Copyright strikes on Retro game Youtube vids - Paul Andrews?

[ulala]

whatever happened to just playing games and talking about games?

[Clipper]

plenty of that going on in other threads and other parts of the retro community - and even those commenting on this are probably doing some of that as well. It's not as if we can only chat about one topic is it?

[SeanR]

4 minutes ago, ulala said:

whatever happened to just playing games and talking about games?

there’s no money in that. Anyone can play games, so you’ve got to have a hook...

[Lorfarius]

 

[SeanR]

I said I wouldnt watch this video.

 

then I did, and I was right: We shouldn't be encouraging, for want of a better word, this sort of thing.

[Bluejam]

Indeed. Her and Andrews have come to an agreement apparently. 
 

this latest video may have the opposite effect.

 

[Dudley]

 

2 hours ago, ulala said:

whatever happened to just playing games and talking about games?

 

That is, essentially, exactly what Octy was doing.

 

Incidentally, Octavius uses they/them pronouns, since this forum's usually pretty good with that stuff.

[Clipper]

2 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

 

That is, essentially, exactly what Octy was doing.

 

Incidentally, Octavius uses they/them pronouns, since this forum's usually pretty good with that stuff.

on that video when talking about the character octavius they used the pronoun she. Is it the case that the character Octavius is "she" and the youtuber concerned prefers them/they? I have to admit I don't know much about their preferred pronoun or position on gender.

 

[Dudley]

That would make sense yes.  When they use Sarah essentially never it's difficult to split the two sometimes, just thought I'd mention it.

[Bluejam]

Interesting post on Spectrum For Everyone...

 

“Sadly, after posting octav1us video during the night I fell asleep, something I haven't done much of since this shit fest broke out.

The thread has now been locked but I feel compelled to say a few things, especially as I was mentioned within it.

1. If you believe that latest video was anything other than a best actress performance, you are deluded. It was edited, not a single focus single edit video. She hasn't slept etc, yet still professionally edited the video in her state of distress? And, if maybe she had help, what sort of person knowingly puts up a video of someone they care about in that state? She did it in her bedroom, she wore the worst clothing possible, hair is a mess, yet said she was attending a wedding today, and forgot her hairbrush? Right. Yeah. Completely set up...she's an actress, whether dressed like this or in a tight leather kitten outfit with her baps out. No woman alive buts herself in front of a camera like that unless it's for sympathy, or money. Mostly money. It's just very wrong of her, especially when so many people have been doing what they can to try and resolve this. 

2. Paul is doing everything he can and has done to remove strikes imposed by YouTube and not him. It's in YouTubes hands now.

3. Being party to the whole mediation, I didn't see a poor defenseless girl. I saw a very very astute businesswoman, with a good legal knowledge, and a solid will to fight her corner. While the first video destroyed me, and was the main reason I got heavily involved in sorting this, this one is a joke. A simple tweet would have done, but no... A staged edited video to boost the patreon was what was needed. Shameful. There was no other reason to do this  second video other than to boost subscribers and patreon donations yet again. It solves no other purpose. It was also uploaded in the middle of the night for maximum effect. 

4. Paul has full transcripts, as do I, of the entire conversation between octav1us and him. It shows a very different person to whats in the last video. One who argued to have a simple statement reworded umpteen times. One who fought tooth and nail, and one who wasn't backing down for a second. Not a poor girl blubbering on a bed. It's up to Paul to release those, but I doubt he will as he told octav1us he wouldn't, as she expressly asked they NOT be made public. She did that for a reason, she's no fool.

5. If by the c64 group you mean the one on here with 8k+ members, it's not Paul's group. It was started by a mini fan, called Ronald, it's independent, and I also help admin that. For free. As with all admins there. Its not a corporate group, it a fan based one, just like this one. 

6. I've done all I can to sort this, but that last video was truly insulting to my intelligence. I've learned a lot in the last few days. It's a vile toxic world now in social media, and businesses can be ruined in minutes with a few comments. In both directions. 

Dealing with multimillion dollar companies in my mediation days was a cakewalk compared to this.

I'm out. “ 

[Peter St John]

I can't help but think but that post, even if it's 100% correct, betrays itself with: "she's an actress, whether dressed like this or in a tight leather kitten outfit with her baps out. No woman alive buts herself in front of a camera like that unless it's for sympathy, or money. Mostly money."

[maryliddon]

I feel sorry for Paul, he seems to always get caught up in drama that on the surface seems like it’s of his own making. I’m glad he takes the time to explain how everyone else is at fault and all he’s trying to do is sort things out!

 

 

[Dudley]

1 hour ago, Peter St John said:

I can't help but think but that post, even if it's 100% correct, betrays itself with: "she's an actress, whether dressed like this or in a tight leather kitten outfit with her baps out. No woman alive buts herself in front of a camera like that unless it's for sympathy, or money. Mostly money."

 

Yep, that whole point 1 is misogynist bullshit. Not to mention that their medical history is fairly well known.

2 relies on you thinking he knows nothing about how YouTube works. This feels unlikely.

3 and 4 is just ignorant. Of course you can be both.  Plenty of people, myself included are knowledgeable people in various forms of confrontation but then need to go and lie in a dark room afterwards.  You might as well claim some elite athlete fakes tears on the podium because "I saw them run quick".

[Anne Summers]

2 hours ago, Bluejam said:

Interesting post on Spectrum For Everyone...

 

“Sadly, after posting octav1us video during the night I fell asleep, something I haven't done much of since this shit fest broke out.

The thread has now been locked but I feel compelled to say a few things, especially as I was mentioned within it.

1. If you believe that latest video was anything other than a best actress performance, you are deluded. It was edited, not a single focus single edit video. She hasn't slept etc, yet still professionally edited the video in her state of distress? And, if maybe she had help, what sort of person knowingly puts up a video of someone they care about in that state? She did it in her bedroom, she wore the worst clothing possible, hair is a mess, yet said she was attending a wedding today, and forgot her hairbrush? Right. Yeah. Completely set up...she's an actress, whether dressed like this or in a tight leather kitten outfit with her baps out. No woman alive buts herself in front of a camera like that unless it's for sympathy, or money. Mostly money. It's just very wrong of her, especially when so many people have been doing what they can to try and resolve this. 

2. Paul is doing everything he can and has done to remove strikes imposed by YouTube and not him. It's in YouTubes hands now.

3. Being party to the whole mediation, I didn't see a poor defenseless girl. I saw a very very astute businesswoman, with a good legal knowledge, and a solid will to fight her corner. While the first video destroyed me, and was the main reason I got heavily involved in sorting this, this one is a joke. A simple tweet would have done, but no... A staged edited video to boost the patreon was what was needed. Shameful. There was no other reason to do this  second video other than to boost subscribers and patreon donations yet again. It solves no other purpose. It was also uploaded in the middle of the night for maximum effect. 

4. Paul has full transcripts, as do I, of the entire conversation between octav1us and him. It shows a very different person to whats in the last video. One who argued to have a simple statement reworded umpteen times. One who fought tooth and nail, and one who wasn't backing down for a second. Not a poor girl blubbering on a bed. It's up to Paul to release those, but I doubt he will as he told octav1us he wouldn't, as she expressly asked they NOT be made public. She did that for a reason, she's no fool.

5. If by the c64 group you mean the one on here with 8k+ members, it's not Paul's group. It was started by a mini fan, called Ronald, it's independent, and I also help admin that. For free. As with all admins there. Its not a corporate group, it a fan based one, just like this one. 

6. I've done all I can to sort this, but that last video was truly insulting to my intelligence. I've learned a lot in the last few days. It's a vile toxic world now in social media, and businesses can be ruined in minutes with a few comments. In both directions. 

Dealing with multimillion dollar companies in my mediation days was a cakewalk compared to this.

I'm out. “ 

Who posted this?

(I mean on the Spectrum group, not reposted it here, obviously). 

[The Evener]

On 18/10/2019 at 09:28, Anne Summers said:

The thing is, there's all these internet detectives going online to try and find evidence of ownership. They don't find anything and declare "there's no proof!"

Which completely ignores the fact that there isn't some sort of great big centralised directory of who owns what. 

The only way to know for sure would be to examine all of the contracts involved and get confirmation from all of the involved parties. It just isn't worth anyone's time and effort, just to satisfy the demands of the internet detective brigade. 

 

The reason I ask is that River West Brands asserted trademark ownership under what some have called dubious circumstances. For those interested, all of the discussion can be found at AtariAge in the ColecoVision/Adam subforurm, but in a nutshell, River West had their trademark application rejected previously for their inability to satisfy one of the criteria - use of trademark in active marketing/sale of relevant goods (in this case, a video game console). In a subsequent application where they were basically running out of extensions to their application in supplying said evidence (I think one can apply for three extensions before the application is declared null and void), they came across a hand-held ColecoVision that was created by Ben Heck. This was purely a personal exercise, using parts from a stock ColecoVision. River West sent Ben a notice basically stating "Oh, you're using our IP; but don't worry, we'll let you license it." They then had Ben sign some paperwork (which he didn't preserve), and as a good neighbour, he handed over his vector files of the ColecoVision logo because none existed at that time. Then magically, a photo of Ben's one-off handheld is forwarded to the trademark office to satisfy the "active use of mark on a marketed product" along with his vector files and voila, River West Brands secures the trademark. The thing is, Ben Heck actually had a more legitimate claim to securing the trademark for himself at that moment in time, but due to some shady representations, he fell under a different impression when he received their message. This is to say nothing about all of the homebrew publishers that used the original mark as a tribute to the original Coleco Industries to "recreate" the nostalgia around the original ColecoVision run. Anyway, down the road AtGames decided they wanted to create a ColecoVision Flashback in the footsteps of the successful Atari models, and fortunately, with a secured mark, River West was able to profit in a licensing deal - all based on the submission of Ben Heck's one-off handheld. And more broadly, River West decided they wanted to try and monetize IP that was widely used for free within the hobbyist community, and naturally the community didn't see a value-added by having to pay money to an entity that was basically nothing more than a trademark squatter, so they subsequently abandoned all use of "Coleco" marks on their products.

 

As an outsider, it appears to me that this community enjoyed a period of time where they could also use and share in an iconic IP from the 1980s, but someone saw "value" in monetizing that IP and is now attempting to curtail community use of that property. My experience with River West has given me pause when I see similar patterns in other facets of the retro community, and I also learned from River West that sometimes people will resort to actions in a bid to convey "ownership" or control over IP as a tactic that may indeed collapse if one could actually review an evidence-based trail of ownership transfer or acquisition. The fact that community members are debating said ownership suggests to me that it's not a settled issue, or at least a number of people are suspicious and aren't willing to go on personal word and reputation alone. 

 

[Lorfarius]

That removing a strike bit is a bit weird. It takes seconds to pull them, just go to the case on the Youtube account and cancel it. Even guides you through it, not much to mess up.

[Anne Summers]

It seems to me that some of the issue comes down to the fact that retro is undergoing a bit of a resurgence and people are realising that there's value in some of these old IPs, where as previously it was assumed there wasn't. I'm sure some of this is down to work done by people like Octav1us and some of it is down to what people like Paul have done with the 64 mini. Hell I'd like to think that maybe a little bit is even down to what we're doing with Antstream. I guess less freedom to play fast and loose with IP is a downside to that - but we shouldn't overlook the upside of (hopefully) thousands of new retro fans and a lot of new money pouring into the community. 

[Clipper]

12 minutes ago, Lorfarius said:

That removing a strike bit is a bit weird. It takes seconds to pull them, just go to the case on the Youtube account and cancel it. Even guides you through it, not much to mess up.

he sent an email

 

(i'm not even joking)

 

[Peter St John]

Is money a good thing? The idea that there's gold in there potentially threatens repositories like WoS/Spectrum Computing as people stripmine old IPs.

[Ste Pickford]

I'm not sure money pouring into people stripmining other people's old IP is a good thing for anyone.

[maryliddon]

You’re just jealous you don’t have all that Jupiter Ace gold for yourself.

[Clipper]

1 hour ago, maryliddon said:

You’re just jealous you don’t have all that Jupiter Ace gold for yourself.

apparently the IP holder of the Jupiter Ace has requested that the Jupiter Ace emulator be removed from a Spectrum Next software distribution thing as well as other emulator distributions... Apparently it uses the core of the Ace. So they must be protecting that gold pretty well from other legitimate channels!

 

[maryliddon]

Of course he has, it’s the same guy

[Clipper]

and of course he is a good guy in the retro community. He certainly isn't a guy who buys up IP and then tries to leverage payment etc from others? What could be more supportive of the retro community than stopping emulators being produced?

 

He is dripping with innocence isn't he?

 

I wish had all that dead IP - who else is looking forward to the Jupiter Ace mini

 

[merman]

14 hours ago, maryliddon said:

 

 

BONUS QUESTION: Does Andrews and co have any rights to the Commodore 64 for their The C64 project? The naming (The C64 vs Commodre 64) suggests they haven’t and if so I’m really surprised they’ve not been been hit with trade dress litigation. Honestly asking as I don’t know.

 

 

 

Cloanto holds the rights to the C64 and Amiga ROMs, and THEC64 contains licensed C64 (and VIC-20) ROMs.

 

However the actual C64/Commodore 64 and Amiga names and logos are disputed.

 

During Commodore's bankruptcy, Commodore Germany (a legal subsidiary) "bought" the rights to use the famous "chicken head" Commodore logo. When Escom took over the rump of Commodore International they made a separate deal to buy back the logo.

 

But when Escom sold what it had to Escom, there was legal confusion over who owned the actual names of the products.

The end result was Tulip took over Commodore and then Gateway bought up the Amiga line, with PR company Yeahronimo involved as a commercial partner to both. Yeahronimo went out of business and Cloanto licensed the ROMs from them.

 

Oh what a tangled web...

 

 

 

 

And yes, Subvert/its director may be acting like a dick. But acting like a dick and being legal are not mutually exclusive...

 

 

[wev]

3 hours ago, Dudley said:

 

Yep, that whole point 1 is misogynist bullshit. Not to mention that their medical history is fairly well known.

2 relies on you thinking he knows nothing about how YouTube works. This feels unlikely.

3 and 4 is just ignorant. Of course you can be both.  Plenty of people, myself included are knowledgeable people in various forms of confrontation but then need to go and lie in a dark room afterwards.  You might as well claim some elite athlete fakes tears on the podium because "I saw them run quick".

It's almost as if people are always the same when talking, be it face to face, to camera or on a podcast, as to how they are able to put their thoughts down on paper/typing. The stuff I write, whilst probably not very good, is far more eloquant than I could ever be in actual conversation

[Dudley]

Yeah, there's a reason my YouTube stuff is heavily scripted.

[maryliddon]

4 minutes ago, merman said:

 

Cloanto holds the rights to the C64 and Amiga ROMs, and THEC64 contains licensed C64 (and VIC-20) ROMs.

 

However the actual C64/Commodore 64 and Amiga names and logos are disputed.

 

During Commodore's bankruptcy, Commodore Germany (a legal subsidiary) "bought" the rights to use the famous "chicken head" Commodore logo. When Escom took over the rump of Commodore International they made a separate deal to buy back the logo.

 

But when Escom sold what it had to Escom, there was legal confusion over who owned the actual names of the products.

The end result was Tulip took over Commodore and then Gateway bought up the Amiga line, with PR company Yeahronimo involved as a commercial partner to both. Yeahronimo went out of business and Cloanto licensed the ROMs from them.

 

Oh what a tangled web...

 

 

 

 

And yes, Subvert/its director may be acting like a dick. But acting like a dick and being legal are not mutually exclusive...

 

 

I was more interested in the look of the c64. You could argue it’s so similar to the original it’d be easy to mistake it as an commodore product.

 

This is the kind of litigation that can be brought for that kind of thing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

 

I’ve no idea who’d own the look and feel of the Commodore 64.

[merman]

3 minutes ago, maryliddon said:

I was more interested in the look of the c64. You could argue it’s so similar to the original it’d be easy to mistake it as an commodore product.

 

This is the kind of litigation that can be brought for that kind of thing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

 

I’ve no idea who’d own the look and feel of the Commodore 64.

 

In theory, Commodore. But then IBM didn't protect the look & feel of the PC...

[maryliddon]

The point is that someone so assiduous about intellectual property is selling a computer that looks identical to someone else’s design.

 

Maybe legally. Who knows