Automobilista Subject to Copyright Claim

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios' newest title Automobilista has been temporary removed from the Steam digital distribution platform due to a copyright infringement claim. The title was removed from the Steam storefront Tuesday night.

Reiza Studios made the following statement to their fans and customers today:

"The Steam store page for Automobilista has been taken down due to a copyright infringement claim which had been submitted to Valve.

As is known, Automobilista packages a variety of officially licensed cars & brands alongside fictionalized, originally created content. The claim in question does not make any specific reference to content present in Automobilista supposedly in infringement of the party´s copyright - until it does, our belief is that it has no merit.

We have already taken the appropriate measures to resolve the issue ASAP, but in accordance to Valve´s policy, the process may take a few days to be completed.

In the meantime time we will continue to progress with the development of Automobilista, and intend to release another Early Access update shortly. The game is available for purchase as part of our Membership packages from our forum store.

Please understand that until the matter is fully resolved, we may not be able to discuss it."​

If you previously purchased and installed Automobilista through Steam, you will still be able to play the current Early Access build 0.8.7r both off- and online.

Dont forget to check out the RaceDepartment Automobilista forum for discussion and news on the Reiza title. Why not have a go in one of our daily Club Races run across a number of tracks and cars with large grids and close racing.

Update April 5th: Renato Simioni made a statement that can be seen here

 

[W Calabresi]

Reiza Studios, make´em see it´s our´s/your V10, not their F1, if that is possible to make them understand anything reasonable.

 

[poet]

I'm really ANGRY with the latest posts from that site or ***** blog
ridiculous

I'm sure they appreciate your viral marketing anyway.

 

[DEIC]

Yup, it was FOM
Formula One cracks down on racing game mods
http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/29/11322962/formula-one-racing-game-mods-f1-takedown

 

[Rodent]

Yup, it was FOM
Formula One cracks down on racing game mods
http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/29/11322962/formula-one-racing-game-mods-f1-takedown

Check the source.

 

[Queequeg]

Polygon and Kotaku are in no way reputable sources. Please stop advertising them as such. Same applies to random blogs.

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Polygon and Kotaku are in no way reputable sources.

I (almost) never visit Polygon (nor Kotaku but what do they have to do with this?), and as such do not know much about their credibility, but Polygon's mistake here was blind faith in someone who really ought to know better. The best you can do is point out to them that this belief was wrong.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Polygon and Kotaku are in no way reputable sources. Please stop advertising them as such. Same applies to random blogs.

Not to say when those sites use those sources..

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Yup, it was FOM
Formula One cracks down on racing game mods
http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/29/11322962/formula-one-racing-game-mods-f1-takedown

Also, that's from the mod-thingy. Not Reiza.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

Copyright law reached absurd levels that sadly are a global thing. There are companies whose sole function is to scan the Internet for products that may infringe on rights, and sell that to parent companies. That can bring big money against those false fancy designer purses, clothes or even cars, but the reach for more is there.

Then there are claims on unrelated products. Apple filed a cease and desist over the iTunes name on a company that had created a product long before that shared the same phonetics, again long before Apple even developed the store, because the name was key to Apple and they had the money to bankrupt the other small company through longstanding court hearings. I still believe it's FOM but maybe there is another title with the same name somewhere, or even a magazine, that could be filing this.

 

[schlitty]

As someone new to motorsports in general and VERY new to sim racing. I was saddened to see how quickly I found the bad apples in the community behavior at other sites. Particularly towards the sim I happened to chose in AMS. And more or less "trolls" was the first thing I thought of when this news broke. Its unfortunate the effort and lengths people will go to rain on a parade they could otherwise just ignore. Hope it all gets sorted with minimal or no changes needed. I've enjoyed crashing a variety of cars every second lap immensely. And Reiza, or any other niche developer, doesn't "deserve" their store page down.

 

[Paulo Gomes]

Just a suggestion, the patent protection laws in China see this example

And for some of the sim community who try to harm your own hobby, that says a lot of what kind of people you are, so I have one advice: more driving and less talking

 

[Laughing Koala]

Why are FOM just taking down this game if they dont want F1 mods. Then why are other games like rfactor 2 still fine???

 

[Andy_J]

What has become strikingly evident is that there are some disgruntled individuals in our tiny community doing the scrutinity work & delivering it for these companies - just because these people seem to think that´s where the fun in simracing is now. With DCMA rules being what they are, if companies or their monitoring agencies are delivered with an argument on a platter, irrespective of its merits, it´s not difficult to use and even abuse that to claim infringement.

I wouldn't go down the road of blaming some individuals, I'd look to a competitor. It might be easy for you to blame a few disgruntled guys or an harmless blogger here and there, but surely a competitor is more likely to dob you in.

 

[David O'Reilly]

IMO much of the threatening that is carried out on behalf of FOM falls under the "Bluff and Bluster" category.
The list of what FOM own is very finite. You can check it out quite easily on their web site.
Avoiding the use of those words and images is critical.
Then after that I believe that FOM own the rights to the images of the current F1 cars/teams but only for a finite period (say 2 years or so).

So if you use a model based upon say a 3 year old F1 car then it is only the concern of the relevant team. If its based on a Caterham for example or say a Lotus there is no team to have concerns.
Drivers names of course must be avoided.

The task of proving that a colour scheme is inspired by a real world car or team is difficult and quite subjective.

The word Formula is not owned by FOM, hence Formula A or Formula Open etc are free to use.

The searching for possible infringements and sending of threatening letters is outsourced by FOM to an agency.
One imagines that when you write back and say "please show us exactly where and how we have infringed your copyright because we havent used any of your elements or any current cars of teams" a lot of them go away very quickly.

 

[Andy_J]

Why are FOM just taking down this game if they dont want F1 mods. Then why are other games like rfactor 2 still fine???

That is a good question. Rfactor 1 & 2 both have some very tasty Formula 1 mods. As does GSCE for that matter. I also have some tasty F1 cars in Assetto Corsa. Are these titles also being targeted? It's a very confusing situation we have.

 

[Majuh]

That is a good question. Rfactor 1 & 2 both have some very tasty Formula 1 mods. As does GSCE for that matter. I also have some tasty F1 cars in Assetto Corsa. Are these titles also being targeted? It's a very confusing situation we have.

You don't understand it correctly. It's not about mods, it's about official content.

 

[W Calabresi]

That is a good question. Rfactor 1 & 2 both have some very tasty Formula 1 mods. As does GSCE for that matter. I also have some tasty F1 cars in Assetto Corsa. Are these titles also being targeted? It's a very confusing situation we have.

AC use Lotus license, paid or arranged to be able to use it in the game, nothing to relate with FOM or F1, it´s a Lotus car and rights. And rfactor, AS Automobilista use nothing related FOM license as we know til today, we are about to see yet what is the complaining part claiming on. MODS are not related to the issue, it´s made by community and can´t be linked with this product. If it could be linked, and it can´t, so ISI would need to step up together with Reiza.

 

[Andy_J]

You don't understand it correctly. It's not about mods, it's about official content.

I see. Well surely all Reiza have to do is change the colour of their Formula cars and let the modders change them back to nice F1 replica's. Job done.

 

[MarcG]

I'm really ANGRY with the latest posts from that site or ***** blog
ridiculous

don't go there then, the more people ignore that website the better as the precious child won't get the clickbait hits he wants.

 

[Julio Barros]

This is not a matter that has value being discussed in detail publicly I´m afraid.

I will say this though - the anger here is indeed misplaced. Companies can claim rights when they perceive there to be an infringement of their IP- this does not necessarily mean there will be a legal dispute. Usually just adjusting to address what has been objected to can and often suffices. We might do just that if the complaint is further specified - at this stage it hasn´t been, which is why for now we believe it lacks merit.

The real troublesome issue here is why we have been targetted to begin with - generally speaking, we are too small to get in the radar of any major company, and despite some pseudo-legal argumentation going on in this thread, legally there is nothing fundamentally wrong or even different to what is done in other, substantially bigger games (not just in racing).

What has become strikingly evident is that there are some disgruntled individuals in our tiny community doing the scrutinity work & delivering it for these companies - just because these people seem to think that´s where the fun in simracing is now. With DCMA rules being what they are, if companies or their monitoring agencies are delivered with an argument on a platter, irrespective of its merits, it´s not difficult to use and even abuse that to claim infringement.

If this trend continues (and by now it would be sensible to take that for granted if we want to stay in business), the immediate and long-term effects might well be a further departure from any fictionalized content that may become subject to such complaints in favour of officially licensed content. This will drive costs up, possibly affect our ability to deliver interesting driving experiences, and potentially offset the balance of the product to such an extent that we are forced to redesign it and the business model around it. This is unlikely to affect AMS much, but it will certainly impact our next product where the stakes are already higher.

I´ll be completely frank and state that depending on how things develop from here, this may change how we approach the business altogether. There just isn´t enough money in the type of products we´ve been making to be worth this kind of hassle.

@Renato Simioni , I think I can speak for most of the simracers here, but we don't want Reiza to take any other direction or change how you approach your business, let alone the development of your future project. We love SCE and AMS because Reiza you all do a stupendously good job with your projects.
IMO, this claim is stupid in its nature, regardless of any future information we might be getting from you and Reiza.
I truly hope that this mess gets sort out with zero harm to Reiza and your business and future projects. However, if otherwise, I'm pretty sure you can count with this community to continue doing the job you all excel.
Cheers