Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Legel Smegal

I've tried to e-mail everyone that wanted a copy of my program. If I missed someone leave a comment or send me a message at "mtgrares yahoo com" I'll try to post something new on Mondays.

No news is good news and I haven't heard anything from Sourceforge. I followed the guidelines, https://sourceforge.net/docs/H10/, and I sent a counter-notification to SourceForge (I want to call then SourceFrog for some reason). I haven't heard anything back from them yet.


Below is the badly formatted DCMA notice that I received. The original notice was sent to SourceForge and then they forwarded it to me.


Hello,

My name is Jacob Moorman; I am the Director of Operations for
SourceForge.net. You are receiving this mail because you are the
project administrator of the 'mtgforge' project, hosted by you on
SourceForge.net. We have recently received the following (forwarded)
DMCA request from the complainant (CC'd).

When cases like this arise, we always expeditiously forward the mail to
the project admin. Please review this message carefully and follow-up
as needed.

Following the DMCA requirements we have disabled public access to the
SourceForge.net-hosted space provided to your project.


You can read the specifics about our DMCA compliance in our Terms and
Conditions of Use page:
https://sourceforge.net/tos/tos.php#allegations_of_copyright_infringement_or_trademark_infringement



You can read our DMCA policy, including instructions for
counter-notification at:
https://sourceforge.net/docs/H10/


Thank you for your prompt attention to this serious matter.

Sincerely,

Jacob Moorman

CC: SourceForge legal
CC: Savvis (SourceForge.net datacenter provider)



Begin forwarded message:

> *From: *"Copyright@savvis.net "
> >
> *Date: *November 16, 2007 11:47:17 AM GMT-05:00
> *To: * >,
> >, > >,
>
> *Cc: *"Copyright@savvis.net "
> >
> *Subject: **Sourceforge - Savvis Case 1152152 - DMCA Notice -
> 66.35.250.203 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtgforge*
>
> Dear Administrator:
> SAVVIS has received notice that an IP address (see below) under your
> administrative control is distributing copyrighted works in violation

> of United States law, specifically, 17USC512 et seq., also known as
> the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
> Please note that this activity is both illegal and in violation of
the
> SAVVIS Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP"), a copy of which may be reviewed

> at http://www.savvis.net/Customer/aup.html.
> Be advised that the DMCA places very stringent requirements on
SAVVIS,
> as the upstream provider, and that failure to resolve this issue in a

> timely manner could result in the termination of services to
offending
> IP's or sites. SAVVIS follows the DMCA time requirements very
> strictly: this issue must be resolved within 7 days of this notice to

> avoid active intervention under DMCA.
> If you require any assistance in resolving this, or any other SAVVIS
> security issue, please do not hesitate to contact me at any of the
> below points of contact.
> Sincerely,
> Jason R. Bradley GSEC
> Security/Abuse Engineer
> SAVVIS Security Services (S3)
> SAVVIS Communications
> 1 Savvis Parkway
> St. Louis, MO 63017
> 314-628-7821 - Desk
> 314.628.7050 - Fax
> **This message contains information which may be confidential and/or
> privileged. Unless you are the intended recipient (or authorized to
> receive for the intended recipient), you may not read, use, copy or
> disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the
> message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the

> sender by reply e-mail at copyright@savvis.net
> and delete the message and any
> attachment(s) thereto without retaining any copies.**
>
> ************ORIGINAL COMPLAINT(S) BELOW*************
>
>
> *From:* Reynolds, Carin [mailto:cgreynolds@pbwt.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, November 16, 2007 10:01 AM
> *To:* Copyright@savvis.net
> *Subject:* DMCA Notice - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtgforge
>
>
> November 16, 2007
>
> *_By Email_*
> copyright@savvis.net
>
> DMCA Designated Agent
> SAVVIS Communications Corporation
> One SAVVIS Parkway
> Town & Country, Missouri 63017
>
> *Re: DMCA Notice – **http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtgforge*
>
> *_Infringement of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Copyrights and
Trademarks_*
>
> Dear Copyright Agent:
>
> We are counsel for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (“Wizards”), the
owner
> of the copyrights and trademarks to the MAGIC: THE GATHERING®
trading
> card game. We recently became aware that you are the service
provider
> for www.sourceforge.net , which has
posted
> an online version of Wizards’ MAGIC: THE GATHERING® trading card
game
> at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtgforgecalled “MTG Forge”
(“MTG”
> is a commonly used acronym for MAGIC: THE GATHERING®). The “MTG
> Forge” game is described as “a robust Java implementation of card
game
> Magic The Gathering that enforces the rules.” We have attempted
> repeatedly to contact the owner of this site, but have received no
> response and the infringing game has not yet been removed.
>
> This unauthorized copying of Wizards’ MAGIC: THE GATHERING®
trading
> card game constitutes copyright infringement in violation of 17
U.S.C.
> § 501. The unauthorized use of the MAGIC: THE GATHERING® name
> violates the federal trademark laws, including 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114(1)

> and 1125(a), by creating a likelihood of confusion with respect to
> Wizards’ authorization or sponsorship of or association with the
“MTG
> Forge” trading card game and the sourceforge.net website. This
> unauthorized use of the MAGIC: THE GATHERING® trademark is also
likely
> to dilute its distinctive quality in violation of 15 U.S.C. §
1125(c)
> and the anti-dilution laws of numerous states.
>
> Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), we
have a
> good faith belief that the “MTG Forge” game identified above
infringes
> Wizard’s copyrights and other intellectual property rights, and is
not
> authorized by Wizards or its agents. We are authorized to act on
> Wizards’ behalf regarding these matters. The information provided
in
> this communication is accurate to the best of my knowledge and is
> provided under penalty of perjury.
>
> On behalf of Wizards, we therefore request that you act promptly to
> remove or disable access to the infringing “MTG Forge” game from
the
> sourceforge.net website*.*
>
> This letter does not purport to be a complete statement of the facts
> or the law and is without prejudice to Wizards’ legal and equitable

> rights.
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Carin G. Reynolds, Esq.
> *Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP*
> 1133 Avenue of the Americas
> New York, NY 10036-6710
>
> /tel/: 212.336.2104
> /fax/: 212.336.2277
> cgreynolds@pbwt.com
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message.
If you are not
> the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery
of the message to
> such person), you may not copy or deliver this message to anyone. In
such case, you
> should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply
email. Please advise
> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email
for messages of this
> kind.
>
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> IRS Circular 230 disclosure: Any tax advice contained in this
communication (including
> any attachments or enclosures) was not intended or written to be
used, and cannot be
> used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal
Revenue Code or (ii)
> promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction
or matter addressed
> in this communication. (The foregoing disclaimer has been affixed
pursuant to U.S.
> Treasury regulations governing tax practitioners.)
>
>
==============================================================================
>
>
> This message contains information which may be confidential and/or
> privileged. Unless you are the intended recipient (or authorized to
> receive for the intended recipient), you may not read, use, copy or
> disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the
> message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the

> sender by reply e-mail and delete the message and any attachment(s)
> thereto without retaining any copies.

--
Jacob Moorman
Director of Operations, SourceForge.net
jmoorman@corp.sourceforge.com
moorman@sourceforge.net

**************************************************************************
This email may contain confidential and privileged material for the
sole
use of the intended recipient. Any review or distribution by others is
strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient,
please contact the sender and delete all copies.
***************************************************************************

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a fucking absurd. Those bastards profit millions of dollares each years, exploring young people and "forcing" them to buy new sets of cards everytime.
It's hard to see how your program violates or distribute the magic card game...
I've stopped buying cards at urzas set, year ago, and I'll never buy that again. The game still rules, anyways =)

Thanks again for the excellent work!

Anonymous said...

Goddamn, "badly formatted" dosent cover it. Could you at least remove the double-spaces?

Anyway, whats this?
"We have attempted repeatedly to contact the owner of this site, but have received no response and the infringing game has not yet been removed".
Forge, you got some 'splaining to do.

Anonymous said...

"This email may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review or distribution by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and delete all copies."

Wait, what?!
You might want to find a legal-question IRC channel before you do anything else. "#help" on irc.efnet.net looks like a decent bet, even though they're general purpose.

Unknown said...

Reading through it gave me a headache >_< (badly formatted text + legal crap = headache)

Anyway, they make me laugh a bit. (or not...)

"We have attempted repeatedly to contact the owner of this site, but have received no response and the infringing game has not yet been removed."

Yeah right, they sure tried hard to contact you...! >_> Bullshit -_-

Forge said...

Sorry for the badly formatting. This blogger only likes plain text. On the editing screen it only showed 1 blank line but when I publish it, it has 2 blank lines, go figure.

And no they repeatedly DID NOT e-mail me anything. Lets face it, I respend to everyone's e-mail personally.

Thanks for the comments, Forge

Anonymous said...

If WotC is too lazy or ignorant to make a program that I can actually run on my computer I personally can't see how they can, in good conscience, send a DMCA notice to someone who is doing the work they should be doing.