Brazilian Court Bans Sale of Gay Tony But Not For What You Think

[Greg Tito]

Brazilian Court Bans Sale of Gay Tony But Not For What You Think

A Brazilian court prohibited worldwide sales of the expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV because it infringes on the copyrights of an 8 year old boy.

Remember when Rockstar games were threatened to be banned because of violence or sexual content like the infamous Hot Coffee mod? It seems that such days are long gone, and Rockstar is facing even stingier legal action that has nothing to do with racy content. A song on the Ballad of Gay Tony soundtrack called "Conga Kid" by Daniel Haaksman featuring MC Miltinho was found by a Brazilian court to use an unauthorized sample of "Bota o Dedinho pro Alto" by Brazilian composer Hamilton Lourenço da Silva. Lourenço da Silva is the father of the 8 year old kid singing on the song, also known as MC Miltinho, who can be seen in this video:


You can see and listen to "Conga Kid" in-game in this video. Ignore the annoying phone calls...


Even though Rockstar produced documents claiming that it had the correction permissions to use the track, the Brazilian court found that the signatures were not the author's. The court prohibited all digital and retail sales of Episodes from Liberty City or The Ballad of Gay Tony and that Rockstar and its distirbutor in Brazil, Synergex, must remove all copies from stores. The court levied a fine of 5,000 Brazilian Reals or US $3,000 for each day that the game is still sold. Because of international copyright law, this judgement effects sales worldwide and not just in Brazil. If you've been waiting to play Gay Tony, you might want to get on that.

Who'd have thought that any content from Rockstar would be banned for a simple matter like copyright infringement? What is this world coming to? I'm nostalgic for the halcyon days of Jack Thompson and Bully murder simulators.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5666949/brazilian-court-forbids-the-sale-of-episodes-from-liberty-city-worldwide]



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[Arachon]

That kid has the most annoying voice ever.

Other than that, I don't really know what to say... I am speechless, I have no speech.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Well, that sure is a strange turn of events.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Hahahahah of all the reason
but what I find really strange was I was watching the trailer just yesterday freaky

 

[Fr]anc[is]

um.... wow. Worldwide? Cant they just patch it out?

 

[Treblaine]

Copyright law again proves to be fundamentally fucked.

 

[The Procrastinated End]

Can Brazil really ban the worldwide sale of something that came out months ago?

 

[KeyMaster45]

So patch the damn thing and remove the song, plain and simple. Frankly I think this ruling is wrong. Rockstar obtained the legal permission needed to feature the song in the game but apparently Brazil is willing to side with some greedy parent because the companies (they obviously must have made some form of contract with to distribute the song) didn't go and ask them personally if it could be used in the game. Hope Rockstar opts to never sell their wares in Brazil again because we now see that doing so ruins things for the rest of the world.

GG Brazil, way to be a copyright troll.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Wait so the GTA IV pack with GTA IV, Lost & Damned and Ballad is no longer coming out??

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I'd rather have one of their games banned due to a technicality then have them banned by an ignorant bunch of people who view them as sources of evil. Then again, if I wanted to play the Ballad of Gay Tony, I think I would have done so by now.

 

[Irridium]

So patch the damn thing and remove the song, plain and simple. Frankly I think this ruling is wrong. Rockstar obtained the legal permission needed to feature the song in the game but apparently Brazil is willing to side with some greedy parent because the companies (they obviously must have made some form of contract with to distribute the song) didn't go and ask them personally if it could be used in the game. Hope Rockstar opts to never sell their wares in Brazil again because we now see that doing so ruins things for the rest of the world.

GG Brazil, way to be a copyright troll.

Pretty much this.

We trade one bullshit reason to sell a game for another.

Can Brazil really ban the worldwide sale of something that came out months ago?

Well apparently it has to deal with international copyright. So any nation that agrees to it, which is most first world nations, has to follow it.

 

[gallaetha_matt]

Oh my days. What a stupid thing to ban a game for.

Also I think I'm back on the sex offender registry after watching that first video. Thanks a lot. My neighbours are already sick of my face after that incident with the neighbourhood cats.

Seriously, though. That song didn't even feature all that prominently in the game. I think you only hear it in the nightclub scenes. It's a shit song as well.

Ah well - I already have my copy of Gay Tony . Maybe it'll come a collectors edition now and be worth some money?

 

[CitySquirrel]

So most of the worlds nations have agreed to standard responses to copyright infringement but have not standardized the legal process to determine it...good one.

 

[linwolf]

I am sort of happy whenever a game company is fucked by Copyright laws.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I have a hard time taking international copyright laws seriously when they involve things like this while nations like China run a robber economy based largely on copyright violations and patent theft.

I do understand that this gets into the whole bit about "nations that agree to it", but the way things are functioning now is that the few cases I hear about are ridiculous things like this as opposed to dealing with the real problems, which mostly involve nations that for obvious reasons are not going to agree to deals like this.

What's more, as someone who grew up in the 1980s I'll be blunt in saying that I don't think this is what it looks like. Brazil isn't likely trying to be a "copyright troll" in the traditional sense, but is probably trying to get Rockstar to basically pay the goverment bribe money.

One of the big issues back in the 1980s with the big "Japanacorp" threat and such was that our buisinesses were forced to play by some very strict rules by our goverment, where the competition was not so limited by morality. In various parts of the world where bribes and payoffs were expected (goverment positions and bureaucracy were based around concepts like a "Baksheesh").

While a bit differant, what we're seeing here is a situation where a relatively poor country like Brazil (understand I am using the term relatively, I know it's not the poorest out there) can dig through products to find any little thing they can make a stink about and cause problems for a company. Something like this paticular version of this song probably took someone in authority deliberatly looking for something to use. It doesn't seem that the family involved or their estate are directly involved in this.

If the world community upholds this kind of penny ante stuff by relatively minor nations it's pretty much going to create a situation where various countries can tell big companies like Rockstar, from billion dollar industries, that they will either pay the people in power big bucks to do business, or they will find some reason to push a copyright issue. What's more if this kind of thing can be decided by trials in a nation in Brazil where it's probably considerably easier to run a Kangaroo court (ie the goverment can just have their judges rubberstamp whatever desician they want for something like this) to decide any claim is valid and put international pressure on a copyright violation accusation and apparently by this agreement the world community would be forced to comply.

I think this needs to be fought or else we're going to see businesses in general having their costs go up by having to pay bribes to every country they potentially want to do business in.

I could be overreacting, but as I said, this sounds very similar to other problems we've run into. A matter of how what are well intentioned laws, that would be used as intended, are ultimatly abused when a lot of smaller and more corrupt nations get involved.

Apologies to anyone in Brazil who might be offended, I don't know the details of the legal and political system down there very well (though I have worked with people from Brazil who were here as part of Worker Exchanges at the casino, so I DO know a little). I'm simply calling this like I see it.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

So I guess if I ever want a hard copy from now on I need to get it from Billy Bob down the street?

I assume the downloadable version from XBL should be fine with alittle fix.

 

[Mr.France]

The capacity my country has to find new ways of making itself look like shit never ceases to amaze me.

 

[Scde2]

Rockstar could just remove the song from the game.
But this ruling is BS.