RevEng Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 ...I was unable to find an active word mark for "Atari 2600". The original mark was active from January 17, 1989 to July 24, 1995... One can get and maintain a trademark through consistent trade with the mark. Similar to copyright, official registration isn't required, it just makes proof of ownership easier in court. ...Can't someone get this Slashdotted... The best approach to this would be for someone to write an article, opinion piece, or summary of what happened, rather than directing them to a bunch of forum posts. Or perhaps pps could submit an "Ask Slashdot" question, asking what he should do. If Atari clarifies their position and it becomes apparent they're overreaching copyright or trademark law, I think the EFF would become interested. Especially if multiple people receive these garbage letters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Interestingly, as far as domain name fair-use goes, there's the fairly famous precedent of walmartsucks.org. But, guess where atarisucks.org lands you! Cheers A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reaperman Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 I don't know how many of us there are, or how tight money is, but do we need to start a defense fund up for this kind of thing? I'm good for a few bucks, and while it won't be nearly enough, at least we can take some of the sting out of this, and maybe provide enough to get a generic response letter put together that our community can use both now and in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amstari Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Andrew, are you able to say why the thread about your domain was deleted? Per my request. I wanted to further consider my position privately. Cheers A No worries. I was just curious if it had been a voluntary decision or if you had been forced to do it for legal reason. All the best with it all. I hope this doesn't change your mind about making more games for the 2600. The real Atari is the community not the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 I hope this doesn't change your mind about making more games for the 2600. The real Atari is the community not the company. Thank goodness I didn't get that Fuji tattoo I was considering! I suspect Boulder Dash® will be the last game/engine/system I ever write on the 2600... the hobby appears to me to be dying. Only 200 downloads *total* for the demo? How sad... 6 years of work. I doubt I could sell 250 copies even if I wanted to. Time to move on...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Could well be that someone else is hosting it too. Remember when Curt released the source listings for selected A8 and 7800 games? All of a sudden, at least 2 other places hosted it (without asking), and one even tried to claim that they had the "exclusive". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+pboland Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Andrew, are you able to say why the thread about your domain was deleted? Per my request. I wanted to further consider my position privately. Cheers A Thanks for the update. That explains it all. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 I'm the owner of atari2600.org -- I registered the domain on 05-Sep-2000 and have had it ever since. Over a decade. If you have to hand over the domain, I would at least expect some financial compensation for all those years and cost you had to make to look after and take care of "their" precious domain name Robert I thought companies couldn't force you to "hand over" a registered domain name that you own, as long as you keep renewing it? Otherwise, what would be the point of all those scammers who register umpteen zillion domain names that are nearly identical to every existing company's official domain name so they can try to get the company to buy domain names from them? Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 (edited) Ok, I have submitted to slashdot so it will be up to people to bump it enough so it gets listed.., see atariuser.blogspot.com for the article. Edited August 22, 2011 by svenski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 (edited) If you say so ... No, I know so. This isn't speculation, Curt and I were still working with them as recent January. Jim Wilson is running the show there. Maybe you're just not familiar with our background? Check out who are the important people driving the business and tell why the 1st language for the business site is French. You're probably going to an old link. The current corporate address is: http://www.atari.com/corporate Atari.com is an english site first, I know the people that code it in Los Angeles. You're probably getting confused by the setting in the accessibility bar at the very top where you can save your location and language and have the pages appear translated accordingly. Likewise, you're confusing the board (which is multinational and not composed entirely of Atari people) with Atari SA's management itself. My personal experiences during the 2008 Games Convention confirm exactly that. Lol, you're basing it off of a game show you went to? Really? The entire thing is run by Jim Wilson in Los Angeles, that's where the board moved to as well. Any of the other Atari's world wide were either shut down or severely marginalized, even Atari Inc. in New York has only a handful of people combined with Atari Interactive (which is where Atari's legal group is as well). Even all the separate international forum sites have all been condensed to the one English one. They keep a small office in France purely to stay listed on the stock exchange there, but there's nothing else there. To my opinion all of Infogrames' changes to become ATARI as a US based company is reasoned by business and tax issues. There was never an intention to fill the brand name with new life. Nope, it's because that's where most of the business was going through, likewise they were seeking at the time to have Cryptic take over much of it's daily staff operations. None of the company, including Atari Inc., is what it was even 5 years ago. The core still is Infogrames. Nope. Anything that was Infogrames is long long gone, the staff and management at all the different groups has long since change over - many times over. A clever company would do different in caring for the fan community and develop this cleverly as a pillar of biz. Especially when it comes to smart phones and tablets. I don't disagree with that. I haven't been happy with the product output either. Edited August 22, 2011 by wgungfu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Ok, it's on slashdot people. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Ok, it's on slashdot people. You beat me to it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 I'm the owner of atari2600.org -- I registered the domain on 05-Sep-2000 and have had it ever since. Over a decade. I used it to demonstrate and share my software efforts on the machine. Generally, freely downloadable demos and videos of work-in-progress. If you have a look at the site on the wayback machine you'll clearly see that I've never associated it with the Atari company, used their logo, nor have I implied any endorsement by them. Like I'd want to. It's simply a hobbyist site which was used for a while to promote Qb, then as a placeholder for the [stella] mailing list, and more recently it's hosted some videos of my latest 2600 efforts. One of the comments on Slashdot asks if atari2600.org is a real site, since there isn't really any content at the default page. I don't agree - there's the DASM pages - but I could see where someone might buy the argument that you aren't presently using the domain. It might serve your case better to use the site to host a small write-up on your many contributions to the scene, or even just your quote above that states the purpose of the site and it's historic significance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Yeah, but there are replies like: I have been told that he removed a bunch a content after getting the C&D. which is true. I noticed over 100 guests at one point in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 slowly going off Atari, where's my C128 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 (edited) Yeah, but there are replies like: I have been told that he removed a bunch a content after getting the C&D. which is true. I noticed over 100 guests at one point in this thread. Ever wonder why there are so many people always on the 'backs' and doesn't show their Names... some 'Banned' people probably... but now there are 60 of those here and there's not seems to be 60 'Banned' guys around... Or there is? Probably one of them are from A... Inc. Edited August 22, 2011 by José Pereira Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mckafka99 Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 I hope my feelings are a bit over reactive, but I get a sinking feeling from all of this that this could be the end of an era for the Atari community that has been keeping the spirit alive on the Internet for so many years. I can still recall the first time I ever accessed the Internet (over a decade ago) and one of the first things I looked up was 'Atari' and how exciting it was to see so many sites dedicated to all things Atari. The Internet has brought together Atari fans from all over the world. It would be a shame to see the Atari community splintered because of this. One can only hope that at least this site stays around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Wolfe Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 I think it is important for anyone following this thread to write letters of protest about the way this is being handled by Atari legal... be polite but stern. This is an attack on a hobby and it is tantamount to book burning in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 I just copied a huge Atari logo onto my car (BMW 750i) and I'm gonna drive through Europe tomorrow. I'm waiting for you, Kristen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fibrewire Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Who the hell posted on /. ??? Anyway, isn't this a dead horse already? Nothing to see here... All you /.ers can go home now... or subscribe to AA **secretly to other REAL AtariAge members** WTF are we gonna do to cover up the real stuff we don't want the rest of the world attracting attention to? Hopefully all of our "infringing" AA history stored in our threads don't just.. disappear... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Well, that was another great post from fibrewire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littleman jack Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 I hope this doesn't change your mind about making more games for the 2600. The real Atari is the community not the company. Thank goodness I didn't get that Fuji tattoo I was considering! I suspect Boulder Dash® will be the last game/engine/system I ever write on the 2600... the hobby appears to me to be dying. Only 200 downloads *total* for the demo? How sad... 6 years of work. I doubt I could sell 250 copies even if I wanted to. Time to move on...? Andrew, please don't stop programming for the 2600. Your Qb and Christmas Qb are two of my favorite 2600 titles. I play them on a regular basis. Boulder Dash just might not be to everyone's fancy. I assure you, that if you make a variety of titles, they will appeal to a variety of people. Another factor might be that many people prefer carts to roms and emulators. Once Boulder Dash is on cart, in the store, it might sell more than you think, especially around Christmas. You are a great programmer and a great asset to the Atari hobby community. Please don't give up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fibrewire Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Well, that was another great post from fibrewire. Well, considering it's game over since it was /.ed, Infogrammes HAS to respond - else they are accepting the defamation of character from hearsay from an angry mob at ./ and now AA. Even if AA gives a formal apology for getting involved, Infogrammes can just bludgeon AA to death with legal fees and court costs. Should have just left this one alone, unless AA really has reason to attack Infogrammes for wrongful accusation of theft. I just hope something happens soon, best to get over the loss of information at AtariAge already, as the darkness looms on the horizon. Where's that backup system??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 I hope this doesn't change your mind about making more games for the 2600. The real Atari is the community not the company. Thank goodness I didn't get that Fuji tattoo I was considering! I suspect Boulder Dash® will be the last game/engine/system I ever write on the 2600... the hobby appears to me to be dying. Only 200 downloads *total* for the demo? How sad... 6 years of work. I doubt I could sell 250 copies even if I wanted to. Time to move on...? Hmm - in my case, I didn't know you had released that demo - I thought work stopped on it years ago. I'll check it out and add one more to your count Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 You are talking complete bullcrap fibrewire, and your comments are plain stupid and unhelpful. AA has nothing to do with this, certainly isn't "involved" and doesn't owe anyone an apology. AA hasn't attacked anyone , let alone "infogrammes". The analogy is maybe a bit harsh, but look what happened with the Nazis. People tried to ignore them, people tried to be nice to them, and look how that ended up. You just stick your head up your ass because it doesn't affect you personally. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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