2020-05-03 - Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited: Last of Us 2 DMCA 2 -

[mindlessobserver]

Dojinshi and indie music CDs are distributed largely in-person for a good reason. It's changed recently but the culture around media is still quite fucked due to their laws, even though a lot of porn artists are allowed to get away with stuff others might not.

The japs also have an "interesting" fan culture. They view fans as an integral part of their industry and work their monetization around this. On the face you would say "this is just what Western companies do!" And you would be wrong. Because westerners think in lines. And Asians think in circles. Its more complex then this but the analogy works roughly.

In the West, a company creates a product, sells the product, and the fan then consooms product. The end. Beginning. Middle. End. In Japan however a company does not create a product. It uses a product that already exists, either metaphorically or actually due to the collective will of all consumers. The company dutifully makes that will manifest and offers it up for the fans to enjoy. The fans then taken the product and use it to further the collective will which births new product for the company to manifest and sell.

World without end.

When you realize this everything from how jap companies seem to tolerate levels of copyright abuse that would make a western company turn puce to their weird idol culture where it almost seems like the entertainers are slaves to their fans makes much more sense.

 

[Shaka Brah]

The japs also have an "interesting" fan culture. They view fans as an integral part of their industry and work their monetization around this. On the face you would say "this is just what Western companies do!" And you would be wrong. Because westerners think in lines. And Asians think in circles. Its more complex then this but the analogy works roughly.

In the West, a company creates a product, sells the product, and the fan then consooms product. The end. Beginning. Middle. End. In Japan however a company does not create a product. It uses a product that already exists, either metaphorically or actually due to the collective will of all consumers. The company dutifully makes that will manifest and offers it up for the fans to enjoy. The fans then taken the product and use it to further the collective will which births new product for the company to manifest and sell.

World without end.

When you realize this everything from how jap companies seem to tolerate levels of copyright abuse that would make a western company turn puce to their weird idol culture where it almost seems like the entertainers are slaves to their fans makes much more sense.

The flip-side of this is that they seem to only consider material productions like art to be fair use. Making porn? OK. Selling PVC models? OK. Criticizing things? No. Streaming Let's Plays of Nintendo games? FUCK NO.

 

[mindlessobserver]

The flip-side of this is that they seem to only consider material productions like art to be fair use. Making porn? OK. Selling PVC models? OK. Criticizing things? No. Streaming Let's Plays of Nintendo games? FUCK NO.

Publicly shaming an artist is rude and only a barbarian would do such a thing. Also the same goes for showing an artist's work in the manner he did not intend. Truly a shameful thing to do.

Making your own art based off of the artists work? Truly a form of flattery.

 

[Nekoi.Inukuma.00]

No. They're doing it because they are fucking exceptional individuals who have no respect or understanding for a certain degree of permissiveness baked into US copyright law. They're trying to scare people. The euro mentality is that anything anybody doesn't like is, or ought to be, subject to takedown. When worlds collide.

Also, they might be trying to ferment a PR defense for when this goes pear shaped. That defense might be something along the lines that they hired some Romanian bitch who didn't know what they were doing, and Sony is totes sorry for that. Companies use these copyright enforcement agencies as a legal meat shield as much as anything (Google Rightshaven and note who got the brunt of the fallout.).

Oh, , Rightshaven. There's a name I haven't read in a long time.

True, the lawyers are Eurofags, and I am well aware of the general lack of respect of freedom of speech there compared to Hamburger Land. However, even by running this through their European subsidiary, I don't think any amount of deflection is going to help them not look like litigious douchebags.

Also, this doesn't look like a copyright assignment scam, it looks like these lolyers are just doing this on Sony's payroll? Unless I'm reading this wrong?

 

[Learned Hand]

Oh, , Rightshaven. There's a name I haven't read in a long time.

True, the lawyers are Eurofags, and I am well aware of the general lack of respect of freedom of speech there compared to Hamburger Land. However, even by running this through their European subsidiary, I don't think any amount of deflection is going to help them not look like litigious douchebags.

Also, this doesn't look like a copyright assignment scam, it looks like these lolyers are just doing this on Sony's payroll? Unless I'm reading this wrong?

Honestly, they're just a law firm that gets an angry call/e-mail from their client (Sony), who is telling them to send these stupid DMCAs, it's likely not because of incompetence on the part of the firm/lawyers itself. Billable hours are billable hours.

Having said that, I'm not well versed in how the law works in the godless wasteland of Europe, but in the United States, a firm can be censured for sending any correspondence like a DMCA warning that isn't couched in a good faith belief that the rights of their client are actually being infringed. IE -- you can't try to shake people down into removing things you don't like or taking down content without reason.

What doesn't past the smell test for me is that Naughty Dog is HQed in the United States, they know process must be served on the Farms in the United States, and yet Sony, whom I'm sure has a US-based attorney, is tasking their European partner into sending these notices. My theory is to avoid the exact kind of repercussions prescribed by US law for abusing the legal process. If a EU firm violated US rules for professional conduct, there is no real recourse. For a US firm, all it really takes is an angry e-mail to that firm's state bar.

Now for some random postulation: If we want to play "worst case scenario" for Sony though (I'm mostly thinking out loud), if they send enough of these flimsy notices out to people, damaged content creators, whom are not violating any copyright, can file a suit under Rule 23 (Class action), which would defray costs to where, in theory, such an undertaking would be financially feasible and might actually work. Class Action requirements are a mess, but if anyone's curious, this is a good primer by the ABA: https://www.classactiondeclassified...er_class_certification_under_federal_rule.pdf

Really though, I'm just tired of seeing companies use the DMCA as a cudgel and would find it funny if Diebold happened at the US Circuit level and it maybe chilled companies out from essentially roughing up people in alleyways for lunch money and threatening their revenue streams because they know they can.

 

[Captain Manning]

Also, this doesn't look like a copyright assignment scam, it looks like these lolyers are just doing this on Sony's payroll? Unless I'm reading this wrong?

You're misreading this.

I'm not implying this is an assignment scam. I'm saying that Romanian chick doesn't work directly for Sony. She works for Muso TNT Ltd. Which is a type of company that files DMCAs on behalf of IP holders.

They're probably not doing fuckery on quite the level of Rightshaven. I brought up Rightshaven because, similar to them, this company would be a layer of insulation between Sony and Null. For now, at least. If this generates backlash, Sony could throw them under the bus and claim it was a "miscommunication," or some shit.

If Sony does decide to sue KF, it would have to come from Sony direct. Rightshaven established you can't sell "the right to sue." That's not a thing. You are either the copyright holder, and have standing to sue, or you don't.

 

[HomerSimpson]

Here's my contribution for the 3rd DMCA:
View attachment 1268830

SO GOOD! Man, everytime. These memes are better than the game is gonna be.

 

[Captain Manning]

Really though, I'm just tired of seeing companies use the DMCA as a cudgel and would find it funny if Diebold happened at the US Circuit level and it maybe chilled companies out from essentially roughing up people in alleyways for lunch money and threatening their revenue streams because they know they can.

I have a theory about Diebold. Maybe @AnOminous would agree.

I think that after they lost, the "Legion of Evil," "Galactic Empire," "HYDRA," or whoever, pulled them into an ally and told them, in no uncertain terms, that they are not to appeal it to the Ninth Circuit. There are industry trade unions that take positions like that.

Diebold was so well written, I think it would have gone badly for them again on appeal, and we would have seen something epic published in F3d. You notice that Universal Music didn't dare take Lenz to the SCOTUS, even though there was a ruling that copyright holders have an affirmative duty to consider FU. It was Stephanie Lenz that filed for cert, because she wanted to press the attack and have an even broader holding (It didn't help that Prince was an enormous PITA, and the video of oral arguments made clear that even Universal Music thought so too).

I saw this happen in the open once. It concerned an ADA case that was going before the SCOTUS. The case involved the question of whether police have a duty to make reasonable accomodations to a person with SMI before using lethal force. Disability advocate organizations begged the City of San Francisco to not risk the chance of a conservative majority rendering a judgement that would be adverse to their own positions. SF apparently obliged, even though they didn't do so hot in the Ninth.

And of course, New York rolled back some of their gun laws NOT because they suddenly found Gun Jesus. Who is Ian Ferguson of Forgotten Weapons, naturally. Blessings be upon him.

And this is a problem, because the case law of DMCA is pretty thin and weak right now.

 

[AnOminous]

And this is a problem, because the case law of DMCA is pretty thin and weak right now.

There hasn't been much cause to test the DMCA itself, because the vast majority of the time, one side is so clearly in the wrong that they drop it when challenged. UMG was so unreasonable in Lenz that you'd almost think they were Sony.

 

[010101]

What's depressing is that in most places this is working. I posted the picture of Abby beating the shit out of Ellie on 4chan /v/ with caption "is it okay to portray domestic violence in video games?" Shit was deleted almost immediately. I can only imagine how it is on twitter and reddit.

I don't think it's because of any DMCAs, mods on /v/, /a/ and similar boards generally don't want dramathreads because that means less hornythreads and extreme shitposting.

 

[din_far]

Making a female character is HARD.

And by god is it telling.
View attachment 1268793

Is that a nipple? What kind of normal human female has a nipple pointing down like that without the teat being disgustingly droopy after feeding >5 kids? I guess they can't have a FtM without a MtF. Equal representation yo.

Don't forget me Sony-senpai

 

[Drakonnan]

Sony is really trying hard to get their Suicide Pact going.

 

[Spedestrian]

Let's see what Sony has to say about my fair use parody, The Last of DMCAs 2:

 

[UnclePhil]

Is that a nipple? What kind of normal human female has a nipple pointing down like that without the teat being disgustingly droopy after feeding >5 kids? I guess they can't have a FtM without a MtF. Equal representation yo.
View attachment 1270489
Don't forget me Sony-senpai

Peeping nipples must be made unappealing, lest they accidentally turn on straight men. So sayeth Neil Druckmann's creative consultant, Anita Sarkessian.

 

[mugsy]

When will they learn

 

[ZMOT]

Publicly shaming an artist is rude and only a barbarian would do such a thing. Also the same goes for showing an artist's work in the manner he did not intend. Truly a shameful thing to do.

Making your own art based off of the artists work? Truly a form of flattery.

well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. also a win/win for everyone involved, author gets his characters out there, artists gets an established audience. you can't tell me overwatch didn't profit from all the sfm porn.

The flip-side of this is that they seem to only consider material productions like art to be fair use. Making porn? OK. Selling PVC models? OK. Criticizing things? No. Streaming Let's Plays of Nintendo games? FUCK NO.

iirc legally it's not even fair use, they could go after art but the last time they even looked like they were going to people were livid (which in the end was just about releasing too early or something, not even doing it iirc). it's simply the smarter choice. rest is usually on license, and streams are hard to justify as advertisement when you stream the whole game, similar to how a full movie isn't a trailer (it was about money anyway, you can stream nintendy stuff if you pay).
don't remember nips getting butthurt about criticism, but their culture works differently in that regard anyway.

 

[W00K #17]

Hey, i also pay taxes, i can't help it if the government then uses that money to pay police to kick people's doors down because they might have a couple of people over for drinks.

I bought my ps4 pro used at a shady pawn ship, and all my games are used to. Sony hasn't seen any of my money.

 

[soy_king]

Glad to see someone pulling out the threat of 512(f). You wouldn't win of course, since US lawyers require more in payment than borscht and autism, but I enjoy seeing the threat of legal action being made

 

[Evil Bunny]

What's depressing is that in most places this is working. I posted the picture of Abby beating the shit out of Ellie on 4chan /v/ with caption "is it okay to portray domestic violence in video games?" Shit was deleted almost immediately. I can only imagine how it is on twitter and reddit.

You WILL be made to shut up and just hype (and buy) new product. Chans fading, etc...

This is nothing new, it happens all the time, shit get's controlled and 'we' move on to the next free-expression site. It's a constant cycle, sort of like the 'anti-piracy' software stuff and the 'pirate groups' constant battle against it.

 

[Stranger Neighbors]

This is getting fucking embarrassing Sony. Dear leader is just not that into your Bobo ass litigation.

Look Sony it's not you, it's us. We all hate you and hope you all lose your jobs and have to sell your bodies to get food.

Fuck you Sony