Trying to determine the reasoning of the insane, was your first mistake.
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DMCA takedown removes River City Ransom Underground from Steam
- Thread starter Shard
- Start date
Weltall Zero
Member
Actually, this move and its coverage is bound to make a lot of people aware that this game exists, and I doubt the removal will stand for long, so the net effect in sales should be quite positive!
added_time
Member
That's a real shame. I own the game and they put a lot of work into it and have constantly been improving it with patches. I hope they get it back on Steam soon.
Thug Waffle
Member
So what's this girl's story? She does have good cause to do this, right? I can't tell if she's more like a patent troll or that crazy person who is too crazy to properly address injustices against them.
Squirrel Killer
Member
I think her thought was that threatening the youtubers' livelihoods would get them to put pressure on Imagos settle the case in her favor.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
I feel like there will be a law named after this person when it's all said and done
s_mirage
Member
She's obviously not thinking clearly (to put it mildly), and I'm not sure that there are any injustices against her.
No, I'm sorry, but that doesn't excuse making death threats against a legal representative of the company which you are in a legal dispute with, or against people who are calling you on your bullshit. Best I can tell, the people Mauer made threats against made no such threats against her, they just opposed her position. Mauer is clearly unstable.
The amount of harm and abuse inflicted by this bitch is pretty shocking. It's also a great example of how broken the takedown system, YouTube's policies, and the underlying laws actually are. That an almost incoherently deluded sociopath with a vendetta could wreak so much havoc is concerning.
Papo Swing
Member
I feel this will just end really badly a few months down the road.
Thug Waffle
Member
Well, if her music is really being used without her permission...
Claude Augario
Member
Considering how easy it is to screw people over with the DMCA I'm honestly surprised more crazies aren't doing this to wreak as much havoc as possible.
Nothing indicates that is the case here. This is not a question of non-payment or lack of permission, but of the composer suddenly wanting more money, for whatever reason, and then being clearly unwilling to act like an adult instead of a child in the pursuit of this goal.
The Scollard
Member
Except that doesn't matter if she doesn't own the copyrights to that music. Which, according the contract she signed, is property of Imagos Softworks and not her.
Well, Holmes did via a Destructoid post...and got hammered in the comments section for it, hence the updates: https://www.destructoid.com/blogs/J...aken-off-steam-due-to-dmca-claim-449177.phtml
This is it. Whatever the original dispute was over is completely irrelevant at this stage. The situation here and now is some musician going completely off the deep end and going out of their way to screw with every single person she can remotely justify attacking, and nobody is really doing anything about it. There is no action that makes this justifiable.
Squirrel Killer
Member
I'm not excusing anything. Head.spawn was confused who was getting death threats, and I was just noting that - the internet being the internet - both sides were.
Papo Swing
Member
Wow I've just caught up to speed on this and what a piece of shit human being. Even worse that she is sing the trans card for her benefit.
How is this person not in jail? How is she allowed to cotinue with so many documented cases of threats, purgery, lies etc?
Why does this affect RCRU and Conatus at all? How is she allowed to go after them even after the initial DMCA is rejected?
Why is YT and Steam responding to her shit after so many illegal DMCA submissions? Like why is she heard or allowed to continue when it seems for more than a month now the irrational behavior has been documented?
Why are most journalist stories around this so bad and only pick up on her side and none of the well documented threats and crazyness. Makes them look extra bad IMO.
Sir Tap TAp has a great and well documented write up of all of this I will continue to follow. Such a shit show.
How is this person not in jail? How is she allowed to cotinue with so many documented cases of threats, purgery, lies etc?
Why does this affect RCRU and Conatus at all? How is she allowed to go after them even after the initial DMCA is rejected?
Why is YT and Steam responding to her shit after so many illegal DMCA submissions? Like why is she heard or allowed to continue when it seems for more than a month now the irrational behavior has been documented?
Why are most journalist stories around this so bad and only pick up on her side and none of the well documented threats and crazyness. Makes them look extra bad IMO.
Sir Tap TAp has a great and well documented write up of all of this I will continue to follow. Such a shit show.
Unreal Champ
Banned
I can't believe people had any sympathy for her in the first place.
This is in no way normal or acceptable. Is there any evidence whatsoever that a game developer sent her a death threat? If so people would be pointing it out since that would likely end a developer's career.
But no, people are reporting screenshots of her sending the threat(s), so I challenge the assertion that it went both ways.
Yeah, any unused keys won't activate as Valve changes the status of a game's public subs to "Unavailable" while a copyright dispute is underway, which prevents them from being registered to accounts (unredeemed gift copies are unaffected). Any attempt to activate a key will simply result in the "Invalid product code" error message, but they are in fact still valid and will work again once the dispute has been resolved.
Well she did have an out to a degree, after DMCA'ing 60 Youtubers it was brought to light she had mental health issues while this doesn't excuse Alex Mauer completely, people were pleading her to get help, then she was taken into an involuntary mental institution for a few days, people thought she was finally getting the help she needed and the crazy stopped and theeeeeeeen they let her out and she continued from act 2 of her madness and shut down any modicum of sympathy she could have got from anyone in that instant and now she needs to be crushed by the law.
Azure Dream
Member
Destructoid backpedaled their article, claiming it was a user blog that shouldn't have shown up on the front page in the first place, and editing in a bunch of corrections.
Of course, in the meantime, Ars Technica was perfectly happy to echo the original article's contents, once again leaving out her trying to blackmail YouTubers to get her way, death threats she's sent out, etc.
Of course, in the meantime, Ars Technica was perfectly happy to echo the original article's contents, once again leaving out her trying to blackmail YouTubers to get her way, death threats she's sent out, etc.
Weltall Zero
Member
Your post ("sent both ways") seemed to specifically imply that the people targeted by her death threats had sent death threats to her in turn, which is not a reasonable assumption. If your point is that she probably received death threats, in general, then that's probably a given considering GamerGate's MO.
Weltall Zero
Member
They also seem to have made comments invisible, or at least I can't get them to show. In any case this can't be good for the article's author's reputation or relationship with Destructoid...
Ars Technica's article is at least reasonably neutral from an editorial viewpoint. Destructoid's was just embarrassing.
Pokemaniac
Member
I really hope this situation either directly or indirectly ends up motivating some (much needed) DMCA reform. Because that's about the only good that can possibly come of it.
Angelus Errare
Banned
She's not a big corporation.
None.
SerTapTap
Member
She's a malicious, awful person is my conclusion. I've made a timeline of the issue and I think you'll find malicious intent is the only common thread between her actions. note she has actually attacked 7 different titles, 6 games and whatever The Catastrophe at Catalina is. Most of them related to Imagos Softworks, RCRU is not though.
She's changed her story on the issue countless times and shows every indication of being a compulsive liar--the kind who will lie to your face even if they know you have facts to prove them wrong.
Not everyone in the world is a good person with their heart in the right place, I'm afraid. But even if you're not interested in my analysis, that timeline is factual and has sources for dozens of dates and events in this bullcrap. I'd strongly recommend anyone trying to write on this or even come up with an opinion/understand it all read it.
(And I am directly involved hence a bit of my disgust; she's send death threats to people like me and has directly harassed me including two illegal DMCA claims. She also forwarded me one of her death threats, but I'll be charitable and not consider it a threat on my life personally.)
Reading through the full history, she needs to be put away somewhere. This kind of behavior is not acceptable and I don't understand how it can continue on like this.
Her career is over but also this idiotic tantrum is screwing over other people and causes. Unacceptable.
Her career is over but also this idiotic tantrum is screwing over other people and causes. Unacceptable.
SerTapTap
Member
It showcases a couple things: The horribly slow pace of civil law, the even worse general circumstances around the DMCA (one of very, very few "guilty until proven innocent" aspects of common US law), and the divide in how we treat "digital" and "physical" matters.
Make no mistake, if Alex did even one tenth of the crap she's done online in a physical space instead, she'd be arrested for criminal harassment. Which should still be done--if anything she's caused even more harm online than she could practically cause in a physical space. But it's still considered "less real" in both social and legal spaces.
The worst thing is if criminal charges are never pressed, she can just go through game by game, harassing them one by one as restraining orders only cover one company/game at a time. After RCRU she could go after Potatoman Seeks The Troof, then Penny Arcade Game 3 Rainslick precipice of extremely long name, then countless others she's worked on.
She's learned how abuse the DMCA to maximal effect and, as she's not a large company and is willing to/has already destroyed her reputation, the traditional consequences of DMCA abuse are of no concern to her. She has no money to pay damages and no remaining career to protect.
This is so fucking sad. I feel sorry for the devs who worked so hard on this. Assuming it reappears on steam I'll be sure to finally buy it when it does.
No one on Earth. She's finished.
No one on Earth. She's finished.
Kamina
Golden Boy
Thats the thing i was wondering. Regardless of the final outcome of this whole mess, no one will want to hire her after this.
Only someone absolutely mental would go that far. Let alone the death threats, firing her attorney....
Squirrel Killer
Member
Of course death threats are completely unacceptable. I never meant to imply that a game developer sent her a death threat, only that she has claimed to have received them and that, the internet being full of assholes, I see no reason to doubt that claim. To the contrary, Imagos, Leonard French, and even SidAlpha (despite his back and forth on censoring the YouTube comments) have been downright respectful with Alex considering her actions.
My point was that both sides have claimed to have received death threats. Leonard French, SidAlpha, and possibly others have received them directly from Alex. To my knowledge, Alex has only received them from anonymous morons. My apologies for my lack of clarity.
The devs responded.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/422810/discussions/0/2217311444344457035/
tldr they say she has absolutely no legal basis for this but nonetheless they're scrubbing the entire soundtrack and starting over (which effectively erases the work of three people because of Alex) just to put this behind them.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/422810/discussions/0/2217311444344457035/
tldr they say she has absolutely no legal basis for this but nonetheless they're scrubbing the entire soundtrack and starting over (which effectively erases the work of three people because of Alex) just to put this behind them.
Damn, they can't take out her songs specifically, or were they collaborations?
The damage she's causing should be a crime.
Alex was subcontracted by their lead composer, from what I understand, and my guess is that maybe things are just too messy due to the possibly collaborative nature of music and it's easiest to just make a clean break.
By contract if it's like Star Mazer, the work she made is now theirs.
Well I sure hope Disasterpeace is now composing the full soundtrack himself and at no additional expense since he brought the crazy into the equation.
Seriously, Alex Mauer, insane or not, is a piece of shit.
I'm guessing hiring someone to make a new soundtrack is easier and cheaper and faster than a legal battle.