SEGA to crack down evil pirates at... SteamDB?

[Thaldor]

Update

Everything is back to normal, just a mistake by SEGAs automated DMCA claim machine.

Quote

SEGA statement:

Earlier this week, one of our games was incorrectly flagged on SteamDB. We utilize anti-piracy software to protect our games at a large scale, but sometimes it makes mistakes. SEGA will continue to fine-tune these systems to avoid this in the future and we appreciate SteamDB cooperating with us to resolve the issue quickly.

 

Summary

SEGA has smacked SteamDBs hosting service with a DMCA takedown notice over Yakuza: Like a Dragon because someone somewhere thought SteamDB is somehow connected to piracy of the said game. Apparently not the first time but first time things haven't gone smoothly since Pavel Djundiks initial replies to SEGA were ignored before things got some wind and SEGA of America is now looking into it.

 

Quotes

Quote

The Steam Database, or SteamDB, is a third-party tool that provides all sorts of information about games on Steam, from developer info and player numbers to release dates and modification times, update history, and configuration details. Pretty much anything you could possibly want to know about a game that's on Steam, SteamDB can tell you.

 

Unless that game happens to be Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which as of very recently does not have a normal SteamDB page. Instead, there's a message saying, "This page was taken down because SEGA is claiming we distribute their game here (we don't)," and a link to a series of tweets that explains the situation in further detail.

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.

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Somewhat ironically, earlier today Sega was named Metacritic's top-ranked publisher of 2020, on the strength of games including Persona 4 Golden, Football Manager 2021, and—you guessed it—Yakuza: Like a Dragon (83). A Sega rep said the company's legal team is now looking into the situation.

 

My thoughts

I would love to go very deep and very windy way down to a rant about how "great" DMCA system is just from the point of "great" examples how "well" huge international companies with expensive lawyers can use it. Especially if we take Japanese companies like Nintendo, Konami and today SEGA (founded in US but current headquarters in Japan) as examples how "great" CR laws and systems built to enforce them seem to be, just like bubblegum and some duct tape over mold that one day decades ago was butter.

 

But I will just say: What the hell, SEGA?

 

Most likely this is already "old news" and things have been already returned to normal with SEGA pulling back their DMCA claim and SteamDB page returned and we can again start to play the game: "Which international corporation with expensive legal teams all over the world will be the next one to misuse/accidentally use DMCA and get away without even slap on their wrist?"

 

Sources

PC Gamer

GamesIndustry

GameRant

IGN

[minibois]

Confusing an information website for a piracy website, SEGA is officially on the level of parents thinking CMD is used for hacking. 

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, minibois said:

Confusing an information website for a piracy website, SEGA is officially on the level of parents thinking CMD is used for hacking. 

"GREETINGS, PROFESSOR FALKEN..."

[rcmaehl]

37 minutes ago, StDragon said:

"GREETINGS, PROFESSOR FALKEN..."

A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.

 

Could easily be applied to US Copyright

[Brooksie359]

Seems like a typical mistake made by big companies. Not really surprised or shocked and honestly I don't think anything less of Sega as the result of this. I figure the mistake will likely be fixed and then it will be done and over with. 

[thechinchinsong]

DMCA is a broken system.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

Seems like a typical mistake made by big companies. Not really surprised or shocked and honestly I don't think anything less of Sega as the result of this. I figure the mistake will likely be fixed and then it will be done and over with. 

The likely thing that happened here is that whomever SEGA outsourced, isn’t tech savvy enough to know what steamDB is. To someone who looked at it casually, it looks a lot like other piracy-adjacent sites like vndb , manga updates, IMDb and such where the information could be used to locate the pirated title by knowing what exactly to search for on a pirate site.

 

To which, the list of prices showing the price discrimination doesn’t help. I doubt there was a Sega title so priced, but against, someone who doesn’t know what the site is, might make the mistake of thinking it is providing a way around it.

[Thaldor]

53 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The likely thing that happened here is that whomever SEGA outsourced, isn’t tech savvy enough to know what steamDB is. To someone who looked at it casually, it looks a lot like other piracy-adjacent sites like vndb , manga updates, IMDb and such where the information could be used to locate the pirated title by knowing what exactly to search for on a pirate site.

 

To which, the list of prices showing the price discrimination doesn’t help. I doubt there was a Sega title so priced, but against, someone who doesn’t know what the site is, might make the mistake of thinking it is providing a way around it.

Outsourcing is too cheap for these guys. It was automated system that pooped, "once again" (which is my problem, but I spare you from a rant).

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

The likely thing that happened here is that whomever SEGA outsourced, isn’t tech savvy enough to know what steamDB is. To someone who looked at it casually, it looks a lot like other piracy-adjacent sites like vndb , manga updates, IMDb and such where the information could be used to locate the pirated title by knowing what exactly to search for on a pirate site.

 

To which, the list of prices showing the price discrimination doesn’t help. I doubt there was a Sega title so priced, but against, someone who doesn’t know what the site is, might make the mistake of thinking it is providing a way around it.

It's a shame that companies don't even have to understand what a site does before issuing DMCA. Let's just automatically issue DMCA claims, screw the people that accidentally get claimed and don't have the clout to shout out, I guess they deserve to die.

[SorryBella]

Sega nowadays has been pretty much well known to abuse westerners interest in their game and try to sue you to death for it. Its honestly apalling that these kind of thing is remotely acceptable for them just because Japanese handles copyright laws way more differently than US.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

It's a shame that companies don't even have to understand what a site does before issuing DMCA. Let's just automatically issue DMCA claims, screw the people that accidentally get claimed and don't have the clout to shout out, I guess they deserve to die.

To be fair its hard to find a good middle ground. People put up copyrighted material all the time and to have to manually verify each instance to be able to make a takedown claim is simply impractical. I don't blame them for having an automated system as its just the only practical way to stop people from putting up copyrighted material. Its that or simply give up and let people pirate if they want.

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Outsourcing is too cheap for these guys. It was automated system that pooped, "once again" (which is my problem, but I spare you from a rant).

It sucks but honestly its the only practical way to do DMCA takedowns on all the copyrighted material being uploaded online. Its either that or give up on fighting it. 

[Video Beagle]

12 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

DMCA is a broken system.

But it's fun to stay at it.

[Thaldor]

4 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

It sucks but honestly its the only practical way to do DMCA takedowns on all the copyrighted material being uploaded online. Its either that or give up on fighting it. 

They have been doing these automated systems for a decade and probably sunk millions if not tens to them and they are still pure garbage. Mostly the reason is that no one really demands them to be any better because the DMCA doesn't have any kind of accountability, you frak up someones livelihood, no one is going to frak you up for doing it (except the one you fraked up if they have the monetary possibility for that, which 99% they don't have, thanks for that DMCA is US thing and there the old corpo system is to lengthen the court case until one or the other goes bankrupt). Mostly that is the problem with all CR laws, basicly you are guilty until you prove otherwise because the actions are demanded right away and very rarely through criminal courts (as in the record company/game dev/movie studio/whatever would need to actually prove their losses, report a crime, wait police investigation, the suspect wouldn't need to hire their own lawyer and all that stuff) but through civil courts (as in it's going to be a story against story and no one really needs to prove anything water tight), as in for DMCA all that is needed for takedown notice is just an email which can be bot generated and it's almost always aimed a step or two above the actual culprit to ensure faster action (YouTube being prime example of this BS: DMCA is never aimed against the uploader but the YT because that means YT must take action to cover their ass and that literally means they need to demonetize and/or remove the video in question or face the DMCA sue in court for not taking immediate action, which basicly every dinosaur company in the US waits to happen, and who gets the stick is the uploader even if there wasn't anything wrong except the dinosaur companies automated POS made "a mistake" because that couple days were zero income, which basicly is YTs fault but mostly that the system is even legally broken as frak).

 

If there was punishments (actual criminal punishments where no monetary push were needed from the suffering side of the deal) for misusing DMCA and possibly even for constant mistakes while filing DMCA notices, there probably wouldn't be as huge dangers to be part of these "mistakes and accidents" because the systems would probably actually work and not be like shooting a miniguns into a forest to kill an anthill. "But then the small, little poor artists and devs wouldn't file them in fear of making a mistake *sniff*" Well, hard to break it for you but they already don't file them in such numbers because that's pretty expensive stuff , smaller ones don't hire lawyer army or build automated system to throw DMCA notices to the left and right in masses because that's expensive, bad for PR and pretty useless compared to do them when they are actually relevant, that's what the huge companies do because they have the monetary possibility to do it and they know they can get away with it because no one is going to sue them for the damages because the monetary risk and investments are too fraking high to do so. The real diabolical is also in that monetary side of the things, while YT/Google/Alphabet could easily and pretty risk free sue Universal/EMI/Disney/Nintendo or even all of them at once, they can't do it because they don't suffer losses from the DMCA claims, they would suffer for not acting on the claim immediately and strong enough to please the claimant but that would be completely different case, the uploader suffers the damages and could sue the claimant for them but wanna take a wild guess how many YouTubers have the dough to even file a suit against something like Disney, not to even go that far as having the monetary possibility to keep the suit going for the couple years it would take to get to the verdict even if it was clear as a day victory?

Not many and it probably wouldn't even be worth it. Getting couple of hundreds from Disney and using tens to hundreds of thousands to do so even if they would be ruled to be paid by Disney (which probably wouldn't happen because Disney would search for both paying their own expenses because that would practically be free for Disney and we are talking about pocket money damages against which the lawyer costs would seem way too high) would be pure madness to 99% of people in the world and the Disney goes free of harms with their garbage automated DMCA-shotgun.

[Brooksie359]

15 hours ago, Thaldor said:

They have been doing these automated systems for a decade and probably sunk millions if not tens to them and they are still pure garbage. Mostly the reason is that no one really demands them to be any better because the DMCA doesn't have any kind of accountability, you frak up someones livelihood, no one is going to frak you up for doing it (except the one you fraked up if they have the monetary possibility for that, which 99% they don't have, thanks for that DMCA is US thing and there the old corpo system is to lengthen the court case until one or the other goes bankrupt). Mostly that is the problem with all CR laws, basicly you are guilty until you prove otherwise because the actions are demanded right away and very rarely through criminal courts (as in the record company/game dev/movie studio/whatever would need to actually prove their losses, report a crime, wait police investigation, the suspect wouldn't need to hire their own lawyer and all that stuff) but through civil courts (as in it's going to be a story against story and no one really needs to prove anything water tight), as in for DMCA all that is needed for takedown notice is just an email which can be bot generated and it's almost always aimed a step or two above the actual culprit to ensure faster action (YouTube being prime example of this BS: DMCA is never aimed against the uploader but the YT because that means YT must take action to cover their ass and that literally means they need to demonetize and/or remove the video in question or face the DMCA sue in court for not taking immediate action, which basicly every dinosaur company in the US waits to happen, and who gets the stick is the uploader even if there wasn't anything wrong except the dinosaur companies automated POS made "a mistake" because that couple days were zero income, which basicly is YTs fault but mostly that the system is even legally broken as frak).

 

If there was punishments (actual criminal punishments where no monetary push were needed from the suffering side of the deal) for misusing DMCA and possibly even for constant mistakes while filing DMCA notices, there probably wouldn't be as huge dangers to be part of these "mistakes and accidents" because the systems would probably actually work and not be like shooting a miniguns into a forest to kill an anthill. "But then the small, little poor artists and devs wouldn't file them in fear of making a mistake *sniff*" Well, hard to break it for you but they already don't file them in such numbers because that's pretty expensive stuff , smaller ones don't hire lawyer army or build automated system to throw DMCA notices to the left and right in masses because that's expensive, bad for PR and pretty useless compared to do them when they are actually relevant, that's what the huge companies do because they have the monetary possibility to do it and they know they can get away with it because no one is going to sue them for the damages because the monetary risk and investments are too fraking high to do so. The real diabolical is also in that monetary side of the things, while YT/Google/Alphabet could easily and pretty risk free sue Universal/EMI/Disney/Nintendo or even all of them at once, they can't do it because they don't suffer losses from the DMCA claims, they would suffer for not acting on the claim immediately and strong enough to please the claimant but that would be completely different case, the uploader suffers the damages and could sue the claimant for them but wanna take a wild guess how many YouTubers have the dough to even file a suit against something like Disney, not to even go that far as having the monetary possibility to keep the suit going for the couple years it would take to get to the verdict even if it was clear as a day victory?

Not many and it probably wouldn't even be worth it. Getting couple of hundreds from Disney and using tens to hundreds of thousands to do so even if they would be ruled to be paid by Disney (which probably wouldn't happen because Disney would search for both paying their own expenses because that would practically be free for Disney and we are talking about pocket money damages against which the lawyer costs would seem way too high) would be pure madness to 99% of people in the world and the Disney goes free of harms with their garbage automated DMCA-shotgun.

Again its a situation where there is no perfect solution. Its either we don't fight copyright infringement properly or you do it overly so and sometimes mistakes are made.

[Mark Kaine]

12 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Again its a situation where there is no perfect solution. Its either we don't fight copyright infringement properly or you do it overly so and sometimes mistakes are made.

No there is no perfect solution, but better less one-sided laws would be a good first step,  currently there are no real consequences to false DMCA takedowns, hefty fines would be a good start to stop companies like Sega (and many others of course) doing this .

 

 

[jagdtigger]

There should be some serious penalties for this, if they only get a slap on the wrist/nothing they wont learn.

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

No there is no perfect solution, but better less one-sided laws would be a good first step,  currently there are no real consequences to false DMCA takedowns, hefty fines would be a good start to stop companies like Sega (and many others of course) doing this .

 

 

Yes but at that point they would stop doing automated takedowns and by doing so they would likely be unable to keep up with the pirate community. You would basically be making it impossible for them to do takedowns effectively. If anything I would say there needs to be an appeal process baked into the law that is effective at righting the mistakes that automated systems makes sometimes. I would even argue that if you had a team of people doing it as well you would still have times where someone makes a mistake. I don't believe there should be a hefty fine for simply making a mistake.