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FIRST-RACING ASKS FEDERAL COURT TO STOP MISGUIDED “MODDER” FROM PUBLISHING SOFTWARE CODE PROTECTED BY U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW
Company Developing Racing Simulations based on NASCAR© 2003 Asks Judge to Protect Their Intellectual Property from Hacking and Illegal Publishing
BOSTON, MASS. (March 23, 2005) - A small company designing a sophisticated new simulation for auto racing enthusiasts today filed a complaint here asking a U.S. District Court to stop a misguided “modder” from publishing confidential software code in violation of U.S. copyright law.
FIRST-Racing.net said modders - people who modify racing simulation software to create new cars, tracks or other features - had been posting on the Internet for download computer applications that created unlicensed derivative versions of the popular NASCAR© 2003 simulation. FIRST-Racing.net, based in Bedford, Mass, owns all right, title and interest to the simulation and is working to create the next generation of racing simulations.
The company has been asking modders to stop creating unauthorized versions of the racing simulation. FIRST plans to launch a Website that offers the racing community an opportunity to create original content, share it with others and derive benefit from their creations. While most modders cooperated, one threatened to publish the software source or object code as a way of forcing the company to allow him to continue his illegal activities.
This week, the company filed a complaint against Timothy McArthur of Concord, California, asking the court to stop McArthur from making good on his threat. The company asked the court for a temporary restraining order, expedited discovery and an order preventing McArthur from destroying documents relevant to his illegal activities.
“We’re passionate about racing and passionate about computers. We love figuring out how something works, and we respect the work of modders, who are creative and skilled,” said Dave Kaemmer, President of FIRST-Racing. “But we also respect the laws that provide protection for the work of creative people. Such laws allow us to benefit from our work and create the high-quality simulations that people love.”
Kaemmer, recognized as the father of simulated racing since he developed his first racing simulation nearly two decades ago, now leads a team of about 15 artists, engineers and production people who are “creating a new community for racers, sim racers and modders.”
“We hope this issue will be resolved quickly so we can return to the business of producing the best racing simulation ever created,” he said.
FIRST-Racing sued McArthur to bring an end to his abuse of FIRST’s copyrights and to ensure that the company will be able to distribute new and improved versions of its racing simulation software. Among other things, FIRST alleges that McArthur violated the NASCAR© 2003 End User License Agreement and U.S. copyright law when he reverse-engineered the game to publish to “tens of thousands” over the Internet an application that creates one or more unlicensed versions of NASCAR© 2003. McArthur has repudiated FIRST’s requests that he discontinue using his physics models, derived by violating FIRST’s copyrights.
FIRST’s attorney, Irwin Schwartz, noted that Federal district courts recently considered very similar misconduct in the case, Davidson & Assoc., Inc. v. Internet Gateway, Inc. In that case, defendants hacked Blizzard games to permit multiplayer access over an alternative to Blizzard’s Battle.net server.
“The court made short work of the defendants’ fair use and other arguments and found that the hacker defendants violated the End User License Agreement and U.S. Copyright and Trademark laws in making available ways for players to by-pass the methodology included in the original game,” Schwartz said. “We hope for a similar response from the court to our request.”
For additional information on the case, visit here.
Posted on 03/23 at 11:54 PM
FIRST-Racing.net Letter to the community
This is an open letter to all who love sim racing to present our point of view on some recent controversies and answer some questions raised by the community.
FIRST-Racing.net was formed after Vivendi Universal Games shut down Papyrus, the company that I founded, for those new to sim racing. Fortunately, I found a dedicated partner in John Henry and together, we were able to purchase all right, title and interest to NASCAR© 2003 from Vivendi. Our goal was to produce the most realistic auto racing simulations ever conceived and the first step required that we pay a significant sum of money to Vivendi for the rights to the existing game. Now, we are investing millions of dollars more to develop a product which we hope will be enjoyed by longtime simracers as well as those new to this sport. The market for our product is relatively small which makes the investment more risky. But our FIRST-Racing.net team is committed to making these sims a reality. For more than 18 years, creating auto racing sims has been my passion and it continues to be.
The work we’ve created is protected by copyright. But why do such laws exist? Without laws protecting intellectual property, the product of creative minds, there would be very little music, literature, movies or software. Without the protections offered by these laws, musicians, authors, actors, directors and companies like movie studios and software developers would be unable to see a return on their investment. There would be far less incentive to sink considerable time and money into creative pursuits, like our sims. For sure, neither GPL nor NASCAR© 2003 would have been made. FIRST-Racing.net has made, and continues to make, substantial investments in producing what we believe will be the most realistic auto racing simulation ever made. But we cannot continue to do so if others unauthorized activities erode the value of our software.
We are passionate about our sims and committed to our community of users who are expecting us to come up with the quality of experience they want. We will not allow people who insist on violating laws protecting intellectual property to prevail. It would be a disservice to both our own efforts and, more importantly, our users. I found most members of the sim racing community very gracious and understanding in cooperating with our efforts to protect our work. We appreciate it and respect their passion, creativity and skill. In our future product, we plan to provide a mechanism for these people to benefit from the fruits of their labors.
For the one or two others who have continued to hack our software and threaten to do worse, we are asking the courts to help us defend our intellectual property. We are confident that we’ll prevail.
We will not tolerate the violation of our intellectual property rights, including the hacking of our executables, distribution of hacked executables, creating tools intended to hack our executables or distribution of such tools.
We ask the community to be patient as we develop what is going to be a great new simulation that provides the community with opportunities to create content. We are hopeful that the recent legal issues will be resolved quickly so we can return to the business of producing the best racing simulation ever created and working with a mod community that I admire for its passion, commitment and technical expertise. It is a privilege to produce games for this community.
Dave Kaemmer
Posted on 03/23 at 11:51 PM