Jack Thompson's "Modest Video Game Proposal"

[Setesh]

Jack seems not to understand copyright law at all. In the interview he says that Take2 isn't protecting their copyright by not going after game modders, comparing the modders to game piracy on the internet.

Game modding is perfectly legal under copyright law since you have to buy the game to make the mod, and you have to have the game to use the mod. The mod is useless without the game. Modding actually increases demand for the game. (I'm somewhat convinced that the hot coffee mod was an atempt to cash in on this by placing a mod in the game to be found by the resourceful.)

Piracy is distrubiting the game itself thus cutting the profits, modding is no more a copyright violation than fanfiction.

I am however unsurprised that he has not gone after Lucasarts, there are mods for KOTOR I and II to strip female characters naked, and make them anatomically correct. And it is certainly a violent game. Is it that he hasn't heard?, or is it that he fears the 'Head Dude' of lucasarts squashing him like a bug? As someone pointed out to me 'there is a differance between a multi-million dollar game company and anything owned by George Lucas, it has several zeros.'

Yahoo group that has all the mod files archived (adult yahoo)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KOTORErotica/

[Captain Cyran]

Yeah, I'd definately say one of the reason's Jack is staying away from KOTOR is that he knows if he starts fucking with Star Wars he's going to not only lose what little support he has left. But Lucas will send lawyers to fuck him sideways backwards and upsidedown without lube.

[Temjin]

Oh please. It's not like Lucas even gives a shit about anything other than the movies.

And you want to know why he went after GTA:SA and KOTOR? It's because GTA is something like 15 times more popular. The average person doesn't know shit about KOTOR. Probably never even heard of it. Everyone and their grandma knows about GTA and what's in it.

Oh, and comparing the nudity mod for KOTOR and the Hot coffee mod is being a little dishonest. There's a big differance there.

The nudity mod just changed the textures so that a few of the character's appear naked.

The Hot Coffee mod did the same, but also unlocked a mini-game that was already in the game. Even if the character's were fully clothed, a game that contained a mini-game about sex deserves an AO rating.

[Captain Cyran]

Oh please. It's not like Lucas even gives a shit about anything other than the movies.

I was under the impression that doing anything that even could be Star Wars related in any marketing included getting the ok from Lucas. I could very well be wrong but I thought he'd sued a number of people over things that could be seen as lightsabers and other stuff like that.

[Temjin]

I was under the impression that doing anything that even could be Star Wars related in any marketing included getting the ok from Lucas. I could very well be wrong but I thought he'd sued a number of people over things that could be seen as lightsabers and other stuff like that.

First I've heard of it.

[Praxis]

http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5687

Multiple sources have recently indicated that the Florida Bar have apparently begun to investigate Jack Thompson on his methods of madness. Joystiq and ars technica have reported that the Florida Bar has recieved a torrent of emails, letters, and faxes pressing them to take action against the Miami lawyer. The former site has quoted a Wikipedia entry on Jack Thompson as saying the FBA "received an overwhelming amount of complaints in the last several days about the issue, and is calling an emergency meeting to deal with the issue."

While still acting as an expert on the subject, Jack Thompson has called VSDA and IEMA for a meeting to settle differences instead of continuing pushing for government regulation of the industry, an action which many believe to be a move of desperation. Jack Thompson said that he believed that were this convenient opportunity to slip by, there may be no turning back. He was quoted as saying, "Trust me, I know what I know." However, Thompson has said that he believes that both the game industry and the pro-family groups need not clash and can come to an agreement. "We can do it together," he says.

However, his sharp blade of a tongue has yet to be sheathed, as he uses this opportunity to jab at Doug Lowenstein some more, describing the ESA president in an open letter to the ESA as a "self immolating clown" and that "Doug has done for your industry what leprosy does for dating." Regardless, this is quite an interesting and unexpected turn of events. Is this a move of desperation? Trying to stall for time to reload his weapons, as it were? Or has Jack finally decided that the best way to settle things is peacefully?

You be the judge.

An update is needed to this article.

Gamespot now reports that the FBA is not investigating Thompson over this matter, though they did not rule out the possibility of it happening. Thompson has of course responded with his usual parade like antics, which includes confirmation that his old email "jackpeace@comcast.net" is down. He also asked that his phone number not be published.

Too bad it's posted on his own site.

[Setesh]

Oh please. It's not like Lucas even gives a shit about anything other than the movies.

And you want to know why he went after GTA:SA and KOTOR? It's because GTA is something like 15 times more popular. The average person doesn't know shit about KOTOR. Probably never even heard of it. Everyone and their grandma knows about GTA and what's in it.

Oh, and comparing the nudity mod for KOTOR and the Hot coffee mod is being a little dishonest. There's a big differance there.

he nudity mod just changed the textures so that a few of the character's appear naked.

The Hot Coffee mod did the same, but also unlocked a mini-game that was already in the game. Even if the character's were fully clothed, a game that contained a mini-game about sex deserves an AO rating.

The KOTOR mods come in many flavors, but the most popular renders all the female twilek NPC's naked, especially the dancing ones. KOTOR's characters are also better rendered than GTA's. With a great deal of detail (at least on the mod I saw in action).

I also wasn't comparing it to GTA as much as to Sims2 (his other current target), where the nudity also has to be added in.

[Moltar]

Can anybody access penny-arcade or gamepolitics.com? They were up like 2 hours ago and now gamepolitics comes up as "domain coming soon", and PA just doesn't load at all. I hope that fucktard jack doesn't have anything to do with this.

I saw on PA (before it went down) that jack is trying to sic the FBI on them now, I hope that he didn't succeed.

[Hotfoot]

Penny Arcade is fine, gamepolitics is b0rked.

By the way, it occurs to me that the logic of saying that Sims 2 supports pedophilia and child porn strikes me as similar to saying that Kodak supports the same.

After all, clearly child porn can be made with cameras, there are numerous, even overwhelming examples of this being the case. Not only that, but in numerous repeated instances (esp. advertisements) Kodak tells people to take pictures! Taking pictures of naked children is child pornography! Since Kodak does nothing to stop this, and are in fact allowing it, it is clear that they are collaberating with child pornographers.

Think of how much money you could make off of that case.

[brianeyci]

Penny Arcade is fine, gamepolitics is b0rked.

Gamepolitics is fine.

8:29 am
No End in Sight to Penny Arcade Saga; Thompson Turns to Feds

There is a new twist in the raging feud between Miami attorney and self-described "anti-game crusader" Jack Thompson and gamer website Penny Arcade.

Thompson has forwarded to GamePolitics a copy of a letter that he faxed to John McKay (left), U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in relation to Penny Arcade. Local offices of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI are under McKay's direction. Thompson's letter reads, in part:

"I have testified twice before the Washington state legislature on behalf of video game bills authored by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who understands the danger posed by these murder simulation games. Governor Locke signed the bill she got passed into law."

"Because of my prominence, for better or worse, on this public safety problem, a 'gamer' a few months ago decided to threaten to kill me via the Internet. I received thousands of e-mails from a kid who was able to blast e-mail me using a service in Ireland that made the death threats appear to come from the following e-mail address: georgewbush@whitehouse.gov."

"Because of the domain name, the Secret Service here in Miami got involved and shut that extortion down."

"Now there is new extortion, and it is coming from a Seattle company called Penny Arcade. I can provide the details to your investigators, but basically this company has been using, I believe I can show, their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment of me. This would appear to violate state and federal laws."

"I asked Penny Arcade's attorney to stop this targeting, and he said it was my fault. Maybe he's played too many video games and thinks that flesh and blood people are just pixilated pinatas."

"Please help me if you can... They claim the First Amendment, it seems, applies only to them."

In related news, Thompson told us that his earlier letter to Seattle P.D., a story broken here on GamePolitics, was indeed sent both by fax and snail mail. Previously, there had been some question raised as to whether the attorney's letter was actually forwarded to Seattle P.D. Note that we are not aware of any confirmation by the police department, and some GP readers have claimed that the offices of Penny Arcade are not within the jurisdiction of Seattle's finest.

[Hotfoot]

Huh, must be Gabe's link that was bad. Weird.

[brianeyci]

Huh, must be Gabe's link that was bad. Weird.

No his link is good.

High volume of traffic. I still can't download the Jack ThompsonTM murder simulator lol. Ah well, I can't really play it because I don't have GTA:SA anyway.

Brian

[Spyder]

Those guys should probably stop linking to things for a while,
straightloop.com is flooded now.

[Praxis]

Penny Arcade is fine, gamepolitics is b0rked.

Gamepolitics is fine.

8:29 am
No End in Sight to Penny Arcade Saga; Thompson Turns to Feds

There is a new twist in the raging feud between Miami attorney and self-described "anti-game crusader" Jack Thompson and gamer website Penny Arcade.

Thompson has forwarded to GamePolitics a copy of a letter that he faxed to John McKay (left), U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in relation to Penny Arcade. Local offices of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI are under McKay's direction. Thompson's letter reads, in part:

"I have testified twice before the Washington state legislature on behalf of video game bills authored by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who understands the danger posed by these murder simulation games. Governor Locke signed the bill she got passed into law."

"Because of my prominence, for better or worse, on this public safety problem, a 'gamer' a few months ago decided to threaten to kill me via the Internet. I received thousands of e-mails from a kid who was able to blast e-mail me using a service in Ireland that made the death threats appear to come from the following e-mail address: georgewbush@whitehouse.gov."

"Because of the domain name, the Secret Service here in Miami got involved and shut that extortion down."

"Now there is new extortion, and it is coming from a Seattle company called Penny Arcade. I can provide the details to your investigators, but basically this company has been using, I believe I can show, their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment of me. This would appear to violate state and federal laws."

"I asked Penny Arcade's attorney to stop this targeting, and he said it was my fault. Maybe he's played too many video games and thinks that flesh and blood people are just pixilated pinatas."

"Please help me if you can... They claim the First Amendment, it seems, applies only to them."

In related news, Thompson told us that his earlier letter to Seattle P.D., a story broken here on GamePolitics, was indeed sent both by fax and snail mail. Previously, there had been some question raised as to whether the attorney's letter was actually forwarded to Seattle P.D. Note that we are not aware of any confirmation by the police department, and some GP readers have claimed that the offices of Penny Arcade are not within the jurisdiction of Seattle's finest.

I'd love to see how he can prove that donating $10,000 to charity is "soliciting harrassment".

[Spyder]

Jack Thompson needs to stop, there is no way this can end well for him.

"Well, he said he was going to give ten thousand dollars to charity, then he didn't, so we paid it for him."

Even if he somehow managed to pull a conviction, Gabe and Tycho would become martyrs. Could you imagine the headlines? "Men jailed for donating ten thousand to charity."

[Setesh]

I imagine the FBI got his letter and put it in the 'Harmless Kooks and crazies' file or actually went to PA and Thompsons own site and laughed their ass off.

PA in no way endosed any harrassment of Thompson, the e-mail and phone # were posted on his own site not on theirs. And last time I checked the phone # was still posted there even though his e-mail is down.

Can't you hear the phone call:

FBI Dude: "I'm sorry Mr. Thompson, but it isn't harrassment, stalking, or libel to donate money in your name to fulfill a promise you made than later retracted. We can, nor will do anything to the owners of Penny Arcade."

JT: "Your a gamer aren't you, your part of this conspiracy against ME!!!!!!"

FBI Dude: "Whatever you wish to belive sir, and please stop calling your tying up the line and I need to call X-Box tech support. "

JT: (incoherant screaming)

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I'm going to bet that just like with the SPD, Jack did not in fact send a copy of his fax to the FBI, but only to the various game news outlets. I believe he did the same hollow threat posturing with VG Cats as well.

[The Yosemite Bear]

no shit, because if he did, the FBI could inflict "Federal Smackdown" on his ass for interfering with their time, resources and investigations. Sorry we really needed to bust some childporn types and you sidetracked our investigation on purpose.

[Praxis]

Woah...

(hope this wasn't posted before)

JT is absolutely nuts.

"The Bible doesn't promote killing innocent people," Thompson said. "Grand Theft Auto does. Islam does."

Huh?

"Islam promotes the killing of innocent people," Thompson said. "The Quran requires the infidel, whether Jew or Christian, to be killed. ... That's a core essence of the religion. ... Muhammad was a pirate who killed infidels and who advocated the killing of infidels. Not a nice guy. Osama bin Laden is in keeping with his fine tradition."

http://news.neilrogers.com/news/article ... 42112.html

[Spanky The Dolphin]

If I recall, he said that quite some time ago, but I don't believe that it has been posted in this thread.

[Praxis]

Yeah, it's an older article, but I'd never seen it before.

[Agent Fisher]

Woah...

(hope this wasn't posted before)

JT is absolutely nuts.

"The Bible doesn't promote killing innocent people," Thompson said. "Grand Theft Auto does. Islam does."

Huh?

"Islam promotes the killing of innocent people," Thompson said. "The Quran requires the infidel, whether Jew or Christian, to be killed. ... That's a core essence of the religion. ... Muhammad was a pirate who killed infidels and who advocated the killing of infidels. Not a nice guy. Osama bin Laden is in keeping with his fine tradition."

http://news.neilrogers.com/news/article ... 42112.html

Wow, I think it would be awesome if someones religion was founded by a pirate.

[Dalton]

Oh yeah, forgot about that quote...he might as well come out and say it: "Gamers = Terrorists!!!!"

[brianeyci]

Oh yeah, forgot about that quote...he might as well come out and say it: "Gamers = Terrorists!!!!"

I don't know why, but I've noticed there is a school of thought out there that thinks that most people are too stupid to consciously see subtext or irony in words. They are probably right. After that post a few weeks ago about the guy who got arrested for making a parody because he "threatened" to burn a professor, I understand it now. People who lack education or who don't use their brains, don't see the subtle connections between words on a conscious level. They only see the text, the literal meaning, and not the irony behind it. So, gamers = terrorists is not explicitly said because it would be ridiculous to be spelt out that clearly to the masses, but because using a lot of excess verbage works on a subconscious level it is somehow less insidious than saying gamers = terrorists. This only works for those with short attention spans who have a bullshit education or who turn off their brains in most situations. Anybody with a half-baked brain can read that quote and see that he's trying to associate gamers with terrorists, but an idiot would not notice that and instead the association between gamers and terrorists would pass into the subconscious and then be reinforced and maybe make its way to the conscious without critical analysis, without passing through the "bullshit detector" most people often turn off because they don't like using their brains and are idiots.

And let's face it, most people are idiots, so this tactic works.

Brian

[felineki]

The Bible doesn't promote the killing of innocent people? Might want to read your early OT again, Jack... that is, if you even read it at all in the first place rather than simply rubbing various bodily appendages between its sacred pages.