IDSA Forces Arcade Game Manual Archive Offline

AtariKee writes "The IDSA and the DMCA has struck again, this time forcing the maintainer of Stormaster.com, a coin-operated video game manual and tech information archive, to shut down. Stormaster has been an invaluable resource for collectors of classic coin-operated video games for years, and this loss further demonstrates the idiocy that is the DMCA. I can understand ROM images to some extent, but 25 year old coin-op operator/tech manuals? The full text of the IDSA's letter can be read on Stormaster's site." Previous Slashdot posts about IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) show that this is typical of the organization.

Re:Anybody notice this:

[Dun Malg]

Isn't posting it on the internet the same as retransmitting or disseminating?

No. The bit at the bottom applies to anyone who is NOT the intended recipient who might get the letter. If you drop some of the excess verbiage, it reads:

"Any dissemination by persons other than the intended recipient is prohibited."

Fax them and tell them what you think

[daveaitel]

I believe this is their number... Attention: Piracy Enforcement Ãââoe DMCA Officer Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]

For PC game manuals

[jmaatta]

The Underdogs [the-underdogs.org] has manuals of many old (but better than most of the newer ones) PC games available for downloading. You can also have the games for some of the manuals, but don't tell anyone.

Not really a problem.

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

If you read closely the prohibitions apply to persons or entities other than the intended recipient. I believe the idea here is that the intended recipient is obligated to be truthful (at lawyer-point), but if his ISP sees the letter going by in the "suspicious mail" folder and does a routine SPAM reveiw on it, the ISP cannot then publish what he found.

In fact to state that the intended recipient is not allowed to have the letter "reviewed" by a lawyer would be contrary to their purpose of using expensive lawyers to handle what should be done by decent thinking people.

As a previous poster noted though, the letter does not include specific references to the manuals for those games, and it wasn't and endless list of games.

If I had to take a wild stab at it I'd wager the site-owner is just frustrated by running a non-profit site that isn't doing any actual damage to anyones business and getting kicked in the teeth for it by lawyers anxious to justify their billable hours.

"Look! We stopped another person from freely sharing information that will never be of use to anyone! That'll be $1200 dollars please."

This has nothing to do with DMCA

[harlows_monkeys]

Such a site is illegal under copyright laws going back to at least the Copyright Act of 1909, and probably back well before that.

Re:The best part...

[parkanoid]

You're snipping out the context:
Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

(emphasis mine)
I believe posting it on a publically-accessible website qualifies as making it availible for review by "by persons or entities other than the intended recipient".

Why risk?

[Glendale2x]

Okay, now I'm not aware of what was on the site beyond what the letter on the site and the /. story say, however...

In today's litigation happy world, why even risk having ROM images available? Such things are just begging for trouble. The cease and desist letter sounds like some copy of the game itself (beyond tech manuals) was available.

If it was just tech manuals, then yeah, it's stupid. For ROM images, whoever put them there is stupid. It doesn't matter what we think about the software in question, if it's still protected by copyright, then you invite the wrath of lawyers.

Re:Hmmm...

[macwhiz]

Looking at the Wayback Machine [archive.org] archive for the stormaster.com site, it looks like it included ROM images. That'd probably be why the DMCA was invoked.

I can understand why the game makers would want those ROMs taken down. People are still willing to pay for versions of the classic games -- look at the various "oldies" cartridges for modern game systems. Two of the games on the list I know to be available in stores: Frogger was recently remade as a 3D game, as was Dig Dug. Both include the "classic" game. (I saw Dig Dug at my local job-lot clearance store just the other day.)

It's not a case of the code having no value. Clearly, you can still sell that code. So, having it available for anyone with MAME to use is stealing from the pockets of the current rights-holders.

As much as I think DMCA is bad law and is abused, this is one case where it seems to be used as intended.

Wrong, a very big problem

[localroger]

The notice at the bottom is indeed intended for StorMaster, the intended recipient. This applies to all letters you receive from anybody, including e-mails; in the case of the letter you own the physical media (the paper) but you do NOT own the content and you do NOT have the right to publish it without the sender's permission.

This is an area of copyright law which may not be intuitive, but it is well established. Republishing e-mail you receive without the permission of the sender is illegal. In this case there is no doubt about the situation; permission is expressly denied in the letter itself.

Re:woops. i forgot to add: if i want to do this...

[baffle]

John R. Halls book "Programming Linux Games" is now awailable freely on the web. Go to his site [overcode.net] for a copy or order it from No Starch Press.

They're not the only ones - Hit list follows

[beacher]

Just did a search and I'm seeing similar results - c64 had a dmca notice [c64.org] for Diablo,Dig Dug,Donkey Kong,Frogger,Mario,Pac Man,Soldier Of Fortune, Spider-Man (Game),Tron 2.0 (game). Same with mame.net [216.239.39.100] for Pac Man They're even chasing dcc's [frgp.net] eDonkey [open-files.com] .. They're chasing eveything. The most interesting thing is the Incident #'s. Most agencies prefix their incident #'s with year, but this isn't the case.. their #'s are linear. Have they already submitted almost 1,000,000 ceast and decists?
-B

Re:This has nothing to do with DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that ISP's ought to have Common Carrier status.. But the players funding the gov't don't want that, not by any means, it makes SLAPP just so much less convinient..

Re:Tell Everyone

[blincoln]

Underdogs only posts stuff that they have permission to post. Not all the game publishers are hoarding every bit of IP they can.

No, they post whatever they can get their hands on, and hope that publishers don't take legal action against them. Didn't you read their FAQ?

Re:read carefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, maybe it *was* copyright infringement.

*Gasp* Unpopular observation I just made on Slashdot, but let's remember something.

This site was (AFAICT) distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner.

And that, BTW, is illegal.

The DMCA doesn't apply here (unless I'm a loser who doesn't know what he's talking about). Unless IDSA wants to argue that opening the cover of a manual is circumvention of a copy-control device.