Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

kotaku.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 132 posts

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#71

Post by foverzar »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
speeder wrote: post #2

DMCA is such an epically shitty law. Only worse is that other countries are happily copying the law too.

Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say…

If that's how companies generally operate under the legislation, then yes, it's the legislation that is shitty.

Them's the rules. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#72

Post by s1artibartfast »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #22

I don't think these developers have much of a grip on reality. They stated that Valve could suffer financial harm if the game stays off Steam. I don't think they realize how much money Valve makes.

What does the total income of valve have to do with it. Lost profit is still harm.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#73

Post by bluefirebrand »

foverzar wrote: post #71
anigbrowl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say…

If that's how companies generally operate under the legislation, then yes, it's the legislation that is shitty. Them's the rules. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

In this case, "The players" have a direct influence on what becomes a part of the game, through lobbying, campaign finances and whatever other more shady shit corporations get up to in order to stack the deck in their favor.

At some point you have to realize the players are dictating the game, and then yeah, hate them.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#74

Post by thomastjeffery »

My perspective: the fan is not "going rogue".

This story is copyright itself brought to its objective conclusion.

Everything here, the petty IP ownership claim, the expectation to have that ownership literally applied, the reactionary griefing, etc. is all baked in to what copyright is at its very foundations. This person is simply playing out the function of copyright as an ideology in their interactions with the game company and its business presence.

They feel they have the right to monopolize the product of their intellectual work, because copyright says so. They feel they can interrupt the sales of the game because copyright says so.

And most important, they feel that they should do these things, because the very existence of copyright, and it's foundational social purpose, tell them it's in their best interest, and their "best interest" is tantamount.

This isn't just a story about copyright, it's copyright itself told as a story, just with real people as subjects.

So let's stop pretending. This is ugly, frivolous, unhelpful, and damaging. This is copyright law. This is an exposition of the social malware that copyright is, was, and ever will be.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#75

Post by eska »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #22

I don't think these developers have much of a grip on reality. They stated that Valve could suffer financial harm if the game stays off Steam. I don't think they realize how much money Valve makes.

I don’t think they’re trying to say that he’s bankrupting Valve, but that he will be bankrupted by the damages he will have to pay..

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#76

Post by slowmovintarget »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
speeder wrote: post #2

DMCA is such an epically shitty law. Only worse is that other countries are happily copying the law too.

Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say…

It's a crappy law. It was bought and paid for by the recording industry, which should tell you something.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#77

Post by yeahbutiguess »

cesaref wrote: post #35
yeahbutiguess wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there is. It's perjury. And the target of a false claim can sue the party who made the claim for damages and attorney's fees.

I'm not so sure. It's a fact that he was involved in the development of this new feature, and it's his opinion that he originated the idea. Whether he did or not is for a court to decide, but he's not committing perjury by believing this. Now if he knows he didn't originate the idea and has brought vexatious proceedings, then sure, this may be perjury, but we are some way off knowing this, and i don't think we'll be…

He wasn't involved, from all accounts.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#78

Post by yeahbutiguess »

thfuran wrote: post #61
Symbiote wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To file a DMCA complaint you must be the copyright holder, or authorized to act on their behalf.

Yes, and it's only that assertion that is made under penalty of perjury, not the assertion that the targeted work actually infringes on that copyright.

So, if they aren't the copyright holder (as in this case) they have committed perjury by asserting they are.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#79

Post by thomastjeffery »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
speeder wrote: post #2

DMCA is such an epically shitty law. Only worse is that other countries are happily copying the law too.

Is the DMCA such a shitty law (questions about copyright in general aside), or are companies in shitty in just automatically responding to any DMCA allegation while refusing to invest anything in transparency/process/even-handedness? Basically if you are hit with a copyright or any other sort of terms of service violation, you are stuck spending time and energy trying to communicate with a black box. Platformists say…

It's a run-time error.

Law is not objective ideology sitting in context-free space. Law is ideology applied, and that very application made explicit. A law defines the very context it exists in.

So we can't just objectively ignore the failure of a law being applied, because a better application of that law must be defined in that law.

Even if a law defines a reasonable ideological mapping (expected behavior), it still needs to define a reasonable application of that mapping.

If, in practice, we see a law being abused, then the solution must be to change that law such that it isn't abusable anymore.

DMCA is an extreme failure, not in defining expected behavior per se, but in defining the domain for implementing behavior. The way DMCA is put into practice circumvents the very ideological behaviors it defined as its expectations, in nearly every case it is applied to.

A version of DMCA that "isn't shitty" would be incapable of such overt and widespread abuse. Clearly the version we have does not meet that criteria.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#80

Post by yeahbutiguess »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #22

I don't think these developers have much of a grip on reality. They stated that Valve could suffer financial harm if the game stays off Steam. I don't think they realize how much money Valve makes.

Valve could, hypothetically, be the target of a suit for damages if they do not comply with the DMCA counter claim. Odds are good that valve will just do everything it can to be by the book and get out of the way.
Post reply on HN