Post by Steve Farrelly @ 08:56am 19/04/12 | 44 Comments
John Beiswenger is the author of "Link", a sci-fi novel that features "the conception and creation of a device and process whereby ancestral memories can be accessed, recalled, relived, and re-experienced by the user", something he obviously links to the Animus device in the Assassin's Creed games. He also claims the game's "assassins" component is also derived from his book, which has several plot points involving assassins, and the assassinations of high-ranking government officials.
The allegations are being made against a whole host of Assassin's Creed material, from all four of the major games released thus far, to expanded lore literature and beyond. He's even asking for an injunction to stop the release of Assassin's Creed 3 (due out this October) and is asking for USD$1.05 million in damages and a further USD$5.25 million if the judge finds in favour of copyright infringement.
You can read the full filed complaint right here (thanks Patent Arcade).
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Posted 09:03am 19/4/12
Posted 09:12am 19/4/12
How can a computer game be infringing on a book for f*** sake? They are completely different mediums.
What an absolute joke.
Posted 09:16am 19/4/12
Wonder if the writers of Assassin's Creed had read the book/s or if it's just coincidence, seeing as such a device wouldn't be a huge leap from already established concepts. On the other hand, I don't see how the games can detract from the selling of the books in anyway.
Posted 09:18am 19/4/12
Posted 09:28am 19/4/12
Clearly they created children, and Hollywood's use, depiction and creation of them is patent infringement.
And yes, we realise game studios employ writers. Team Bondai realised this too for LA Noire at hideous budget, and look what happened to them :P
This just screams of being a patent troll. It costs well over $2m and 18 months of time to fight a patent infringement suit - and that's if you win. They've clearly picked a nice figure that says "hey, it way cheaper for you to just pay us than fight this".
Posted 09:37am 19/4/12
In stargate, for example, the evil egyptian god dudes had genetic memory, though no machine was used to access it.
Posted 10:58am 19/4/12
its just a matter of how much he can say was ripped off. guessing the writers at ubisoft will be treading carefully around their bosses atm.
Posted 10:58am 19/4/12
Patent
the exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an invention for a certain number of years.
Copyright
the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.
Posted 11:20am 19/4/12
Terrible terrible analogy.
Yeah, that's what the issue was. because it also didnt pay out for Blizzard, Activision, EA and majority of other major game developers.
My point was saying because it is completely different in a game is like saying the script for a movie and a book are completely different.
its not , in case you were wondering.
Posted 11:40am 19/4/12
Posted 12:05pm 19/4/12
But yeah you'd think to make a successful copyright claim they should have to prove some kind of lost revenue as a result.
Posted 12:20pm 19/4/12
Posted 01:47pm 19/4/12
Copyright because when I buy a xbox I should be able to load on whatever bios I want or solder a wire to the motherboard if I want to.
Patent because If I want to make something that some d******* patent spammer thought about 9 years ago and didn't even both building but got a patent made for it; I can't, Without his permission.
That's two correct examples yeah?
Posted 01:57pm 19/4/12
Posted 02:24pm 19/4/12
not sure if serious.
oh wait, it's gamer.
f*****g lol
Posted 02:41pm 19/4/12
if they took the story line for the game from the book then they have infringed on the authors copy right.
Posted 03:02pm 19/4/12
Posted 03:14pm 19/4/12
It's like a painting that paints a picture of a woodlands archer stealing from a rich carriage and then later giving it to the poor.
Then the author of a robin hood book suing the painter because their painting infringes on robin hood?
Posted 03:15pm 19/4/12
Posted 03:16pm 19/4/12
Posted 03:17pm 19/4/12
so if i ripped off the story of half-life and wrote a book about it using key storyline elements, would i have committed copyright infringement? a video game has a storyline, much like a book does, and if one is a copy of another than it is copyright infringement
i'm not saying this guy has a case, nor that he is going to win (i haven't read his claim in depth) but if you honestly can't see how copyright infringement can transcend medium, you're stupid
Posted 03:21pm 19/4/12
Posted 04:13pm 19/4/12
Don't f*****g cry because someone does something before you do. That's what really pisses me off with copyright and patents. If you want money, get off your arse and go do it, otherwise shut the f*** up.
Posted 04:35pm 19/4/12
Posted 04:40pm 19/4/12
Sounds to me like you should move to China if that's the way you think. How about you write a wicked massive essay for uni and then before you hand it in, I beat you up and write my name on it. Serves you right for being too slow and not 'getting off your ass and doing it first?'.
Posted 05:49pm 19/4/12
If you write a book (say it's a word document) and it's on a flash drive. You have invested time to create that fictional novel. That is worth something for your time and your creativity (skills).
You would then sell that book to a publisher for $$$ and they print the book.
I don't believe any 'information' should ever be allowed to be patented or copyrighted. If someone wants to goto the effort of buying a copy, re-typing the whole book and trying to sell copies themselves then so be it.
It's up the publishing company and the author to organise a financial system that works for them. The author needs to make sure they get what they deem is sensible payment for their time and skills invested there and then when they hand over the flash drive. The publisher needs to be good at advertising their copy of the book or keep prices down to encourage buyers. If they want to sell a book for $90 when a Chinese alternative is selling for $3 then they will lose.
"ideas" (essentially knowledge, information etc) in my opinion should not ever be allowed to be 'owned' by someone of something (corporation). You cannot physically 'own' an idea. Ideas are sporadic, unique ideas can exist independently of each other that are the same. That's just the fact of the matter. If I have a unique idea that you had at an earlier time, that doesn't take your earlier idea away from you.
All I see is copyright and patents holding back progression of the world, people and the future. People think they need to protect ideas and information because otherwise they won't have money but I don't believe that's true. I believe people would find other ways to monetise things in a way that isn't based off the idea or information. It would become service/production based.
For example, if drug companies needed to put a million dollars investment in to make ABC drug and as soon as they did released their product and others were able to quickly reverse engineer that product and make their own the argument might be - why would they?
Well they wouldn't. Instead they would most likely work together in a collaborative way to develop drugs with other companies as any information products would all be quickly shared on product launch anyway. The only real difference is who has a product on product launch.
Well that's my idealistic view on it anyway. Of course i'm aware of how the system we have at the moment is meant to work and you can see the pros and cons of both. All I know for sure is that we've tried the way we have now... and we haven't even given another way of open and free information and ideas a go.
If I wake up one day and have a unique idea of my own, uninspired, to make what is essentially a bicycle then I should be able to start a company that makes bikes without paying royalties to anyone. I shouldn't be hindered by the fact that some random f***wit 200 years previously had that idea, that I didn't even know about when I had my idea, and put a patent on it but never even made any bikes. The fact is I want to make bikes because it was my idea... so why the f*** cant I?
last edited by gamer at 17:49:53 19/Apr/12
Posted 05:51pm 19/4/12
Posted 06:00pm 19/4/12
No surprises there. Like these guys that patent every little thing under the sun in the hope someone sometime will come along and try and make something involving their patent so they can cash in it. People like this sit down with URL campers.
I have a $20,000 EMC SAN right next to me at the moment. This EMC SAN has all the software and hardware that that the highest model EMC SAN worth $150,000 has. The only thing that differs is the licence file. It really pisses me off that my EMC SAN is limited to (lets say for argument sake) 300mB/s in RAID output... when the actual hardware is capable of a f*** tonne more if im willing to pay the $100,000 extra in licencing. If the hardware can do it, it shouldn't be restricted.
Posted 06:07pm 19/4/12
Copyright doesn't, and never has, protected ideas. It protects literary, creative and artistic works.
Posted 01:31pm 20/4/12
Posted 01:41pm 20/4/12
haha
he is that dense
Posted 01:53pm 20/4/12
The guy doesn't sound like he has a case though, from reading the complaint, the things he claims are similarities don't sound very similar at all. His device is just a machine that lets you watch someone's memories on a video screen, not re-live them and learn from them like in Assassin's Creed. And the references to assassin's have absolutely NOTHING to do with the assassins of Assassin's Creed, they're just things like "Oh, we could go back and see John Wilkes booth assassinate lincoln" or "Some israelis tried to assassinate this guy, and we caught one and want to find out what he knows".
Posted 02:20pm 20/4/12
If you don't like it, don't buy EMC SANs. By buying from them you enable this behaviour. This sort of practice has been around since the early days of computing and if people really had a problem with it they should do something by not supporting companies that do it.
Posted 02:30pm 20/4/12
so, if instead they crippled the hardware physically by putting in lower spec CPUs and memory and then when you wanted more performance you had to pay $200k for new controllers that would be better for you?
Posted 02:46pm 20/4/12
holy ignorance batman
Posted 09:37pm 20/4/12
Posted 09:46pm 20/4/12
Posted 10:06pm 20/4/12
last edited by paveway at 22:06:52 20/Apr/12
Posted 10:31pm 20/4/12
Also could be worse could be netapp then you would really have something to piss and moan about
Posted 12:06am 21/4/12
it sounds like you don't know how you build one.
just how much are these people paying you annually?
no offense matey, but you sound like another Lib who scored himself a sweet IT job and now has to prove himself.
Posted 07:04am 30/5/12
quote from hardocp
Posted 04:28pm 31/5/12
Yeah so confident we won't take it to court and find out.
Pussy,
Posted 06:09pm 31/5/12
Posted 07:38pm 31/5/12
I'd imagine Ubisoft could and would just out spend him in court.