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

 

[PATR10T]

Is that all you've got? Can't actually sit and talk about the issue at hand, so might as well just insult the guy?

This supposed "non-story" on a blog that "nobody is visiting" has been linked on: PC Gamer, Polygon, Ars Technica

And pretty much every relevant Subreddit. Meanwhile, posts are getting censored and a bunch of leftist manchildren are throwing hissy fits because you just can't have the guy from PRC be right, can you?

so you want to say you are proud to be an idiot? congratulatuions you can be happy that a lot people reads such ****... even me is visiting your site sometimes and everytime i think omg how stupid people can be, then reading the comments too wow the world gets more stupid day by day...

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

so you want to say you are proud to be an idiot? congratulatuions you can be happy that a lot people reads such ****... even me is visiting your site sometimes and everytime i think omg how stupid people can be, then reading the comments too wow the world gets more stupid day by day...

Oh, so your argument about site traffic went out the window, now the backup tactic is calling me an idiot.

 

[P*Funk]

Please tell me how writing "almost 80 high quality community mods, some of which included multiple cars for entire season compilation packs, were removed from RD" instead of "30 pages of mods were removed from RD" would have changed anything in the eyes of normies from places like PC Gamer or Ars Technica. Please tell me how this somehow makes FOM showing up and making a mess of the sim community's modding scene significantly less severe.

So you admit that you think the truth is flexible and it doesn't matter what you write, its the spirit of the report that counts.

You just went out of your way to justify the fact that you do no fact checking and make your facts up based on random estimates based on your own subjective view point but report it as if its a fact.

You have no integrity.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Going to ask one final time to shift from this much discussed offtopic mod subject to the topic at hand.

 

[Justin Cooke]

It seems to me, we all (as sim racers) would be better served by not searching for any potential similarities between sim and real-life content. Sure, we can guess about who has brought this claim and then guess about which specific details are involved, but I just don't see how that helps anyone (except maybe FOM -- if it is them, after all).

Reiza is doing such a wonderful job as a sim development studio with communicating clearly and respectfully with their customers and bringing so much positive energy into their work. It's really dissapointing that they now have to deal with this issue.

I want all that great new content and this will only get in the way!

Good luck to Reiza in dealing with this quickly. (Oh, and I couldn't care less about any F1-esque content! )

 

[Dan Allen]

I've only read the first page so far and everybody's already jumping down FOM's throat and we need to be careful. What if it ultimately turns out that it wasn't F1? The sim racing community (or members of) will have egg on their faces... Just think that no matter how bad FOM are, we shouldnt accuse without having some hardcore facts. Facts which wont come out until this issue is resolved.

EDIT: Sorry Bram, didnt see your post about off topic until after I posted.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

Going to ask one final time to shift from this much discussed offtopic mod subject to the topic at hand.

Just say you're under legal obligations not to mention what's going on between FOM and RD, and to temporarily head to the VirtualR comment box or something. The FOM mod removal stuff is directly related to what's happening with AMS. The story blew up last week and was a precursor to the removal of AMS from steam, but for some reason we can't talk about the first half of the story on RD? Odd.

 

[LacSlyer]

Apologies, ignore me for being off topic.

 

[Will Mazeo]

There is a very good advice we all saw at least once: don't feed the trouble maker.

Back on topic.....

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

How can you even claim that the mods are the ones throwing the hissy fit here?

You stated opinions as though they're facts without sufficient evidence, even posting yourself that you're assuming information, and when you're called out on it you resort to name calling and complaining censorship. And the mods are the ones throwing hissy fits?

Well lets start with the first "assumption" - FOM filed the claim against Reiza.

They did so against RD mods, openly stated by RD in the locked threads, which means they're here and checking out the sim community. Hi FOM! Now these guys probably suck at computers, but the internet isn't hard to figure out, and it's obvious they discovered Automobilista.

To file any sort of copyright claim on Steam, you can't be a random troll. Some sort of valid credentials are required, therefore meaning it's down to two real players.

1. Codemasters
2. Formula One

Codemasters are bros and have worked with RD in some form in the past. They also openly allow the modding of DiRT Rally. Highly doubt that they would have some kind of reason to chase after a community that supports their game.

The other suspect is FOM, who only a few short days ago showed up and started making a mess of things by getting content removed. Suddenly, MORE content is removed - this time an entire game, and Reiza mentions it's indeed due to copyright claims.

Gee, might need to call in Sherlock Holmes for this, it's a real tough one. I wonder who could have filed those copyright claims... :/

 

[Renato Simioni]

Austin you simply do not know what you are talking about as much as you think you do, yet you feel at total liberty to speculate about the whats, hows and whys as though these are the absolute facts of the matter.

That in itself is bad enough, but the real problem is that more than once you have willingly, publicly crossed the line from speculation to complete fabrication for the sake of creating yet another factoid - well it´s all fun and games until someone gets hurt...

Make no mistake: you, your blog, your lies and the toxic, destructive attitude that it keeps feeding within the group of sociopaths that has gathered over there are very much part of the problem, if not the whole source of the problem in this specific case. I´ve been just sent a screengrab of some comments from one of your articles - you should practice what you preach and start taking some precautions yourself.

Copyright claims are part of business. We accept that and are prepared to deal with them if and when they come. What I´m not prepared to accept is becoming the target of a bunch frustrated nutjobs with too much time in their hands. This should not come with the territory of doing small simracing titles.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

but for some reason we can't talk about the first half of the story on RD?

You could in the designated thread that was started for it. But as you keep on ignoring a friendly advise to stay on topic and obviously need to have the last say on the matter you can now take a hike and make up your much needed 2500+ word article on the horrible moderation on RaceDepartment. Don't forget the clickbait title you get for free today:

"I Was Preaching My Truth To The RD Community And What The Nazi Moderators Did Next Will Shock You"

 

[P*Funk]

@Renato Simioni

I love you. You have no idea how much this made my day.

 

[Justin Cooke]

@Renato Simioni

I love you. You have no idea how much this made my day.

Hear, hear!

 

[Tim Davila]

This guy is saying nothing but bad things also to devs of all the games we like.. and still be around to troll.
every post he made since i joined is toxic and doesnt add anything constructive its a bashing for views and clicks.
i really can't get it, this is beyond me, its this types we want around our community?
i mean its getting utterly annoying having this guy around.

AMS Will make whats needed and AMS will be up sooner than later on steam.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

In case it wasn't clear, the back to topic is for all contributors of this thread

 

[demerzel]

@Renato Simioni
Was there ever any confirmation that this is done by FOM?
I see this everywhere. But I can't find

This guy is saying nothing but bad things also to devs of all the games we like.. and still be around to troll.
every post he made since i joined is toxic and doesnt add anything constructive its a bashing for views and clicks.
i really can't get it, this is beyond me, its this types we want around our community?
i mean its getting utterly annoying having this guy around.

AMS Will make whats needed and AMS will be up sooner than later on steam.

SORRY @Bram Just this one last from me.

I don't recall !ANY! dev hostility/trolling/sarcasm/banhammerspree before prc stories.

Again Sorry @Bram.

 

[Diego Balzarini]

Is anyone here without guns available to explain the whole copyright thing, to what extent i can reproduce something close to reality without being too close?
Also, why do we have people in the world with so much hate to say things that we shouldn't say... RD is a great community with wonderful people, if you don't fit the standard don't join. The whole reiza trouble is making me sad

 

[Paulo Gomes]

So if I was a sponsor for a f1 team, instead of having free publicity in a non profit mod, I have FOM screwing the millions I invested to make publicity of my company, by taking down fictional skins of a fictional single seater. Go ask Red Bull if they are interested in free publicity

 

[Paul Bennett]

Are we back on topic then ?
Hope this gets sorted an nobody gets burned. Rezia has it's earned in place in the sim community.