May 15 2012, 10:21 pm
In response to Complex Robot
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Dj dovis
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But they did do a C & D and most of the byond games didnt reply. So they could sue the people. I highly doubt it though
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Personally, I don't think FUNimation going after small byond games its not realistic. The games are way to small and go right under the radar. Most byond games have a hard time capturing 100 people, do you really think this huge companies really care about a 100 people on a game. Its just not a large enough crowd. They are more likely trying to go after anime websites with tens of thousands of viewers a day. That would be money better spent. But even then its hard to do on the internet.
That would be like Viz coming after me for my naruto game, its just not going to happen. Now if I had 10,000 players and was making some money that may be a different story. But I don't think any byond game is in that position, so it sort of a null issue. | |
...but it DID happen. FUNimation rolled in with a cease and desist and put a stop to all their properties being listed here. It's very possible Viz could do the same due to the abundance of Naruto and Bleach games.
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Yea but False ceases and desists/DMCAs are filled all the time with not an ounce of legality behind them. They are mostly used for scare tactics against companies to small to defend themselves.
I read an article recently and its killed me that I cant find the link. About a fan site that made Bioshock art style types of posters like this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4OYGjUrdllo/SqJ0PbGpd5I/ AAAAAAAAcIw/nuYkcykJsPI/s400/electro_bolt.PNG 2K had sent the owner of the website a cease and desist claiming copy right infringement but that was a complete lie there was no infringement at all. I guess the point I am trying to make is that these big companies abuse these DMCA/cease and desists all the time because they know 9/10 times they will scare the company into removing media. | |
The problem here is that FUNimation caught us publicly listing Dragon Ball games making a profit off of their intellectual property. FUNimation has plenty of legal ground here, and BYOND chose to delist their properties rather than get sued into oblivion. Their cease and desist order was perfectly in the right as it's their duty to protect their stuff.
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Mouchy wrote:
I guess the point I am trying to make is that these big companies abuse these DMCA/cease and desists all the time because they know 9/10 times they will scare the company into removing media. DMCAs are abused by companies trying to remove material they don't want out there, sure. Like the Church of Scientology getting anti-scientology videos and users removed/banned from Youtube just by making a DMCA claim. Because a company would be liable if, after receiving the DMCA, they don't remove the offending content, and it's much more convenient just to remove the content than bother trying to verify if the content is actually offending anyone's rights. I'm not a law professional, but DBZ games are breaking copyright laws. Funimation does own the right to produce DBZ-related material in the states. That means, I believe, there are two cases where you can use their material. One is fair use, which is not covered here. The other is getting direct permission from Funimation. At least that's my understanding. [edit] As far as I know, fair use covers references, parodies, and things like that. Basically, "talking about it." Basing a game on it obviously isn't covered there. [/edit] | |
Yea I agree with you that perhaps Funimation has some legality but I still don't think that they would invest the time and money to go after a small game with less than a 1000 players.
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They did though, using a perfectly valid DMCA notice to BYOND, which it forwarded to appropriate game developers where possible. BYOND did it's part and pulled the specific URLs in the notice.
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I guess the fact that they sent out C&Ds is kind of evidence that they would invest the time to go after a small game with less than 1000 players. And I think the big problem here is that BYOND is liable, as they are publicizing the offending content. Just like Youtube would be liable if it went around hosting full-length films without permission, and when found and reported, not removing them. Youtube isn't necessarily creating the content, just providing it.
Funnily enough, I think I heard that they were trying to get rid of websites and other forums that allowed other people to post content (which would include Youtube, and probably forums like these), because there's always a chance they might post content that offends some copyright law somewhere. I think it was part of that SOPA thing. [edit] Youtube was a bad analogy, since Youtube does actually host the offending material. A better one might be a torrent tracker that happens to track some copyrighted material. They don't have the actual content, they just link to people who do. [/edit] | |
I heard that too. But in the end I think the idea of policing the internet is laughable at best. When I was in Turkey they had YouTube banned because of child pornography which was just nonsense. But everyone still used YouTube through proxies. And realistically a single proxy through a server in a foreign country is enough to be completely anonymous on the internet.
Also a DMCA/C&D is not hard to file. Anyone can do it. I almost want to say its harder to verify then it is to file one. So when you say that there were serious enough to send one to Byond with a list of links to me that is not really a big deal. To produce that document may only take 5 minutes. While verifying if the document is legit may take weeks. An example: This is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in § 512(c) of the U.S. Copyright Law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This article is an unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material originally found at: [http://www.byond.com/developer/Stephen001/EventScheduling] Please remove this article immediately or we will file an official complaint with the U.S. Copyright Office, FeedBurner and Google, Inc. Google’s response may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers. Thank you, Big Corporation. There i just threatened your with a C&D and it took me about 30 seconds to do. | |
Here's part of what you're missing, Mouchy.
FUNimation has legal backing to their DMCA and Cease and Desists. 'Big Corporation' does not. | |
This isn't a question about how easy it is to file a DMCA or a C&D.
Funimation does have the rights it says it does, and they did request a C&D. | |
No I get that part but how do you even know FUNimation even sent it?
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I suppose that's something Tom would have to answer.
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We know because BYOND received it, from FUNimation, and then forwarded it to the appropriate game owners/developers.
And we assume Tom, what with running the business, can work out when an e-mail is actually from FUNimation's legal department. | |
Plus you know, we did verify, with the assistance of Funimation, and all but one of the links was a valid claim, and Funimation agreed the one invalid claim was invalid upon BYOND's counter evidence.
This isn't really a debate about what is morally right/wrong on the matter, the law has a process for DMCA, and when followed fully by the other party, BYOND is obliged to follow it's end of it, and does so. Full dialog on this was here: http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=111344 when it happened. | |
Tom also said in the post :
I'll do my best to work with these agents to see if they can understand where we're coming from here. It is a longshot, but perhaps they can grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis. I guess he didnt work it out but how did that go? Did he even try ? | |
Dj dovis wrote:
Tom also said in the post : I don't think Tom even [cares] about what happens to fan games. | |
When DBZ left byond a ton of developers left and those developers used to pay for memberships. Like Emasym. Once his dbz game was shut down he quit byond. I think Tom would care about making some extra money from the memberships
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There was an attempt to resolve things, but the only thing they conceded to was that AirMapster/MikeH's game wasn't actually a DBZ fangame and just a play on words. Outside of that their original order remained, and still stands today.
There will probably be no further attempts to resolve this directly from BYOND, it's not really up to BYOND to resolve it. | |
