Sony Strikes Again

[Nando]

Not sure where this should go, since it's not really Geeky Misc. But anyway, our buddies at Sony, makers of the miracle PSP and the $600 PS3, bring us this new gem from their television department:

SONY orders FLASHGames² to Remove Games

Friday the 13th wasn't such a great day for FLASHGames²,
as we were sent a polite letter by Sony's Television Legal Team asking us
to remove the 'offending titles of Sony property' which include the titles:
BULLSEYE, HIGH ROLLERS, JOKERS WILD, RUSSIAN ROULETTE and TTD. (*Tic Tac Dough)

Being a fan site, we're not interested in making any enemies;
we did this for the fun of making them and fan's enjoyment.
Thus we will be complying with the request as of July 14th, 2007.

We hope that you've enjoyed the games over the time we've been
fortunate enough to have them on the site; and hopefully in the future,
Sony's people will see what type of 'non-monetary asset'
a site such as ours could be for a company such as themselves.

The site is a non-profit site that hosts Flash computer games of various television game shows.

http://flashgameshows.com/

 

[Zeta]

Wake me in the morning, when Sony drives away the rest of its fanbase in a combination of arrogance, paranoia, and total lack of comprehension of what the public wants.

 

[Hagane_Gir]

Wake me in the morning, when Sony drives away the rest of its fanbase in a combination of arrogance, paranoia, and total lack of comprehension of what the public wants.

I thought that morning came a while ago?

 

[MangaBottle]

So... I don't have any idea what this is about -- can someone explain it to me?

 

[Shuko]

Not trying to play favorites here (especially since I'm a nintendo fangirl at heart, lol), but doesn't Nintendo do the same thing when people host ROMs or flash versions of their games? The NSider forums even have a special place for reporting sites like that. :/

 

[XD375]

These are flash versions of TV shows owned by Sony, not games.

This is actually an entirely different department, the Television Department, which has almost nothing to do with the video games.

 

[Shuko]

These are flash versions of TV shows owned by Sony, not games.

This is actually an entirely different department, the Television Department, which has almost nothing to do with the video games.

I will agree that there's a marked difference there. But both are legally copyrighted by Sony, right? It's their legal right to ask that they be removed. I'm not so sure how badly it would hurt them to keep the games up, but still, the law is on their side.

As a flash artist myself, I know as well as anyone that if you use someone else's characters, ideas, or sounds in your flash movie (or game, in this case), then regardless of the circumstances in which you used that media, it still belongs to the original owners, and they can ask you to take it down whenever they like. Fortunately, Nintendo doesn't seem to mind much that I've used their Mario and Zelda characters in my animations, lol.

 

[Habunake]

I've heard Nintendo actually encourages it as long as you don't use it for profit.

 

[bell02+]

I've heard Nintendo actually encourages it as long as you don't use it for profit.

HA! That's got to be a major laugh, just think about that for a little while Habu and you'll see. I think they let people do Netbattle and use their characters in flash animations, but that's about it for all I know. Nintendo left and right tries any method in its arsenal to remove pirates.

However, I don't see how this would be any different from anything else. I mean, I think nintendo would be upset if people started making game & watch games and Disney would be pissed if someone made a flashed based online wheel of fortune.