an id game,while Freecraft is most definately a Warcraft clone, "
Oh really?
How did you come to that conclusion, Spanky? Every single FPS I have ever played has been more similar to every other FPS I have played than RTS games are. As far as I'm concerned, Unreal, HalfLife, and Postal 2 are as much Quake clones as Freecraft is a Warcraft clone.
Newsflash: THere's nothing wrong with cloning a game, if you're not stealing source code.
The Craft thing was stupid, but Blizzard could have gone about this in a better way. It's not like the Freecraft guys were PROFITING off this...
"if you spent as much money as Blizzard did in development, testing, and advertising, and then got kicked with a free copy of all the worrk you did, you would have every right to go after them."
No. If it was independantly developed, you would have every right to beat sand and cry to your mommy. This was, and that's all Blizzard should be able to do. Being litigious bastards, they are instead relying on barrartry. Here's hoping their lawyers get disbarred on that basis.
If they had included the WC2 art in the distribution file, there would be infringement. They did not. There is none. Every single person at Blizzard, and every single frog at Vivendi can go straight to hell on this one.
Very well said, sir. That's a point that I don't think I made clearly in any of the posts I've made here.
Legalities aside, what Blizzard has done, here and in the bnetd case is ETHICALLY wrong. Neither project was doing them any damage. In the case of people commenting that FreeCraft looked a lot like Warcraft II... Thats because it had the capability of using Warcraft II art files. Legally reverse-engineered, and requiring a Warcraft II CD to install. I haven't seen the fcmp graphics yet, but I plan to play with them over the weekend.
I think I've stated my position regarding bnetd sufficiently in other posts.
"Blizzard is one of those companies that I feel I can trust since they have consistently produced the best games in the genres"
How does creating a good game and being ethically trustworthy correlate? I think they've proven through this action that they are NOT trustworthy.
" (IMHO, yours may differ), have innovated, and have provided high quality, always on, high bandwidth BattleNet servers."
Perhaps the BattleNet servers are "reliable" now. When I was playing Diablo, they sure as hell weren't. Providing a mechanism that allows them to shut off customer's ability to play in multiplayer mode at will hardly endears them to me.Perhaps if they had provided it as a centralized service and not shut down an alternative (bnetd) I'd be more generous here. As it stands though, they rank ethically right by Martha Stewart in my book.
Problem is, Blizzard can decide to stop supporting any game through battlenet whenever they want, shutting of people's ability to play a game they PAID FOR in multiplayer mode. That's not acceptable. THe bnetd guys tried to provide a "fallback", a way that people could continue using what they legally paid for, despite the wishes of those who would like to force them to stop. (so as to encourage them to buy the latest-greatest, I might add).
How would you react if you were a diehard Monopoly player, and Milton Bradley had the power to remotely destroy your monopoly set whenever they chose so as to force you to purchase a new one?
Oh, and I plan to keep playing Diabolo II as well. I've already paid for it, I might as well. I don't play on Battlenet though.
I have friends that play games too. Some of them won't give a shit, some of them will. I won't change ANY of their minds about Blizzard if I remain silent on this, so, I will NOT remain silent.
Besides, the MMORPG market is already oversaturated. It wouldn't take much of a push to make a game fail out of the gate. Especially one of questionable quality/playability like WoW is reputed to be.
Oh I agree with that. Not talking about boycotting the industry as a whole. There are some GOOD companies, and some great people working on open source. Blizzard is off my list permanently though...
100% Agreed. I was almost ready to give them a second chance after the bnetd thing, because they "kinda-sorta" had a point (although a game server that doesn't depend on the good will of Blizzard/her parent company would make me very happy).
Fortunately, in this case, they can probably get back to work after changing the name of the project.
Nevertheless, blizzard will never see another fucking cent from me. Way to go, guys! You've managed to make your core audience hate you. Word of mouth can be a bitch. Just wait.
Exactly. The government needs to recall this little chestnut:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit." -- Robert A. Heinlein
or we are in for interesting times indeed. Personally I was hoping for something a bit more boring...
Quotes from Senator Hatch, "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize"...
Hmm. A few hundred thousand people with property losses in the hundreds to thousands of dollars with no legal recourse, many of whom who in fact have violated no law, but have violated what the RIAA wishes. A few hundred thousand very angry people.
I don't think the "honorable" (*spit*) senator has thought this through very thoroughly at all.
Taking away legal recourse and redress to property damage is a very very bad idea if you plan to piss off a few hundred thousand people (which would include police, military, etc).
While I can picture that, I imagine SCO's headquarters would wind up going "boom" shortly afterwards.
Some people don't take kindly to destruction of expensive hardware. Out of that group, some aren't very nice at all. I certainly wouldn't want to piss them off to the degree this measure would. Guess politicians and the RIAA aren't getting any smarter...
A law making the copyright holders not liable isn't going to stop an angry consumer from retaliating against the copyright holders through other means.
Eliminate the courts as a means of Justice (as opposed to "law") and watch the headlines. Not everyone is willing to bend over and take it without lube.
By all means don't buy them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't discourage others from buying them as well. After all, if the format is successful, you might find yourself with no other (legal) choice, if you want that content.
Just as DIVX was thwarted by making people aware of the severe deficiencies in the format, both technically in and usage restrictions, the same can happen here.
If I were to "stop grousing and not buy them" without a complaint, I could find myself in a "Pay Per View" world, where I could not EVER buy a permanent copy of content that I wanted. I don't like that option at all...
You're assuming that employee loyalty has no value. I work for a company that looks at the bottom line. They know that if they treat their employees like shit, the bottom line will fall out.
No One that I know wants to work for an Oracle-type company. What Oracle is doing isn't preserving the bottom line. It's giving Larry Ellison something to jerk off over when he thinks about the life-and-death hold he has over so many talented people.
Side note for Oracle style management:
If you treat employees like that, if you try to annihilate their careers if they don't win in the yearly June pit-bull fights, expect more than a few of them to decide they don't give a shit about your NDAs and Noncompetes.
You get what you give.
Re:shareholders..
on
SCO SCO SCO!
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I'm hoping a little anal probing of Darl and his cronies courtesy the SEC is in the offing as well. Maybe he can share a cell with Martha Stewart.
On second thought, that's a bad idea. I loath to think of the amoral, ethically berift offspring those to pieces of garbage would beget...
Slashdot Mirror
They don't own the code that the Freecraft guys wrote though. Damn. Now I have to find a troll to remove from my foes list, I'm out of room, and you definitely qualify.
"It is illegal to freely provide such a close imitaion of a retail game"
No. It isn't.
Agreed. Once again, I am reminded of my favorite Heinlein quote:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit." -- Robert A. Heinlein
" Not all FPS games are clones of an id game,while Freecraft is most definately a Warcraft clone, "
Oh really?
How did you come to that conclusion, Spanky? Every single FPS I have ever played has been more similar to every other FPS I have played than RTS games are. As far as I'm concerned, Unreal, HalfLife, and Postal 2 are as much Quake clones as Freecraft is a Warcraft clone.
Newsflash: THere's nothing wrong with cloning a game, if you're not stealing source code.
The Craft thing was stupid, but Blizzard could have gone about this in a better way. It's not like the Freecraft guys were PROFITING off this...
What have YOU written?
"if you spent as much money as Blizzard did in development, testing, and advertising, and then got kicked with a free copy of all the worrk you did, you would have every right to go after them."
No. If it was independantly developed, you would have every right to beat sand and cry to your mommy. This was, and that's all Blizzard should be able to do. Being litigious bastards, they are instead relying on barrartry. Here's hoping their lawyers get disbarred on that basis.
If they had included the WC2 art in the distribution file, there would be infringement. They did not. There is none. Every single person at Blizzard, and every single frog at Vivendi can go straight to hell on this one.
Very well said, sir. That's a point that I don't think I made clearly in any of the posts I've made here.
Legalities aside, what Blizzard has done, here and in the bnetd case is ETHICALLY wrong. Neither project was doing them any damage. In the case of people commenting that FreeCraft looked a lot like Warcraft II... Thats because it had the capability of using Warcraft II art files. Legally reverse-engineered, and requiring a Warcraft II CD to install. I haven't seen the fcmp graphics yet, but I plan to play with them over the weekend.
I think I've stated my position regarding bnetd sufficiently in other posts.
Again, well said, sir.
"Blizzard is one of those companies that I feel I can trust since they have consistently produced the best games in the genres"
How does creating a good game and being ethically trustworthy correlate? I think they've proven through this action that they are NOT trustworthy.
" (IMHO, yours may differ), have innovated, and have provided high quality, always on, high bandwidth BattleNet servers."
Perhaps the BattleNet servers are "reliable" now. When I was playing Diablo, they sure as hell weren't. Providing a mechanism that allows them to shut off customer's ability to play in multiplayer mode at will hardly endears them to me.Perhaps if they had provided it as a centralized service and not shut down an alternative (bnetd) I'd be more generous here. As it stands though, they rank ethically right by Martha Stewart in my book.
" free Battle.net."
Problem is, Blizzard can decide to stop supporting any game through battlenet whenever they want, shutting of people's ability to play a game they PAID FOR in multiplayer mode. That's not acceptable. THe bnetd guys tried to provide a "fallback", a way that people could continue using what they legally paid for, despite the wishes of those who would like to force them to stop. (so as to encourage them to buy the latest-greatest, I might add).
How would you react if you were a diehard Monopoly player, and Milton Bradley had the power to remotely destroy your monopoly set whenever they chose so as to force you to purchase a new one?
" I think it's safe to say that ultimately they had their customers' best interests at heart."
I disagree. They didn't ask, and it's none of their business. They had the interests of their Marketing division at heart.
Oh, and I plan to keep playing Diabolo II as well. I've already paid for it, I might as well. I don't play on Battlenet though.
I have friends that play games too. Some of them won't give a shit, some of them will. I won't change ANY of their minds about Blizzard if I remain silent on this, so, I will NOT remain silent.
Besides, the MMORPG market is already oversaturated. It wouldn't take much of a push to make a game fail out of the gate. Especially one of questionable quality/playability like WoW is reputed to be.
Whatever.
Go back to work on Worlds of Warcraft, Troll.
I will discourage others from buying their games. There's nothing illegal about that.
Only kid in a candy store I see screaming is you, child.
Oh I agree with that. Not talking about boycotting the industry as a whole. There are some GOOD companies, and some great people working on open source. Blizzard is off my list permanently though...
100% Agreed. I was almost ready to give them a second chance after the bnetd thing, because they "kinda-sorta" had a point (although a game server that doesn't depend on the good will of Blizzard/her parent company would make me very happy).
Fortunately, in this case, they can probably get back to work after changing the name of the project.
Nevertheless, blizzard will never see another fucking cent from me. Way to go, guys! You've managed to make your core audience hate you. Word of mouth can be a bitch. Just wait.
Worlds of Warcraft is doomed.
Someone notify CNN/Fox/whoever. that's the kind of shit that could DESTROY Hatch's career, if approached right.
Not in the case of NeoGeo roms or other more current ones. MAME runs arcade ROMs. Not necessarilly just OLD ones. Some are quite large.
Exactly. The government needs to recall this little chestnut:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit." -- Robert A. Heinlein
or we are in for interesting times indeed. Personally I was hoping for something a bit more boring...
Quotes from Senator Hatch, "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" ...
Hmm. A few hundred thousand people with property losses in the hundreds to thousands of dollars with no legal recourse, many of whom who in fact have violated no law, but have violated what the RIAA wishes. A few hundred thousand very angry people.
I don't think the "honorable" (*spit*) senator has thought this through very thoroughly at all.
Taking away legal recourse and redress to property damage is a very very bad idea if you plan to piss off a few hundred thousand people (which would include police, military, etc).
nope. not very well thought through...
While I can picture that, I imagine SCO's headquarters would wind up going "boom" shortly afterwards.
Some people don't take kindly to destruction of expensive hardware. Out of that group, some aren't very nice at all. I certainly wouldn't want to piss them off to the degree this measure would. Guess politicians and the RIAA aren't getting any smarter...
A law making the copyright holders not liable isn't going to stop an angry consumer from retaliating against the copyright holders through other means.
Eliminate the courts as a means of Justice (as opposed to "law") and watch the headlines. Not everyone is willing to bend over and take it without lube.
I prefer "Continue grousing AND don't buy them."
By all means don't buy them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't discourage others from buying them as well. After all, if the format is successful, you might find yourself with no other (legal) choice, if you want that content.
Just as DIVX was thwarted by making people aware of the severe deficiencies in the format, both technically in and usage restrictions, the same can happen here.
If I were to "stop grousing and not buy them" without a complaint, I could find myself in a "Pay Per View" world, where I could not EVER buy a permanent copy of content that I wanted. I don't like that option at all...
I'm hoping for...
"Wipe them out...
ALL of them..."
This time I'd be rooting for Palpatine...
You're assuming that employee loyalty has no value. I work for a company that looks at the bottom line. They know that if they treat their employees like shit, the bottom line will fall out.
No One that I know wants to work for an Oracle-type company. What Oracle is doing isn't preserving the bottom line. It's giving Larry Ellison something to jerk off over when he thinks about the life-and-death hold he has over so many talented people.
Side note for Oracle style management:
If you treat employees like that, if you try to annihilate their careers if they don't win in the yearly June pit-bull fights, expect more than a few of them to decide they don't give a shit about your NDAs and Noncompetes.
You get what you give.
I'm hoping a little anal probing of Darl and his cronies courtesy the SEC is in the offing as well. Maybe he can share a cell with Martha Stewart.
On second thought, that's a bad idea. I loath to think of the amoral, ethically berift offspring those to pieces of garbage would beget...
Actually my idea for a band name was "To Be Announced". Actually used it for one gig back in 1988 or so...
...
"Special Guest" reminded me of it because our joke was always to point at signs like
"May 24th: U2 and Special Guests: To Be Announced" and go "yea man we're opening for those guys next month."
Good times.