Infogrames' latest strategy statement.

[Argh]

Click here, to read Infogrames current strategy document. The part that's relevant to us can be found in section 2. RELAUNCH OF PUBLISHING.

If nothing else, we're now clear on who owns OTA, and what they're planning. This may have some implications for our near-term future.

Discuss.

[smoth]

I think people like you and I are fine argh, the *A stuff.. probably not so much.

so we could probably watch on amused as the annihilation apocalypse happens. .. if they care about the *a projects.

[aegis]

they can't C&D the spring project, just the ota content.

[Hoi]

I don't really know what to say, I hope they'll leave spring (our ota content) alone

[smoth]

they can't C&D the spring project, just the ota content.

yep I am with this man ^

[Argh]

It might be time to start talking about formally separating Spring from IP that might cause trouble.

And they certainly can C&D Spring. In fact, that, and filing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act with the ISP, or the European equivalent, is the first step.

But the real danger is that they don't just basically say, "stop, bitches, that's our stuff you're using", but actually attempt to drag us into court, for the thousands of copies that have been released, with the intent to destroy the project. No, they can't take away Spring's source... but they don't have to. They just have to destroy this website. We're in a dangerous position here. If nothing else... this might be a good time to make a source repository for Spring on SourceForge, sans OTA content, as a fallback.

You guys don't understand, apparently, how much legal peril Spring creates by being a distributor of this stuff- we're talking piracy on a regular basis here, under the law.

This was OK, and we could basically just laugh it off... until they started making noises... now I'm pretty certain we need to change our policies.

I doubt that the *A's would ever be bothered- the bad press wouldn't be worth the non-existent monetary gains. Smashing Spring, though, would be in their interests, and is cheap to achieve for long enough to effectively destroy this project.

I mean... all they have to do is press charges... get a court date 9 months to year away, and an injunction forbidding any distribution of Spring until it's been in court. They don't even have to follow through, to destroy us

At any rate... I think it's time to talk this over. And I thought that we should all be aware that Infogames is apparently not... "confused" about who owns that IP any more, and has definite plans. I'm not surprised, tbh- what's safer than a sequel, in the world of video games?

[Hoi]

But wait, spring doesn't distribute otacontent, right? Yeah it's downloadable on jobjol, but it isn't directly from spring, is it?

[lurker]

I'm sure most of the filehosts will ignore an unfounded C&D targetting the installer. We should probably remove the TA mods from it, though.

[Hoi]

I wonder if basic will email the devs pretending to be from atari and try and take control of the project

[Argh]

But wait, spring doesn't distribute otacontent, right? Yeah it's downloadable on jobjol, but it isn't directly from spring, is it?

I suspect that a lawyer would tell you that, since it's an installer choice... it's effectively part of the distribution.

Here's why:

Let's imagine that, instead of otacontent.sdz, we were offering links to the latest PS3 game rip. See? That's obviously illegal. We're not offering a Torrent (which has only been defended successfully, mind ye, in Sweden), but a direct download of a binary.

I'm sure most of the filehosts will ignore an unfounded C&D targetting the installer.

The problem is, it's not "unfounded". It's a very real violation of copyright law.

That said... I doubt if they'd bother jobjol, etc.

There's pretty much no gain to be had, if they get a filehost but they don't get the engine, which would certainly be their target (unless they go all Nintendo on us, in which case we can expect blanket C&D).

Hence why it's probably time to clean up our act, and remove that vulnerability.

I wonder if basic will email the devs pretending to be from atari and try and take control of the project

That would be hilarious, since Atari is, so far as I can tell, just a shell that loses money on paper, for tax purposes. There really isn't an "Atari" any more, it's just a name and a collection of IP.

[smoth]

I am sure that a C&D will not kill the ota projects. When the original generations was C&D-ed I was there grabbing all the files and played it with friends for years Although they were not really C&D-ed they were more just.. asked to stop. It was pretty nicely worded iirc.


Anyway, I don't think there is an issue for the source, the C&D would demand a move away from the TA content shit but that is easily removed and my next release I am putting out some pd shit to replace all the old headers that are probably pd but still shaky.

CA will probably be the only *a mod to survive.

[smoth]

hoi, stop provoking yan, it is making you look tackier than him. Don't ruin the good mark you got earlier this week.

[[Krogoth86]]

What's the "you have to own OTA to play" condition you should be able to find somewhere in the fine prints worth? Probably not the spirit Spring spreads currently but I think that's actually a need for playing the *A mods in a legal way...

EDIT:

CA will probably be the only *a mod to survive.

I disagree. Well I'd agree when rephrasing this into "CA probably will survive". CA uses TA stuff just as the other mods and the wish to replace everything with self-made (and hopefully better looking stuff) isn't really exclusive as pretty much any TA mod can use that too. That discussion might be a bit superfluous though as CA has been drifting away from TA for a while anyway and most certainly will end up as a complete unique game slightly resembling TA but not really being a TA mod...

[Nemo]

Owning the OTA content just makes it (dubiously) legal for people to download it. It's illegal no matter what for people to distribute it.

[lurker]

The installer itself doesn't have any infringing content in it; it just knows how to get it. I see it like a torrent. But it should be removed anyway.

[aegis]

regardless, they can't say "oh your open-source game can use our content so your open source game must die"

they can only target ota content

if they decide to pursue the website and the project, who will they actually target?
they can't go after the engine itself; it's justifiably original intellectual property

no matter what happens, if they go after us - we will finally get solid word on what we can do with the content, and we can cooperate fully in not aiding the spread of their intellectual property.
if they C&D otacontent and we take it down, there's nothing else to attack

all a lawsuit would do is give us a lot of publicity

[lurker]

A bit of lobby discussion was saying CA would do well just because of a heavy dev team. Cutting out some units and getting cheap models for others is not much of a stretch to do.

[smoth]

yep, a C&D just says stop, not get to the court room.

[Krogoth86]: that is why I think they would survive, they would just strip all the content out and deal because they are not ta anymore.

[[Krogoth86]]

Owning the OTA content just makes it (dubiously) legal for people to download it. It's illegal no matter what for people to distribute it.

I guess we could start a whole saga of discussion about this as ye good ol' OTA mods afaik also delivered OTA content - even if it's just about stuff like the Evolva models which made units look more pretty. I don't know how much of a copyright infringement this is though - real 1:1 OTA content probably wasn't in the mod files...

[Krogoth86]: that is why I think they would survive, they would just strip all the content out and deal because they are not ta anymore.

The problem is though that they currently only have a tiny part of replaced contents and if they'd have to remove all OTA stuff anytime soon they sure could throw in stuff from Unit Universe for example but all other TA mods could do the same. That's why I disagree with you on the "only CA could survive" thesis as they aren't more or less able to replace OTA stuff than all the other mods - especially as they have a shortcoming when it comes to artists working on the mod as virtually any mod here has...

[Sheekel]

TA3D physically requires the OTA cds to get the illegal content, we could require the OTA CD's during installation...

Im glad I got my copy on ebay for $6