Germany Bans the Xbox 360

[Saulkar]

What the Heil is wrong with you all? This is absolutely no laughing matter.

I fail to see the pun in your comment thus I assume there is no pun and that you derailed a perfectly good line of puns and thus I rewardingly pun-ish you with the golden voice of Mark Hamill laughing at matter.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Hankman would be so proud of you guys/gals. It brings a tear to my eye...

OT: Well, guess there won't be any Halo Reach: Fails of the Weak submissions from Germany anymore. On a more serious note, sheer idiocy in all parties involved. This accomplishes nothing good. Just wait, there will be a reaction from the gamers in that area.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Calumon: They should ban Playstations! They're heavy and fall on you and you can't move no matter how hard you wriggle! D:

That is the saddest and also cutest thing I've ever seen, lol.

OT: Awesome. Just plain awesome. Copyright and IP laws are really, really important, right Microsoft? Okay. Suck on that.

Copyright infringement, eh Microsoft?
"Now the rubber band is on the other claw!"

Exactamundo.

It's all well and good to hoard your little collection of patents and secrets, but you don't like it when someone else wants to do the same, I'll bet, Microsoft.

[HEADING=2] Delicious![/HEADING]​

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

And I suppose we can chalk this up to another case where a major software company suffers greatly from violating a software patent yet fails to learn that software patents are a bad thing.

Or just fails to realise that screwing with other people's intellectual properties is a bad idea.

You know, that could actually spark a really important discussion. I don't know enough about it to feel worthy of wading in and defending my standpoint (I'm standing on some pretty shallow knowledge here) but I'd like to see the debate occur.

Oh, and for the record my standpoint is that while individuals having a right to their creations is good, the implementation of patents and intellectual property is so insanely stupid that it hurts my head. For example: Nintendo owns the rights to the D-pad (plus, cross) style of gamepad, see below.

So too does... I forget who it is, but someone owns the right, I fucking kid you not, to mini-games during loading screens.

As I said, I couldn't really defend my opinion beyond "dat's stupid, mkay," so take this comment for what it's worth.

 

[harvz]

wait, so did Motorola develop the h.264 codec? It seems that it would have been far better to allow/sell/receive royalties for the use of the codec as im fairly certain that apple use it for its videos so germany can ditch all apple products...oh wait, apple makes the iphone and the average person (by which i mean the old ass judge) has one or has kids that have one.

wait, why stop there, blu-ray players use h.264 (im not sure all the time but i do know that its a standard), divx players, hell, ban the computer as people can encode h.264 using this.

 

[teebeeohh]

except that this news is sensationalist and completely useless since all court decisions in Europe are not being enforced until a ruling in Seattle regarding a restraining order against Motorola. And even then the EU commission may just decide that American companies can keep their patent trolling in the US and overrule this.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Someone has to make a Downfall parody over this, seriously. This just sets itself up perfectly for one.

Also, it appears no-one has yet forgotten that Germany started a few wars and had a man who ruined Charlie Chaplin's facial hair style, a sacred buddhist symbol, and how people look when they are left hanging when trying to get a High Five.

In all seriousness, I think this might make Microsoft do something a bit more than a double take and they ought to go to Motorola with some nice wine and fresh lipstick.

Calumon: They should ban Playstations! They're heavy and fall on you and you can't move no matter how hard you wriggle! D:

I feel with Calumon in this case, I once had a PS2 fall on my head while sleeping, it started bleeding and I had to go to the hospital .

If I had lived in America I would have sued Sony for making the PS2 so heavy and for not warning me that putting it in a position where it could easily fall on your head while sleeping was a bad idea.

 

[Wayne Insane]

Strangely, I live in Germany and I haven't heard a peep about that. Actually was at my Gamestore yesterday. Hmmm...

 

[Deviluk]

I'm English and living in Berlin, and I have to say...I don't care about xboxes. I get all my games ordered from the UK cos its cheaper, and even then they're PS3 or PC games.

And I remember 4/5 years ago when my friends said I was crazy to get a PS3 over an xbox or (hehe) a Wii.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Someone has to make a Downfall parody over this, seriously. This just sets itself up perfectly for one.

Also, it appears no-one has yet forgotten that Germany started a few wars and had a man who ruined Charlie Chaplin's facial hair style, a sacred buddhist symbol, and how people look when they are left hanging when trying to get a High Five.

In all seriousness, I think this might make Microsoft do something a bit more than a double take and they ought to go to Motorola with some nice wine and fresh lipstick.

Calumon: They should ban Playstations! They're heavy and fall on you and you can't move no matter how hard you wriggle! D:

This is just me being pedandtic, but Hitler was Austrian, not German (well, scratch that. He became a German citizen in 1932, but you get the point).

 

[jklinders]

I thought this was appropriate

There is not one of these tech giants that doesn't have more money already than God. If they banded together they could probably rule the world as unconquerable tyrants, yet they insist on self destructing themselves.

Candidly all this makes want to continue

 

[Xerosch]

There needs to be more FPS on the 360 where we kill Germans. Note I said Germans and not Nazis

Excuse me? As someone being German and living in Germany I'd really like to hear you explaining your point.

 

[Strazdas]

Out of all the reasons.....
Looks like Germanys court is trolling nicely.

Id say this is why software patents are good for a change, after all, eggsbox just got dropped.

On the other hand, who still uses that codec anyway?

 

[purf]

First of all, Man, all that facepalming throughout the past 4 pages gave me a bloody nose.

Secondly, while Microsoft is in appeal against this decision, nothing gets banned. Nothing. At. All.

And now I'll be preparing some lame puns involving, idunno, Indians and slaves for August this year, when the very same lawsuit is being decided in the US, mkay?

 

[medv4380]

...
wait, why stop there, blu-ray players use h264 (I'm not sure all the time but i do know that its a standard), divx players, hell, ban the computer as people can encode h264 using this.

Most of those already pay the licencing fee for the part of the codec they have the patent for. VLC probably does not, and VLC is debatable illegal in some countries, because of libdvdcss. Their was controversy over x264 but the trial found that x264 violated the patent, but was unenforceable in the US, I believe, since their was no way to calculate damages or losses.

PC's are affected by this ruling since Win7 did not get a licence, but windows XP and Vista are unaffected.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh, and for the record my standpoint is that while individuals having a right to their creations is good, the implementation of patents and intellectual property is so insanely stupid that it hurts my head. For example: Nintendo owns the rights to the D-pad (plus, cross) style of gamepad, see below.

Actually, in the late 80s or early 90s, they advertised it as patented. USPTO.gov is being horrible right now, so I can't be sure, but it appears that the LATEST application that is relevant comes from 1997 and would have applied from 1994. Assuming that's the actual patent date, they have two more years on it.

This is one of the big reasons I don't have much of a problem with patents. Even the silly ones expire. 20 years may seem a bit long, but it's still not like the copyright system, where we no longer have a public domain.

The silly ones are unlikely to hold up in court, anyway. I kind of wonder if Nintendo's patent would hold, or your other example of games played during a loading screen. Patents can be abused, but are still a fairly well-controlled for of intellectual property law otherwise.

I know you're not particularly offering an opinion; I'm just saying that not all of this is bad. Sometimes, it's a touch anal, but there was a time when that cross pad really was revolutionary.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

What pissed me off was Motorola's smug-sounding victory speech about their victory against Microsoft.

If I heard that in person, I would've started a fucking shooting spree. Microsoft's shady and I don't know a thing about Motorola's reputation, but fucking over the interests of the consumers without any semblance of remorse? Burn, you son of a *****.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Oh, and for the record my standpoint is that while individuals having a right to their creations is good, the implementation of patents and intellectual property is so insanely stupid that it hurts my head. For example: Nintendo owns the rights to the D-pad (plus, cross) style of gamepad, see below.

Actually, in the late 80s or early 90s, they advertised it as patented. USPTO.gov is being horrible right now, so I can't be sure, but it appears that the LATEST application that is relevant comes from 1997 and would have applied from 1994. Assuming that's the actual patent date, they have two more years on it.

This is one of the big reasons I don't have much of a problem with patents. Even the silly ones expire. 20 years may seem a bit long, but it's still not like the copyright system, where we no longer have a public domain.

The silly ones are unlikely to hold up in court, anyway. I kind of wonder if Nintendo's patent would hold, or your other example of games played during a loading screen. Patents can be abused, but are still a fairly well-controlled for of intellectual property law otherwise.

I know you're not particularly offering an opinion; I'm just saying that not all of this is bad. Sometimes, it's a touch anal, but there was a time when that cross pad really was revolutionary.

Mmmm. Very true, your last paragraph. It's a difficult issue, one that must balance the rights of a creator with the rights of the public. Moreover, it makes me wonder just what those rights should be--if any. Hard stuff.