Gearfuse

Oh boy. 3D Realms shuts down and next thing you know, all hell breaks loose. Apogee Software LTD, the legal name of 3D Realms, got sued to hell and back for breach of contract by Take Two Interactive. Know why? Take Two was supposed to publish a little game called Duke Nukem Forever, which as you may or may not know, never saw the light of day despite millions of dollars being invested in it.

So now they’ll go to court and battle it out in NY. It’d be nice to see a complete version of DNF come out of this.

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Back in November, we briefly discussed Datel’s Lite Blue Battery Tool, a battery you plugged into your PSP 3000 and used to run homebrew code. All was going well for Datel, until Sony decided it’d rather sell UMDs then have consumers pirate every PSP title. Now the Japanese megacorp is suing Datel and sales are now suspended until the lawsuit is resolved. Will Sony come out on top? Hard to tell, but judging by the legal team it has, I envision the Lite Blue Tool as an upcoming collector’s item.

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Remember Kevin Cogill? He’s the Guns N’ Roses fan that leaked Chinese Democracy songs early and now is paying big time for it. His favorite band hates him and to top it all off he’s facing five years jail time just for promoting Guns N’ Roses’ latest album.

Now Kevin has agreed to a plea bargain in the case and last month, his charge dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor. Right now, he’s only looking at a year jail time, but it’s all going to come down to the judge’s decision. If that judge isn’t Axl Rose, Kevin is in the clear. Otherwise, be prepared to hear some real lousy singing from both ends of the courtroom.

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If you’re into MMORPGs and more specifically, World of Warcraft, then you’ve surely heard of or used Glider, a program that automatically levels your character for you. Blizzard took the makers of Glider to court and just won the first round of the legal battle. MDY Industries, the maker of Glider, will have to pay out $6 million to Blizzard for infringing on copyright related to World of Warcraft code.

All that’s left is to see if Blizzard will appeal so it can sue for double or triple damages. There’s also the issue of if MDY broke the DMCA, which could lead to significant fines and/or jail-time for the creators of Glider. Good luck!

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Poor, poor YouTube. The courtrooms just can’t get enough of ya’! According to Wired’s Threat Level blog the judge in the Viacom/Google lawsuit has made a ruling which forces Google to turn over “every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses,” to Viacom.

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the judge’s ruling described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.

So, according to the judge: Viacom being able to monitor what YouTube users are watching is not a violation of the users’ privacy. Did I miss something here? The Consumerist says, “Viacom is arguing that it needs the data to prove that its copyrighted material is more popular than user created videos,” but I can’t help but think Viacom has some other nasty plan involving this data. YouTube users’ – be wary.

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If you’re a fan of Guns N’ Roses, it’s more likely than not that if you aren’t the guy signing Axl Rose’s non-existent checks then they hate you. They all hate you. Yes, even Slash hates you. Remember that blogger who leaked their latest suckfest, Chinese Democracy? That was an honest mistake any fan could have made. Well, now he faces a long term of jail time for simply being a fan and helping to promote Guns N’ Roses.

They sure needed it according to Eric Garland of BigChampagne, a company that tracks file sharing activity. Garland brings to light the fact that no file sharing of Chinese Democracy ever took place until Kevin Cogill leaked it and then got arrested. Since his arrest, Chinese Democracy has become the whore of torrent downloading.  The question on my mind is why is the FBI wasting time with this and what does the band think of Kevin? Scratch that, no one really cares what Guns N’ Roses thinks.

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Chinese Democracy is the Duke Nukem Forever of the music industry. It’s been over 10 years in the making and everyone has lost interest since seeing Axl Rose’s last performance. Then, Los Angeles based blogger Kevin Cogill leaks nine songs from the album which eventually leads his site to crash from high traffic shortly thereafter. No one is sure how he obtained access to the songs but the “band” was pissed and demanded the songs be taken down.

But, the damage had already been done. Users who obtained the tracks had made them available on file-sharing sites. Guns N’ Roses: owned.

Earlier this week Cogill posted a plea for legal help on his blog, writing that, “more and more each day, it looks like I may be indicted.”

Cogill was released after signing a $10,000 signature bond and is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on September 17. Things are not looking good for Kevin as he faces a judicial system of a Chinese Democracy. And here I sat thinking this album would never see the light of day.

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At long last, Nintendo has taken legal action towards companies developing and distributing DS pirating tools, such as the R5 or R4. Nintendo, backed by 54 game software companies including Capcom, SNK, Taito, Tecmo and Square Enix are filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that profit from Nintendo’s losses.

Nintendo stated that this piracy, “is causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook.”

Overlooking it for the past four years was a bad idea, Nintendo. Maybe if you cranked out more drinking games, people wouldn’t find the need to steal your software. To be fair, it is easier to download games from home than to drive to your local retail store. Pirates are lazy.

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Apple knows cloning. It dealt with it throughout the 1980s and 1990s until it realized it just couldn’t work out. Apple killed the clones and today, it’s going strong with OS X and an assortment of hardware. This year, a company called Psystar started shadily selling Mac clones with a hacked version of Mac OS X on it. Caught up yet? Good.

Fast forward to this week and Apple has not only sued Psystar in an attempt to preserve both intellectual property and brand image, but has also demanded that all sold Mac clones be returned. The language used:

Apple is asking a court to order Miami-based Psystar to stop making unauthorized Mac clones and to recall all of the systems it has sold to customers since it began offering them for public sale in April.

In a lawsuit filed against Psystar in federal court, Apple is seeking an order “requiring Psystar to recall all such products sold to the public as a result of Psystar’s infringement of Apple’s copyrights.”

Most seem to think that the final nail in Psystar’s coffin was when it began selling server clones with OS X in June of this year.

Apple also charged Psystar with illegally copying, modifying, and redistributing some of its products. The 18-page complaint outlines a total of 10 charges against Psystar. Psystar officials did not return a call seeking comment.

In the end, Apple will win. No doubt about it. They’ll probably sue Belkin while they’re at it.

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Sometime in March, Blizzard filed a class action lawsuit against Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting and looting. Well, Blizzard “pwned” the shit out of the software bot’s creator, claiming it infringes the company’s copyright and potentially damages the game.

Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard’s copyright because his software makes no copy of the WoW game client software. However, Blizzard has said the tool infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software. Well, the judge sided with Blizzard, claiming that copying the game into RAM is an unauthorized copy. Epic fail.

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