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[M3wThr33]

http://www.casperstartribune.net/ar...regional/62470f05c2f69bdb872570c900771185.txt

David Allison, who has written books on how to win X-Box and PlayStation games, runs a Web site called Cheat Code Central. He has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Denver, accusing a California company of purloining his cheats.

Isn't there a huge amount of GameFaqs's FAQs that say CheatCC is not allowed to lift their FAQ for their site? I swear CheatCC always comes up as a spam result online, anyway.

 

[Unison]

Wow, how despicable.

This is like the dude who tried to copyright the name MAME. What ever happened with that?

 

[..pakbeka..]

CCC always sucked, don't you have to pay to look at their faqs now?

 

[MattHelgeson]

It's sort of an interesting case, just in the sense that it brings up the question of are cheat codes "IP", and if so, who owns them...I'd guess that the game companies themselves would claim that THEY own the cheats, not CheatCC or any other cheat site....even if CheatCC discovered them.

I'd be curious if anyone on here knows more about IP law, etc, and could have a more legal perspective on this, cuz I'm strictly guessing here...

 

[Unison]

Well, here's the key part:

His lawsuit accuses Crave Online Media of lifting his cheats verbatim and posting them on the company's Web site, www.craveonline.com.

The codes are not his property, but the writing that he did that describes the code or what it unlocks is his property, and that gives him the right to sue, pretty much.

Now a judge might rule that his writing is not what is valuable here, which might make it impossible to claim damages.

 

[MattHelgeson]

But the "verbatim" part is sorta problematic here, just because, well, certain sequences of buttons have to be pressed in a very exact and specific order...so, it's not like they can be rearranged by a new author...

unless it was more strategy/FAQ type stuff, and they were actually lifting exacty prose sentences...

 

[M3wThr33]

Wow, how despicable.

This is like the dude who tried to copyright the name MAME. What ever happened with that?

The guy is behind Astrocade, the legal home/business alternative to MAME.

He copyrighted it so that he'd have the ability to sue people who sold illegally-loaded MAME cabinets on eBay for cheap. He did it himself because the creators never took initiative. He transferred the rights to the proper owners once registered, like he said he would.

 

[Unison]

But the "verbatim" part is sorta problematic here, just because, well, certain sequences of buttons have to be pressed in a very exact and specific order...so, it's not like they can be rearranged by a new author...

unless it was more strategy/FAQ type stuff, and they were actually lifting exacty prose sentences...

Well, if they're just lifting the actual codes & rewriting the prose, he has no case, I'd say.

If it's the latter, he has a decent case.

 

[Unison]

The guy is behind Astrocade, the legal home/business alternative to MAME.

He copyrighted it so that he'd have the ability to sue people who sold illegally-loaded MAME cabinets on eBay for cheap. He did it himself because the creators never took initiative. He transferred the rights to the proper owners once registered, like he said he would.

That's cool. I am glad he wasn't as much of a bastard as we all thought.

 

[M3wThr33]

Yeah. When the story was on Slashdot I sent him an angry email, he responded honestly and there was a couple more replies between the two of us. He's cool.

 

[crunker99]

Well, if they're just lifting the actual codes & rewriting the prose, he has no case, I'd say.

If it's the latter, he has a decent case.

the button press sequences will not be protected but

if they took his original works describiing how the code works, or when to enter it, or how to enter it, then he has ful grounds to sue and win

 

[The Faceless Master]

if it isn't just the button sequences, they better prepare to get owned up or settle...

 

[GDJustin]

The guy is behind Astrocade, the legal home/business alternative to MAME.

He copyrighted it so that he'd have the ability to sue people who sold illegally-loaded MAME cabinets on eBay for cheap. He did it himself because the creators never took initiative. He transferred the rights to the proper owners once registered, like he said he would.

He's actually the guy behind Ultracade

But yeah, he's an up-and-up guy. I met him at E3 and we talked about the MAME stuff for a while, and he's a really good guy.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Isn't there some kind of limit to copyright? Like, you can't protect short pieces of text unless they're original enough to be considered intellectual property.

(This post is (c) SiegfriedFM 2005 - like that would work)

 

[DDayton]

Isn't there some kind of limit to copyright? Like, you can't protect short pieces of text unless they're original enough to be considered intellectual property.

(This post is (c) SiegfriedFM 2005 - like that would work)

Actually, unless the GAF user agreement specifically states that ownership rights are transferred to GAF, your posts are automatically copywritten at the moment you write them.

It sounds like this guy has a decent case -- if Crave Media was reposting his cheat codes/etc. verbatim, then they are clearly infringing on his copyright. You can't copyright ideas, but you can copyright the representation of them. If Crave had used his site as a source for information, but had their own person write all their own code entires, they'd be in the clear. This is a fairly important distinction to make -- something can be common knowledge, but one's ability to properly explain it isn't. Everyone knows the Konami code, but if I carefully explain how to enter it, my individual expression of that is worthy of copyright.

(Granted, a single code would be a silly thing to worry about, but as the numbers grow...)

I had a problem with this in the past (my site being fun to cut 'n paste, it seems), but I'm in no position to sue over it. I merely wrote to webmasters and such and had the codes pulled from the sites -- or my name and copyright information added to the page.