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OffTopic > SEGA vs. Accolade Post-DMCA

#21965 - crossraleigh - Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:26 am

Has the SEGA vs. Accolade decision been upheld after the DMCA was signed into law? Or, does the DMCA not have any relevance to the case? I expect one or the other is true since the case is often cited in defense of third-party cartridges on these forums, but I just wanted to make sure.

Also, as an aside, did the "Mario Bros. vs. Giana Sisters" case ever actually exist? I have searched Google but found nothing. This Usenet post seems to imply that it was settled out of court. A summary would be appreciated.

#21967 - notb4dinner - Thu Jun 10, 2004 8:43 am

I'm not really familiar with the DMCA, since it doesn't directly affect me here in .au but I'll offer my opinion anyway....

I can't see how the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions (which I assume is what you are referring to) would relate since the embedded logo isn't really a copyright protection mechanism, if your pirating a game your going to copy the logo as well and once you've done that theres nothing else stopping you from playing the copy. The forced embedding of the logo in the ROM is more of an attempt to pervert copyright law to enforce Nintendo's licensing scheme.

#21973 - tepples - Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:58 pm

Later levels notwithstanding, at least the first few levels of The Great Giana Sisters had a graphic style and a map layout strongly reminiscent of SMB1, which is why Nintendo had the upper hand in any negotiations. Look at a screen shot from GGS stage 06 and tell me it doesn't look like SMB1's 4-2, just before the part where you can get a beanstalk to warp to world 8. And the GGS screenshot on the left side of this page is a near-rip of SMB's 1-1. Given the disparity of the sizes of the publishers, it appears Nintendo might have settled this one out of court.

Given the DMCA, Nintendo might have had a case about the logo being a means to restrict access to the copyrighted GBA BIOS, but Lexmark v. Static Control Components threw out that angle.

notb4dinner wrote:
I'm not really familiar with the DMCA, since it doesn't directly affect me here in .au

Yes it does, unless you have already notified your MPs about your feelings with regard to the copyright term extension and the DMCA clone in the proposed lopsided "free" trade agreement with the United States. (Learn More...)
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#21982 - ampz - Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:49 pm

notb4dinner wrote:
I'm not really familiar with the DMCA, since it doesn't directly affect me here in .au but I'll offer my opinion anyway....

I can't see how the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions (which I assume is what you are referring to) would relate since the embedded logo isn't really a copyright protection mechanism, if your pirating a game your going to copy the logo as well and once you've done that theres nothing else stopping you from playing the copy. The forced embedding of the logo in the ROM is more of an attempt to pervert copyright law to enforce Nintendo's licensing scheme.


If I remember correctly, the SEGA logo is in fact not stored in the game.

#21987 - tepples - Thu Jun 10, 2004 7:41 pm

ampz wrote:
If I remember correctly, the SEGA logo is in fact not stored in the game.

The "SEGA" word mark is, however, and the language of the Sega v. Accolade ruling seems to admit no distinction between word marks ("SEGA" of Genesis games) and image marks (the bitmap of GBC games and the compressed hi-res bitmap of GBA games).
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#22009 - notb4dinner - Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:17 am

tepples wrote:

notb4dinner wrote:
I'm not really familiar with the DMCA, since it doesn't directly affect me here in .au

Yes it does, unless you have already notified your MPs about your feelings with regard to the copyright term extension and the DMCA clone in the proposed lopsided "free" trade agreement with the United States. (Learn More...)

Yep already done. The law is not yet in place and likely to have significant differences to the DMCA (not necessarily improvements though) if it does get through, hence 'not directly affected'. ;)

#22011 - notb4dinner - Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:22 am

notb4dinner wrote:
...an attempt to pervert copyright law...

Note: copyright law should probably be changed to trademark law.