White House removes ‘Build the Wall’ game from website after Tetris company posts copyright warning
NBC News
White House removes ‘Build the Wall’ game from website after Tetris posts warning
The White House unveiled a series of MAGA-themed video games last week that mirror popular games.
I want healthcare and food.
Sorry we only have money for killing brown children and propaganda
We give money to the billionaire job-creator class so they can create jobs, dodge taxes and fuck kids.
Not true. We also apparently have McDonalds money.
The government doesn’t care what you want. Politicians only care about themselves, which is why we need to make sure that they’re only safe and happy when we’re safe and happy.
I agree and this reminds me of what happened in Sri Lanka:
"On July 9, 2022, thousands of protesters stormed the official residence of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo, known as Temple Trees, following months of civil unrest over the nation’s severe economic crisis. Demonstrators broke through police barricades and tear gas, flooding the colonial-era palace, swimming in its pool, and occupying its offices while chanting slogans against the leadership"
They stormed their politicians house. They had no power in their homes and when they stormed the Presidents place they found they had power and the aircons are all on and all this expensive stuff around the house. It was disgusting to see the president using aircons and spending money on material things when his people are in an economic crisis. It was a breath of fresh air to see people doing something about the incompetence of their leaders. The rest of us need to do the same.
No shit its fuck up our government is running a website with propaganda games. Beyond the pale the amount of 30% of country will continue to accept.
My kids have blown anxiety that we all learned the world is run by baby raping pedophiles but we are expecting to continue to go to work and school as if this is all normal. I am just fucking done and wondering when we going revolt. What will it take?
We see you. We hear you.
releases shitty knockoffs of Dr. Mario and BurgerTime
Best I can do is you can have $1tn defence freedom budget and $5000 if the reps win the midterms
Yeah, but almost definitely not the latter
10 millions points required
Why didn’t Nintendo sue over those videos of ICE “catching them all” with the Pokémon anime theme over it.
Maybe they are working on it. First a cease and desist letter. If they do not comply or respond, then collecting evidence, preparing an attack. This is not a small company they would sue against, and Nintendo does not want to lose it. It takes time.
I sure hope so. Last night I also saw an Ocarina of Time rip off, complete with Zelda music, saying something outrageously wrong like “Trump is working hard…” Not that I waa gonna buy the OoT remake anyway, but I’m definitely going to be pissed if they let that shit slide after everything they’ve done to the world of emulation.
Nintendo is also fascist
[deleted]
Oh no, someone pirated a copy of a video game that I made in the 80’s that isn’t being sold on any platform anymore. My family will starve!
“let” me steal video games? rofl
Mother fucker, do you think I ask Nintendo permission before I emulate their shit?
In most cases you have the right to emulate if you own the original game or a licence to play it (so if you have it on Steam you technically can).
Otherwise, sail the high seas at your own risks, but law won’t be on your side.
Note : my own opinion is that as soon as the game isn’t distributed anymore, you have the right (sometime the duty) to emulate, even it it means pirating it. But that’s only my opinion 😉.
Isn’t that literally codified in many legal jurisdictions? If it’s not available through any legal avenue, it’s totally fine to pirate, as it is no longer a commercial entity with commercial protections.
[deleted]
Music rights are notoriously convoluted. It’s possible that TPCI doesn’t even own the theme anymore. (Or might not have to begin with. Believe it or not, that happens sometimes.) They’d probably be all over this if they did.
The thing that annoys me the most about this website is that the base idea is cool. A website where kids can play free browser games that are either artistically or gameplay-wise connected to government. Like if they were the kind of games you’d play in a civics class to have fun while you learn about how the government runs and functions. Instead this idea is being ruined by making it partisan and reprehensible
Easier to spread hatred through games. Subliminal indoctrination.
And blatantly racist!
I could envision some games. Say, a “Theme Polling” game, where you have to build and manage polling sites, giving people enough water, processing ballots, staffing, and so forth. A “Mail, Please” game, where we handle the mail and send it to the right places on time.
Maybe license Factorio or hire the devs, so that kids can get an idea of what goes into supply chains.
Exactly! It could’ve been so cool!
I hope these games are preserved by archivists. Not because I care about the game content itself, but for history.
yeah it’s good to have them to document just how absurdly dumb these years were when the orange was in office
Me too. History will try to rewrite all this hatred and make him look like fucking superman.
More circus to distract the masses
How is there a Tetris Company that owns the rights to this? Hasn’t the actual creator of the game never gotten anything for it?
Yes, the rights went back to Alexey Pajitnov many years ago. IIRC, he set up the Tetris Company to hold the rights.
Ah, I never looked this up. Didn’t know he was the person who created the Company. That’s nice.
TACOtris!
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Taron Egerton is going to have to reprise his role as Henk Rogers in…
Tetris II: Blocking The Whitehouse
I can’t believe they posted a Tetris clone to begin with.
Tetris is a game where the perfection is taken away from you. You will only be left with your mistakes, mistakes that haunt you and which keep piling up when pressure increases and it just keeps happening until you lose. You are left with an imperfect wall.
Also it’s a game from Russia.
So, definitely a metaphor for the Trump administration and the border wall.
should be hosting WHeres epstein’s perpetrators game.
Pussies.
I am curious to know what exactly the copyright infringement was? There are a vast myriad of Tetris clones, none of which the Tetris Company have taken down. Copyright isn’t something you can pick and choose when to enforce it, copyright holders are legally obligated to enforce it on every infringement, or they lose the copyright. Was the game using Tetris IP music or something?
This is a myth. You're thinking of trademark genericization, but even that can only happen in very extreme cases.
I thought that was exactly how copyright works. It is infeasible to keep track of every infringement, so a policy like that is unenforceable.
Also its not out of the question that those myriad of tetris clones each secured some sort of agreement with the tetris company.
Apparently, the Tetris Company is a copyright troll / vexatious litigant.
According to Tetris Holdings LLC v Xio Interactive, the 10x20 play area and block shapes are somehow copyrighted, despite these being argued as public domain previously.
Therefore all Tetris clones are somehow illegal. Absolutely insane.
Even crazier is Tetris Company somehow owns a copyright on the Russian folk song that was used for the original game in the video game market. Somehow, using that old, public domain song in any video game is infringing on Tetris Holdings copyright. How is that legal? Why is such unilateral control of public domain works allowed?
Source
The answer to both is variations on public domain works can be protected by trademark and copyright. Type A isn’t Korobeiniki, it’s a new work. It’s the same reason why Disney’s Snow White is protected by copyright (for a little while longer, anyway), but the original work it is based on is not.
You want this kind of protection. Otherwise works would effectively be held by the original artists in perpetuity, as a lack of protection even after they enter the public domain chills any investment in variation on those works that might lead to significant cultural impact.
I encourage you to read up on the basics and the reasons why these laws exist in the first place. This sort of thing is how we end up with misinformation like “piracy is legal if you own the original game” and “it’s 100% legal to jailbreak a video game console.”
That’s why DMCA takedowns exist, even automated after an Ai recognizes a song in example. As this has some bad side effects in an automated process or even persons and companies misusing it either willingly or by not understanding, it will remain a problem. DMCA exists because it is unfeasable to keep track of every infringement, and an instant action is taken just in case it is true.
A problem with DMCA is that it runs opposite of the rest of the legal system. DMCA takedowns operate on a guilty until proven innocent priniciple. This might be manageable if there were consequences for abusing the takedown system.
I agree with you 100%. I just brought it up, because it proves that there needs to be a solution to the problem and this is an attempt to solve the issue (at least somewhat). I am not an advocate for DMCA system, because it is misused easily.
[deleted]