Got sued for an AMIGA game made with BACKBONE in 2015!

[nittamituaki]

Suggestion:
EAB/Lemon Super League 2015: Round 2 - Smurf Hunt


Ah I have posted a stupid comment again.My apologize.

[wanderer]

Asking you for money via mail like this for your Smurfs game is obnoxious. Hope you'll sort it out soon with these clowns, and that you'll make a strong comeback with a new game, full of malicious hints and innuendo.

[gulliver]

I didnt have any interest in playing Amiga games for some time. Now I want to play both of your "retired" games, just to piss those mother*uckers.

Does anyone know which torrent/magnet link holds them?

[Gunbot]

There's a few grammatical errors in the notices that make me question if these are indeed from a legitimate firm. Definitely seek counsel before you do anything.

[Mark Wright]

Lots of good advice here. All easily resolved without much effort, although I can't believe such things are still going on in 2015! Simply ensure that whatever URL triggered their automated "potential IP infrigement" alarm (which they should have flagged up in their initial email) will be clean next time they check - and they will. So remove the page altogether, causing a 404. Problem solved. No direct contact with them required.

My battles with the IDSA while running the Lazarus Amiga emulation site *18 YEARS AGO* are well documented (via a Google search). We were constantly plagued by generic cease and desist emails, generated by automated crawler bots that had matched search terms found on our site, to IP belonging to clients they represented. The language used in these was designed to scare, in much the same way as a traditional "red letter"/"final notice" demand... The worst thing you could do was to reply...

Anyway. To be fair, we actually carried many things that could be said to genuinely infringe (although our defence was always "prove this is what you say it is and then we'll talk" - a daring stance with a 100% success-rate, of which I'm still proud) but it soon became clear that hosting files with names like "ghostbusters.zip" meant we were essentially holding a red rag up to a.. erm.. an.. IP-protection bot.. bull... of sorts...

That was then. By now, I'd hope that things are altogether more sophisticated. Apparently not - I'm sure that this is the same sort of mistaken identity ritual I so regularly went through all that time ago. If it is, it's safe to ignore it... but perhaps it's best to make certain? There's one way to find out - let's put something else up on that lawyer-baiting URL...

"The McDonald's Michael Jackson Lego Super Mario Coca-Cola Rihanna Star Wars Game"
DOWNLOAD NOW FOR ANY AMIGA ladygaga.lha
The game you've all been waiting for - take control of Justin Bieber, in a quest to rescue Madonna from the clutches of Donkey Kong! Visit the Royal Palace and embark upon a Game of Thrones.. there's Universal Music throughout.. order a physical copy on 5 Maroon disks.. or just download it now - forget Starbucks, you can save bucks! (By doing so.)
It's enough to make Homer Simpson throw his copy of Michael Jackson's BAD out of 10 Windows, thus BREAKING it! "Me, Despicable?!"

actual file: 2k AMOS anim of a flapping fish...

Hi Hipoonios,

Bravo for your work. I hope the end will be happy and that you will continue to experience the passion of the amiga
Please come back.

Despite it's normal to protect rights, i think that's a big mistake on this case. we are in an incredible world !

[gulliver]

@Mark Wright

Oh, its you then. I know its a bit late, but thank you for the great content that your former site delivered. I enjoyed it quite a bit back then

[Hewitson]

Me too, always liked the pun in the name as well. For those who don't know, Diskdoctor would sometimes rename a disk it repaired (or more likely destroyed) to Lazarus.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by gulliver

I didnt have any interest in playing Amiga games for some time. Now I want to play both of your "retired" games, just to piss those mother*uckers.

Does anyone know which torrent/magnet link holds them?

($murf) was on Aminet but looks like its been removed now.
Superted game is still on Aminet though

Doubt there will be scope on the 'IP' radar for Superted; it's not seen a revival since it was last aired in 1986.

[Bamiga2002]

These fuckers are making fools out of themselves. Seriously, this is plain ridiculous. Don't contact them and DON'T PAY! As you already have removed the game that seems to have caused a massive financial crisis to these Peyo dumbasses you are safe.

Now, anyone downloaded that game? Please PM me

[Hewitson]

We need to get this game hosted on as many sites as possible.

[Paul_s]

Can we 'Zone' them?

[liviux76]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

Can we 'Zone' them?

Since "The Zone!" is accessible only by members how could they find the games if we keep them there?

[alexh]

I thought under UK law a company has 3 years in which to lay a copyright infringement case. If you released this tribute game before 2011 using character names, places, stories, artwork etc I doubt they could persue you in the UK.

Trademark infringement... that's something else?

[Lord Aga]

I can't believe this is happening
Really, Galahad's advice seems like the best way to go.
If they persist, just tell them to smurf off.

[Neil79]

( On a funny note )

Send them a hand drawn picture of a smurf

Anyone remember that spider one that went around a few years back?

[hansel75]

You should modify the game slightly, maybe make the Smurfs green and call it The Smorfs or something, then re-release it just to piss them off

[s2325]

They may think Amiga is some Android console or it was just generated mail.

[Vot]

My bro suggested that these legal companies are often retained by the actual copyright holders to pursue any copyright matters and they are probably acting without the parent companies knowledge of the particular case. He suggested you contact the actual owners of the copyright and explain the situation (free game in non competing market) and see if they will stop the action or grant you usage as long as its clearly marked as unaffiliated with the copyright owners (and remains free).

Also keep in mind for any copyright claim to remain valid they must actively defend the IP.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by Vot

He suggested you contact the actual owners of the copyright and explain the situation (free game in non competing market) and see if they will stop the action or grant you usage as long as its clearly marked as unaffiliated with the copyright owners (and remains free).

Even better, explain that the target audience is just a couple of hundered users, ask for permission & put in something like a (C) Peyo S.A. banner on request. Maybe they'd even pay the lawyer.

As the lawyers have no office in Sweden, they'll have a hard time to get their money *IMO*. Any educated opinions on that?