Game over, Hillary. Legal precedent defends Mods

[Dragon_Myr]

http://www.answers.com/topic/lewis-galoob-toys-inc-v-nintendo-of-america-inc

I've never seen this come up anywhere on the site before in all the game discussions. It appears that there was already a ruling on mods back in 1992. Here is quoted information from the page:

Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.
Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 1992) was a court case which established the rights of users to modify copyrighted works for their own use.

Galoob manufactured a product called Game Genie, which allowed users to modify video games by entering in certain codes. (For example, a code might make the player invincible by replacing the user's health number with an extremely large number.) Nintendo, which sold a video game system and video games that could be modified by Game Genie, sued Galoob for copyright infringement, arguing that Game Genie made a derivative work, violating Nintendo's copyright in their video game.

The Court denied Nintendo's motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that Game Genie did not create a derivative work and also suggesting that even if it did, it might well be fair use. As the district court wrote, "Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work."

See also Foresight v. Pfortmiller, 719 F. Supp 1006 (D. Kan. 1989).It would seem to me that all the current activity in the media and government over games and modding is legally unjustified and ignores a court precedence set in place 13 years ago.

If this was already mentioned, I'll delete the thread. But like I said I've never seen this pointed out on the forum before and came across it an hour ago. Granted, it might not apply well to GTA:SA since the sexual content was included but locked out, but it does defend normal mods that we see around in this community and in similar genre games.

[Cap'n Beeb]

Boomtisk! Now perhaps Hiliary will feck off somewhere quick like, but that might be too much to ask.

[Azura]

Things like this show that a woman is starting to become old ^^ .

[ilkman]

I dont think that will work againts these folks. Common sense and logic are a lacking trait amongst most extremists.

[W0RF]

Contra was not meant to be played with 30 lives, but if you know "The Konami Code" you can modify your gameplay experience accordingly. And that doesn't even require a Game Genie.

There is absolutely no legal precedent for this move. It's one thing to change the game rating but all this hoo-haw is ridiculous.

[Discord]

Eh... all that ruling says is that game developers can't sue modders. It doesn't say anything about whether game developers can themselves be held liable for mods made from included content.

Things like this show that a woman is starting to become old ^^ .

Nah, things like this show how far the right has come in dominating American politics. I'm pretty sure that if this were still the 90s, Hillary would've said something like "That's awful," applauded the move by the ESRB and called it a day.

This ain't the 90s, though. The Republicans have since managed to exploit the old "values" chestnut as a swing issue in elections. While this doesn't mean that a candidate actually has to have any values to get elected, it does mean that candidates must make loud remonstrances of how dearly they hold those values they don't have... you know, like honesty and sobriety. ;)

By way of example, see W's strategically brilliant mobilization of the "I hate fags" vote in the 2004 election. Note that he hasn't done a damn thing since then to push through a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage... but it sure was a big deal last November. [don't believe it]And I voted for the sumbitch too, 'cause I sure 'nuff do hate me some fags![/don't believe it]

We all know Hillary's going to make a move on the White House sooner or later. And, being the wife of the shamed and humiliated Bill "No Values" Clinton, she's got an uphill battle to fight there. What that means is she's got to find any kind of wedge she can to drive into the right's hegemony on the values issues.

So that right there is why she's making a ruckus about this. She's determined to be seen as "tough on values" or whatever. This whole GTA hubbub was a fine opportunity that managed to drop into her lap, and she got the jump on the GOP and ran with it. What she may or may not actually think is of course irrelevant... after all, she's a politician.

This whole mess really pisses me off, mostly because it's so blatantly fabricated from start to finish. R* made this crap up as a publicity stunt, it's obvious. Now HC has made her own side publicity stunt out of it. What all this is really about is manipulating public perception for personal gain by manipulating kids who play video games and their parents, FFS.

How low will this country go?! You got me. Values, my butt.

[Daedalus]

Discord said:

R* made this crap up as a publicity stunt,


I highly doubt it. It was probably put in there, didn't get the green light and instead of removing it and probably breaking their software, it was just made inaccessible.

[Discord]

I highly doubt it. It was probably put in there, didn't get the green light and instead of removing it and probably breaking their software, it was just made inaccessible.

Oh, come on. What resources could possibly be in that thing that the rest of the game depends on? The combat system gets b0rked without the doggystyle anims? They obviously already had to nix all pointers to it in the rest of the code... or almost all of them. ;)

It's just like in the 80s when the TV preachers suddenly got all fired up about the Devil's Music and ran around showing off instances of "backward masking" on LPs. The result? Artists went out of their way to put something backwards on the record and I got turned on to Black Sabbath. :lol:

It's the oldest pop culture dynamic out there, and those guys were just trying to cash in on it. Judging by the anecdotal reports of a rush to pick up "collectible" copies of the game before the hammer fell I'd say they weren't far off. Hell, I'd totally forgotten about GTA until all this crap got stirred up.

[Daedalus]

Yes because they definitely wanted to get it removed from shelves of major retailers and get it marked with the AO rating until they spent money trying to remove the scene. It all makes perfect sense now.

[Sir_Brizz]

Too bad hilary is a Democrat :p

[ilkman]

Democrat

demo : taken from the word demon.

-crat : taken from the end of the word sour kraut with a bit of spelling change.

So in essence democrats are demonic piles of sourkrauts.

Republican

Re : means to do again.

pub : a reference to pubic hair.

lican : taken from the world pelican.

So Republicans are bascially regrown pubic hair off of pelicans.

Liberal

Lib : misspelling of 'lube'

eral : taken from the name Earl which is some stuffy old guy in a hutt out in the middle of nowhere.

So basically Liberals are lubed up stuffy old me in cabins all alone in the middle of a wooded area. No pun intended with the term 'wooded'.

[Discord]

Yes because they definitely wanted to get it removed from shelves of major retailers and get it marked with the AO rating until they spent money trying to remove the scene. It all makes perfect sense now.

Well, they probably didn't know how far it would go, but I expect they were prepared for the eventuality.

Nothing shores up a career like a good controversy... it's free publicity, and mostly better than the kind you pay for.

It would surprise me a lot if it cost a significant amount of money to actually take the offending material out of the game. It WILL cost money to rework the packaging (although not much, I think they're just changing the ESRB rating logo), and the downtime in sales may cost them some, but possibly not given that the game's been out a while... setup cost for a new run of censored games won't be much, printing costs are already figured into the equation as are distribution costs... so really, the actual cost to the developers won't be any heftier than, say, Epic's UT2k4 ECE release, and will actually be less since R* won't have to include new content.

And if cost ain't much, let's look at benefit:

1. A run on sales of pre- censor games. Rockstar has already been paid for the games in the stores, so they won't see an immediate return on that... but good sales figures never hurt sales.

2. The henpecked- but- concerned- mother factor. OMG, she can't have little Billy getting exposed to such filth! But if she takes away GTA for something that isn't his fault, he'll throw a fit and create massive headaches that she just doesn't need. So, having more money than backbone, she very well may go out and buy the freakin' game again. Wow. I'm lovin' it. :lol:

3. The stick- it- to- the- man factor. I'm sure plenty of college kids who wouldn't have bought the game otherwise will now pick it up just to "fight censorship" or whatever... when in fact, all they'll be fighting is late fees being applied to R*'s boat payments.

4. The oh- yeah- I- forgot- about- that- game factor. For some reason, Joey Sativa was just too damn high for the initial media blitz to penetrate his noggin. However, it's summertime now and good weed tends to get scarce... so now here's Media Blitz Part Teh Second!!!1eleven "Oh, duuude, I knew I forgot about something..." cha- ching.

5. The hip factor. Plenty of people who were into other stuff and never gave GTA a try will see this on the web, think it's funny as hell, and go pick up a new AO- rated version of the game just to see what the fuss is about. Not to mention the geeks who already had the M version and want the AO label to show off to their pimply- faced friends. It happens, I've seen it.


Bottom line? Simple cost- benefit analysis, really. If Rockstar makes more money off of this flap than it ends up costing them, they made the "right" call. It's a sleazy call, of course, and not because of the explicit content but rather because of the cynical pandering involved. But that's the way that company likes to go anyway, right? As an added bonus, I'm sure their egos are sporting major wood at this point. This was, no doubt, an attractive gamble for them, and it may yet pay off.


Too bad hilary is a Democrat :p

Just in case that was aimed at me:

We all know Hillary's going to make a move on the White House sooner or later. And, being the wife of the shamed and humiliated Bill "No Values" Clinton, she's got an uphill battle to fight there. What that means is she's got to find any kind of wedge she can to drive into the right's hegemony on the values issues.

[W0RF]

Nah, things like this show how far the right has come in dominating American politics. I'm pretty sure that if this were still the 90s, Hillary would've said something like "That's awful," applauded the move by the ESRB and called it a day.
I repeat. Joe Lierberman. Tipper Gore.
Note that he hasn't done a damn thing since then to push through a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage.
Note that I said last year that wasn't going to happen, when all the Chicken Littles said he was going to turn the US into Jesusland.

[Discord]

I repeat. Joe Lierberman. Tipper Gore.

Lieberman... meh, I never payed much attention to the guy, TBH. :lol:

And yeah, Tipper Gore was a nasty piece of work, but you'll notice she pretty much shut her mouth when Al was headed for the white house. She was a much more 80s phenomenon.

Note that I said last year that wasn't going to happen, when all the Chicken Littles said he was going to turn the US into Jesusland.

Lol, I wasn't hanging around here last year. But yeah, you were right and it's the same thing going on here. Push button, inflame public, enjoy the moment.

[Zxanphorian]

Democrat

demo : taken from the word demon.

-crat : taken from the end of the word sour kraut with a bit of spelling change.

So in essence democrats are demonic piles of sourkrauts.

Republican

Re : means to do again.

pub : a reference to pubic hair.

lican : taken from the world pelican.

So Republicans are bascially regrown pubic hair off of pelicans.

Liberal

Lib : misspelling of 'lube'

eral : taken from the name Earl which is some stuffy old guy in a hutt out in the middle of nowhere.

So basically Liberals are lubed up stuffy old me in cabins all alone in the middle of a wooded area. No pun intended with the term 'wooded'.

You forgot conservative :hmm:

[Daedalus]

for you people trying to use stereotypical right and left ideals in this whole dilemma, it really doesn't work. I mean seriously, look at the original video game crusader Liberman, he was a democrat, and now we have hilary. So if you try to start up the whole partisanism machine, it isn't going to function correctly :)

[W0RF]

Pretty much what I said in the GTA thread.

[Sir_Brizz]

Just in case that was aimed at me:
It was because you mentioned the political right. Hilary is a democrat through and through, but Dems have always been the ones spearheading anti-violence-in-video-games bills along with all their other frivolous bills that they seem to spearhead just to remind people they are there.

[CyberSirius]

GTA is simply a target.

[Peavey]

So I guess Hillary won't be confiscating my Vespa anymore? That's good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go listen to the Small Faces while wearing my parka.

;)

[SanitysEdge]

You forgot conservative :hmm:
I can do this:

Con - Of, relating to, or involving a swindle or fraud
Serv - Misspelling of serve: To work for
Ative - Of, relating to, or associated

So its Relating to, associated, or working to swindle and/or fraud people

[MetalMickey]

It was because you mentioned the political right. Hilary is a democrat through and through, but Dems have always been the ones spearheading anti-violence-in-video-games bills along with all their other frivolous bills that they seem to spearhead just to remind people they are there.
The OP was pointing out that your whole society is moving even further to the right. The democratic party is a right wing party.

[Discord]

The OP was pointing out that your whole society is moving even further to the right. The democratic party is a right wing party.

Well, I wasn't really trying to go that far. There are plenty of average slobs in this country who wouldn't consider themselves "right" at all but who do tend to take a narrow view on moral issues. People in the US aren't as comfortable with the human body (or anything else that might point toward a good time) as Europeans are typically stereotyped as being. ;)

Moreover, the Republicans have generally done a much better job of framing political discourse in recent years. They've got a very pro- active agenda and in general have their program together... as opposed to the Democrats, who are much more reactive, tend to wait and see what they think and don't agree with eachother nearly as often. The result of that is nearly always that Republicans determine the issues and Democrats try to play catch- up.

It's not that the nation as a whole is staunchly in favor of right- wing policies (even though the right will try to imply that at times) -- one look at W's dismal approval polls will tell you that -- it's just that the right is far more effective these days at controlling the political arena, and hence power. To put it in UT terms, the right is timing powerups and the left doesn't even have its weapons bound.

And yeah, it's true that when Democrats try to crack down on some moral issue it's usually something from pop culture (ie, music, tv, film or now video games), but that just seems to be their bag... it's something they understand, I guess. I still contend that the reason why they do it is so that they can get past their (sometimes deserved) reputation as a bunch of philandering drunks.

And I also still maintain that all of this GTA nonsense is nothing but exploitation at its finest.

[Sir_Brizz]

The OP was pointing out that your whole society is moving even further to the right. The democratic party is a right wing party.
Oh come on. They are no socialists, but the Democrats are definitely left of center.

[Discord]

Oh come on. They are no socialists, but the Democrats are definitely left of center.

Meh... what do you expect? Typical lo- res European perspective on US politics.

[EXE-973]

Actually, the issue did do one thing for rockstar. Every one of those copies that had the AO sticker in my area, sold out in a day. Every retailer who continued to sell the game couldn't keep them on shelves. Everyone wants an unmodified copy so they can see for themselves what all the hoopla is about.

[Discord]

Actually, the issue did do one thing for rockstar. Every one of those copies that had the AO sticker in my area, sold out in a day. Every retailer who continued to sell the game couldn't keep them on shelves. Everyone wants an unmodified copy so they can see for themselves what all the hoopla is about.

I'm going to just take a moment here to generously refrain from gloating.

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a nice day.



:D

[MÆST]

Good Economist article I thought warranted a bump:

http://economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4246109

"Amid all the arguments about the minutiae of rating systems, the unlocking of hidden content, and the stealing of children's innocence, however, three important factors are generally overlooked: that attitudes to gaming are marked by a generational divide; that there is no convincing evidence that games make people violent; and that games have great potential in education."

[Airmoran]

Wow, a hybrid chart showing that overall violence has dropped while video game sales have increased. Yup, incontestable proof that there is no link between video games and violence.

How the hell is "our side" gonna win with arguments like that?

[MÆST]

Wow, a hybrid chart showing that overall violence has dropped while video game sales have increased. Yup, incontestable proof that there is no link between video games and violence.

How the hell is "our side" gonna win with arguments like that?
If you would have actually read the article instead of just looking at the "pretty charts" you would have caught this bit:

"Of course, it's possible that crime would have fallen by even more over the period had America not taken up video games; still, video gaming has clearly not turned America into a more violent place than it was."

So "we" have to prove that there is no link? Is that how this type of thing goes? I always thought the accuser had to provide the evidence. This is the Economist we are talking about. Every politician reads it (or at least gets one of their people to read it and give them the gist ;)) Typically, it's a good thing to have the Economist on your side.

[Agent_5]

I always thought the accuser had to provide the evidence. This is the Economist we are talking about. Every politician reads it (or at least gets one of their people to read it and give them the gist ;)) Typically, it's a good thing to have the Economist on your side.
Doesn't matter. If the public at large think games are the work of satan, politicians are going to support that stance.

[DeeperShade]

Look, lets face facts. The idiot rightwing christian's that are now in power will eventually get rid of games... fine. America loses out and all the game companies move to England. Also the market is opened up to Eastern games, so we can start getting more and more porn games.

[Airmoran]

I always thought the accuser had to provide the evidence.
"They" provided an argument, and to refute this argument, an equally-or-more-so flawed logic is used. That doesn't help. Unfortunately, this ain't playing out on the court of law. Fortunately, that's probably isn't the article's problem.

I thought the original argument was "Games make people violent." Right off the bat the article acknowledges it. I'm concerned that some guy on "their" team will read that article, go "alright, I've read it. This is the best they've got", but will remain unconvinced because underneath all those wonderful examples, the article doesn't address the attacking team's arguments. Normally, that's fine since the article aimed to to dilute certain concerns by stating that games are (soci-)morally complex. However, the article ties this in some kind of overall statement, which may lead some readers to assume the article's defending the sore spots of the debate.

Pulling out an example, the argument that games are "deeper" is pretty ineffectual. The game reflects are morally deep? Alright, subjective statement. But using B/W as an example of a game which reflects moral choices? Okay. The article then goes further and suggests this can be utilized as educational tools. Aside from couple of stretchy examples, uhh... sure. It sounds nice, but in the end all games are just artificial string of problem solving. If there's some evil voodoo magic permeating from video games that are turning our kids into demons, no amount of problem solving or virtual flight school is gonna help. Nor will talkless charts help convince the pudnits otherwise.

There's nothing wrong with the Economist (or the vast majority of the article's statements), but that article in particular isn't effective where it counts. I probably should've typed that up in my previous post.

If there's one really strong point they bring up (to negate my concerns), it's the same ol' still-true fact of life: this stuff ain't new. There was Elvis, there were violent Road Runner cartoons, there's now games. The article sort of shares yet refutes the mistake of assuming the attacks should encompass all games, not just violent ones. Maybe a little detail in the picture can reduce the number of hostile borders. I suppose, in the end, the game industry can just sustain ever increasing attacks until the next generation finds some more harmful to the soul. Or something.

Of course, if it comes down to it, that won't convince the legislators to ease up, either.

On a lighter note, the fastest way to prosperity is to jack taxes up to 17%, then lower it down to 0% to recoup the population loss. Duh. :p

[edhe]

You don't do publicity stunts to know $50m off your stock price.

[Sir_Brizz]

Look, lets face facts. The idiot rightwing christian's that are now in power will eventually get rid of games... fine. America loses out and all the game companies move to England. Also the market is opened up to Eastern games, so we can start getting more and more porn games.
And since, according to you guys, all American politicians are right-wing Christians, there is no hope, am I right? :p

Let's not forget that the people pushing this down the throats of the American people are majorly Democrats.

[Dragon_Myr]

Look, lets face facts. The idiot rightwing christian's that are now in power will eventually get rid of games... fine. America loses out and all the game companies move to England. Also the market is opened up to Eastern games, so we can start getting more and more porn games.
FYI: Right-wingers are reluctant to blow this up huge since it is a business. "Hands off business" -- let the money drive what gets produced and what doesn't get produced. The economy can control itself with little government regulation. That's the platform they adopt. Business and money trumps all.

Check the news -- the left-wingers of the USA (Hillary and Thompson) are using games as an exploitable vehicle to further their political agendas and try to gather support in the face of repeated losses in all areas of government (except when cheating in Washington state). They can't win at the ballot box so now they're trying to make themselves look more appealing in every way possible regardless of who they step on along the way.