German release/translation gaff

[dr.charm]

Skev you have to seem little grasp of the facts of the case. Unless of course in your world 'keeping quiet' means to write to Infogrames and *TELL THEM* what you are doing. Look, if you want to defend Infograme's position, that's fine, but at least find out some of the facts before setting fingers to keys.

Cheers,

Dr. Charm

[duuk]

Dear Mr. Eric Johnson,

Thank you for contacting the Best Buy Corporate Headquarters regarding your
software comments. We appreciate your business and support. Please allow
me to respond accordingly.

We appreciate your concern for products that are accurately documented.
Best Buy is a retailer who must depend on the reputation and quality of
other companies since we do not manufacture the items we sell. With this in
mind, we strive to carry quality products from reputable manufacturers. At
the same time however, we have found that even the best quality
manufacturers can have an occasional product which may be lacking in quality
or accuracy. Please be assured that I will forward your comments to the
appropriate department here for consideration with this product.

We value your support and hope to see you in a Best Buy store very soon.
Thank you for your continued patronage.

Respectfully,

R e x R a d e r m a c h e r
Consumer Relations
Best Buy Corporate Headquarters

-------

Just got that back from them.

Duuk

[dr.charm]

Not *the* Eric S Johnson of SHWI fame?

It's a small world after all

Cheers,

Walter R. Strapps (aka Dr. Charm)

[SKev]

Dr. Charm,

I hate to disappoint you, but I do not work for Infogrames. Considering the time I have spent on this today, my actual employer would question whether I even work for them.

I freely admit I do not know all the facts of this case. I only know second hand information skimmed from this thread. While I could simply say “don’t bother me with the facts,” I’ll ask you to identify which material and relevant facts I have stated in error. Hint: The only relevant, material fact is that Kai was translating copyrighted material without permission. Everything else is window dressing.

Your post infers you have a superior grasp of the facts. Assuming you’re not Kai or an Infogrames employee, you have no personal knowledge of the facts of this matter. Since I am neither Kai nor an Infogrames employee, I have no personal knowledge of the facts. At best, you’ve “mastered” the second-hand information from biased or questionable sources that I have merely skimmed. I have no problem admitting that I’ve marshaled the facts I “know” (and confabulated the rest) to make my points. While some of the facts may be wrong, overall I think the conclusions I’ve reached would be the same if I knew all the facts.

I’ll also admit that I’m “defending” Infogrames insofar as they had the right to do what they did. I disagree with how they handled the situation, but they had the right to do it. What annoys me is the fierce but misguided sense of entitlement prevalent in the “anti-IGG” position. I am a consumer of computer games. I pay my money, and in exchange they provide me with a game. The “rights” (with a few exceptions) end there. I don’t think I have the right to copy the game because it hasn’t been released in my country yet, make a copy for my friend so we can play MP (I know, no MP in Civ 3), distribute free copies because the game is “too expensive” (whatever that means) or give the game away because the company released a buggy “beta” version of the game and they deserve to be punished. Encouraging the MOD community to use an enclosed editor to change certain aspects of the game has unfortunately led to many people feeling like they can do whatever they want to with the game files. I don’t think that’s true. In the “big picture,” my personal feeling is that this sense of entitlement is one of the reasons we have created (or we are perceived to have) a hyper-litigious society.

Kev

[dr.charm]

Skev,

I did not say, nor suggest that you work for Infogrames. I would ask you for evidence that I did, but you seem unconcerned with such trivialities.

You said that Kai was 'keeping quiet' about his translation effort. This is a blatant, bald-faced lie. The only reason that Infogrames knew about his translation effort was *BECAUSE HE WROTE TO THEM ABOUT IT*!!! That you do not consider this a salient fact reveals either a strong bias, or willfull ignorance.

Cheers,

Dr. Charm

[Farmer Jimbo]

Advice that will not be heeded: Calm down people.

The only thing I'm kinda intersted in seeing is Infogrames/Firaxis' official response to Markos' email requesting their opinion on the files posted here.

[SKev]

Dr. Charm,

In the first paragraph of my post to Mario, I clearly state Kai offered to help IGG with the German translation. Thus, I am fully aware of the fact that Kai’s project was out in the open. In fact, I concluded that one of the reasons he got busted was because he notified IGG about the project and was working on it out in the open.

The portion of my post which you have misquoted and then accused me of lying about is a hypothetical: “Kai probably could have ‘gotten away with it’ if he just kept quite.” Note the hypothetical is based on the fact you claim I lied about—Kai told IGG about his project. The rest of the paragraph must be read in the context of the thesis sentence.

The fact that Kai told IGG about his project is not relevant. While it may tend to show Kai is a “good guy” with no illegal motive (and despite IGG’s apparent hatchet job regarding Kai’s emails), it is not a factor used in determining whether his act violated IG’s copyright. Had IGG responded affirmatively to his “notice” or “offer to help,” that would be relevant.

Kev

[ColdFever]

Guys please,
lets not fight each other - this is a community and a great one IMHO.

The German translation team wanted to do something for the Civ community, to give the game a warm welcome, make it well known over here and push the sales a bit. Besides we tried to raise some consciousness for the UNICEF help projects in Afghanistan.

But now, things are worse then ever. Indeed the events planted discord among the Civ fans. I am personally sorry of all this and really regret what did happen. I admit we have been way too naive about this business and the complicated rules that are involved.

Now on this last day of November I have the impression that almost everything is said and done. I would suggest to leave it this way for the moment and to gain some healthy distance.

I think you Americans also have what we Germans call "Advent". This is the time of the year when we begin to look forward to the Christmas spirits. So I wish you all a joyful Advent among the ones you love. We should be aware of the privilege to spend this time of the year in peace and without elemental need. We are allowed to play a great game, while elsewhere unfortunate people die because of hunger, frost or violence.

So lets not use our precious time to fight here about things that nobody of us can change - I think there are much more important things that need and deserve our dedication.

Kai Fiebach

[mactbone]

What if I were to ranslate the game in German, and at the same time change every unit by adding one attack point? Is it a mod or a translation?

[Robert]

MarkG: i keep seeing you say this, and i really wonder about it. do you usually sign legal documents without asking a lawyer?

so far, yes.
Even when we got that letter from that movie company we didn't approach a lawyer. We just replied, and if problems would seem to come, we would actually have removed all riddler related stuff from our side (even if that would end our club)

again: www.civ.de didn't make any costs, did they ?

And since I work as a freelancer, I can ensure that I had to sign various legal docs. Didn't ask any lawyer for help.

If the doc is clear, no lawyer is needed.
It's only need if things get complex, or a trial would happen.

again, why would a lawyer be needed if all he says is "Sign it and return it ?"

but pherhaps you have other experiences,
please share them. So far I'm the only one sharing my experiences. Other people just call names and things without giving any arguments or stuff.

CyberShy

[Darkknight]

Originally posted by yin26

So shoot first and ask questions later? That's murder. Ask the guy to put down his weapon AND THEN shoot him if he refuses? That's self defense.

I can't tell if your being sarcastic or serious? You dont shoot him you put down your weopon. unless he's obviously some crazy nut almost certainly about to kill you.

I don't see why Infrogames couldn't do what they've done since the first civ3 mod came out, turn a blind eye. They're not gaining any money by doing this in fact they're probably losing a lot of money from bad PR.

[markP]

Kia probably could have just go in for a consultation with an attorney and pay 50$ and get the same answer.

[Robert]

Markos ? You're not going to share your experiences with us ?
Or at least reply to me ?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by CyberShy
so far, yes.

good for you

again: www.civ.de didn't make any costs, did they ?

you mean if they had to pay for a lawyer? I dont know

If the doc is clear, no lawyer is needed.

well, if you read legal documents with 5 figure numbers (in US $) included and feel safe knowing exactly what it means, of course.....

again, why would a lawyer be needed if all he says is "Sign it and return it ?"

i'm almost certain he didnt say just that....

but pherhaps you have other experiences,
please share them.

luckily, my father has finished law school. free legal advice for life

[Calanor]

Well, I've basically skimmed through this thread, as it contains a huge amount of text by now, but anyways...

First, I don't think that there is any doubt that the copyright was indeed violated (as SKev has pointed out several times). Unless German law says otherwise, I would assume that the following statement in the Civ ReadMe clearly states what you can and cannot do:

You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to human readable form.

Of course, that could be interpreted as meaning that we're not allowed to modify units, rules et al either, but on the other hand Civ3Edit is part of the product. That utility allows you to modify some aspects of the game. Whether or not you're actually allowed to distribute those modifications over the net is something that I've not found any mentioning of - of course, common sense says that IG doesn't mind this (or else a whole heap of guys would have been sued by now), but you can't help but wonder why they didn't bother to mention the editor in the legal texts.

Again, local laws may take precedence here. I am living in Sweden and can legally reverse engineer, decompile, and disassemble games without violating any laws (and I have done so on several occasions).

Basically, if you use the utility supplied with Civ3 to modify the game, I would be extremely surprised if you'd get sued. However, if you modify the existing game files (by using other utilities), you might very well be violating the copyright rights of Firaxis (or IG, depending on how you look at things, heh). Of course, all this is pretty confusing, as Firaxis has in the past actually encouraged us to modify game files (e.g. Alpha Centauri) by including instructions of how to do it... While notes are also included in the Civ 3 files, I feel it's pretty clear that they were intended for the dev team, while those found in SMAC say things as "feel free to experiment" and such.

Finally, let me add that I am not "defending" IG in any way - I am as annoyed as anyone here when it comes to how they have handled this issue. They have, however, clearly stated that translating the game is not permitted.


Cheers!
Calanor