Brazilian Court Bans Sale of Gay Tony But Not For What You Think

[The Random One]

How... strange. I'd better get my copy of LCS right away.

Are they out of claims to a higher court? The Brazilian Supreme Court is a complete clusterfuck, they can't select cases like the US Supreme Court, so if they keep harassing the judges while the case is there it might take so long until it's clear that by the time the lawsuit is done it won't matter. Of course they'd have to prove the case is significantally different from previous rulings.

But I'll be getting mine soon anyway. :-O

 

[brodie21]

that is surprising, GTA IV being banned for copyright infringement on a shitty song with a kids annoying voice, cant they just remove the song? they could even put a thing on the radio stations that say "this song has been removed due to shittiness"

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

I love Rockstar, but if they broke a copyright law...then they broke a copyright law.

I don't see what the big deal is here, they are a big company they can fix it. Mistakes happen all the time.

 

[IkeGreil29]

One one side, as a big music buff, it is always annoying to have your creative property stolen from you (and from the sounds of the article, it was more than creative property and was already licensed).

On the other, as a big video game buff, this screws over a very big game. Not to mention the fact that one country led to this will result in so many fingers being pointed to Brazil it's not going to be funny, and it's not only banned in Brazil, it's easily over 50% of the world (I think. Don't quote me on that, I am no copyright authority of any kind).

 

[Blimey]

Ignoring the fact that the kids an annoying little shit, that songs catchy as fuck.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Copyright law again proves to be fundamentally fucked.

i couldn't agree more !

 

[samsonguy920]

Well this doesn't surprise me. Cest la vie

 

[matrix3509]

ROCKSTOR IS A PIRATE EVERYONE WE MUST PUT SOME AWESOME DRM ON THEM SO THEY CANT SELL THERE GAIMES.

See how stupid this line of reasoning is, videogame industry? Yeah, I thought so.

 

[shadow skill]

While the ruling is nonsense this seems like karma for shitting on PC gamers and constantly whining about piracy when they apparently went and did the same thing

 

[Electrogecko]

A Brazilian court prohibited worldwide sales of the expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV because it infringes on the copyrights of an 8 year old boy.

WTF AM I READING?

I know right? Because a game might be infringing on an 8 year old's song, they ban it worldwide? Is the kid even getting anything out of this? Y couldn't they just settle?

 

[The Rockerfly]

So the game is banned, without anyone telling the game developer?

A massive company is apparently not complying with copyright law even though they have the proper rights?

It's taken them a year and a half to do this?

Those three questions that haven't been answered and really should otherwise I call bullshit on this

 

[Spinozaad]

I can understand that guy's reasoning.

If the documents were falsified, than Rockstar is indeed making money of his intellectual and creative property. In stead of acting like moralist paragons of indignation, let's look at this: You made something. Someone, who did not have the right to, sold it to a Big Fucking Company who proceded to make lots of money from your work.

If this would happen to you, you'd be pissed.

I'm with that guy. Totally.

 

[duchaked]

suddenly I wanna daaance

but eh, wonder how far reaching the effect of this will be outside of Brazil

 

[Sephiwind]

I'm rather curious. It says that they will be fines $3000 for each day it's on the shelves. Is this retroactive to when BoGT was originally released for DLC on the 360 or just after the ruling. If it is retroactive then that is a huge chunk of cash. I think about $1.5 million.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Even though Rockstar produced documents claiming that it had the correction permissions to use the track, the Brazilian court found that the signatures were not the author's. The court prohibited all digital and retail sales of Episodes from Liberty City or The Ballad of Gay Tony and that Rockstar and its distirbutor in Brazil, Synergex, must remove all copies from stores. The court levied a fine of 5,000 Brazilian Reals or US $3,000 for each day that the game is still sold. Because of international copyright law, this judgement effects sales worldwide and not just in Brazil. If you've been waiting to play Gay Tony, you might want to get on that.

But if the signatures were of the producers who owned the track, then it shouldn't matter. I predict either a quick injunction followed by overturn in appeals, or Rockstar patching the song out, and suing the producers. Who will sue the artist.

Also, I highlighted some grammatical and spelling errors. Though to be fair, I probably wouldn't have even noticed if Firefox didn't have spell check.

 

[SilentHunter7]

I can understand that guy's reasoning.

If the documents were falsified, than Rockstar is indeed making money of his intellectual and creative property. In stead of acting like moralist paragons of indignation, let's look at this: You made something. Someone, who did not have the right to, sold it to a Big Fucking Company who proceded to make lots of money from your work.

If this would happen to you, you'd be pissed.

I'm with that guy. Totally.

But if they did indeed license the track from his label, who legally should have as much rights to the song as the artist, there shouldn't have been a problem. However, if the label didn't own all the rights to that song, then I see a massive lawsuit in their future.

 

[Tdc2182]

Whoa, I managed to play the kid singing as soon as he started singing in the other video, it was perfect sync.

Crazy.

 

[Spinozaad]

I can understand that guy's reasoning.

If the documents were falsified, than Rockstar is indeed making money of his intellectual and creative property. In stead of acting like moralist paragons of indignation, let's look at this: You made something. Someone, who did not have the right to, sold it to a Big Fucking Company who proceded to make lots of money from your work.

If this would happen to you, you'd be pissed.

I'm with that guy. Totally.

But if they did indeed license the track from his label, who legally should have as much rights to the song as the artist, there shouldn't have been a problem. However, if the label didn't own all the rights to that song, then I see a massive lawsuit in their future.

Very much so.

I find it quite an insightful look into the condition of the Brazilian music industry, because normally, that's the first law suit I would hold.

But, apparently, there's more money to be made leeching off Rockstar.

Very intriguing.