NEWS REPORT: 2.DEC.2001
HARRY POTTER AND THE TRANSLATION STONE
The story of the Civ3 german translation project and (legal) response of Infogrames
In just a few days, the Civ Community found itself watching something unimaginable
until then: a civer geting server a legal order from one of the two companies involved in Civ3.
First, it was the shock of a civer geting into legal problems due to editing a text file. Then followed the confusion (without
the Infogrames announcements situation helping much) on what goes with other kinds of mods. Finally, common sense dictating that
Infogrames cares about the future sales of the German version of Civ3 and not about mods with the animated head of George Bush :D
Here is the full story, as covered in our news these last days.
FAN SERVED CEASE AND DESIST ORDER
(25 November 2001, 14:41 EST) A grassroots effort is gaining momentum this weekend in an attempt to help a fellow Civ fan after it came to light that Infogrames (IG) Germany served a private citizen with a cease
| EXTRA: MORE LAWSUITS FOR YOU! |
It must have some strange planetary combination that has created all these legal issues around civ3... :)
PRIMA SICS LAWYERS ON HG
(28 November 2001, 21:50 EST) In another round of lawsuits relating to CivIII [see November 26th story below], Prima Games (PG) has forced Hurricane Gaming (HG) to remove a strategy guide for the game posted on the latter's website on November 10th on threat of legal action.
Prima, the company behind the official CivIII strategy guide, informed Hurricane via their parent company Random House Publishing that they had an exclusive agreement with Infogrames, CivIII's publishers, to produce and market a guide for the game. According to Doug Walsh, Hurricane Gaming's President/CEO, in an open letter explaining the sudden removal of the guide, written by Michael Lummis from their site, [t]he 32 page [document] which sold for $2.50[US] apparently contained too much helpful information and infringed on Prima's rights to the game.
In response to the notice, Hurricane Gaming executives made the difficult decision to remove their guide from their site as per Random House's request earlier today. While no official confirmation has been given by either side in the dispute, it is presumed that the lawsuit will not go ahead given Hurricane's prompt action in the plaintiff's favour. Despite the frustration behind the ordeal, Walsh used the opportunity to express a positive point about the incident.
Although this is an upsetting setback that greatly disappoints us, we also see this as confirmation that our content is of the highest quality.
To give a general idea as to how many copies of HG's CivIII guide were purchased and downloaded before its removal, the defendants reported that of the 500 daily visitor average to the site, less than 2% of that number had taken up on the opportunity to acquire the document in question. -DanQ
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and desist order for attempting to translate parts of the English (US) version of CivIII into German. Accompanying the order is a $500 bill for the lawyer fees for drawing up and issuing the order.
The defendant, Kai Fiebach, spearheaded a campaign with a group of other CivIII fans in attempt to translate various components of the game into German in response to the game's US release with a self-imposed deadline of this Christmas. With a slated release for March, 2002 in their home country, the team -- frustrated by the extended wait -- organized itself through a website in an attempt to provide a service that Infogrames would not be fulfilling until early next year.
In a cruel twist, it was Fieback who informed IG of his and his crew's project and even offered to join forces with the company's localization team if only the game would be released sooner. Sadly, the response was one alleging copyright infringement on the part of Fieback and his teammmates. The website offering the translation effort was taken down not long after this notice was received and the group has effectively been disbanded as a result.
The story was broken yesterday on Slashdot and has generated a firestorm of response by in large supportive of Fiebach. Our thanks to Thue, Honcho7, UberKruX and Joe Heller for alerting us to this development. -DanQ
INFOGRAMES ON GERMAN TRANSLATION FAN PROJECT
(26 November 2001, 3:31 EST) On Thursday, Infogrames Germany posted the following announcement on it's website(infogrames.de):
With an injunction Infogrames has halted a translation of Civilization III by a fan group. The grounds for this action are, among other things, the infringement of the copyrights that belong to Firaxis and Sid Meier. On this point, Frank Holz, Marketing Director of Infogrames: "All content of computer games is subject to copyright. Infogrames at this time has no choice but to formally stop the translation project. In this regard we are obligated to Firaxis, and this also applies from a legal standpoint. Of course, however, we are stunned by the commitment with which this group of fans approached this translation. Because we want to support fan projects more in the future than before, we are now checking out in discussions with Firaxis what possibilities for cooperation in this regard exist. Yet it must be kept in mind that the German localization by Infogrames is already well apace and deals with the entire game, while the fan group, as clearly stated by project leader Kai Fiebach, is only translating parts of it"
"Legal actions first, discussions on cooperation afterwards? Doesnt sound like good marketing to me", MarkG said to himself...
Thanks to Gaius Marius for the translation. Check out the rather heated discussion on the forums. -MarkG
LEGAL ISSUE OVER TRANSLATION PROJECT CLOSES
(28 November 2001, 9:41 EST) The legal issue that started when Infogrames sent a "cease and desist order"(we'll refer to it as c&do) to Kai Fiebach has now ended.
Kai was the head of a project created by civers to offer (for free) a German translation patch to german-speaking buyers of Civ3. Despite the fact that Kai informed Infogrames on their intention and offered the fans' help on the translation process, Infogrames responded with a c&do to him as well as the hosts of civ3.de which provided web space for the project(Infogrames released an announcement on the issue which you can read on our news item on Nov.26).
Today, Kai informed us that on advice of his lawyer he signed the c&do to avoid further legal problems. Infogrames in a show of good will decided to pay the fee($850) of their lawyers, although Kai had to pay the fee of his own lawyer(signing the c&do could mean that Kai would have to pay for Infogrames's fees as well). Also, the c&do to civ3.de hosts were replaced with a non-disclosure agreement between them and Infogrames, after the removal of the web pages of the project.
We should note that under the c&do, Kai Fiebach faces a $10,000 fine if he involves himself with modification of Civ3 in any way in the future.
Since civ3(like all civ games) is a highly modifiable game, the remaining big issue for the entire civ community is what Infogrames considers as an acceptable modification of the game. We will keep you updated on this critical matter as new information becomes availiable. -MarkG
NEW INFOGRAMES ANNOUNCEMENT ON TRANSLATION PROJECT
(29 November 2001, 11:58 EST) Infogrames(IG) has released a new announcement on the issue of the German translation project. Here it is, translated by Lemming (many thanks!), in it's entirety (almost)
During the last days we've received numerous questions and complaints regarding the unofficial Civ3-Translation-project. So we will explain the reasons for our actions in the following statement:
Generally we would like to say that we welcome ideas and concepts coming from fans and/or members of our community. We have already supported various projects in the past and will continue to do so in the future. However, in some cases - like the current translation project - we are forced to refuse any support.
The game Civilization III is, like many products of all kind, protected by copyright. Firaxis, who (directed by Sid Meier) has invented and created the game, is actually holding the rights. Now if someone wants to change parts of the product or to use parts of the product in any other ways as intended, the involved group or person has to ask for a written permission from the copyright holder or his legal representation (in this case Infogrames). This procedure should be common knowledge after all. For example no private person has tried to translate the latest Harry Potter novel into German and put it onto the internet, just because the English version comes out first. The author or his publisher would try to stop that for understable reasons. So this is also true for Civilization III. Certainly the creators of the translation project tried to reach Infogrames per Email - but that is no privilege to start the project without an appropriate permission. Regrettably the response time of these emails (email-adresses) is much longer than we would like it to be. However you can also contact us everytime by phone or mail. Unfortunately the project group didnt use one of these possibilities.
Our contract with Firaxis says that we have to take immediate action in case of any copyright violation, so we had to take the necessary legal steps. Because the initiators of the project are actually part of the Civilization-Community, we decided not to react with an interim order but only with an injunction order (I hope i got this right). This is the most lenient action we could have taken to preserve our and Firaxis' claims. This injunction order was sent not only to the head of the fan-project but also to the operator of the website www.civ3.de, where we first read of the translation project. In both cases, Infogrames paid the costs which usually arise from an injunction order. We reached a settlement with the operator of the website, after he signed the injunction order and there are no further steps planned against him. Unfortunately the head of the project has only insufficiently signed the order and threatened multiple times to have a bad influence on the public mood in the forums, if we dont agree to his demands of taking back the injunction order. In his last Email he suggests to admit his own negligence if Infogrames publically apologizes for various points, which in the end have only arised because of his actions and not of ours, and if Infogrames considers hiring him as a community manager. But for us that's out of question not only because of what has happened in the last few days.
Finally we want to say that we are sorry for the fact that a project, that in the end was started to help other Civilization-fans had to go this way... Moreover we are hoping that the project leader reconsiders his point of view, so that we dont have to take any further legal actions.
In the last paragraph of the lengthy announcement, IG says that it's own translation of civ3 is almost finished, but does not give any possible release date for it.
What all this means for mod makers? Well, if you take it strictly and want to be safe, the next time you modify a text or graphic file of Civ3 you have to mail or better to write a letter or phone them AND then wait for their response before doing anything. On the other hand, one can argue that Infogrames wont care about rules modifications or graphic patches.
So, do you feel like taking risks in your life? :) Comment about this on the forums. -MarkG
TRANSLATION PROJECT: LAST RESPONSE & ROUNDUP
The last part in the story of the German translation project was played out on Thursday and Friday as Kai Fiebach responded to the Infogrames annoument issued earlier on Thursday
I am stunned.
They are referring to an email I wrote to them on last Saturday in a desperate effort to save what could be saved before the ultimatum of their lawyers expired.
I indeed did warn, that the community would not welcome the consequences of a juridical approach against the fans, and indeed I even offered to help the company to regain reputation if we could settle this affair for good (while making clear I had no further personal ambitions).
The original mail (in German) today I made public here in the original project thread inside the Infogrames forum
From this personal and humble letter they made a threat to spoil their reputation and an effort to press me into their company. It feels like the hand I offered has been stroke off. This hurts.
On Friday, after the discussion that followed these events Kai asked from everyone to close the matter
I am personally sorry of all this and really regret what did happen. I admit we have been way too naive about this business and the complicated rules that are involved.
Now on this last day of November I have the impression that almost everything is said and done. I would suggest to leave it this way for the moment and to gain some healthy distance.
Bottom line: mod freely, but not in German ;)
-MarkG
