Re: Dylan's Contact for Bringing Legal Issue to Attention

[hado]

Hi-
I'm a fan of audiosurf, and also a law student. In researching a game that I wanted to release I came across a very important legal issue that if unaddressed could kill the future of Audiosurf. It is nonobvious and I would not have ever thought of it if I hadn't been working on this project.

I want to get in touch with Dylan ASAP to make sure he is aware of it, but his profile shows that he hasn't visited here in a long time.

I'll give more details via PM if you are interested and want to help out, but I'd rather speak to him first.

Thanks!!

[Passerby]

and what could that be the game is 3 years old with no issues

[GeoLuz]

Since you are a law student the first thing that comes to my mind is copyright issues, as the many of the songs played on Audiosurf are copyrighted. Is copyright the legal matter in this game that you want to address soon? If you want to email Dylan, his email address is shown below:
dylan@audio-surf.com

[blue_h3x]

What is said issue anyway?

[Passerby]

Since you are a law student the first thing that comes to my mind is copyright issues, as the many of the songs played on Audiosurf are copyrighted. Is copyright the legal matter in this game that you want to address soon? If you want to email Dylan, his email address is shown below:
dylan@audio-surf.com

why would AS have problems with copyrighted content. if AS had problems with it, wouldnt all media players too?

[blue_h3x]

why would AS have problems with copyrighted content. if AS had problems with it, wouldnt all media players too?

...and PMP's and phones and tvs and so on.

[GeoLuz]

why would AS have problems with copyrighted content. if AS had problems with it, wouldnt all media players too?

...and PMP's and phones and tvs and so on.

I understand the point about media players, PMP's, phones, TVs, etc. I just brought up copyright as merely a guess. I wish hado, the creator of this thread, would at least mention the legal issue he wants to bring to Dylan's attention. There's nothing wrong with notifying the AS community what the legal issue is.

[blue_h3x]

I understand the point about media players, PMP's, phones, TVs, etc. I just brought up copyright as merely a guess. I wish hado, the creator of this thread, would at least mention the legal issue he wants to bring to Dylan's attention. There's nothing wrong with notifying the AS community what the legal issue is.

Unless of course the OP is a troll or just bs'ing.
Hado, what is said issue that you wish to raise?

[NovaTerran]

Since you are a law student the first thing that comes to my mind is copyright issues, as the many of the songs played on Audiosurf are copyrighted. Is copyright the legal matter in this game that you want to address soon? If you want to email Dylan, his email address is shown below:
dylan@audio-surf.com

that doesn't make any sense, if you play a song on audiosurf you have to actually own the file on your computer. As far as the songs on the audiosurf radio they are probably voluntarily given out by the artists to be played and distributed.

[hado]

It's not a problem with Audiosurf. It's a problem of an enormous company trying to swallow up Audiosurf's IP rights without Dylan knowing until too late.

And it's not a copyright problem. It's a patent issue.

I can give further details via PM.

[GeoLuz]

It's not a problem with Audiosurf. It's a problem of an enormous company trying to swallow up Audiosurf's IP rights without Dylan knowing until too late.

And it's not a copyright problem. It's a patent issue.

I can give further details via PM.

If it's a patent issue it must be related to an invention since patents protect inventions made by people/entities.

[blue_h3x]

I've spoken with Hado over PM, and seen said patent.

I see no reason to keep other members of the forum in the dark over the issue, and so will post the details later; giving chance for Hado to let me know if there is a good reason not to.

[hado]

Honestly in my view it's better to be discreet about legal issues. However there is nothing confidential involved and all patent applications are searchable on Google.

Harmonix, the creator of Rock Band/Guitar Hero, as of 2009 is attempting to patent a process that is broad enough to cover Audiosurf and similar games that implement gameplay based on analyzed features of the user's music.

Note that Harmonix to my knowledge has not released any games with this feature. However a company does not have to in order to patent something. Look up "patent trolls."

Here's the app:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=8HTHAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&dq=%22in%20the%20groove%22%20%22dance%20dance%22&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20groove%22%20%22dance%20dance%22&f=false

1) Access Musical Content
2) Analyze Musical Content to Determine Musical Events
3) Determine a Property Associated with the Identified Event
4) Create Game Event Synchronized to the Identified Event and Reflective of the Determined Property

It does not matter "how" specifically Audiosurf does this. Harmonix is eyeing a patent on the "idea" of doing this.

Does this sound looney? Well they may very well be successful. You might want to write a letter to Congress to reform our deeply flawed patent system and the way it applies to software. Look at this article: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/03/patents-on-video-game-mechanics-may-strangle-innovation.ars.

I am not a patent specialist. I do, however, know enough about patent law to suggest that Dylan get in touch with a specialist.

There are legal challenges he could bring. HOWEVER this situation is not strategically straightforward. Legal challenges cost money. Certain forms of challenge have different long-term implications from others. If Harmonix tries to bully "competitors" around, they will still need to hire lawyers to defend themselves.

Which is why he needs to be advised by somebody who knows what they are talking about. Any response to this must be made with someone with experience and knowledge of the field to be able to look ahead several steps at the implications of different actions. Trying to sort this out otherwise is like, as I told blue_h3x, trying to understand and diagnose a circuit board with no prior EE experience. This knowledge and intuition can't be found by Googling for a few hours about patent law - it needs to be accumulated over actual experience litigating cases, knowing how courts react to certain arguments, and working with these situations.

[Laserrobotics]

What has me wondering here is that Harmonix did perfectly fine with Rock Band without a patent covering the process of playing a game with more than one type of instrument, so why do they think a patent will help them here?  It's a long and painful process to get a patent in the first place.

[Mincus]

Urrgh, software patents. Totally broken system in the US and it's causing far more harm than good to the software industry there.
I don't think they'd go after Audiosurf though. Whilst it's fairly successful, it's not on the levels that patent trolls really work on. There's no way that they'd get back the amount they'd need to spend on lawyers to win the case. Could be wrong, but I can't see them pushing it too hard. Not enough reward.

I have been wondering how long it would take for the US games industry to latch onto patents though. Largely it's remained free of them (thankfully, imagine if id had patented the FPS). It has resulted in nasty clone wars at times but that's a better alternative to the poison that is software patents.
The linked patent would definitely cover Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, Rhythm Zone and Turba from what I can tell, probably most of the others mentioned in the Music Games thread (http://www.audio-surf.com/forum/index.php/topic,6628.0.html). Out of those the only one that's partly safe is Beat Hazard as the dev is UK based and so can just drop all sales in the US if need be. Would probably still be asked for back charges or some such nonsense. Bleh.

Those in the US: Fix your bloody patent system please.