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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Japanese Game Website Owner Arrested For Screenshot Scans 48

Posted by simoniker from the the-scanners-have-won dept.
Thanks to 1UP for its news story reporting that the owner of popular Japanese videogame website Gameonline has been arrested for copyright violation regarding unauthorized screenshot scans, since "several hundred [screenshots available on the site] were allegedly found to have been taken from magazines and overseas game sites without the permission of the game publisher, a violation of Japanese copyright law." The story continues by explaining: "Gameonline, one of the most popular game sites in Japan until its sudden closure last month, was a for-profit site that made its money exclusively via advertising. The site's owner had received permission from several Japanese publishers to post screenshots from their games, but other companies, including SNK Playmore, Capcom, Square Enix, and Namco, allegedly found media from their games posted on the site without their permission, leading to today's arrest."
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Japanese Game Website Owner Arrested For Screenshot Scans More

Japanese Game Website Owner Arrested For Screenshot Scans

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  • Seems pretty straightforward (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tezkah ( 771144 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:54PM (#9192705)
    I mean, the companies didn't want their games being shown on that website, and the owner didn't comply. There has to be more to this story, because I doubt they'd have him arrested if they had not asked him to take the screens down before resorting to legal action. Then again, Japan has a much different culture and their copyright law seems more strictly enforced than the US. Any one have any experience with Japanese copyright law?
    • Why would they want to hide their screenshots ?

      Unless their game really sucks and the only nice picture is the one in the box.

      • Re:Seems pretty straightforward (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tezkah ( 771144 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @12:09AM (#9192759)
        The site's owner had received permission from several Japanese publishers to post screenshots from their games, but other companies, including SNK Playmore, Capcom, Square Enix, and Namco, allegedly found media from their games posted on the site without their permission, leading to today's arrest.

        I dunno, the graphics are some of the best parts of Squenix's games :P

        Capcom I could see getting upset, using sprites from 1994 for games a decade later.

        I dont why they wouldn't want the hype, but its their product, and they can do with it what they want. Just like Linux people would be upset if someone violated the GPL, even in good spirit (although they, most likely, wouldn't have the violater arrested, but these are companies who probably have a team of lawyers just to protect their "intellectual property")
        • I dont why they wouldn't want the hype, but its their product, and they can do with it what they want. I would generally agree with you... but in this case "doing with it what they want" involved sending some small website owner to jail for posting a few screenshots. Perhaps you should have said "It's their police force, and they can do with it what they want."

        • I dont why they wouldn't want the hype, but its their product, and they can do with it what they want.

          Within limits. Copyright law in most countries includes a number of exceptions, and this would seem to fall right smack in the middle of the Fair Use exception.

          Maybe Japanese law is different... if so, they should fix it. Fair Use is important.

    • Re:Seems pretty straightforward (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Maiko ( 534130 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @12:32AM (#9192866) Homepage Journal
      I suppose it could also be read that since he scanned images from magazines and other sites, it would therefore be stealing potential readers from them for his site's own gain. These magazines could have had exclusivity agreements with the publishers, guaranteeing the content would only be available from one source for a period of time before anyone else is allowed to shout the same stuff from the rooftops.
      As for the screenshots, there are services available such as Gamespress.com that allow game sites and magazines to get hold of screens submitted by the publisher for the media to use. Sure, the screenshots may show the game's best features and nothing to the opposite, but at least the PR companies aren't as likely to demand an instant removal of them.

      Just my misinformed one cent and candybar wrapper...
      • Do any of these services allow sites to put their own watermarks on media? Games Press's terms say one can't "adapt, alter or create any derivative work from any of the material supplied by the Service," so I guess they don't.

        I've often wondered how IGN was able to put their own watermark on the media they host without getting into copyright issues.

  • Videogame (Score:5, Funny)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:55PM (#9192710) Homepage
    In A.D. 2004
    War against pirates was beginning.
    Pirate: What happen ?
    Webmaster: Somebody set up us the DDOS.
    Sysoperator: We get connection.
    Pirate: What !
    Sysoperator: Main screen turn on.
    Pirate: It's you !!
    DMCA: How are you gentlemen !!
    DMCA: All your warez are belong to us !
    DMCA: You are on the way to fdisk.
    Pirate: What you say !!
    DMCA: You have no chance to survive make your time.
    DMCA: HA HA HA HA....
    Pirate: Take off every zip.
    Pirate: You know what you doing.
    Pirate: mv zip greatjustice

    (all right, I do know DMCA does not apply in Japan.)

  • Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b00jah ( 672635 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:57PM (#9192715) Homepage
    Because, damn, what kind of a game developer would want to have their game getting the attention of fans and possible customers? That would be stupid, wouldn't it.
    • Funny? More like Insightful.

      It's the the game devs who pull this kind of barratry --
      they would rather see the game be a success.
      It's the lawyers who don't stand to make any money
      from the success of the game, but do stand to profit
      by sucking everyone else's blood (including the
      businesses stupid enough to pay them to chop them
      off at the knees).

    • Re:Of course... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      It isn't just that he was posting screenshots of videogames. He was also posting images and screenshots that, while of games, were (sometimes) copyrighted material. I suppose you could think of it like someone being arrested for passing off one of those Getty/Associated Press photographs as your own.

      Granted, it's unpleasant to think that you can beat your wife and children and not raise anyone's attention and even shoplift without much more than a quick trip to be booked and released with a fine, yet arres
    • Unless this guy had been repeatedly asked and warned to remove any infringing material this seems like a massive overreaction to me.

      That said, if he was taking screen grabs from IGN's "Insider" section (or some other subscription site) and posting them for all to see I can understand why legal action might have been taken.

      As I understand it most game sites these days pay for the privilege of having the first screen shots of big-name games e.g. the first shots of the redesigned Resident Evil 4. Any site th

  • Screenshots are the artistic work of the player (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @12:17AM (#9192798) Homepage Journal
    It seems obvious to me that the person who created
    a screenshot is the person who performed the gameplay
    required to put the game into that configuration.

    Pissing on your customers is bad business, by the way.
  • Gracious me he must be a tool of satan. wThe man is spending money on bandwidth to provide gamers with copyrighted screenshots. He deserves a pat on the back and a slap on the wrist. Sort of a yin yang punishment.
    • I guess you mised the part about:
      "Gameonline, one of the most popular game sites in Japan until its sudden closure last month, was a for-profit site that made its money exclusively via advertising."
  • ... how are they anyway? Of course there ain't anybody able to run a larger backdoor exploit from there, if you know what I mean ;)

  • I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Suhas ( 232056 )
    why [slashdot.org] the [slashdot.org] spurt in tech related crackdown?

  • My thoughts. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Grey Ninja ( 739021 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @02:12AM (#9193199) Homepage Journal
    I think it's completely stupid that a game news site gets their panties in a twist when another game site takes a scan/picture of a game that neither of them owns, and uses it for whatever purpose.

    And likewise, I think it's equally stupid that artist who make pictures [slashdot.org] for Linux get upset when Linux developers use their pictures. I mean, it gets to a point where we should just keep our stuff to ourselves if we are THAT concerned about someone using it for something that you didn't intend.

    Yeah yeah, I know. Beating a dead horse, and being hopelessly idealistic. But I really do think that people need to just step back once in a while and take a good long thought if what they are doing is worth it, or if it's just plain pointless to even be thinking about it.
    • I agree with that sentiment. Why do they need permission to report 'news', as it were? What if the AP or Reuters needed to ask the permission of the IRA terrorists to report on a bombing? What if CNN needed to ask permission of the state of Florida when a hurricane hit? The only difference between the article and my thoughts is viewpoint.
  • for their actions. His reviews must have been unfavourable and not very flattering for the companies concerned... thus puncturing their carefully calculated hype campaigns. They couldn't get him for the reviews as they were quite possible true, but they could get him for unauthorised use of their screenshots...

  • Exclusive? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by miTTio ( 24893 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:29AM (#9194640)
    I would imagine that some of those images taken from magazines were exclusive. Everytime I go to a magazine stand there is some gaming magazine touting that they have exclusive images of game X. I don't think this is any different than if EGM scanned some images from a GamePro magazine and used it in print. Perhaps the magazines put some pressure on the companies to press charges.
    • Given that exclusive images are a way to keep gaming magazines "in line" (say some nice things about us or you won't get these pictures any more) I doubt the magazines had to lean on the publishers to file suit - it's in their own best interest to protect the value of exclusive screen shots.

  • Simple solution (Score:3, Informative)

    by NetDanzr ( 619387 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @09:07AM (#9194888)
    Apparently, the game publishers who were involved didn't want people to know about their games, so let them have their wish and let their games be ignored, possibly by everybody.

    A long time ago, Steve Jackson Games, which holds the copyright on titles based on their games, such as Autoduel, did the same. Very quickly, all their games disappeared into obscurity, and if you ask the average gamer, he won't be able to mention a single computer game based on Steve Jackson's GURPS. By the time the company turned around and declared that it would allow people to review their games and share the screenshots, it was too late. I really hope the same would happen to the companies involved in this case.

    • By the time the company turned around and declared that it would allow people to review their games and share the screenshots, it was too late.

      Ummm, too late for what? Any sort of new computerized GURPS game? [sjgames.com]

      For what it's worth, I've been a follower of SJG for a long time, and I admit that SJ has some particular notions of defending his intellectual property [sjgames.com]. But overall, it hasn't hurt them over the long haul. If SJG's peculiar stance on their properties shows anything, it's how well SJ understands h

  • Lack of Quality by Association and Possible Errors (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MiceHead ( 723398 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @11:28AM (#9196092) Homepage
    There are reasons why a game publisher might not want a website to post its screenshots with others, but I wonder if there might just be an error in the linked article.

    In independent games, the question of quality-by-association comes up when a company approaches a developer with a request to include its game in a CD compilation. One side of the argument is that the presence of a title on a shovelware [google.com] compilation can detract from its perceived quality -- your game might appear among a hundred Sokoban clones, or in an extreme case, you might see children's software [pcmag.com] next to more adult software [gamespot.com]. So, it is conceivable [imdb.com] that publishers might have considered association with this website (archived here [archive.org]) a bad thing.

    But I don't buy it. Entire conferences [e3expo.com] are devoted to publicity, and as they say, no publicity is bad publicity. (To wit, I'd talk up my postman about my software if I thought it'd help. He's a nice guy; we talk about other things.) The only tidbit that screams copyright violation as I understand it is this: Of this collection, several hundred were allegedly found to have been taken from magazines and overseas game sites...

    However, I do not understand the end of that sentence: ...without the permission of the game publisher, a violation of Japanese copyright law.

    To my knowledge, it is not illegal in the States to take and post a screenshot of a movie or game to the Web; my understanding Japanese intellectual property laws is limited, but given the number of Japanese film/gaming sites that do this, I don't believe that game publishers have any say over what screenshots are presented. I think 1Up may have meant this, instead:

    without the permission of the website's publisher, a violation of Japanese copyright law.
    _________________________
    I long for the day when Google stops asking me, "Did you mean: inigo rage [google.com]"
  • This story reminds me of the fuss George Broussard of 3DRealms used to make about web sites using screenshots without his approval. I don't know if he still has such strong opinions on the subject but if he does, future arrests for copyright infringement wouldn't surprise me, especially if the screenshots are used as part of a negative review.

    Surely screenshots are no different from brief book quotes? Why aren't they fair use?
  • Square/ENIX in particular are incredibly anal about people taking screenshots. At the most recent E3, they were constantly patrolling their booth, descending like hawks on anyone who did so much as take out a camera, and curtly and rudely (in a most un-Japanese way) saying "no" to them.

    Of course, other companies sometimes had no photography rules, but they were all for games shown behind closed doors -- every game displayed openly in booths were being openly filmed/photographed with the encouragement of t

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