Atari Shuts Down Dedicated Fansite

[Marshall Honorof]

Atari Shuts Down Dedicated Fansite

If you want to show your support for Atari, you'd better not include its name in your web domain.

One of the best ways to show a company how much you like them is to make a fansite. If your company of choice is Atari, however, you may want to reconsider. Atari's legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter to Andrew Davie, proprietor of atari2600.org [http://www.atari2600.org], a site dedicated to homebrew Atari 2600 games. Their reasoning? His website domain cannot legally contain the "Atari" brand name.

The site, which first went up in 2000, housed information on Davie's own 2600 homebrew, programming tutorials, a mailing list, and more. Atari does not seem to object to the site's content, but demands that Davie surrender the "atari2600.org" domain to them. Neither Atari nor Davie has reached a final decision yet, but Davie seems compliant for the time being. "Following a 'request' from Atari Legal's lawyer to hand them this domain, and to show my good faith and intentions with regard to their trademark and claims thereof ... I have removed all content of this site," writes Davie on a stripped-down atari2600.org front page.

This is not the first time Atari has gone after noncommercial fan projects. Starsoft Berlin, a German Atari 800 homebrew site, came under legal threats earlier this year. The software developer, which has been in gradual decline since the advent of the NES, intends to branch out into mobile and social games. Its domain names will be of paramount importance in the coming months.

Atari's legal actions may be sensible from a financial standpoint, but they are not likely to garner much goodwill with the gaming community. The atari2600.org situation should come to a resolution within the next few days.

Source: Gamasutra [http://atariuser.blogspot.com/2011/08/atari-continues-efforts-to-alienate-and.html]

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[Corporal Yakob]

"I love you Atari, thiiiiiiiiiiiis much!" "GO TO HELL!"

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Screwing with the biggest fans...
Always THE best way to show you are a friendly, caring company.

Your name isn't worth much anymore, and now you pull stuff like this?
Pretty soon that fan can have the domain back because Atari themselves change their own name because it's gotten a bit stinky...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

FFS Atari, what happened to you? You used to be cool, and now you're just suing to keep up with EA and Acti/Bliz.

 

[Euhan01]

Seriously? This is awful from Atari, what are they doing? No your not allowed to like us, go away and stop buying our stuff! Its hilarious in a sad way. Glad i'm not a Atari fan.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Well, it does make sense, but it seems kind of redundant. What does Atari even do these days? Its like a dying dog trying to bite anyone near it.

 

[Trikeen]

jeeze, Atari... Is this really what it's come to? :/

 

[Atheist.]

Why do video game companies hate us so much? I'm getting so tired of it, there are games out there that I would actually buy but I despise the companies so much it's unreal. These are the only instances in which I support used game sales. To buy the game without supporting the company.

 

[twm1709]

Lawsuits in the gaming industry seem to be going more and more out of control.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Well it's obvious guys, isn't it? Atari is planning to re-release the Atari 2600 and they can't have some die-hard fans squatting on the domain name. Imagine how much of a blow not being able to use that particular domain name would be to the imminent windfall of money they'll make when they run Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo out of business with what is clearly a state of the art revolution to modern gaming.

I hear they've already got Valve working on a port of the Half-life series to the system for it's launch line-up, but it's just a rumor. Fingers crossed everyone!

 

[samsonguy920]

Seriously? If all they want is the domain name I would say, SOLD! For $5,000.

I don't see the importance in defending something like that. If Atari wants it, they can have it. Capitalistically, of course.

FFS Atari, what happened to you? You used to be cool, and now you're just suing to keep up with EA and Acti/Bliz.

For one, they haven't reached the actual suit stage, yet. Another, Atari hasn't been so quick on that button as anybody else. Unless the news services have been lacking in their following of Atari affairs.
Besides, all they are after is the domain name. Anybody else would be after the content. I don't see the big deal when the guy can go about his business with another name.

 

[FireCoroner]

This really reminds me of the Tim Langdell/EA legal battle where the former was just short of claiming ownership of the word "edge" and began sending cease and desist letters to the publishers of ANYTHING with the word "edge" in the title.

Needless to say, he was stripped of his trademarks by a US judge due to frivolous litigation.

But I wish atari would stop pussying about and fucking do something constructive with themselves(BTW, an atari arcade classics compilation does not count as progress)

 

[Swifteye]

It's kind of weird to hear Atari's name and know that it's the same Atari that made all those games back in the bit era. I don't think it's ever truly recovered from problems it had entering into the 90s. There's always room in the video game company grave yard Atari. And the grim reaper has been waiting for you....

 

[Xersues]

He doesn't have to give up that domain to Atari. I hope he doesn't give in to that crap. His rights are protected for owning the domain, just not for using it for the same mark that Atari would.

What a bunch of assholes.

 

[Jarlaxl]

http://www.chillingeffects.org/

I'm probably late to this, but I found this a day or two ago. If the domain owners of atari2600.org are reading, I'd suggest sending your case along.

Furthermore, maybe Atari is pulling an Abercrombie and Fitch by pulling a PR stunt in a slow news month to get some attention? It's possible.

For some reason, I feel like they just don't actually have a case here, and are simply being e-bullies.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Yeah, for the life of me, I can't see why they didn't explain that they needed the domain name for X reason, but they see you've been working to keep the memory of the 2600 alive, and so in respect of that, we'd like to offer you X amount of dollars to transfer the name.

Sadly, threats of lawsuits seem to be the step before even just asking nicely now.

 

[oldtaku]

Guys (in the comments here), this is *not the same Atari*. It's just a bloated corporate shell (GT Interactive/Infogrammes) who bought Atari and took over the name. Much like Southwest Bell did with AT&T Mobile.

I don't think the current owners have any goodwill with the gaming community other than the name itself, so not much to lose.

 

[Saulkar]

The best kind of flattery is acknowledging your greatest fans by saying fuck you.

 

[DannyJBeckett]

Guys (in the comments here), this is *not the same Atari*. It's just a bloated corporate shell (GT Interactive/Infogrammes) who bought Atari and took over the name. Much like Southwest Bell did with AT&T Mobile.

I don't think the current owners have any goodwill with the gaming community other than the name itself, so not much to lose.

Oh! So it's not even THE Atari? That's even more pathetic!

 

[Sylveria]

Atari's legal actions may be sensible from a financial standpoint, but they are not likely to garner much goodwill with the gaming community.

How is it sensible from a financial standpoint? The 2600 has been a dead console for what, 30 years? Is he getting massive traffic and huge advertisement bucks on his website because it carries ATARI in the name? Please, tell me one possible financial upside for Atari by shutting down a fan site for a console from the early 80s? Is Atari2600.Org going to be a huge hotbed of activity when Atari starts making flash ports of Pacman for mobile phones?

A good financial decision would be to offer an olive-branch to these people that still have some love for the old Atari, build up some good will, get some fans' faces out there rather than swinging their big corporate wang around, smacking down the few people who actually had some love for them.