Dan, Soren, Jeff....please take a peek here....:)

[Velociryx]

In another thread, I saw a reference to some Infogrames shenanigans involving Hurricane Games and their Strat Guide for Civ3. Was wondering if anyone had any solid info. on it, as I'd very much like to read more about that (being that I'm currently developing a Civ3 strat guide myself!)

Thanks to all in advance!


-=Vel=-

[Alex]

Vel, this is from Apolyton's news section:

PRIMA SICS LAWYERS ON HG
(28 November 2001, 21:50 EST/Civ3) In another round of lawsuits relating to CivIII [see November 26th story below], Prima Games (PG) has forced Hurricane Gaming (HG) to remove a strategy guide for the game posted on the latter's website on November 10th on threat of legal action.

Prima, the company behind the official CivIII strategy guide, informed Hurricane via their parent company Random House Publishing that they had an exclusive agreement with Infogrames, CivIII's publishers, to produce and market a guide for the game. According to Doug Walsh, Hurricane Gaming's President/CEO, in an open letter explaining the sudden removal of the guide, written by Michael Lummis from their site, [t]he 32 page [document] which sold for $2.50[US] apparently contained too much helpful information and infringed on Prima's rights to the game.

In response to the notice, Hurricane Gaming executives made the difficult decision to remove their guide from their site as per Random House's request earlier today. While no official confirmation has been given by either side in the dispute, it is presumed that the lawsuit will not go ahead given Hurricane's prompt action in the plaintiff's favour. Despite the frustration behind the ordeal, Walsh used the opportunity to express a positive point about the incident.

"Although this is an upsetting setback that greatly disappoints us, we also see this as confirmation that our content is of the highest quality.

To give a general idea as to how many copies of HG's CivIII guide were purchased and downloaded before its removal, the defendants reported that of the 500 daily visitor average to the site, less than 2% of that number had taken up on the opportunity to acquire the document in question." -DanQ

Unfortunately, I could not get the open letter above mentioned at Hurricane Gaming web site. I hope I have helped somehow.

[Velociryx]

You have indeed! And thank you!

{/rant on}
Sheesh! Have the folks at Prima NEVER heard of or read an "unofficial biography" of someone?!!?! I'm curious to know that, because it seems to me (admittedly not an expert on the matter) that the exact same principals apply.

Unoffical guides to this and that are written all the time! You almost can't walk into a bookstore without tripping over them!? I'm just wondering why Prima and Infogrames are in such a Godawful hurry to utterly wreck the goodwill they might otherwise have with the Civ community! GRRRRR!

{/rant off}

-=Vel=-

[Alex]

Yes, I agree with you, Vel. "You cannot modify this game, you cannot write about it, you cannot even look at it for a long time without paying us a fee", seems what Infogrames says.

Don't get me wrong. I like CivIII very much. I'm having tons of fun with it. But look at how the civ community has been treated lately...

I'm sure that Prima won't really bother if another strategy guide is released, once they have released their first . Since that any informed civ gamer knows that your strategy guide, Vel, will be much better than anything that Prima could print , they are a little worried about sales... Money makes the world goes round, as in the old cliché.

Can you imagine Civ4? "Hmm... I'd like to buy this game". "Ok, it's $100 bucks". "What? But the tag price says $50...". "Oh, the other half is because you're holding the box in your hands...".

[Velociryx]

Thanks for the vote of confidence man! All these lawsuits flying around and/or threat of the same kinna make me wonder when they're gonna start targeting discussion forums.

::Prima Rep:: "Hey! You guys can't talk about strategy here! We've got the exclusive blah blah blahbeddy blah...."

::yawn::

-=Vel=-

[Skanky Burns]

The day infogreed or prima send a representative to thes forums is the day hell will freeze over!!

[MarkG]

hmm, well Vel, the hurricane guys were not simply talking strategy, they were selling something for which prima had payed to get the exclusive rights....

i wonder though if these rights are for eternity or... less

[Herder]

Too much useful information?

I hear a cash cow mooing.

[Libertarian]

I've asked this numerous times. No response yet.

What exactly is wrong with the inoffensive ethic of greed? Why is profit bad? Why ought not the owners of property be the proprietors of rights with respect to it?

Take this site, for instance. Why should those who own it not call the shots here? Why should we be allowed to write HTML code in our posts that blots out their ads and replaces them with our own? Why should the site owners make no profits from the Apolyton store? Why shouldn't they be greedy and want everything for their site?

We're all greedy, aren't we? If you had the rights to X, would you not defend your ownership against the infringement of someone else?

[solo]

Vel,

Just two or three pages into your strategy summaries in the forums and I have much more useful information than I could find in the entire Prima Guide! Very well thought out, well written and entertaining, to boot.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys! And thank you again for the replies and votes of confidence!

Oh....I totally agree with you Libertarian...nothing wrong with a little greed...that's the grease that makes the economy go 'round, but....

When I walk into the local Barnes and Noble and see a zillion "unauthorized" biographies or "unofficial guides to X" it makes me *seriously* question Prima's right to do what they're doing. I mean, yes, they're the only ones allowed to publish Civ3's official strategy guide, but I'd be willing to bet that if the "X For Dummies" folks wanted to put out their "unofficial" views on the topic of the game, there's really not a lot the folks at Prima could do, besides sabre rattle.

Perhaps it has to do with first publication as well though (again, I'm not an expert on the subject....just basing these comments on what I see every time I head to the local book shop).

Hey....I'm game. Let 'em publish first or whatever, but the day will come when I'm satisfied with the condition of my own work and will be checking very closely re: the laws surrounding publishing it. And I'm not scared at all of competing head to head with them. Let the gaming public decide who has the better product....

-=Vel=-

[AnnC]

Until I heard this news, I was planning to buy Prima's Civ3 guide. I will not do so now.

[Libertarian]

Vel, you sound like a level-headed guy to me. Anybody with access to Cheerwine must be okay.

Remember: I'm not the one who suggested that a way around the problem might be to write a book that reviews their book, showing how their strategy is not optimum, etc.

[HalfLotus]

For what it's worth Vel, your strategy threads make the Prima guide look like a book written by monkeys. Stupid monkeys.

While your threads contain unique and insightful thoughts on strategy, Prima has things like:
" We talked to the developer's and here's how the AI cheats on Deity." Who gives a flying ****?

Or my favorite: "Build settlers early on." No ****.

It is misleading to call it a strategy guide. They should call it a reference guide.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Let the gaming public decide who has the better product....

-=Vel=-

Heh. I think the "gaming public" here has already decided, judging by the number of views your strat threads have generated.
I just hope IG has learned their lesson with that negative publicity hit they took after the translation "gaff".
And if I recall correctly you've dealt with Firaxis before when it comes to the matter of a strategy guide...

Go get em Vel!

[Edit: Vel, it may also pay to start keeping accurate original records of all of your musings. Actually I expect you do anway. Dated so that it can be verified that you had it first. If the official guide starts coming out with Vel-like strategies we could be talking counter-suit for plagerism! ]

[Velociryx]

First, thank you again to everyone who's written in here with high marks for the strategy pages! This tells me that I'm on the right road, and when the material is ready...well, I say that we "whip 'em out and compare 'em" with Prima's guide! Hey....after all....they're trained professionals and such, right? They've been doing this stuff for years....I mean....they should be able to do a bang up job....certainly much better than some hack working in a dimly lit room with an empty bag of tortilla chips and some conqueso dip as decorations. Well....we'll see.... (and for the record, I have never bought a Prima guide for anything....lol....definitely don't intend to start now!)

{Side note to Ravagon - Yeppers! All my original posts here on the forums are date/time stamped, and I'm keeping everything in an ever-growing doc file! Excellent call!}

GRRR....just ticks me off, is all. I mean, taken to the Nth degree, the argument could be made that even TALKING PUBLICALLY about the freakin' game is an "infringement of their rights" (direct competition for their saleable guide, with the public forums discussions carrying a "selling price" of $0.00 vs. the fifteen bucks or whatever they're charging for it.

The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to write them a letter....(probably a less than complimentary one at that!).

-=Vel=-
(who really must stop PLAYING and working on fanfic long enough to get back to some more strategy stuff! But....in my defense, these last couple of games have been VERY enlightening re: strategies in general!)

[Sarxis]

Just for the record:

Prima's guides are not worth the space-time continuum they inhabit.

[Velociryx]

Changed the title of this thread in hopes of getting the attention of one of the Firaxians....I realilze that Infogrames were the ones who made the arrangement with Prima on their "exclusive rights to publish the official civ3 guide," but my thinking is that the folk of Firaxis are closer to the whole thing than I am, and perhaps would be able to shed some more light on when, if ever, Prima's monopoly expires....

-=Vel=-

[GeorgeG]

I'm more than certain that the most effective strategies will be found on forums, not in the official strategy guides. Just might be a little harder to follow them sometimes.

Besides, how could the writers of the strategy guide predict where the patches will take us - the game will change, maybe subtly, maybe dramitically.

I wonder what the strategy guide says about the "2-1-3" Privateer?

[gaikokujin]

Poor Velo, somone who has poured so much energy into the analysis of Civ-genre games, and for free. Which, hopefully, will be the point of relief here, since I think this is really all about the money ($2.50). Suppressing an original product distributed for FREE would arguably involve issues of constitutional rights of free speech, I believe.

But these guys seem determined to alienate the long time Civ-genre community. Velo is hardly a "whiner", and hardly deserves this kind of treatment.

Originally posted by Libertarian
I've asked this numerous times. No response yet.

What exactly is wrong with the inoffensive ethic of greed?

I am offended, not only morally but materially, as I had put in an order for the strat guide and had wondered why I hadn't received it. Now I know why: due to the boundless prusuit of profit - see below.

Originally posted by Libertarian
Why is profit bad?

Should be _When_ is profit bad? When it is _boundless_. Follow the logic, see below.

Originally posted by Libertarian
Why ought not the owners of property be the proprietors of rights with respect to it?

The word, 'property', has no meaning in the abstract. When you see the word, 'property', think, _whose_ property? Actual property only has a real existence when it is the property of _sombody_ (or a group of sombodies). As we know from John Locke, property adheres to persons as a result of their labor in producing particular forms of property. This gives property definite _bounds_.

Property bounds which are violated and destroyed by the boundless prusuit of profit. Unless you can prove that someone at Hurricane actually stole Primas' aready existing draft, edited it and attempted to publish it, it must be assumed that the strat guide was the result of the labor of the writers who wished to publish via Hurricane, and that it is therefore their legitimite property.

Property which has been violated and destroyed, in true Jack Valenti MPAA-style, by a gang of lawyers hired by Prima/Infog, because they feared bing undercut by a competition that had rationally calculated that they could make a profit at $2.50 a shot over the internet. Delivering a better product to boot, no doubt (I've found Prima's guides pretty useless).

In contradiction to "libertarian's" notions. Libertarian, indeed.

[insert ideological apologetics for crony gangster (read: lawyer) capitalism, U.S. - style]

[SKev]

Vel,

I believe you should trust your instincts with respect to whether an "unofficial" strategy guide is legally permissible. The PG v. HG dispute appeared to be a big guy beating a little guy into submission without regards to the merits of the threatened lawsuit.

While I don't know what it was that got the dude on HG busted (it could have been content, it could have been timing), let me give you some unsolicited, free advice: Be careful about what you include in your guide. Try and avoid copying text word for word or using images directly from the game. From what I've read of your work, the "strategy" substance of your guide will not need to be dressed up anyway (unlike those Prima folks who, as someone else stated, sell a game manual rather than a strategy guide). You may draw unnecessary attention to yourself if the guide contains excessive direct quotations from the text of the game or lots of images generated by or part of the game (even from games you are playing).

Keep working on those strategies. I need help....badly.

Kev

[Velociryx]

Well....still nothing from the folk of Firaxis, but that's okay....I'm gonna keep right on doing what I enjoy....that is....coming up with new (and hopefully innovative) ideas to toss out for discussion....when there's enough, I think I will follow my gut tho, and see where it leads....

-=Vel=-
(thumbin' my nose at the folk who write "that other guide")

[Venger]

Originally posted by MarkG
hmm, well Vel, the hurricane guys were not simply talking strategy, they were selling something for which prima had payed to get the exclusive rights...

The exclusive rights were for the OFFICIAL strategy guide. Any other strategy guide would be fully legal, depending on content.

i wonder though if these rights are for eternity or... less

What I really wonder is what they would think of Vel's SMAC guide if it were for Civ3...

Venger

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Venger
The exclusive rights were for the OFFICIAL strategy guide. Any other strategy guide would be fully legal, depending on content.

tell that to the lawyers of hurricane gaming....

btw, they werent calling it "official" or anything like that...

[Xentropy]

The real issue, as always, is with money.

If the guide had been free, Prima would probably have never even HEARD of the thing, and Hurricane would be fine.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by gaikokujin
The word, 'property', has no meaning in the abstract. When you see the word, 'property', think, _whose_ property? Actual property only has a real existence when it is the property of _sombody_ (or a group of sombodies). As we know from John Locke, property adheres to persons as a result of their labor in producing particular forms of property. This gives property definite _bounds_.

Well, of course, but Locke was merely a philosopher expounding his theory on property. Marx, on the other hand, considered all property as theft. Basically, said Marx, the only way anyone owned property was to steal it from someone else. Or, to twist Locke a bit, by mixing my labor (burglary) with your property, it becomes mine.

This was rather succinctly stated in an exchange between the characters of Ric and Vivian on the classic British humor show “The Young Ones”:

Ric: Vivian, is that my record player you’re throwing on the fire?
Vivian: Umm, yeah!
Ric: But that’s *my* record player!
Vivian: Well, *you’re* the one who said all property was theft. So I nicked it!

Anyway, back on topic. The point I’d like to reinforce (as others have already made) is that I doubt Prima had a leg to stand on, legally speaking. I don’t see how they could legally enjoin anyone else from writing a book about how they feel the best way to play CivIII is. Sure, Prima may have the exclusive right to call their guide (which, IMO, is rather poorly done) the “Official” guide. But once the subject matter of the book is in the open, it’s fair game for the public to comment on. Copyright protection only covers the actual words as written, not the concept they describe. Prima can prevent others from using their work to make money (either whole or in part) but they cannot (IMHO) prevent others from talking about the same thing they are.

At least legally they can’t. They can request, threaten, cajole, plead or try whatever else they might to keep others from trying to compete with their product, but at the end of the day I don’t see them convincing a judge that they should be the only ones in the world to be able to publish a strategy guide on CivIII simply because Infogrames said they had “exclusive rights”. After all, contracts are only binding to the signatories of the parties, not unrelated third parties.

A final caveat: This is all based on the premise that Hurricane’s guide was an original work and not simply derived from Prima’s . If Hurricane used Prima’s guide to help produce their own, then Prima might have a case. But Prima would have to prove that Hurricane based their work on Prima’s; they couldn’t simply allege it and win their case.

[Libertarian]

gaikokujin,

Thanks for the lecture, however gratuitous. Libertarianism — or opposition to the initiation of force and fraud — is not lacking in a definition and contextualization of property. Infogrames, owning the name "Civilization" and variants as well as certain intellectual items with respect to the game may, as is well precedented, establish who may and who may not publish its official strategy guide. Prima, having secured exclusivity, was understandably miffed when a third party undercut its rights, which rights were extended by the property's owner.

I'm not defending anything about Prima or Infogrames here other than what I've stated. I don't know whether their strategy guides are worth the money or not. Frankly, I'm satisfied with what I've learned from Vel's compendium of notes. But rights with respect to property (the only rights that are ontologically relevant) may not be abridged solely because the rights holder is stupid.

[Mannamagnus]

Can't we have an Apolyton Great Library for civ3 with all useful info in it unpoluted by posts that are not relevant?

[Libertarian]

We do. See Vel's thread in the strategy forum.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
Can't we have an Apolyton Great Library for civ3 with all useful info in it unpoluted by posts that are not relevant?

http://www.apolyton.net/civ3/strategy