Lawsuits That Changed the Games Industry 54
Gamasutra has up a piece looking at litigation that changed the way the games industry works. Deep, interesting questions like "Is modding legal?", "Are games covered by the 1st amendment?", and "Are games protected by copyright laws?" have all been decided in legal cases within the last 20 years. The site explores these issues, and ponders issues that are likely to affect the business of the games hobby in the future. From the article: "A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games. As a rule, be immediately suspicious of any legislation proposed in the name of 'security' or 'protecting our children.' The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty. To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees."
just waiting for it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'll bet that in one week you will be sued for operating an illegal gambling site that also lures children to it because it's "video game" centric.
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Second, I agree that a class-action suit against one of the really big MMORPGs (or all of them) is overdue. But when it happens, they'll have a stronger case than against McDonalds.
But first McDonalds: McDonalds uses massive ad campaigns targeted at children, a group than any self-respecting state recognizes has an imperfect will: the kid wanting something is not a rational choice. And McDonalds purveys as food
Re:just waiting for it.... (Score:4, Informative)
Eating the occasional fast food meal isn't necesarilly bad for you, eating them habitually most definitely is.
Re:just waiting for it.... (Score:5, Informative)
How many kids, who aren't within shooting distance of being "legally" rational, do you know are even able to get to a McDonalds without their parents? I can't say that before age 12 at the earliest would a kid find themselves able to say, "Mom, I'm going to bike down to the McDs for lunch." That's twelve years where the parents have to make the decision to take their children to the McDonalds.
Similarly, how many people before high school get laptops? Unless you're in a very rich family you're probably stuck using the family computer for World of WarCraft, EverQuest, EvE or whichever poison you pick. Between parental controls and the fact that the computer rests rather immobile in a major room of the house I can't see how parents aren't willfully involved in letting their children be addicted to these games.
In my opinion, while the children may not have the rational capacity to make a decision in these matters they aren't the ones ultimately deciding. The best they can do is put the MMOG on their christmas wish list, or beg their parents for McDonalds. The parent ultimately has to give in or choose to do these things.
Now, if we're talking about rational adults becoming addicted to these games, that's a whole different story.
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Similarly, how many people before high school get laptops? Unless you're in a very rich family you're probably stuck using the family computer for World of WarCraft, EverQuest, EvE or whichever poison you pick.
A coworker of mine has a 2 year old kid, and he just bought him a laptop. When I was a kid, all I got was a BOX to play with. That's what my kids are getting for Christmas. A box. It encourages imaginative thinking.
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Games
Re:just waiting for it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, its a horrible thing. The hordes four- and five-year-olds McDonalds has hypnotized. I've seen pictures of them, fives and tens clutched tightly in their tiny little hands, stumbling up to the counter in their jammies; ordering BigMacs and fries - just like they've seen on TV. The glassy stares. The trembling arms as they reach for the poisonous ooze. Oh, the humanity.
Is there nothing that can restrain them? Nothing that can stop them? Something like, say, parents to steer them down the righteous path? No, the government must be called in! Only the military can stop this heinous crime!
That's funny (Score:3, Interesting)
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That said... I know that one of the biggest and simplest tricks up any chef's sleeve is adding fat. Either a good chunk of butter (with meats, for instance) or cream (in sauces and the like) works wonder
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Re:just waiting for it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with shifting responsibility from individuals to the law is that it eliminates the freedom of choice. If someone wants to sit on their duff for hours on end, they are free to do so. While I am aware that the natural reply to such a notion is "It increases the costs of health care for all of us," I will remind you that health care in the US is already largely borked. Legislation against criminal activities is fine, but criminalizing legitimate activities that do not directly harm anyone, such as playing games or eating fattening food, is simply absurd. Suing, thus, accomplishes nothing than to appease those who, like yourself, clearly do not approve of free choice or the free market. I don't recall stories of Blizzard holding a gun to anyone's head, indicating that failure to play their game may result in unholy punishment (insert lame joke here, Anonymous Cowards).
Ultimately, the "health legislation" movement in this country is counter-productive. While stating children shouldn't be sitting in front of the television, game console, computer, or eating fast food, they simultaneously declare that traditional children's games are violent and dangerous. I'm sorry, little Johnny, I don't want you playing video games, but you can't go outside and play tag, either! I don't think tree-hugging burns a great deal of calories--certainly not as many as cutting one down with a hand saw. And could you imagine the sort of ruckus that would be generated by the bleeding hearts if we armed our children with hand saws? On the other hand, it might not be so bad; imagine telling an angry child armed with a hand saw who was responsible for taking away tag or dodgeball...
I apologize ahead of time for any angry children cutting down your front door, demanding to have their "fun" games back.
Re:just waiting for it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
We both agree that a parent has absolute responsibility for child raising. I would go further and say that, in all matters except those effecting the physical, psychological and social well-being of the child (health, education), the parents have the right to parent their child without undue influence from undesirable influences, particularly those opposed to the physical, psychological and social well-being of the child. This is why there are ordnances against putting adult book stores, saloons and rehab clinics next door to grammar schools.
So what gives any company the right to interfere with my relationship with my child solely to make a buck? Free speech? That's for adults.
It's not the "Think of the Children" argument: A "Think of the Children" argument is a combination of an appeal to sentimentality with a slippery slope. "To protect our children against predators, pornographers and the bad kids at school, we need to spy on every citizen's internet use" -- here the fear and threat of crime or undesirable behavior on children is used to justify enacting a nanny state. A "Think of the Children" version of the McDonalds argument is: "McDonalds advertising targeting children interferes with the parent-child relationship in a deleterious manner. Therefore, we must ban all advertising."
Or a simpler way of putting it: if I walked up to a random kid on they way to school and told her to drink beer, most people would condemn that: "who the hell are you to tell my kid what to do?!" But we let companies get away with it? Whose liberties are you protecting? My liberty to undue influence from the government and corporations seeking to make a buck off me, or the liberty of these fictional entities to exploit my ass?
In any case, my argument wasn't that we ban McDonalds or even their advertisement, but rather that a lawsuit against a MMORPG would be even stronger than that against McDonalds. Let's take your quote:.
Alright, let expand the X a bit. How about drugs? I'm in favor of legalizing drugs, incidentally, just so you don't misunderstand my point:
A company develops a new drug, let's call it "Crystal Meth". The company knows, from clinical trials and the social history of similar drugs, that Crystal Meth is extremely addictive and will effectively ruin the lives of a sizable percentage of the people who use it. The company then markets Crystal Meth as an alternative to coffee and places it on the supermarket shelves next to coffee, with massive ad campaigns and promotions.
So, on your logic, 'if a person decides to get addicted to Crystal Meth, and ruins their entire life because of Crystal Meth, that is not the fault of the company that A) knew this would happen, B) did nothing to inform their consumers of the real health dangers their product posed and C) did everything to prevent their consumers from learning about those health dangers, but rather the person who decided to take Crystal Meth.'
There are laws against selling rat poison as kiddie candy: for a person to make a rational, informed decision, that person has to be both rational (hence not a child) and capable of informing himself on the product. Suppress either one of those, and you suppress the notion of liberty.
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A company develops a new drug, let's call it "Crystal Meth". The company knows, from clinical trials and the social history of similar drugs, that Crystal Meth is extremely addictive and will effectively ruin the lives of a sizable percentage of the people who use it. The company then markets Crystal Meth as an alternative to coffee and places it on the supermarket shelves next to coffee, with massive ad campaigns and promotions.
You're missing the part where the company gets tied up in federal criminal proceedings for not putting an effective label on the product for rational adults to read and learn from. It happens in all food, drink, and most substances that are legal.
Hell, even AIR FRESHENER labels say that if you inhale the concentrated vapor, its bad for your healt. Coffee has a label saying that its a stimulant. And surely you've seen the surgeo
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That doesn't leave much out, though.
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Missing a lawsuit... (Score:3, Interesting)
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How about we don't bump up the price of games to cover the expenses of a pointless recall? How about we don't piss off the retailer willing to stock games that aren't as profitable as Grand Theft Auto?
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Bugs can still find their way through rigerous testing. As an example, Chasm: The Rift immediatly crashes on startup - and this issue is 100% reproducable. The workaround is to run Windows 95, since it's memory protection system is more lax than standard Dos Protected mode drivers.
There's also cases where testing is either infeasible or
Like sharks to blood... (Score:1)
Does not cover modding (Score:5, Interesting)
The article does not cover that question, the only thing related was the case of idiots that tried to gather up a bunch of user generated maps for Duke 3D and sell it as a product (with out permission from the mappers or from 3D realms).
Now the interestign one is if there ARE any precidents on modding being legal/illegal. Obviously games where they give you the tools then it is legal (most FPS games these days, Warcraft, etc etc). But what about games that don't give you the tools? (GTA? Hot coffee?) or where it is actively fought (later versions of GTA). Or hardware type mods?
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Which is why nobody can stop you from modding your PC game to put in stick figures instead of 3d avatars if you want (ok, my first thought was naked avatars, but that's dull eh?). It's only if you sell it that is
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What about Immersion v. Sony? (Score:2, Informative)
Conspicuously missing lawsuit... (Score:3, Informative)
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Notably missing... (Score:4, Informative)
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Can't find a good article on it...not that I'm looking *too* hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision [wikipedia.org] hints to it.
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Another consequence of this
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At the time EOA (as they were still known as) was looking to move away from home computers like the Amiga due to rampant piracy, but was also unwilling to pay the licensing fees and fighting over shelf space and cartridge allotments and all the other ways console developers were dicked around with. So to them the case
Foxed? (Score:2, Informative)
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Aliens_TC [wikia.com]
And no mention of it here
Oh, here's a reference. Yeah, it coined a phrase for that time period
http://www.unfetteredblather.com/nucleus/index.php ?itemid=76 [unfetteredblather.com]
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Or Lawsuits That Cost The States (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the result is often not a "jumbo size bite" taken out of anything artistic or liberty related. The result is often a "jumbo sized bite" taken out of:
1. The time of the legislative branches of the states that approve these bills. Thanks to various politically aspiring politicians that write up, debate, and vote on these bills that they know will get overturned but make them look like they give a shit about your children, state legislators, who often don't work very much anyway, waste time that could be spent on anything else, maybe even stuff that would be constitutional.
2. The time of both state and federal judiciaries. They have to take the time to issue injunctions against these laws and hear the cases that result in said laws being found unconstutional 100% of the time, further bogging down an already vastly overburdened court system.
3. The tax payer's ass. From this earlier story's [slashdot.org] linked to article [next-gen.biz]:
And this story in particular:
To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees.
And let's not forget it's not just the tax payers in the states in question that have to pay for fucktard legislation, though they do front the lion's share, everyone gets a little. When these cases come before Federal Courts on appeal, as is often the case, remember, someone pays the salaries of the Federal employees.
Not to mention the loss of all credibility a state suffers when it passes one of these bills, as it has been shown that these get shot down every time and do nothing but cost time and money that could be spent on anything else.
Score another point for dumbocracy and the retards that put these retards into power and keep them there.
Some other signficiant lawsuits (Score:3, Informative)
Nintendo vs Bung over cart copying devices. I believe this was one of the first lawsuits filed under the newly implemented Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
There is another Nintendo lawsuit involving the copy protection for the Nintendo Gameboy. Basicly the gameboy will not boot a cart unless it has the Nintendo logo data in the right place on the cart. There was a lawsuit over this (I dont know the particulars or who the other party was) where Nintendo argued that copying the nintendo logo was a copyright violation. I believe the court ruled that (like in the Sega vs Accolade case) it was OK to use the copyrighted nintendo logo for the specific purpose of making gameboy carts.
I am surprised that Nintendo didnt use stronger protection on the Gameboy Advance (such as encrypting the cart data somehow and having decryption done on the fly by the GBA). It may not have stopped chinese pirates from decapping the GBA CPU or decryption ASIC and reading out the secret key. But it would have meant that anything to do with GBA en/decrption falls squarely under the DMCA.
1 out of 3 ain't bad. (Score:1)
Isn't that exactly the kind of innovation that patent law is supposed to encourage and protect? Why would I not want to go to the store and have lots of choices? Isn't this a bit like GM saying no one can sell me dice to hang from my rear-view mirror because it take "create control" of their product away
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Modding is gray area (Score:1)
To avoid gray areas Free Software work with greats effors, and avoid to "tain the kernel" and other ideas to work on white area. Modders cant avoid "tainting the kernel", because his work mean redistributing stuff that is already owned by somehome. Most modding is wellcome by the ip owner, so you can contin