Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.

So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.

Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.

[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… :whistle: ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?

Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).

In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name

Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.

So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.

Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.

[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… :whistle: ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?

Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).

In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name

Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish

Did you two even look at the text I quoted from the news article? Aka "Lars Wingefors is the real owner of the gaming group Embracer, which, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, is the Swedish company with the largest turnover in Russia"?

So let's look at the history of Saber:

Saber Interactive was founded in 2001 by Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin.[5][6] Together they created a 3D engine from scratch, gathered a team of artists from Saint Petersburg, Russia and began working on their first game
...
On August 1, 2016, Saber Interactive opened its first internal studio outside of Russia

Ok so was created in Russia and had a Russia only presence for 15 years. Still convinced that Saber have zero to do with Russia?

For crying out loud, it was national news over here when SVT exposed all of this.

7 sep 2023: Gaming billionaire Lars Wingefors is designated as a security risk - has business in both Russia and the Swedish defense industry [External Link]

7 feb 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer wants to liquidate in Russia [External Link]

14 mar 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer is leaving Russia [External Link]

And press release from Embracer: Embracer Group ceases all operations in Russia through the divestment of selected assets from the operative group Saber Interactive [External Link]

The last link in English, all others in Swedish.

We now quote the "Kiev School of Econoimcs" as a remotely reliable source?

Plus Sweden is notoriously Russophobic, just because a few people with Russian sounding names opened a company does not make it "Russian". Besides, Saber has been an international company for ages - I am highly skeptical of claims it remains "Russian". Especially considering Russia doesn't have a gaming industry.

They might not be a reliable source of information for how to do things and such, but when it comes to information on which swedish company that have the largest economic investment inside Russia? Yes I would count them as a reliable source for that kind of information.

No one is claiming that Saber is "Russians", the claim is that Saber have studios and economic resources inside Russia, also no one is making that claim based on the names of the founders, it is based on the very fact that the company was founded in St Petersburg, you know that this is a city in Russia yes? They also opened their first studio outside of Russia in 2016 after having operated for 15 years (so obviously they have something inside Russia or do you suggest that they just sat there doing nothing for 15 years?)

And no gaming industry in Russia? The Russian gaming market was worth $3.4B in 2021. I'm not entirely sure what your point is here.

Quoting: Alm888Anyone who wants to see how Embracer/PLAION/Koch Media deals with true Russian gamedev companies can look at authors of "Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG" ("Dark Crystal Games"). It took Embracer less than a week to cut all contacts, stop all game support (including readied but never to be released patch 1.4) and run away with the money.

So no, I wont buy this "We can't deal with pesky Russians" story.

So let me get this straight, Embracer themselves and all media is lying for some unknown nefarious reason?

Also not entirely sure why you are conflating layoffs with finding buyers for valuable assets that you suddenly have to sell off? Remeber that Saber was a founding member of Embracer so this is not something that they really wanted to do.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: F.UltraThat I think we all can agree, not sure I follow in Tim:s reasoning that it's up to Valve to change the cut so Apple might be forced to follow (why they now would be forced, I mean there is no law on what cut you can take and Apple have full monopoly on the iPhone app market).

Epic doesn't care about "30%". At all.

Sweeney said that if Apple had given Epic special favourable terms that left everyone else in the lurch, they'd have taken it.

What they are bothered by is Apple's control of Apple's platform, so that when, say, legislators in a country say "you've got to take these applications off your platform" then Apple can. And have. For Epic's applications.

What they wanted was for the other platform controllers to collude to drop prices so that Apple would be standing alone & vulnerable when Epic sent the regulators knocking on Apple's door. Humble went along with it, and it's pretty much killed their business. Microsoft went along with it (but only for Windows, not Xbox) because they really want the Windows Store on iOS and Android. They didn't disturb Sony because Epic is so reliant on PlayStation Fortnite money. Google wouldn't go along with it. And Valve wouldn't go along with it, so Epic decided to use their Fortnite money to open their own store to (fail to) compete with Steam.

ah, that makes so much more sense!

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Sweeney's point here is that Valve make a lot of money from that 30% cut and goes on to say "If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1000 than the developer themselves made" and complains that when you add together Valve's cut, marketing and so on that the cut for developers is small.

So his first argument is that Valve is making more money from the games that sell really well than the publisher themselves.

Valve almost immediately reduces their cut of games that sell really well:

It was only a few days later (quite cheekily then), that Valve suddenly publicly announced their plan to reduce their take for the top-selling Steam games.

And then Tim Sweeney complains about Valve not doing it for everyone and only the big publishers benefit (that isn't necessarily true; small developers occasionally ship hits).

If Valve reduced their cut for everyone, what would his next argument be?

I'm trying to take Tim Sweeney's side here because it's true that Valve has a near-monopoly on PC games (I wish they had a monopoly on Japanese VNs too) and monopoly power should not exist, but these arguments don't seem to be coming from a place where I can assume good faith.

What I find even more absurd is that it to me sounds like he actually is quite ok with Valve taking 30% but is having more of a problem with Apple doing it and wants Valve to lower their commission to thus somehow force Apple to lower theirs as well.

I could probably make an argument that Valve does deserve 30% but Apple do not. After all, one thing that's been pointed out repeatedly in this thread is that Valve does a lot more than be a store--they got all these features, community, support for modding, yadda yadda, and the claim many of us have made is that it's this extra stuff that makes Valve worth the 30%. I don't think Apple does any of that stuff, so it would follow they're not worth the 30%.

That I think we all can agree, not sure I follow in Tim:s reasoning that it's up to Valve to change the cut so Apple might be forced to follow (why they now would be forced, I mean there is no law on what cut you can take and Apple have full monopoly on the iPhone app market).

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: F.UltraAlso not sure how Valve who gets 30% could make more money than the devs that gets the remaining 70% as he claims (and even if we include the typical publisher who:s average cut is 10%-20%, the devs should still get > 30%).

His claim isn't about revenue, but about profit: specifically, that for "most" of the 26 - 1,025 top selling games, (30% - taxes - cost of doing Steam things) is greater than (70% - publisher cut - taxes - cost of doing game-making things). Which is still a pretty incoherent claim (it makes zero difference to anything whether the claim is true or whether the claim is false), and Valve don't take 30% off the biggest games any more anyway.

True that he talked about profits and the devs have quite an investment to pay off before they make a profit, and I guess that it's my non-US perspective that didn't consider that companies over there pay less taxes than a small dev team.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Sweeney's point here is that Valve make a lot of money from that 30% cut and goes on to say "If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1000 than the developer themselves made" and complains that when you add together Valve's cut, marketing and so on that the cut for developers is small.

So his first argument is that Valve is making more money from the games that sell really well than the publisher themselves.

Valve almost immediately reduces their cut of games that sell really well:

It was only a few days later (quite cheekily then), that Valve suddenly publicly announced their plan to reduce their take for the top-selling Steam games.

And then Tim Sweeney complains about Valve not doing it for everyone and only the big publishers benefit (that isn't necessarily true; small developers occasionally ship hits).

If Valve reduced their cut for everyone, what would his next argument be?

I'm trying to take Tim Sweeney's side here because it's true that Valve has a near-monopoly on PC games (I wish they had a monopoly on Japanese VNs too) and monopoly power should not exist, but these arguments don't seem to be coming from a place where I can assume good faith.

What I find even more absurd is that it to me sounds like he actually is quite ok with Valve taking 30% but is having more of a problem with Apple doing it and wants Valve to lower their commission to thus somehow force Apple to lower theirs as well.

Also not sure how Valve who gets 30% could make more money than the devs that gets the remaining 70% as he claims (and even if we include the typical publisher who:s average cut is 10%-20%, the devs should still get > 30%).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.

So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.

Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.

[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… :whistle: ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?

Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).

In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name

Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.

So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.

Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.

[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… :whistle: ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?

Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).

In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name

Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish

Did you two even look at the text I quoted from the news article? Aka "Lars Wingefors is the real owner of the gaming group Embracer, which, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, is the Swedish company with the largest turnover in Russia"?

So let's look at the history of Saber:

Saber Interactive was founded in 2001 by Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin.[5][6] Together they created a 3D engine from scratch, gathered a team of artists from Saint Petersburg, Russia and began working on their first game
...
On August 1, 2016, Saber Interactive opened its first internal studio outside of Russia

Ok so was created in Russia and had a Russia only presence for 15 years. Still convinced that Saber have zero to do with Russia?

For crying out loud, it was national news over here when SVT exposed all of this.

7 sep 2023: Gaming billionaire Lars Wingefors is designated as a security risk - has business in both Russia and the Swedish defense industry [External Link]

7 feb 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer wants to liquidate in Russia [External Link]

14 mar 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer is leaving Russia [External Link]

And press release from Embracer: Embracer Group ceases all operations in Russia through the divestment of selected assets from the operative group Saber Interactive [External Link]

The last link in English, all others in Swedish.

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Quoting: JarmerI'm eagerly awaiting the day the article is posted "Embracer group files for bankruptcy". Until then, seeing more studio free of their clutches is great news.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt looks less like someone buying companies and more like a deal between two sports teams--"And you get so-and-so, but I get a first round draft pick . . ."

The selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.

edit: I've added a google translate version of an article from SVT (Swedish public broadcasting similar to BBC) who where the ones that "exposed" all of this. Machine translation which also means that he is labelled as "gambling" when they mean computer games:

Gambling billionaire Lars Wingefors and the Embracer Group's business in Russia are identified by security experts as a security risk. This is because Wingefors also owns properties that are rented out to companies in the Swedish defense industry.

Lars Wingefors is the real owner of the gaming group Embracer, which, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, is the Swedish company with the largest turnover in Russia. At the same time, Lars Wingefors is the main owner of a property company that owns most of the premises in the Bofors industrial area in Karlskoga. Among the tenants are several companies in the defense industry.

- You can be exposed to blackmail, infiltration or other things that can spill over into the real estate business, says the security policy expert Patrik Oksanen.

High exposure – high risk

Patrik Oksanen mainly works with security policy at the think tank Frivärld, but also has assignments at the Norwegian Defense Academy and is a member of the Royal Academy of Military Sciences.

- The greater the financial exposure to Russia, the greater the risk, he says of Wingefor's business.

According to an examination by Sveriges Radio, the Embracer group has a turnover of over SEK 350 million and employs close to 900 people in Russia.

In the video above, Patrik Oksanen develops his view of Lars Wingefor's business as a security risk.
Russia connection not known

Among Wingefor's tenants are the defense industry companies Prevas, PartnerTech and Saab. Representatives of Prevas and PartnerTech state that the connection between the property owner and Russia was unknown to them. Saab does not comment on that information at all.

The entire Bofors industrial area is, however, a protected object. This means that you may not stay within the area without permission, photograph, measure or otherwise depict the buildings in the fenced area.
Don't want to comment

Lars Wingefors does not appear for an interview. In a text message, however, he states that security work is A and O for him and his businesses, and that the regulations surrounding listed companies, such as Embracer, are surrounded by rigorous regulations regarding the handling of independence and information.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: F.UltraAnd the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

That is Nintendo's argument, but the emulator could still be used for Homebrew Switch games. For example, some indie game developers make games for the Gameboy, distributing the emulator and all (e.g. npckc distributing Marron's Day via Sameboy sometime in the next few months).

Yuzu would not be entirely useless without the keys, but Nintendo's argument is that this is not a significant use case and should be discounted. So you're completely correct in your analysis.

you are correct, I completely forgot about the indie scene!

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Quoting: melkemind

Quoting: emphyThat was nintendo's claim, but they didn't even issue a dmca take-down notice to github, giving a strong indication that even their legal team had doubts as to some of their claims about the legality of the emulation itself.

From what I understand, yuzu's main legal problems were that their devs didn't strictly adhere to a "we can't tell you how/where to get the games"-policy.

Regardless, emudeck does not have the deep pockets required for an effective legal defence against a billion-dollar company in full extortion mode, so I suspect they'll pass up on the opportunity to paint a bullseye on their backs by supporting emulation of a device whose ecosystem is still being commercially exploited.

From what I understand, DMCA takedown notices are for digital content. If they had a claim that their code was used, they could issue a takedown notice. Their actual argument against Yuzu is from a different part of the DMCA (Section 1201), which prevents the circumvention of TPMs (technological protection measures). This is the same argument they used against Dolphin Emulator when they convinced Valve to block it from the Steam store.

As I understand it, the emulator as such doesn't violate the DMCA, the problem was that Yuzu had guides on their web site on how to extract the keys from a Switch and input them into the emulator and that step violates the circumventing clause of the DMCA.

And the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI would recommend that the next people who take the code and continue developing it under a different name, host it in some place like the EU and have some kind of region lock where they don't allow downloads from places with DMCA-type anti-digital-lock-tampering laws. Of course, since the code is open and all some people will then mirror it in other places and it will become available around the world--but that will not be the core project's fault, as they will be taking due measures to prevent it.

EU is a terrible idea as it is under US jurisdiction being US vassal states. The EU has gone after piracy before (Sweden, Italy, Germany). Russia/Belarus/China are much better about it, especially now

But this isn't about piracy. Oh, sure, they can say they were "enabling" piracy, but the key issue is that they allegedly enabled the piracy by enabling tampering with a "digital lock" (encryption, DRM et cetera). Such tampering is forbidden under the DMCA, and there are similar provisions in other countries. But it's entirely legal in the EU, is if anything a consumer right.

And while the EU is definitely under the US thumb in terms of geopolitics, their regimes in terms of laws around computing and telecommunications are really quite different, whether it's about privacy, competition or "intellectual property", and the EU shows no signs of interest in harmonizing their approach with the US one.

I was under the impression that the EU would bow head to US based, DMCA takedown orders?

Moreover, I am skeptical of the "pro-consumer claims" that people have of the EU. I heard that some crack scene groups got sent to prison in Germany for tampering with Denuvo, if anything thats anticonsumer

No that is not at all how things work. The DMCA is only legal inside the US, the EU have a (in some areas) similar EUCD so if a US firm wants to file a "DMCA" on a EU based entity then they have to actually file it as a EUCD so they have to change their filings to match the laws of the EUCD.

No EU country is under the US jurisdiction and none of the EU states are US vassal states. That e.g the Pirate Bay was sued in civil court in Sweden have zero to do with the US and more to do with the fact that copyright laws exists in most countries on earth and that from long before the US was even a state.

In fact the Pirate Bay got one of the best defence lawyers available especially since the system works so different over here (over here the looser always pays the entire costs for both sides so there exists very few US like cases where the case is drawn out to drain the other sides resources).

If you think that EU is not US vassal states, you should go watch the videos of Professor Mearsheimer where he talks about how US dictates policy for EU. It kind of works like the Mongolian Imperial model, where they would not bother their vassals and gave them a degree of autonomy until they needed something from them. Same thing here. This is why for example, Germany shot its own industry in the foot by boycotting Russian energy or not saying anything when the US blew up Nordstream 2.

https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-asks-eu-for-iptv-torrents-piracy-support-services-crackdown-220408/ [External Link]

Here's an example of the MPA acting in the EU to shut down IPTV services. There are also APAA actions. There is also a DMCA takedown procedure in the EU:
https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/European-DMCA-Takedown-process [External Link]

So yes, US jurisdiction expands to the EU. How could it not, when the US literally has troops in Europe? You think that the US would let Europe act independently on issues it deems of vital importance (and protecting US business is of vital importance to it)?

If you follow your own link on the DMCA you'll read the exact same thing regarding the EUCD that I wrote in the post that you are now arguing with.

No, US jurisdiction does not apply in the EU (the US having troops in Europe due to NATO have zero to do with legal jurisdiction, this is a huge non sequitur), the US did not blow up Nordstream 2 (all evidence so far points towards Ukraine, Ukraine supporters in eastern Europe or false flag by Russia).

All this in combination with you bringing up Mearsheimer only tells me that you are posting Russian conspiracy theories.

If you read the link I sent it says:

"DMCA.com is qualified to go to work on behalf of copyright and content owners." this means that EU upholds US copyright claims/law.

US having troops in Europe as part of NATO is precisely what I mean lol. The entire point is to both be a "defensive" alliance and act as an implied threat to European countries to stay within the desired boundaries that the US sets. Its very similar to the Warsaw Pact in that regard. In fact the US has an extensive regieme change history in both Europe, amongst allies and abroad as well.

The US did blow up Nordstream 2, its fairly well known by now. See this investigation by pultizer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream [External Link]

If you also account for the fact that Sweden did an investigation, said they know who did it but then covered it up further lends credence to Seymour's idea. Ukraine does not have the capability to blow up the pipeline. And it doesn't make sense for Russia to blow up their own pipe/money maker, and Russians are rational actors unlike as is commonly portrayed.

Point is this, EU is not really an independent actor and will do what they are told by the US. We have seen this multiple times, with Huawei bans (although neither UK nor German probes found anything of concern), Russian gas bans and if needed with piracy as well.

Sorry but you are utterly confused (or deliberately obtuse). DMCA.com is a company that specialises in takedowns the world over, that they have named their company DMCA doesn't mean that they use the DMCA outside of the USA, it only means that they have decided to call their company this. Cheesus.

And no the actual evidence from the Swedish Navy points directly to Ukrainians or Russians, Ukrainians due to the people that hired the boat that allegedly conducted the attack and Russia due to them having placed lots of navy ships there inside Swedish waters just before the attack.

The major problem with the USA angle is that the USA had nothing to gain from blowing it up, the USA had already convinced Germany et al to stop using it so Nordstream was defacto a dead project already (thanks to the pipe being not used the explosion wasn't bigger than it was). The only ones having a reason to do it is #1 Ukraine to retaliate against Russia and #2 Russia to cry wolf.

file:///home/andrew/Downloads/kchrist6,+p8blythe7.pdf

So I did some research and while DMCA is a US invention (which you are correct about) EU tends to frequently uphold it.

Lol here's what Sweden said:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/7/sweden-ends-nord-stream-probe-citing-lack-of-jurisdiction [External Link]

The closed the probe citing an "unknown state actor" that they don't want to name. If it was Russia, they would have "exposed it" and it would have been all over the news. Ukraine also denied doing it (although they don't hesitate to confirm they did something). The boat that was allegedly hired by the Ukrainians was held by the Germans, and the Germans found no evidence that Ukrainians did it lol.

The US has alot to gain from blowing up nordstream 2 - first was that it cuts off Germany entirely off Russian energy, so that they could entertain no thoughts of going back to Russian energy. Next, it guarentees that Germany is hooked on US LNG. Finally, it was a last ditch attempt by the US to influence Russian actions. Also blowing up the Nord Stream 2 is an act of war against both Russia and Germany. This is why Sweden wanted to cover it up.

In contrast, Russia has nothing to gain from "crying wolf" because nobody would believe them anyway and because its their main money maker and they hoped that things would eventually settle down and they could reopen the pipe again in the future. This is an impossibility now. Russia has nothing to gain from blowing up their own pipe, its a nonsensical claim as the one saying they fired at themselves at the Zaporozhiye Power Plant lmao

No the EU cannot uphold the DMCA because it's an American law. How can this be so problematic for you? It's only on the points where the DMCA and the EUCD agrees where things can be upheld so when this is done it's done under the EUCD rules and not the DMCA rules.

Don't know where Al Jazeera got that from, I happen to Swedish and have relatives that work in MUST (our Military Intelligence) and the investigation was not dropped due to some unknown state actor, it was dropped because there was nothing further that could be investigated, the Swedish military jurisdiction only covers Swedish territorial waters. All findings have been forwarded to the German investigation who are the ones that are taking it on since the leads went into their jurisdiction and due to secrecy laws for international co-operations of these matters there is nothing more than any part can disclose.

Again, there was nothing in it for the US to risk this kind of operation. Nordstream was off production and was never to be opened again, nothing in Germany would ever be able to turn in on again. Also why risk war with Russia over something useless as this. No, blaming this on the US is just stupid cheap b-level movie plot. It would also leak (all US operations leak as hell and there haven't been a single whisper).

This is why Russians (and the fact that the area was swarmed by the Russian navy in the days before the attack) are the #1 suspect because they had exactly zero to loose by Nordstream being blown up and all to gain in the cry wolf, and Russians loves to cry wolf (they have done so the entire campaign), Putin might not have gained anything internationally from it, but internally in Russia it is one of the things that further secures his position.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI would recommend that the next people who take the code and continue developing it under a different name, host it in some place like the EU and have some kind of region lock where they don't allow downloads from places with DMCA-type anti-digital-lock-tampering laws. Of course, since the code is open and all some people will then mirror it in other places and it will become available around the world--but that will not be the core project's fault, as they will be taking due measures to prevent it.

EU is a terrible idea as it is under US jurisdiction being US vassal states. The EU has gone after piracy before (Sweden, Italy, Germany). Russia/Belarus/China are much better about it, especially now

But this isn't about piracy. Oh, sure, they can say they were "enabling" piracy, but the key issue is that they allegedly enabled the piracy by enabling tampering with a "digital lock" (encryption, DRM et cetera). Such tampering is forbidden under the DMCA, and there are similar provisions in other countries. But it's entirely legal in the EU, is if anything a consumer right.

And while the EU is definitely under the US thumb in terms of geopolitics, their regimes in terms of laws around computing and telecommunications are really quite different, whether it's about privacy, competition or "intellectual property", and the EU shows no signs of interest in harmonizing their approach with the US one.

I was under the impression that the EU would bow head to US based, DMCA takedown orders?

Moreover, I am skeptical of the "pro-consumer claims" that people have of the EU. I heard that some crack scene groups got sent to prison in Germany for tampering with Denuvo, if anything thats anticonsumer

No that is not at all how things work. The DMCA is only legal inside the US, the EU have a (in some areas) similar EUCD so if a US firm wants to file a "DMCA" on a EU based entity then they have to actually file it as a EUCD so they have to change their filings to match the laws of the EUCD.

No EU country is under the US jurisdiction and none of the EU states are US vassal states. That e.g the Pirate Bay was sued in civil court in Sweden have zero to do with the US and more to do with the fact that copyright laws exists in most countries on earth and that from long before the US was even a state.

In fact the Pirate Bay got one of the best defence lawyers available especially since the system works so different over here (over here the looser always pays the entire costs for both sides so there exists very few US like cases where the case is drawn out to drain the other sides resources).

If you think that EU is not US vassal states, you should go watch the videos of Professor Mearsheimer where he talks about how US dictates policy for EU. It kind of works like the Mongolian Imperial model, where they would not bother their vassals and gave them a degree of autonomy until they needed something from them. Same thing here. This is why for example, Germany shot its own industry in the foot by boycotting Russian energy or not saying anything when the US blew up Nordstream 2.

https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-asks-eu-for-iptv-torrents-piracy-support-services-crackdown-220408/ [External Link]

Here's an example of the MPA acting in the EU to shut down IPTV services. There are also APAA actions. There is also a DMCA takedown procedure in the EU:
https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/European-DMCA-Takedown-process [External Link]

So yes, US jurisdiction expands to the EU. How could it not, when the US literally has troops in Europe? You think that the US would let Europe act independently on issues it deems of vital importance (and protecting US business is of vital importance to it)?

If you follow your own link on the DMCA you'll read the exact same thing regarding the EUCD that I wrote in the post that you are now arguing with.

No, US jurisdiction does not apply in the EU (the US having troops in Europe due to NATO have zero to do with legal jurisdiction, this is a huge non sequitur), the US did not blow up Nordstream 2 (all evidence so far points towards Ukraine, Ukraine supporters in eastern Europe or false flag by Russia).

All this in combination with you bringing up Mearsheimer only tells me that you are posting Russian conspiracy theories.

If you read the link I sent it says:

"DMCA.com is qualified to go to work on behalf of copyright and content owners." this means that EU upholds US copyright claims/law.

US having troops in Europe as part of NATO is precisely what I mean lol. The entire point is to both be a "defensive" alliance and act as an implied threat to European countries to stay within the desired boundaries that the US sets. Its very similar to the Warsaw Pact in that regard. In fact the US has an extensive regieme change history in both Europe, amongst allies and abroad as well.

The US did blow up Nordstream 2, its fairly well known by now. See this investigation by pultizer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream [External Link]

If you also account for the fact that Sweden did an investigation, said they know who did it but then covered it up further lends credence to Seymour's idea. Ukraine does not have the capability to blow up the pipeline. And it doesn't make sense for Russia to blow up their own pipe/money maker, and Russians are rational actors unlike as is commonly portrayed.

Point is this, EU is not really an independent actor and will do what they are told by the US. We have seen this multiple times, with Huawei bans (although neither UK nor German probes found anything of concern), Russian gas bans and if needed with piracy as well.

Sorry but you are utterly confused (or deliberately obtuse). DMCA.com is a company that specialises in takedowns the world over, that they have named their company DMCA doesn't mean that they use the DMCA outside of the USA, it only means that they have decided to call their company this. Cheesus.

And no the actual evidence from the Swedish Navy points directly to Ukrainians or Russians, Ukrainians due to the people that hired the boat that allegedly conducted the attack and Russia due to them having placed lots of navy ships there inside Swedish waters just before the attack.

The major problem with the USA angle is that the USA had nothing to gain from blowing it up, the USA had already convinced Germany et al to stop using it so Nordstream was defacto a dead project already (thanks to the pipe being not used the explosion wasn't bigger than it was). The only ones having a reason to do it is #1 Ukraine to retaliate against Russia and #2 Russia to cry wolf.

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