darkSpyro

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chava-...4R8/ref=sr_1_60

Uses all the copyright names and pictures, CHARGES for the app and is sold on Amazon?!

Yet my totally legal free PC app gets a false DMCA take down notice?

Even the free Skylister on iOS had trouble with Activision, how on earth is this fair?

Those are just catalogs.. Used to keep track of your figures.
It's perfectly fine. There are several others like that on the market.


..But yours? Programmed to directly read and edit data on the RFID chips? Why wouldn't they take that down? People could hack that, and allow you to fully edit the figures, getting into textures, names, levels, Hero Ranks, Stats, and even use unused characters, thus causing way too many problems.


A catalog costing a few cents to $1 VS. an RFID data viewer that could be used to edit figures? Two totally different things.

Yeah, one's completely legal and the other is using copyrighted material to sell for a profit.

Matteomax, Don't get me wrong, I think the catalogue apps should be allowed to exist and having them pulled is just mean spirited however what annoys me is the inconsistency.

By allowing somebody to profit from copyright material while illegally using the DMCA to take down a legitimate and legal app?

As far as "allow you to fully edit the figures, getting into textures, names, levels, Hero Ranks, Stats," is concerned, you understand that it's all legal right?
What I have done in this app in no way allows me to get to anything the figure is not meant to have access to. There is NO WAY to use this app or any figure to view or access other figures unreleased or not or access "textures" why ever that would be an issue. Even so I have made sure not to put any editing in my app! The saves are even encrypted to prevent you hex editing the data outside the app.

Quite simply, when you BUY a Skylander, it is YOURS to do with as you wish. Viewing the data contained on it even editing the data is your right. The data is yours too, it was created by your actions in game and as such is copyrighted to you the owner of the figure and data.

Many Skylanders related apps have been pulled that were free so what surprised me is this one being openly profiting from copyright works (the images) still allowed and sold publicly on Amazon.

Quote: Pyrofer

Matteomax, Don't get me wrong, I think the catalogue apps should be allowed to exist and having them pulled is just mean spirited however what annoys me is the inconsistency.

By allowing somebody to profit from copyright material while illegally using the DMCA to take down a legitimate and legal app?

As far as "allow you to fully edit the figures, getting into textures, names, levels, Hero Ranks, Stats," is concerned, you understand that it's all legal right?
What I have done in this app in no way allows me to get to anything the figure is not meant to have access to. There is NO WAY to use this app or any figure to view or access other figures unreleased or not or access "textures" why ever that would be an issue. Even so I have made sure not to put any editing in my app! The saves are even encrypted to prevent you hex editing the data outside the app.

Quite simply, when you BUY a Skylander, it is YOURS to do with as you wish. Viewing the data contained on it even editing the data is your right. The data is yours too, it was created by your actions in game and as such is copyrighted to you the owner of the figure and data.

Many Skylanders related apps have been pulled that were free so what surprised me is this one being openly profiting from copyright works (the images) still allowed and sold publicly on Amazon.

Nicely said. Once you have purchased a figure, you can do whatever you want with it. It's not illegal that I soldered modifications to my figure, why shouldn't i be allowed to edit it's stats?

Quote: PunkShocker

Quote: Pyrofer

Matteomax, Don't get me wrong, I think the catalogue apps should be allowed to exist and having them pulled is just mean spirited however what annoys me is the inconsistency.

By allowing somebody to profit from copyright material while illegally using the DMCA to take down a legitimate and legal app?

As far as "allow you to fully edit the figures, getting into textures, names, levels, Hero Ranks, Stats," is concerned, you understand that it's all legal right?
What I have done in this app in no way allows me to get to anything the figure is not meant to have access to. There is NO WAY to use this app or any figure to view or access other figures unreleased or not or access "textures" why ever that would be an issue. Even so I have made sure not to put any editing in my app! The saves are even encrypted to prevent you hex editing the data outside the app.

Quite simply, when you BUY a Skylander, it is YOURS to do with as you wish. Viewing the data contained on it even editing the data is your right. The data is yours too, it was created by your actions in game and as such is copyrighted to you the owner of the figure and data.

Many Skylanders related apps have been pulled that were free so what surprised me is this one being openly profiting from copyright works (the images) still allowed and sold publicly on Amazon.

Nicely said. Once you have purchased a figure, you can do whatever you want with it. It's not illegal that I soldered modifications to my figure, why shouldn't i be allowed to edit it's stats?

Because the Beings-of-Avarice-who-dwell-beneath-the-Earth-and-all-that-is-light (AKA Activision) say so...

Well, I have much I could say vs what I will.

What I will say, is that don't assume they haven't received similar messages.

The data is not yours. It is limitedly licensed to you. Your app (pyrofer) uses code that required some backward engineering of the code owned by activision to write to and read from the character..

And if your so sure that this does not violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, by all means just ignore it.

Ill get the popcorn.

As for the the catalog app, Im sure theyll eventually get around to it. im surprised they havnt published their own cat app yet.

Xerxxees- did you ever obtain any kind of permission? I had the impression that you had, since your app has outlasted all the others.

yeah because stealing images off webpages and then putting together an android app to sell with the data and images you've stolen off other websites definitely violating copyright laws
is totally okay compared to:
reading the data thats on the figure that youve paid for, for the game you paid for, for the purpose of saving the data you own so you don't lose it if something breaks in the game (broken character screen?) for free and for benefit of the owner of the toys.

uh.. so... yeah..

the bad guy is the one whos making money off it.

btw, the the skylander figures, the data on them, you own the whole thing. you arent licensed the toy. once you bought it its yours. and does the DMCA cover the whole world?

sorry for the multiple edits i cant seem to spell well tonight.

Just to point out again, the DMCA does not apply to the data on the figures, even if it did the copyright would be yours and even if it wasn't the DMCA ALLOWS for accessing that data for interoperability with other software.
I wrote this in detail in the thread about my app, three times covered legally.
I will indeed be ignoring the take down as I know it is rubbish.
Activision know it is rubbish too or I would have received some kind of formal letter/email/contact from them by now.
I contacted them and gave them my email and asked them to contact me. They didn't.

That says all I need to know.

Quote: Sickboy1138

Xerxxees- did you ever obtain any kind of permission? I had the impression that you had, since your app has outlasted all the others.

No, I haven't. I've been going back and forth with a company that handles intellectual property rights for them trying to understand what is and isn't allowed. I'm waiting to hear back.

They've been very cool about it though at least.

This will get pulled. The only app for Skylanders that's not on the endangered list are the ones they don't know about yet.

But since Activision trolls here silently, I'm sure legal is earning their Monday morning coffee taking care of this.

If they actually put out their own app for people to track their collections, most of these other apps wouldn't exist...

I think I actually use that app, and it was well worth the money. The guy updates it every other week, and it’s got a nice range of display options.
I don’t mind paying due to the regularity of the updates – he clearly puts a lot of work into keeping it current.

As for copyright… you know, I’m not sure the catalogue app could be shut down. Technically, it’s not illegal to take photos of your own property and display it however you’d like. And you’re paying for a listing app, not the photos, so I think he can avoid ‘da lawyers’ (as long as he keeps using photos of private property and not proprietary art work).
If it is the same one I use, the guy is careful to NOT use the Skylanders font and he avoids private artwork (even the title-screen of the app uses toy photos)

As for why Pyrofer’s app got slammed – well, that’s messing with Activision’s software, and those rules are very different to rules around physical property. Activision can control their proprietary software and any information around their patented techniques absolutely.
More to the point, the HAVE to. If they don’t slam Pyrofer’s app, they can lose the right to their IP for not defending it. For example, someone could make the same kind of app for sale, and when Activision tries to take it down, they can use ignoring of Pyrofer’s app as a defence. Or if some company started making knock-off RFID chips that unlock characters, that company could escape prosecution if they claim Pyrofer’s app already allowed fiddling with the RFID codes.

[quote=PunkShocker

Nicely said. Once you have purchased a figure, you can do whatever you want with it. It's not illegal that I soldered modifications to my figure, why shouldn't i be allowed to edit it's stats?[/quote]


You can do what you want with the physical item, but you can’t fiddle with proprietary technology or protected software.

Because laws.

I get the feeling nobody is actually READING those laws.

Factual information is not copyrightable. Anything generated by somebody is their copyright.
The data ON the figure, if copyrightable (which I argue it is not) would automatically be MY copyright because I created it by playing.
I have every legal right to access that information and do whatever I want with it, it's mine.

There is nothing you can do with my app, a figure or editing the figure than can in ANY way allow changing the figure type. It is not possible that data is read only and is also a custom chip that you can't buy. You cannot edit a figure or its data to make it be another figure. My app cannot do the impossible.

All it does is read and display the data you own from a storage medium you own.

Tel Prydain is right, the legally HAVE to protect their IP and failure to do so causes them problems. However, in this instance the app in no way infringes the IP.

As far as using photos of his own toys in the app, I have always argued that this is legal too and would love to see it proven in court. I doubt anybody would make enough money from an app to stand up to Activision in court though.

as far as "You can't fiddle with proprietary technology or protected software" is concerned, you can. It is enshrined in law and part of the DMCA. I have quoted if often enough and so far NOBODY appears to have read it let alone shown any reason for this not to be the case.

Simply saying "It's illegal" repeatedly doesn't make it so. How about somebody tries to show why the parts of the DMCA I have quoted are incorrect. Until that time the simple fact is, my app is completely legal.

I am surprised this app is on sale like this, but if he as the guts to tough it out, more power to him.

a lot of the people here don't understand laws, copyrights, patents, engineering (reverse or otherwise).

its easier for them to just say "that's illegal cause it just is and i'm telling" then to understand why it's not. and then pay for what they like (crappy lister apps) and condemn what they don't understand. a program for saving and restoring data you own.

the problems with this way of thinking is it stops people from tinkering, stops programmers from trying new things, for fear of being sued under purposely vaguely written laws. or even just being trolled by morons.

and if i go anymore into this, i know its just going to fly over the head's of the people who say "no no, you are wrong blah blah i dont even know what im talking about, but you are still wrong."

i weep for the future.

Quote: Pyrofer

as far as "You can't fiddle with proprietary technology or protected software" is concerned, you can. It is enshrined in law and part of the DMCA. I have quoted if often enough and so far NOBODY appears to have read it let alone shown any reason for this not to be the case.

I was under the impression that the data on the chips was encrypted, so writing to the chip would require use of their proprietary encryption. If that’s not the case, then I retract my argument.
(Side note: I’m not in the USA, so laws may vary – we don’t have the DMCA, and although we are part of the WIPO’s 1996 treaties, we might have implemented them differently)

Tel, Again you are completely right. The data is encrypted.
The DMCA has a specific clause that allows the decryption of said data for software interoperability.
I don't live in the USA either however Activision are a US company and it was the US DMCA which they used to take down my app previously.
The only thing they could possibly complain about was if I was publishing or sharing the encryption key, or even including it in my App.
I don't, aren't and won't.
The app does not contain the key. The user is required to find that online (it was previously leaked by somebody else) and enter it into the app.
So again, legal, legal, legal.

Huh. Okay, that's a bit... unexpected.
I mean - prompting people to find the key themselves is a bit of a loophole - but it's the same one the the emulators use (making you download a ROM yourself) and they seem to dodge the issue okay.

So what are they complaining about? Like... using copyrighted names, or something?

Quote: Pyrofer

I get the feeling nobody is actually READING those laws.

Of course the people here aren't reading or researching the actual laws. This is just an online fan-forum. No one is arguing a case in front of a judge. Why should anyone here actually be expected to have a basic understanding of the concepts they're trying to discuss? Just form a very basic viewpoint based off of no research and gut instinct, repeat it several times, call anyone who disagrees with you names and talk down to them, and ignore every piece of evidence provided that disagrees with your per-formed opinion.

Isn't that what normal, well-adjusted adults do?

Quote: UncleBob

Quote: Pyrofer

I get the feeling nobody is actually READING those laws.

Of course the people here aren't reading or researching the actual laws. This is just an online fan-forum. No one is arguing a case in front of a judge. Why should anyone here actually be expected to have a basic understanding of the concepts they're trying to discuss? Just form a very basic viewpoint based off of no research and gut instinct, repeat it several times, call anyone who disagrees with you names and talk down to them, and ignore every piece of evidence provided that disagrees with your per-formed opinion.

Isn't that what normal, well-adjusted adults do?

Divide by zero... uh oh...

Sadly UncleBob this is the way of the internet, *sigh*.

I try to educate instead of just argue, but when people don't learn it's frustrating.

"So what are they complaining about? Like... using copyrighted names, or something?"

That is the point, they are not complaining about anything! They just took it down without reason. Using the names is allowed. You are allowed to use names to refer to objects or this whole website would be in breach.
I expect if you used the names in your own game or on your own figures you would get in trouble, but using the name to refer to their figure is fine or how would anybody ever talk about them!

While prompting people to find the key themselves is using a "loophole" it IS one that exists. Without that key there is nothing wrong with my app. I also argue that even WITH that key the app is legal for many reasons but chose to do it this way just in case.

Fingers crossed it remains up this time.