We are the author of BarCraft, and we are sorry to inform you that BarCraft has been removed from all servers.
We have already made an announcement on our forum and Blizzard forum, but we are afraid there are still some players don’t know what’s going on (because when the map is deleted all players have no way to contact us), so we decided to post this thread on Teamliquid and Sc2Mapster, because these communities are where BarCraft begins and we have many friends who made a lot contribution to BarCraft here.
Our group was the champion of "First StarCraft II Map Making Contest" in China, 2011. You may found our name here(in Chinese): http://s.163.com/special/mapdesign1/
All maps begin with [cob] are our creation.
In 2012, we participated in the "Second StarCraft II Map Making Contest" in China, with the card game BarCraft, and another map call “Clash on Abaddon” which is a multiplayer coop tower defense game.
Both map has been selected into the final nine maps. After the case of BarCraft happened, Blizzard removed all BarCraft on all servers, including Chinese server, and the final nine maps become eight ones, which means they disqualified BarCraft. You may see the eight maps here(in Chinese): http://sc2.163.com/articles/1001/69947
Although the title said "final nine maps"(in Chinese), but you can see there is only eight maps.
We don’t know if such things happened before, and we don’t know how to make BarCraft online again. We can understand the necessity of removing our game after they get charged by davinci, but we are very upset about Blizzard didn’t help us on reviving BarCraft. When everything is OKAY all profits goes into their pocket and now they leave us to an army of lawyers alone and just be a looker, besides that it is very hard for us to accept any reason why they disqualified BarCraft even before we came to a conclusion whether BarCraft is a copy work or not, and DMCA is an American law but the contest is held in China.
If you are a hard working StarCraft or WarCraft modder too, just look at what’s happening to us, and think twice about your own future.
Maybe the “Clash on Abaddon” is the last creation we made on StarCraft II Arcade, and the last one we send to “Map Making Contest”. After we finished translating, we will upload this map to US and EU servers.
We will still updating it like what we did to BarCraft, but we probably will move to other platforms such as iOS or Android.
So the map was removed because you entered a mapping competition with prize money and there was a company that has copyright on something that is in your map? So basically the copyright holders want the prize money?
We can understand the necessity of removing our game after they get charged by davinci, but we are very upset about Blizzard didn’t help us on reviving BarCraft. When everything is OKAY all profits goes into their pocket and now they leave us to an army of lawyers alone and just be a looker, besides that it is very hard for us to accept any reason why they disqualified BarCraft even before we came to a conclusion whether BarCraft is a copy work or not, and DMCA is an American law but the contest is held in China.
I'm sorry to hear that all the work went down the drain, I truly am. But! Seriously? I mean, SERIOUSLY? You expect Blizzard not to leave you like that?
Bad Blizzard, baaad!
And that part about American law and contest in China. You want daVinci and Blizzard to respect your work but not the other way around? :)
email from daVinci Editrice S.r.l., the copyright owner of Bang!. In this mail daVinci Editrice considered that – let me quote – “BarCraft is an obvious copy of Bang! and clearly violates the copyrighti in Bang!”, “We therefore demand the Activision Blizzard remove BarCraft, and afiefeiences to BãrCraft, from any website or domain name owned or controlled by Activision Blizzard and that it cease and desist for any other and further dissemination of this infringing work.” “We are also putting Crusade of Blader on notice of its copyright infringement and demand that it cease and desist from its infringing activity, including arry dissemination of BarCraft or any other game copies from Bang!”
" 2.Copying Blizzard Games.
Custom Game developers may only re-create the following Blizzard games (including their expansion packs): Blackthorne™, The Lost Vikings® I & II, Warcraft®: Orcs & Humans™, Warcraft® II: Tides of Darkness™, Warcraft® III: Reign of Chaos®, World of Warcraft®, Diablo®, Diablo® II, Diablo® III, StarCraft® and StarCraft®: Brood War®. For the avoidance of doubt, StarCraft® does not include StarCraft® II. Additionally, although Custom Game developers may use StarCraft II assets to create maps and mods for StarCraft II, Custom Game developers are not allowed to re-create single player missions or scenarios or multiplayer maps that Blizzard has created for StarCraft II. "
Does it means that theoretically there shouldnt be SC II Campaign remakes for example? O.o
Well given it would be a "different" game I guess it doesn't qualifies but its not clear at all.
So if I'm reading that right, BarCraft got removed not because it was a copy of another game (which does still seem to be ok), but because it was a copy of another game that the authors of the map tried to make money with?
That actually makes sense. Take the Starmon map for example: I'm guessing Nintendo has no solid footing to complain about it as long as it's up for free, up until the point where Zeldarules, Maity and me would actually send it into custom mapping contests to try to make money with it.
Well, from what I understand it's because it's a copy. That's it :)
If you want to send stuff to contests you can contact Blizzard to grant you permission (at least that's the case with machinimas or animations that are in the Blizzard's lore). So if the contest case is the reason to remove the mod then I think that Blizzard would be the one after them, not Bang!.
Well, from what I understand it's because it's a copy. That's it :)
Tbh, I doubt this is it. Where do you get the idea from? If it is this, then Starmon will be banned on release and a huge pile of maps currently in the game (including Mafia) should be banned. For as far as I've known, simply 'copying' another game in a free custom map has always been alright as long as you don't directly associate yourself with the original game. This is because custom maps would fall under the same rule as anything free to play/obtain; people writing Twilight fanfic aren't exactly being sued either.
@Leruster: Go That's also what I got from it, they just want it to be removed because it is a copy.
Quote:
“BarCraft is an obvious copy of Bang! and clearly violates the copyright in Bang!”
But they did not want it removed prior to entering the mapping contest. So technically, there was profit to be gained from copyrighted material where they did not had permission to.
And what's the difference between custom games and arcade? :)
The custom maps section is for custom melee maps or things like 1v1 Obs, where the gameplay is still just standard sc2. The arcade is for non-standard gameplay.
Tbh, I doubt this is it. Where do you get the idea from? If it is this, then Starmon will be banned on release and a huge pile of maps currently in the game (including Mafia) should be banned. For as far as I've known, simply 'copying' another game in a free custom map has always been alright as long as you don't directly associate yourself with the original game. This is because custom maps would fall under the same rule as anything free to play/obtain; people writing Twilight fanfic aren't exactly being sued either.
Here's the deal- you can pretty much do whatever you want unless some 3rd party company gets mad and sends a letter of complaint to Blizzard. You could make a blatent rip-off of Team fortress 2, but your map isn't going to be taken down unless Valve sends a letter to blizzard. It's like youtube- there's tons of copyrighted stuff on there, but it doesn't get taken down unless the owner of the copyright requests a removal. Mafia hasn't been removed because the owners of the Mafia game haven't asked for it to be removed.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects companies like Blizzard or Youtube from being sued as long as they take down any copyrighted material if it's requested by the owner of the copyright. And since none of us have a law team, and Blizzard isn't going to be protecting us with their lawyers, if some company feels you've violated their copyright, Blizzard will remove the map to avoid a lawsuit. But Blizzard is not proactively seeking out and deleting maps which are similar to existing games.
I got this idea from reading an email which Bang! wrote :) Maybe the contest just shed some light upon the mod? I don't know.
Anyway, I quoted the mail above.
@Leruster: Go That's also what I got from it, they just want it to be removed because it is a copy. Quote:
“BarCraft is an obvious copy of Bang! and clearly violates the copyright in Bang!”
But they did not want it removed prior to entering the mapping contest. So technically, there was profit to be gained from copyrighted material where they did not had permission to.
This only refers to custom games, but not arcade games =), I think Blizzard should make few modifications.
As usual, it is the 'you give me reasons to earn money' copyright bastards. If it were just for the copyright, they would've asked in the beginning. Copyright sometimes is plain ridiculous - what if 2 persons at different part of the world had the exact same idea - only the names would be different - one would sue the other one? ... (not sure if Barcraft was simply an idea or really copied another game im speaking of the general ridiculous case)
The Barcraft was a Starcraft II card fight mod game based on Bang! and other games‘ mechanism, rules and play methods, which also added some new designs. For the English version of Barcraft, we apologized for Davinci Editrice S.r.l/dV Giochi after communicated, as the result of we were negligence on using some words, terms, phrases and explanations from Bang!. We always respect intellectual property rights, an unwittingly for improperly using intellectual property right from Bang!. It is fundamental truth that compels us to cooperate in future. This will offer better game experiences for Barcraft players.
Thanks for the support and confidence you have always given us.
Please pay attention to the official net most recent news.
Hello dear friends,
We are the author of BarCraft, and we are sorry to inform you that BarCraft has been removed from all servers.
We have already made an announcement on our forum and Blizzard forum, but we are afraid there are still some players don’t know what’s going on (because when the map is deleted all players have no way to contact us), so we decided to post this thread on Teamliquid and Sc2Mapster, because these communities are where BarCraft begins and we have many friends who made a lot contribution to BarCraft here.
You can find more detailed information in these threads on our forum and Blizzard official forum:
http://www.sc2barcraft.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=551&extra=&page=1 http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9280998450?page=2
Our group was the champion of "First StarCraft II Map Making Contest" in China, 2011. You may found our name here(in Chinese):
http://s.163.com/special/mapdesign1/
All maps begin with [cob] are our creation.
In 2012, we participated in the "Second StarCraft II Map Making Contest" in China, with the card game BarCraft, and another map call “Clash on Abaddon” which is a multiplayer coop tower defense game.
Both map has been selected into the final nine maps. After the case of BarCraft happened, Blizzard removed all BarCraft on all servers, including Chinese server, and the final nine maps become eight ones, which means they disqualified BarCraft. You may see the eight maps here(in Chinese):
http://sc2.163.com/articles/1001/69947
Although the title said "final nine maps"(in Chinese), but you can see there is only eight maps.
We don’t know if such things happened before, and we don’t know how to make BarCraft online again. We can understand the necessity of removing our game after they get charged by davinci, but we are very upset about Blizzard didn’t help us on reviving BarCraft. When everything is OKAY all profits goes into their pocket and now they leave us to an army of lawyers alone and just be a looker, besides that it is very hard for us to accept any reason why they disqualified BarCraft even before we came to a conclusion whether BarCraft is a copy work or not, and DMCA is an American law but the contest is held in China.
If you are a hard working StarCraft or WarCraft modder too, just look at what’s happening to us, and think twice about your own future.
Maybe the “Clash on Abaddon” is the last creation we made on StarCraft II Arcade, and the last one we send to “Map Making Contest”. After we finished translating, we will upload this map to US and EU servers.
We will still updating it like what we did to BarCraft, but we probably will move to other platforms such as iOS or Android.
Contact Info
Mail: [email protected]
Forum: www.sc2barcraft.com
Yours
Crusade of Blader(COB)
Wow, that's a real shame. I'm sorry to hear the bad news guys, Barcraft was one of the nicest looking games on the Arcade.
I wish you the best of luck with wherever you choose to take the game next!
I'm confused, they copied a published game, that company sued Blizzard, so Blizzard took the map down, right?
So the map was removed because you entered a mapping competition with prize money and there was a company that has copyright on something that is in your map? So basically the copyright holders want the prize money?
Oh man, I spent many sleepless nights just playing BarCraft, it provides a special kind of enjoyment, uncomparable to all other arcade experiences.
Such a shame that instead of building something grand we sometimes get engaged in these circumstances with fruitless results.
I'm sorry to hear that all the work went down the drain, I truly am. But! Seriously? I mean, SERIOUSLY? You expect Blizzard not to leave you like that? Bad Blizzard, baaad!
And that part about American law and contest in China. You want daVinci and Blizzard to respect your work but not the other way around? :)
That was the reason:
Additionally, for all the future mappers:
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/acceptable-use.html
" 2.Copying Blizzard Games. Custom Game developers may only re-create the following Blizzard games (including their expansion packs): Blackthorne™, The Lost Vikings® I & II, Warcraft®: Orcs & Humans™, Warcraft® II: Tides of Darkness™, Warcraft® III: Reign of Chaos®, World of Warcraft®, Diablo®, Diablo® II, Diablo® III, StarCraft® and StarCraft®: Brood War®. For the avoidance of doubt, StarCraft® does not include StarCraft® II. Additionally, although Custom Game developers may use StarCraft II assets to create maps and mods for StarCraft II, Custom Game developers are not allowed to re-create single player missions or scenarios or multiplayer maps that Blizzard has created for StarCraft II. "
Does it means that theoretically there shouldnt be SC II Campaign remakes for example? O.o Well given it would be a "different" game I guess it doesn't qualifies but its not clear at all.
@Thunderzak: Go
I guess it's because when you have Starter Edition you have an access to all the arcade but not the single player campaign.
For me it is clear: not to re-create
@Leruster: Go
So if I'm reading that right, BarCraft got removed not because it was a copy of another game (which does still seem to be ok), but because it was a copy of another game that the authors of the map tried to make money with?
That actually makes sense. Take the Starmon map for example: I'm guessing Nintendo has no solid footing to complain about it as long as it's up for free, up until the point where Zeldarules, Maity and me would actually send it into custom mapping contests to try to make money with it.
@Mozared: Go
Well, from what I understand it's because it's a copy. That's it :)
If you want to send stuff to contests you can contact Blizzard to grant you permission (at least that's the case with machinimas or animations that are in the Blizzard's lore). So if the contest case is the reason to remove the mod then I think that Blizzard would be the one after them, not Bang!.
Tbh, I doubt this is it. Where do you get the idea from? If it is this, then Starmon will be banned on release and a huge pile of maps currently in the game (including Mafia) should be banned. For as far as I've known, simply 'copying' another game in a free custom map has always been alright as long as you don't directly associate yourself with the original game. This is because custom maps would fall under the same rule as anything free to play/obtain; people writing Twilight fanfic aren't exactly being sued either.
@Leruster: Go That's also what I got from it, they just want it to be removed because it is a copy.
But they did not want it removed prior to entering the mapping contest. So technically, there was profit to be gained from copyrighted material where they did not had permission to.
Also:
This only refers to custom games, but not arcade games =), I think Blizzard should make few modifications.
@Exaken: Go
And what's the difference between custom games and arcade? :)
The custom maps section is for custom melee maps or things like 1v1 Obs, where the gameplay is still just standard sc2. The arcade is for non-standard gameplay.
Here's the deal- you can pretty much do whatever you want unless some 3rd party company gets mad and sends a letter of complaint to Blizzard. You could make a blatent rip-off of Team fortress 2, but your map isn't going to be taken down unless Valve sends a letter to blizzard. It's like youtube- there's tons of copyrighted stuff on there, but it doesn't get taken down unless the owner of the copyright requests a removal. Mafia hasn't been removed because the owners of the Mafia game haven't asked for it to be removed.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects companies like Blizzard or Youtube from being sued as long as they take down any copyrighted material if it's requested by the owner of the copyright. And since none of us have a law team, and Blizzard isn't going to be protecting us with their lawyers, if some company feels you've violated their copyright, Blizzard will remove the map to avoid a lawsuit. But Blizzard is not proactively seeking out and deleting maps which are similar to existing games.
*Disclaimer- I'm not a lawyer
@Mozared: Go
I got this idea from reading an email which Bang! wrote :) Maybe the contest just shed some light upon the mod? I don't know.
Anyway, I quoted the mail above.
As usual, it is the 'you give me reasons to earn money' copyright bastards. If it were just for the copyright, they would've asked in the beginning. Copyright sometimes is plain ridiculous - what if 2 persons at different part of the world had the exact same idea - only the names would be different - one would sue the other one? ... (not sure if Barcraft was simply an idea or really copied another game im speaking of the general ridiculous case)
@Eimtr: Go But if there was no copyright infringement then there would be no 'you give me reasons to earn money' :)
Here are our new creation:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/54467-clash-on-abaddon-a-4-players-coop-td-game/
Check it out if you like tower defense :)
The Barcraft was a Starcraft II card fight mod game based on Bang! and other games‘ mechanism, rules and play methods, which also added some new designs. For the English version of Barcraft, we apologized for Davinci Editrice S.r.l/dV Giochi after communicated, as the result of we were negligence on using some words, terms, phrases and explanations from Bang!. We always respect intellectual property rights, an unwittingly for improperly using intellectual property right from Bang!. It is fundamental truth that compels us to cooperate in future. This will offer better game experiences for Barcraft players. Thanks for the support and confidence you have always given us.
Please pay attention to the official net most recent news.
www.sc2barcraft.com
WHAT’S NEW:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=427378
GAME LINKS: