TAMATOWN IS BACK! (parsed swf files)

[Penguin-keeper]

wow, sueing a fan??? gosh thats awful

If someone is infringing on a company's copyrights, they can't just let them off because they're a fan. If they do that, then commercial copyright-infringers can then turn around and say "But the company allowed it before!".

 

[ꌃꍏꌩꂦꍟꈤ_꓄ꍏꂵꍏꁅꂦ꓄ꉓꃅ]

If someone is infringing on a company's copyrights, they can't just let them off because they're a fan. If they do that, then commercial copyright-infringers can then turn around and say "But the company allowed it before!".

true.... even then they could re-name the site to tama villa or something to prevent a case like this from happening again?

 

[Penguin-keeper]

true.... even then they could re-name the site to tama villa or something to prevent a case like this from happening again?

That wouldn't prevent it - they're still using assets that were created by and which belong to Bandai.

 

[ꌃꍏꌩꂦꍟꈤ_꓄ꍏꂵꍏꁅꂦ꓄ꉓꃅ]

That wouldn't prevent it - they're still using assets that were created by and which belong to Bandai.

maybe we can keep it offline?

 

[KidRetro64]

No unfortunately it is not Bandai. Bandai doesn't listen to anybody. The contact of mine is Luc Rubio, a former TamaTown reviver who was sued by Bandai and discontinued his project. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to find any files yet. But we are searching constantly. We are doing our best to revive this site. 

If Tamatown technically isn’t Bandais anymore, what’s to sue? If they want to forget about it, then why sue a fan?

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

maybe we can keep it offline?

After the end of support of Flash Player I may keep it offline. 

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

If Tamatown technically isn’t Bandais anymore, what’s to sue? If they want to forget about it, then why sue a fan?

Bandai did not try to forget anything. They just weren't earning any serious amount of money from the site and they shut it down. 

 

[Penguin-keeper]

If Tamatown technically isn’t Bandais anymore, what’s to sue? If they want to forget about it, then why sue a fan?

Them shutting down a site and/or letting a domain elapse doesn't mean that it's not theirs anymore. It's as Alex Grigoriou says;

Bandai did not try to forget anything. They just weren't earning any serious amount of money from the site and they shut it down. 

And this is a problem with having toys be reliant on outside applications, I feel - once the toys are no longer generating profit, the outside program or site that they've tied to certain features will cease to be at some point.

In addition to this, copyrights last virtually forever and a day, now - even though they're not doing anything with it, Bandai's ownership of Tamatown and its assets won't end during our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes, and it's entirely possible that it never will, if copyright extensions keep happening.

 

[hwd45]

All I heard about loociano was that he was personally worried about the threat of being sued, rather than him actually being sued. If anything, I would assume he'd receive a cease and desist takedown notice before stricter legal actions were taken, if any legal actions were even taken at all. That's not to say that he wasn't sued - I could easily be wrong - but perhaps we should be careful not to spread misinformation about how this issue was handled.

Ultimately, as Penguin-keeper has pointed out, the reason Tamatown was taken down was that it just wasn't profitable. It costs money to run the servers that were keeping the sites alive, and since it had been years since those versions had released they no longer stood to profit off using Tamatown as a means to generate more attention for their products. Furthermore, with newer versions on the horizon, Bandai could seek profit from closing Tamatown and reestablishing an online presence in the form of Dream Town when the next version released, potentially accruing additional views from those who were nostalgic for the days of Tamatown.

This isn't a case of Bandai wanting to "forget" about its past as though it doesn't exist - we've seen from their endless stream of rereleases that Bandai are no stranger to going back to the basic ideas which resonated with people in order to draw in fans who are familiar with the franchise for a second helping. Bandai is well aware of Tamatown's existence and intends to keep the assets in their intellectual property because although they do not currently stand to profit from running Tamatown, Bandai may decide that they can't take the risk of other people profiting from it, nor can they take the risk of allowing people to personally host the site when they could stand to profit off bringing the site back in the future. This is why they may choose to issue cease and desists to those attempting to host the site. That being said, they may also decide that such a move would not be profitable for them unless they actually did intend on rereleasing Tamatown, which at this stage seems to not be the case, so it seems most likely to me that they won't make the threat of legal action, at least not right now.

Even if there are legal issues involved, the cause to preserve and document the remaining pieces of Tamatown - and to recover those that are lost - must continue. It's important media remains accessible to those who wish to use it; we cannot allow pieces of history to be lost to time simply due to the fact that nobody ever cared enough to preserve them. What is being done here will always be necessary.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Ultimately, as Penguin-keeper has pointed out, the reason Tamatown was taken down was that it just wasn't profitable.

I can't take the credit for that - it was @Alex Grigoriou who said it, and I merely agreed with the statement and added another thought of my own off of the back of it.

Bandai is well aware of Tamatown's existence and intends to keep the assets in their intellectual property because although they do not currently stand to profit from running Tamatown, Bandai may decide that they can't take the risk of other people profiting from it, nor can they take the risk of allowing people to personally host the site when they could stand to profit off bringing the site back in the future.

They also can't take the risk of bad press that could arise if unsavoury individuals were to create and publicise a "revived" Tamatown that is in fact unsafe for people to use in some way.

If you've ever seen news stories about rights-holders shutting down unofficial events involving unofficial costumed mascots based on popular franchises, they do that for the same reason. People usually respond with "But what's the harm?! It's for the kids! The company is being so mean! They're so greedy and it's disgraceful!", but they would very likely be the first to blame the rights-holders for some sort of disaster that they weren't even associated with if no action had been taken.

Likewise, Bandai wouldn't want bad press from people getting personal information stolen or malware installed via something purporting to "bring back" a past version of one of their sites.

Even if there are legal issues involved, the cause to preserve and document the remaining pieces of Tamatown - and to recover those that are lost - must continue. It's important media remains accessible to those who wish to use it; we cannot allow pieces of history to be lost to time simply due to the fact that nobody ever cared enough to preserve them. What is being done here will always be necessary.

I agree, this is the most important thing. Unfortunately, those in certain industries (such as video games and toys, which the Tamagotchi line basically fits into both of) thus far have a track-record of not being very good at this, to say the least, which leaves stuff like this occupying pretty grey and unsteady territory.

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

Woah there guys. I didn't want this to escalate so much. I just stated some things. Chill out. Ultimately nobody can easily understand a company's policy and logic. Let's just end this whole Bandai thing here. 

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Woah there guys. I didn't want this to escalate so much. I just stated some things. Chill out. Ultimately nobody can easily understand a company's policy and logic. Let's just end this whole Bandai thing here. 

Nothing's escalated, though - it's a pretty sensible discussion, to be fair.

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

Nothing's escalated, though - it's a pretty sensible discussion, to be fair.

I know. I know. 

 

[ꌃꍏꌩꂦꍟꈤ_꓄ꍏꂵꍏꁅꂦ꓄ꉓꃅ]

If Tamatown technically isn’t Bandais anymore, what’s to sue? If they want to forget about it, then why sue a fan?

is there proof of said name's copyright ending? 

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

is there proof of said name's copyright ending? 

I think that copyrights are permanent. They don't end. 

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I think that copyrights are permanent. They don't end. 

The sad thing is that this is getting to be the case. The public domain that we leave behind for future generations to build upon is going to be very stagnant indeed.

 

[DaniTamastar]

We could just rename it to Tamatown Rewritten or something

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

We could just rename it to Tamatown Rewritten or something

This does not quite solve the case. Even the files themselves have a copyright protection and a signature, that's why it is so difficult to edit these files. 

 

[Penguin-keeper]

This does not quite solve the case. Even the files themselves have a copyright protection and a signature, that's why it is so difficult to edit these files. 

This is exactly it.

For those unaware: Copyright automatically exists from the moment that a work is created; You don't have to apply for it, and it goes on for a very, very long time. Most people aren't aware of that, for some reason.

 

[Alex Grigoriou]

This is exactly it.

For those unaware: Copyright automatically exists from the moment that a work is created; You don't have to apply for it, and it goes on for a very, very long time. Most people aren't aware of that, for some reason.

I can't agree with you more.