36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Cease-and-Desist From Sony

[oktalist]

Now THIS is a game for a phone app! Would think by now it would be public domain anyway.

A property does not go public domain until it's creator has been dead for 70 years (I think, it might be 50)

Public Domian is rapidly shrinking because rights holders find ways so that their licenses never go into public domain. Why do you think that the Happy Birthday song is rarely in movies? Despite being part of our culture, and should be in PD, we have to pay every time we was to use it. Of course, none of this excuses the Lemmings port guy. He should have seen this problem coming.

He probably did anticipate it, but didn't care because it's only a day and a half out of his life. It's an awesome thing to be able to do, whether it's stomped on by copyright or not. Any of the larger companies doing iPhone apps and not offering this guy a job are fools.

 

[BlueHighwind]

"Cease and desist" - the most horrible words to all fanfiction writers out there. It seems rather pointless to me, since its not like these puny largely unknown fan efforts are ever going to be able to compete with the major studios. My cousins used to make really terrible Star Wars short films - they were fun to watch and take part in, but it never made any of us not want to watch the Star Wars movies (it was the Prequels that did that). Just yet the poor little guy finish his game. Why you gotta be a bully?

By the way, when was the last time a Lemmings game was even made? I've only heard of the series from an off-hand comment from Yahtzee.

 

[SimuLord]

*cease and desist*
*court orders turnover of all materials*
-6 hours later-
"Sony announces lemmings for iphone!"

My thoughts exactly, although I hope Sony negotiates in good faith.

 

[Jumplion]

So rather than making some sort of deal with the guy that would allow them to make his port official and make tons of money on a classic game many of us love and miss, they just told him to stop? Sony, your consumer-mindedness and intelligence continues to impress me! For future reference, I think you should only hire people with positive IQ levels.

And if Sony had actually published the game, people would go "Wha? Lemmings? Who give a crap about them anymore!" Puh-leaze, "classic franchise we know and love" my batuchie, "positive IQ levels" my eye sockets, even if the guy released the thing without a hitch I doubt people would have even realized the thing existed.

This is more of a "meh" feeling from me. On the one hand, this guy should have really seen it coming. From what I've seen, it looks like an exact copy of the original Lemmings, not a "fan made homage" that the guy is claiming (it says it's a port, ports generally aren't "homages").

On the other, it's relatively small and petty for Sony to be stomping on the little guy who really meant no real harm.

Overall I hope they can work it out, maybe release an "official" version or something. Either way, it's not like we're losing much to begin with, there's hundreds if not thousands of Lemmings clones out there.

 

[Dr Megadeth]

yup yup.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

I hope he can negotiate well with Sony. Shame it IS within their rights though to do that.

 

[WorldCritic]

Never really got into Lemmings so I'm not sure how to react to this.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Okay, I hate to be the one to say this but... the giant faceless multinational corporation is right here. You can't just take someone elses game port it to a new medium, that's a textbook definition of copyright infringement. That'd be like taking a movie you bought on VHS transferring it to DVD and than trying to turn around and sell it.

he didnt try to sell it so that analogy is off. so there is grounds for a legal battle. its the same reason games can be modded but no one gives a damn because the modders dont make any money.

Actually it's legal to reverse engineer something for the purposes of compatibility. So long as his version required an original copy of lemmings to use then he'd legally be in the clear. not that an individual could defend themselves against Sony.

 

[Antiparticle]

You know, I really want someone to re-release Lemmings already. Xbox LIVE Arcade, Wii Virtual Console, DSiWare, Steam, GoG, I can't find it anywhere goddammit. I really wanna play that game again. It deserves better than to drift into obscurity.

 

[Sennz0r]

Too late. They said it was on the website for free. Once it's on the web, it never comes off.

Shit if you're actually right about that, than this nice guy is absolutely fucked. I mean if he can't all of it off the net Sony will wreck him.

Poor guy.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

So rather than making some sort of deal with the guy that would allow them to make his port official and make tons of money on a classic game many of us love and miss, they just told him to stop? Sony, your consumer-mindedness and intelligence continues to impress me! For future reference, I think you should only hire people with positive IQ levels.

They obviously kept a copy to themselves and a few weeks/months down the road will release it as their own, as they have the right to do it and with the courts decision restraining the guy,they will do it without paying him a buck for the hard work.

 

[Altar]

Personally don't see anything wrong with this. (Sony getting the guy to stop with the port)

But it's weird how some people here seem to be thinking they are the bad guys because someone just literally copies there work and property and tries to port it off... regardless if it's free or not. It is Sony's property after all... but I just guess it's the 'cool' thing to hate on the big bad companies... ay?!

 

[SultanP]

So rather than making some sort of deal with the guy that would allow them to make his port official and make tons of money on a classic game many of us love and miss, they just told him to stop? Sony, your consumer-mindedness and intelligence continues to impress me! For future reference, I think you should only hire people with positive IQ levels.

And if Sony had actually published the game, people would go "Wha? Lemmings? Who give a crap about them anymore!" Puh-leaze, "classic franchise we know and love" my batuchie, "positive IQ levels" my eye sockets, even if the guy released the thing without a hitch I doubt people would have even realized the thing existed.

What the hell are you talking about? They could sell hundreds if not thousands of copies because people would either go "Lemmings! I used to love that game, awesome!" and buy it, or they would go "Lemmings, I never did get a chance to play that" and buy it.

 

[Sennz0r]

Too late. They said it was on the website for free. Once it's on the web, it never comes off.

Shit if you're actually right about that, than this nice guy is absolutely fucked. I mean if he can't all of it off the net Sony will wreck him.

Poor guy.

No, they only asked for him to take it down from his site. However, it will never leave the net. That's why saying something stupid online is a bad idea, it never goes away.

Yeah but he did port their game without consent, so isn't he liable for every copy of the game he ported still out there?

 

[Fasckira]

I disagree with the analogy that it would be like taking Pokemon and porting it to the iPhone. Pokemon is still very much an active game that is still selling today where as the first Lemmings game is ancient history. Sure, people still know of it and you'll get the occasional geek-chic kid bragging about he played it all the time for pro-points but Im not aware of anywhere actively selling it (yet, Im looking at you Sony).

Ultimately though Im going to come out and say - its shit. I mean, did anyone _actually_ like Lemmings? I liked the idea of Lemmings and they look cute enough but the actual game play bored me. Its a game about people walking, albeit cute little retarded lemmings.

 

[Syntax Error]

We will open communication with Sony to explore the rights for these platforms!"

Good luck with that! It's a pity, but he should have seen this coming from a mile away. Though judging by his upbeat attitude towards this, I bet he did it for the challenge, instead of actively trying to make money for himself.

 

[Jumplion]

So rather than making some sort of deal with the guy that would allow them to make his port official and make tons of money on a classic game many of us love and miss, they just told him to stop? Sony, your consumer-mindedness and intelligence continues to impress me! For future reference, I think you should only hire people with positive IQ levels.

And if Sony had actually published the game, people would go "Wha? Lemmings? Who give a crap about them anymore!" Puh-leaze, "classic franchise we know and love" my batuchie, "positive IQ levels" my eye sockets, even if the guy released the thing without a hitch I doubt people would have even realized the thing existed.

What the hell are you talking about? They could sell hundreds if not thousands of copies because people would either go "Lemmings! I used to love that game, awesome!" and buy it, or they would go "Lemmings, I never did get a chance to play that" and buy it.

Or the other way with people who never grew up with Lemmings (I'm sort of included, I was just out of their gaming period) will go "Wha? Lemmings? WTF Sony, WHERE'S MY 'ICO Collection'!?!?" And as previous posts showed, if Sony attached even a cent on it people would go "Gosh, Sony, you greedy bastards!" or something similar on that.

Personally I could care less about Lemmings, like I said there are a billion and one clones out there on the internet. If Sony decides to work with the guy to bring Lemmings to the App store that's great, but if not, then oh well, not like we're missing much in all honesty.