CBS Shuts Down Stage 9, a Fan-Made Recreation of the USS Enterprise (torrentfreak.com) 209
An anonymous reader writes: For those unfamiliar with the project, Stage 9 is a beautiful virtual recreation of the Enterprise ship from Star Trek: The Next Generation for Windows, Mac and Linux. More experience than game, Stage 9 was built by fans over two years in the Unreal Engine. "There were two things that we were always pretty careful with," says project leader 'Scragnog'. "We made it as clear as we possibly could that this was NOT an officially licensed project. We had no affiliation with CBS or Paramount and the IP we were trying our hardest to treat with respect was not our own. We were fans, just creating fan art."
In an announcement this week, Scragnog reminded fans that no one involved in the project was in it for any financial reason and everyone was well aware that throwing money into the mix could be a problem. However, the team says it has always known that they could be shut down at any time on the whim of a license holder because in this world, that's what can happen. Unfortunately, that day has come all too soon for the impressive project. Stage 9 was hit with an intellectual property complaint from CBS just over two weeks ago and has now been shut down.
"This letter was a cease-and-desist order," Scragnog explains. "Over the next 13 days we did everything we possibly could to open up a dialog with CBS. The member of the CBS legal team that issued the order went on holiday for a week immediately after sending the letter through, which slowed things down considerably."
In an announcement this week, Scragnog reminded fans that no one involved in the project was in it for any financial reason and everyone was well aware that throwing money into the mix could be a problem. However, the team says it has always known that they could be shut down at any time on the whim of a license holder because in this world, that's what can happen. Unfortunately, that day has come all too soon for the impressive project. Stage 9 was hit with an intellectual property complaint from CBS just over two weeks ago and has now been shut down.
"This letter was a cease-and-desist order," Scragnog explains. "Over the next 13 days we did everything we possibly could to open up a dialog with CBS. The member of the CBS legal team that issued the order went on holiday for a week immediately after sending the letter through, which slowed things down considerably."
That's not all they've shut down (Score:5, Interesting)
They've also shut down my desire to continue to watch Star Trek. Maybe I'll see what Picard is up to via the bay, though.
Don't want no klingons (Score:2, Insightful)
I would be happy to pay for media with no advertising.
But I refuse to pay you to sell to me.
Re:Don't want no klingons (Score:5, Informative)
Yep - after CBS started playing commercials on their streaming service within TV shows that are available over-the-air I canceled my subscription. Only got it to watch Star Trek Discovery - and honestly it was the worst Trek yet! I've been a fan since the original show originally aired! I can live without this!
Re:That's not all they've shut down (Score:4, Informative)
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To be fair Axanar was a scam. It might have been good anyway, but the guy behind it was basically using the opportunity to build himself a studio with the Kickstarter money.
There are real fan efforts out there, like Star Trek Continues, that are both excellent and done right (as a registered charity).
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They shut down my desire to watch more Star Trek a long time ago, with the "reboot" movies. But ST:D made me want to watch it even less.
The good news is that season 2 of the Orville starts in three months.
Complain to them: (Score:3, Informative)
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Wow, that's an old web site. Do you think the complaints actually go somewhere, other than /dev/null I mean?
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> Don't let the door hit you in the ass, freeloader.
Star Trek is ad supported content.
Payment avoidance has always been possible.
Re:That's not all they've shut down (Score:4, Informative)
Many people in the technical crowd, which Star Trek tends to appeal to, are willing to shell out actual real $$$ to watch their shows, but not to pay $$$ AND have to watch commercials. That's *not* payment avoidance.
Yep. We're about to let Prime expire, because the alleged two-day shipping isn't two-day if you live anywhere interesting (in this case, near Mendocino) and because Prime shows commercials. If either of those things weren't true we'd probably keep it, but... meh. Super fucking tired not just of the ads, but of how Amazon keeps showing the same completely misplaced ones over, and over, and over, and over...
Re: That's not all they've shut down (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry you can't afford to spend ten bucks a month in expedited shipping priority, and, I guess the music and movies and books they throw in for some people too.
Sorry you can't afford an email address. It would let you get a Slashdot login, so people might care about your opinions.
free advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
When will media companies figure out that fan projects are good for them? They maintain/increase interest in an IP, even when the media company is being sloppy and putting out no/terrible content.
Lucas (Score:5, Interesting)
Say what you want about Lucas, he was usually pretty cool with people doing Star Wars parodies and homages. He even voiced himself on the Robot Chicken Star Wars episode.
Re:Lucas (Score:5, Interesting)
Warner Brothers is also lenient when it comes to fan-made Babylon 5 sites. They only require we include a Trademark and Copyright notice on the bottom of the page to protect WB's IP.
Re: Lucas (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on what is on the site and what the fans added to make their creation different or transformative. For example JK Rowling sued one Harry Potter encyclopedia fan site a few years back but whole heartedly endorses two others. So she's not against fan site but why did sue that one site?
The site that was sued just quoted her book for nearly all of their articles. Many times, the articles didn't properly use quotation marks or attributions to note that the entirety of the text came from one of her books. Without any original text, it's hard to argue that that site didn't infringe. In this case, other than remaking it in another format, what original work was contributed?
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" other than remaking it in another format, what original work was contributed? "
I wonder what would have happened if the project hadn't also used the likenesses and voices of the original actors.
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Warner Brothers is also lenient when it comes to fan-made Babylon 5 sites. They only require we include a Trademark and Copyright notice on the bottom of the page to protect WB's IP.
They can be like that, since they'll never allow another official project for the rest of the lifetime of the universe.
</rant>
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You'll laugh! You'll Cry! You'll Kiss Three Bucks Goodbye!!!
In the 80s the local university would put on a free screening of Hardware Wars every year.
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Not only that, Lucasarts supplied some materials for people producing fan art (e.g. sound files for people building R2 clones), provided [essentially that no one make any money and they could change the rules later.]
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I'm shocked — shocked that the same company that cancelled the original Star Trek doesn't understand the geek market. The best thing CBS could do for Star Trek would be to sell off its interest in the series entirely.
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All the modern Star Trek shows except for the most recent stuff were produced by Paramount. CBS just distributed them.
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I liked Voyager quite a bit and always thought Enterprise was seriously underrated.
The 'In a Mirror, Darkly' episodes at the end of Enterprise's fourth season in particular were outstanding.
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Good luck with that. They have CBS All-Access subscriptions to sell.
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> the same company that cancelled the original Star Trek doesn't understand the geek market
CBS didn't cancel the original
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Yeah - I believe it was on NBC wasn't it?
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> the same company that cancelled the original Star Trek doesn't understand the geek market
CBS didn't cancel the original
D'oh! Wrong three-letter acronym.
Wait, how does CBS even have any standing to complain about this, then? I was thinking of NBC via moral rights, but CBS shouldn't have any rights whatsoever. They are just a distributor for these shows. It's Paramount's call whether to allow things like this, not CBS. They're the actual rightsholder for the show. These folks should contact Paramount and request formal permission, and then tell CBS to get bent.
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Re:free advertising (Score:5, Informative)
When will media companies figure out that fan projects are good for them?
The more successful ones have. George Lucas was always OK with fan content, even very insulting fan content. The most striking is Jim Davis, owner of possibly the most financially successful modern IP, reached out to the creator of the "Garfield without Garfield" web site and, instead of a cease and desist, said "hey, want to publish a book".
Perhaps there's a reason those just made many billions of dollars.
Marvel is aggressive in protecting trademarks, but is otherwise surprisingly OK with fan content that doesn't get in the way of their merch sales. Heck, the Comics Explained YouTube channel is exactly the sort of thing that inept IP owners (including other parts of Disney) routinely shut down, and he probably makes more money from his Patreon than Marvel does from comic book sales these days.
When fans stop paying to be treated badly. (Score:2)
When will fans stop paying for the bad treatment they receive in response?
Disney was a principal figure in a US copyright term extension (which was exported abroad), much to the chagrin of Americans and the world. Bringing this up at that time elicited some responses like one of the highly-upvoted posts in this /. thread saying they'll not buy more of the products. But when the next Star Wars work comes out, fans here who know of the role Disney played then (which people are still seeing the effects of) wil
Re:free advertising (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that is more applicable to trademarks than to copyright.
And with copyright, you can license use of your copyrighted work...and you can do it for nothing or maybe like $1, which would be good to do with some fan project like this.
If you actually sanctioned them, licensed them....you'd generate more goodwill and revenue for your commercial sales/uses of your copyrighted material.
Re: free advertising (Score:2)
No both copyright holders and trademark holders must defend their IP. The difference is trademark holders must be more active in their defense. This makes sense as it is far easier to determine at a glance if some other party might be infringing on trademarks.
With copyrights it may be harder to tell immediately whether it is a violation and courts give holders a little more leeway and time to pursue action. That however does not mean that a copyright holder can just sit on a violation. Generally, plaintiff
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If a copyright holder wants to claim damages, they can't sit on it (waiting for damages to pile up for an example of what the incentive of doing that might be.)
But you cannot lose your copyright ownership via inaction as you can trademark.
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In this case, the motivation is probably less a robotic assassin droid than it is preserving the IP to maximize the bids/fees from toy and game companies, who probably feel their chance of success is diminished (rightly or wrongly) because of reduced sale potential because, hey, some people got tuckered out wandering through that virtual ship, so are less interested in a similar official product.
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because, hey, some people got tuckered out wandering through that virtual ship, so are less interested in a similar official product.
It shouldn't need to be said, but I'll say anyway that if a game is so pathetic that its value can be reduced by a navigable model of one vessel, it had no value to begin with.
Re: free advertising (Score:2)
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You're confused about the implications of adding the word "must." It isn't true as stated.
In the case of trademark, they "must" take action or risk the right to take action against anybody. In copyright, you'd don't have to. You can still force them to stop doing it later, even if your damages have to be claimed within a reasonable time of having been damaged. And you're not restricted by that in suing somebody else for damages.
A true statement would be, "Trademark holders must defend their IP, but copyrigh
Re: free advertising (Score:5, Informative)
You are mistaken. Trademark holders do, but there is absolutely no requirement that copyright holders do likewise. At most it sitting on a known copyright infringement without taking action may limit or even entirely block the damages that the copyright holder could collect for that particular infringement, but it would not at all impact one's ability to sue for later infringements by different parties, as would be the case for not taking action on a trademark violation.
And even if this *were* being alleged to be a trademark violation, they could probably rightfully claim nominal use of the trademark and be done with it (as long as they also explicitly said that it was not endorsed by CBS or Paramount, etc).
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Hasn't been true for almost 30 years [copyright.gov], so good luck with that.
IP lawyer.
Yep, license it for 100% of the $0 profit (Score:2)
Exactly. CBS could just license the project.
Because the project is non-profit, it may be a good idea for the terms of the license to say CBS gets 100% of any profits in order to protect themselves in the future. (There are none.)
See also:
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
*Copyright* abandonment was more of a thing before the Copyright Act of 1976. Now, it requires an overt act showing intent to abandon. It's essentially the same as publishing the material under CC0 or WtfPL - explicitly allowing others to us
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Re: free advertising (Score:3)
> reasonable actions to maintain and protect their copyright.
Whether trademark or copyright, a reasonable reaction could have been to license it to them for $0 until further notice.
IIRC was the reasonable reaction of some food or beverage company a while (years) ago, but I canâ(TM)t find a reference.
Fix the laws (Score:2)
They lose the right to sue people who really rip them off (as opposed to Stage 9) unless they defend their rights across the board. I wish this law was changed.
Re:Fix the laws (Score:5, Informative)
They don't HAVE to shut everything down.
They could just GIVE STAGE 9 A CONTRACT TO SIGN, stating that they will continue to be noncommercial and that CBS owns all the rights.
So long as Stage 9 is authorized, then there is no issue with them suing other, unauthorized, people who rip them off.
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and if Stage 9 didn't agree to the terms of the contract?
Stage 9 agreeing or not agreeing would both continue to have no effect on the fact CBS is allowed to offer such a contract if they wished to do so, which was the claim being made.
So yes, if Stage 9 declined the terms of any contract, that does NOT suddenly change copyright law to make all such contracts illegal. Nor would such contracts all be illegal if Stage 9 agreed to it.
Rights holders are allowed to make whatever contract terms they want. Someone liking or disliking that has NO effect on that fact.
Wh
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Don't blame the law. They can license the trademarks with significant restrictions for $1 or similar tiny fee. Or they could officially work together. Lots of options and the law is not forcing this choice.
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That's for trademarks (Score:2)
They lose the right to sue people who really rip them off (as opposed to Stage 9) unless they defend their rights across the board. I wish this law was changed.
That's only for trademarks.
If Scragnog has called the game "StarTrek: stage 9", Paramount and CBS must show that show that they have put effort into defending their trademark otherwise they lose it and "star trek" becomes generalized (such as band-aid, velcro, thermos, dumpster, aspirin, etc. [wikipedia.org] Name that used to be brands but now just used as generic word for the category, not a specific brand-name).
Note, though, that Paramount and CBS doesn't need to *win*, they only need to *show effort*. The judge can actu
Re:That's for trademarks (Score:4, Interesting)
otherwise they lose it and "star trek" becomes generalized (such as band-aid, velcro, thermos, dumpster, aspirin, etc.
The trademark to "Aspirin" was not lost due to "generalization" in the US: it, along with the trademark to "Heroin", was lost in the Treaty of Versailles as punishment to Bayer for making chemical weapons for the Germans.
Band-Aid is still a trademark, and I wouln't bet on its lack of enforceability. Velcro is still a trademark, and they made this hilarious video [youtu.be] as part of defending it, and they definitely sue over it.
Loss of trademark due to "genericide" is incredibly rare - I think "thermos" is the only one on your list that is true.
They can say it's okay, just not ignore it (Score:2)
They could license the project, and it might be a good idea to charge $1 and put some terms on it. Since it's a non-profit project, the terms could even say CBS gets 100% of the profits (which is $0).
What they need to avoid under current law is IGNORING infringement, which would imply that they don't care about the trademarks anymore amd anyone is allowed to use them for any purpose.
"100% of the profits" (which don't exist) would also further protect CBS from a future commercial infringer trying to use this
Re: Fix the laws (Score:2)
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You are thinking of trademark law. Copyright law has no such requirement.
Trademark would not be impacted by this project because this project could reasonably claim nominal use.
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They lose the right to sue people who really rip them off (as opposed to Stage 9) unless they defend their rights across the board. I wish this law was changed.
Care to point out the exact number in title 17 of this non-existent law?
Here, this will get you started: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17 [cornell.edu]
With any luck, while searching for your non-existent law, it will have the side effect that you actually read and learn about what exactly is in copyright law.
In fact I'd like to draw your attention to chapter 1, section 106a, under "E) Transfer and Waiver"
Seems to me the law explicitly allows a waiver of rights, far from disallowing such a thing and forcing a c
Why not buy it? (Score:2)
Why not just pay the people for their contributions and buy the damn thing? It's popular. It's apparently well-made. CBS could make money from it!
Seems to work in other fields.
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That would involve having a brain. These networks don't have a clue about good Sci-Fi -- they are constantly cancelling them.
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Still Haven't Seen The New Trek (Score:2)
And I don't intend too now.
Re:Still Haven't Seen The New Trek (Score:4, Insightful)
You aren't missing anything with STD. It's crap.
The Orville is the spiritual successor to Star Trek. I originally wrote it off as a dumb Galaxy Quest show but once you get past the first 2 episodes it starts to get good.
Corporations hold culture hostage ... (Score:5, Insightful)
/s I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you that Corporations hold culture hostage!
There is something wrong when companies see fans as competition instead of free advertising.
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Re:Corporations hold culture hostage ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting point - but it was a lot more involved. IBM was just out of a years long case with the US government about them being a monopoly. They were walking on glass from that perspective. The were the 1000 lb elephant in the room - think Amazon or MS of not that long ago. They also learned a lesson from Apple and published technical schematics and the BIOS for the system! Apple didn't do that for the Mac, but had for the Apple II. Apple II was an open bus architecture - Mac not so much. IBM PC followed the open bus architecture paradigm and created a whole new industry. The clones were enabled by the concept of a Clean-room version of the BIOS becoming available. The rest as they say was history.
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They also learned a lesson from Apple and published technical schematics and the BIOS for the system! Apple didn't do that for the Mac, but had for the Apple II.
I wonder what the last marketed, mass-produced desktop computer with available schematics was. My Amigas had full schematics in the manuals...
Unfortunately IBM did (Score:2)
Did IBM throw a hissy-fit over it? Not really, and because of that the PC took off like a rocket.
I'm afraid they did. IBM sued several early PC clone makers claiming they had copied their BIOS.
It wasn't until Phoenix made a clean-room BIOS implementations that clone makers could flourish.
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Rolled-over too easily (Score:5, Interesting)
>"This letter was a cease-and-desist order,"
Most of these letters have ZERO legal weight, and get thrown-out when submitted to courts. While CBS owns the appearance of the TNG Enterprise, the law clearly allows derivative works (such as parodies and fan-inspired art).
Only a JUDGE has the power to shutdown this endeavor, not some Intern at CBS writing cut-and-paste form letters.
Re:Rolled-over too easily (Score:5, Insightful)
Hiring lawyers to go before the judge costs money and when you're doing something because you like it, spending all your money in court to fight the company that owns it isn't entirely worth it. CBS has infinite lawyer funds whereas fans don't.
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Most cease-and-desist letters go no further.
There is no lawsuit, and no need to defend yourself in court.
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If you're bankrupted for life with all wages garnished, you may wish you'd got the death penalty.
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Only a JUDGE has the power to shutdown this endeavor, not some Intern at CBS writing cut-and-paste form letters.
You say this, and yet, the project got shut down. So clearly this is incorrect.
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They VOLUNTARILY shutdown their project. They didn't have to shut it down..... not until a judge issues an official order, which did not happen in this case (there's not even a lawsuit yet). /u/stevew
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/u/stevew
Careful, you might be mistaken for rstevew
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Read what the guys said. They knew who owned the IP - and what that could mean. Once they got called on it - they folded because they do know who owns the IP. It would have been great if the company had instead licensed the name to them for a nominal fee... but they didn't want too. Fighting this was a losing proposition legally. Pissing in the wind.
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>"This letter was a cease-and-desist order,"
Most of these letters have ZERO legal weight, and get thrown-out when submitted to courts. While CBS owns the appearance of the TNG Enterprise, the law clearly allows derivative works (such as parodies and fan-inspired art).
Only a JUDGE has the power to shutdown this endeavor, not some Intern at CBS writing cut-and-paste form letters.
Let me guess. You're not a lawyer. I'm not and at least I'll admit it, but I bet I know a lot more about US law than you do. I've got a handful of friends who are lawyers and they've taught me a lot. I also had a chance once to sit in a discussion on IP and fair use given by a real lawyer who worked in the field.
Parody is protected. This is not parody. I agree that "fain-inspired art" could be OK, if for example, it was for the USS Bartok, a ship in the Star Trek Next Gen universe but never men
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Barking up the wrong tree. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't want to contact the legal team; they're job is to secure everything they can for their client, regardless of whether it is reasonable or even legally justifiable. In their world view there's no reason to ever back down from a C&D letter unless that letter is somehow itself illegal, and it's not illegal to exaggerate your rights.
The people you want to get to are the marketing and PR types, who are more concerned about the court of public opinion.
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Exactly.
Most likely...
Stage 9 was probably found by an outsourced contractor that looks for copyright violations, and submitted the information to fill out the forms to its client, the law office. The law office had a moderately paid clerk print out a monthly batch of these things, to be "robosigned" by an actual lawyer who spends as little time as possible. The law office bills Paramount for all this wonderful work, with an hourly pricing for everyone involved that includes a fat profit for the law offic
Fuck CBS sideways with a rusty chainsaw (Score:2)
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Just watch the Orville instead. It's a hundred times better than anything labeled Trek has been in a generation, and more true to the original Trek concepts while actually being entertaining.
And it'd be especially funny to see the Orville outlast Trek proper if CBS keeps up this attitude with its fans.
Re:Fuck CBS sideways with a rusty chainsaw (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone: Please post download link! (Score:2)
So they say it's violation, but don't say how??? (Score:2)
Something's amiss there...
CBS has published fan art guidelines for Star Trek, so I would suggest that they continue to appeal to those to keep the project going, unless or until CBS can tell them explicitly how it is not in accordance with those guidelines, they should reasonably be able to continue to use those guidelines as a defense.
still widely available (Score:5, Informative)
As pointed out a HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18085119), the Internet Archive of the download page still has the well-seeded torrent links...
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:ce1cf2847d8303a8e7e708cb378d9e7ab1534628&dn=Stage9-Mac-v009.zip
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:f2b84daf5a60ad9a452c933523de7ec786bbb0bd&dn=Stage9-Windows-v10.exe
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Is this the VR version? The latest version I downloaded a few months ago didn't have VR support for whatever reason.
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VR version included here:
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
Torrent (Score:2)
Anyone have a torrent? :)
I have not heard of this until now.
Fully automated luxury communism (Score:2)
I find it rather amusing that a IP built around the idea of 'fully automated luxury communism' in space has to rely so heavily on intellectual propriety law.
Just kidding... there's nothing amusing about communism, even in a fiction.
Star Wreck (Score:3)
Can they reskin their work to be for Star Wreck?
Don't code in a proprietary game system (Score:2)
If Hollywood sends its thugs after you, you can't just move your server to the free world, like Sci-Hub.
No freedom of expression (Score:2)
Yeah right. (Score:2)
The member of the CBS legal team that issued the order went on holiday
Suuuuuuuuuuuuure they did. You know, there are a few people over the course of my adulthood, dealing with different things financial, etc. that seem to "go on holiday" a lot when it's most inconvenient for my particular case. Maybe I'm naive, though, and just realizing that this is a common tactic to get people to forget about whatever it is they were upset or concerned about and leave you alone. Amirite?
question for the CBS shills (Score:2)
Here's an honest question for all the CBS shills in the audience: why do you hate your fans so much?
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CAPTAIN, WE ARE BEING SAUCED! (Score:2)
Engineering, prepare to receive torrent in cargo bay 1! [reddit.com]
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Like exclusivity, for instance?
Copyright infringement literally does deprive the copyright holder of the exclusivity of control over who is allowed to make copies, after all..
But of course, that exclusivity is intangible, and therefore cannot be argued to be of any real worth, right?
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The concept of "ownership" itself is created by human law and not natural law...
By natural law, I don't own my house whenever I leave it to go to work, for instance.
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Of course the DTV switchover really fucked a lot of people and made the situation even better for affiliates. Anyone intelligent knew that 8VSB was going to be a horri