What happened here?

[audiobird]

Two years ago before Vice City, the gta-vc.com site (now GTAGaming) was the best GTA fansite on the net because they had the balls to post articles and screenshots from other sites and magazines. Now this site went the way of officially pristine fansite that frowns upon posting "exclusive" material.

However, I don't see the difference between this and music downloads. Young people in this country are constantly gorged for every penny they have (especially college students -- the main demographic of many game developers) . Something free is always welcome with me.

I don't mean to flame the website, I just don't understand the severe offense in posting a GI screenshot.

[GTA_Dealer]

GI had gotten the screens as an EXCLUSIVE. Having something that nobody has gets you sales. Lottsa sales. It's economic.

[steelhawk]

dude, they can't do stuff like that man, it is illegal in a way i do believe

[.:Mouldy Punk:.]

yeah, I think the GI screenshots were copyrighted, and it would take business away for their magazine if you could get it for free off the internet.

[audiobird]

Downloading music is also illegal, but not many lose sleep over the RIAA's bad music sales. I'm pretty sure I remember dl'ing a stunt movie here which featuring music by the Deftones. Was this music properly licensed from Maverick (the Deftones' record label)? I doubt it.

Anyway, that is just my point exactly. In the summer of 2002 when everyone --including me-- was impatiently waiting for Vice City to come out, I came on to this site everyday to see the latest magazine scan or info taken from IGN insider. That isn't the case anymore. Now I have to browse foreign sites that I don't understand.

[.:Mouldy Punk:.]

well those magazines obviously didn't ask them to take them down,

GameInformer have asked us to remove all the content featured in their forthcoming issue, respecting their exclusive. It can be found in the June issue of the magazine, which hits newsstands on May 21st. Our apologies to GameInformer for breaching their exclusive preview.

[:\\HACK]

Originally posted by .:Mouldy Punk:.
well those magazines obviously didn't ask them to take them down,


Unless the images are copyrighted they cannot be posted BUT they can be posted by a user on the forums and the mods could just "Ignore" the post and just say the didnt see it then after 2-3 days they delete them and ban the person for like 24 hours then its not the site that is at fault its the user and the magazine probably wouldnt bother with lawsuits and such.

[rappo]

well i'm sorry that we don't have the "balls" to keep exclusive material on our website when we are told to take it down... but, at least we post it for people to see. the same thing happened with the OPM UK Magazine Pics. You can't just disobey an e-mail from the editor-in-chief of OPM.

[CommieB*****d]

I agree with Rappo: Being a website, its easy to know exactly who is 'stealing' from you (note the quotes). That means they can seriously hurt the people who run this website through legal action. The smart ones will save the exclusive content before its taken down, or absorb it into their minds (I prefer option 1). :D

[rappo]

yes, i prefer option 1 and that's exactly what i do.

it's not illegal actually... but there are still plenty of gta websites that have these screenshots up (which they aren't supposed to).

[brokenfish]

it is illegal. err, was. now theyre not exclusive anymore.

those sites that have them up may or may not have had them up during the exclusivity period. if they did, then they got away with it. but they werent popular sites, were they? im sure that game informer wouldve told them to take down the pictures if it was widely published.

[rappo]

i meant it's not illegal to put the pictures on your computer before the site was told to take them down

[brokenfish]

oh :p
well in that case, yes.