Automobilista Subject to Copyright Claim

Paul Jeffrey · Mar 30, 2016

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

Darren Bentley · Mar 30, 2016

does this have something to do with FOM since they have gone on the rampage recently,
we all wanted F1 to embrace social media and since they have, all they have done is go crazy and literally just start trolling everyone with everything they do

ThatRacingGuy · Mar 30, 2016

OWH NO

But what cars in question?
Sure we all know that the SuperV8 is a holden but it isnt't stated as a Holden in game

April Dillon · Mar 30, 2016

Darren Bentley said:
does this have something to do with FOM since they have gone on the rampage recently,

I was wondering about that... Because, y'know, that 100% definitely makes me want to watch Formula 1 again.

Thomas Cameron · Mar 30, 2016

I hate the word "policy" big co's use it to hide behind all the time

Ole Marius Myrvold · Mar 30, 2016

Darren Bentley said:
does this have something to do with FOM since they have gone on the rampage recently,
we all wanted F1 to embrace social media and since they have, all they have done is go crazy and literally just start trolling everyone with everything they do

The ones in racing who goes on such rampages are usually Ferrari, Porsche and FOM. There is only one that applies to AMS. But I don't know if that's the correct thought. It is my guess.

David Wright · Mar 30, 2016

Stock Car Extreme with almost identical content is still on sale.

Mauricio Vittorazzi · Mar 30, 2016

Darren Bentley said:
does this have something to do with FOM since they have gone on the rampage recently,
we all wanted F1 to embrace social media and since they have, all they have done is go crazy and literally just start trolling everyone with everything they do

Some of you may remember when King, the developers of "Candy Crush Saga", wanted to register a copyright of the word "Saga", among other bizarre market decisions.

If FOM made the claim (which we really don't know, as Reiza stated above), would they be the "King" of the racing world? Does FOM have any copyright over the name "Formula" or the F1 cars design?

Alex McRacing · Mar 30, 2016

ffs

Kacper Kolodziejczyk · Mar 30, 2016

David Wright said:
Stock Car Extreme with almost identical content is still on sale.

It's probably Boxer cup then that got affected (which ridiculously enough is not even in the game yet), or it could be the Formula Reiza, which is also in SCE and is a early 2010s V8 Formula car. Other than that it could possibly be a strike about Kansai, again another piece of content in both as could have been the SuperV8s. Could be an array of things, either way this is absolutely ridiculous.

aerobaticrug · Mar 30, 2016

Seems that FOM are trying to alienate the last fans of F1 as much as possible.

May be putting 2+2 together and getting something other than 4 but I suspect this is another golden nugget from F1

Paul Bennett · Mar 30, 2016

Guys before things go off the rails, Renato just posted at their forum.

"Let me state again so there´s no confusion - the only restriction at the moment is for us to continue selling the game through Steam, and that´s Valve decision to make (and eventually revert when the issue is resolved to the satisfaction of their policy), as they are the ones effectively selling the product."

R.J. O'Connell · Mar 30, 2016

So, here's some facts about who I believe made the claim *nudge nudge wink wink* from the sim racing side of things.

They have an officially licensed product which is marketed to an entirely different audience than the hardcore sim racing audience that Automobilista targets. And that's cool. The two titles can co-exist perfectly in the gaming landscape.
Automobilista portrays very similar vehicles to those found in those official titles, without official driver and team names, but in a more realistic manner than the official titles' developer wishes to implement, purely in terms of driving experience and simulating functions of the car.
If you are an avid follower of the sport run by the supposed claiming party, you can easily recognize who the teams and drivers are supposed to portray. This has been done for years by racing game developers who knew they had a top-quality product but could not acquire an official license. And it has been mostly okay to do that.
For at least two years in the last decade, that supposed claiming party had no officially licensed video games available to depict the years 2007 and 2008, while they were shopping the license to another developer. Meaning that third-party, non-commercial mods for accessible titles would be the only manner to portray those years.
Non-commercial mods have been available for official and unofficial titles portraying this type of racing for years for many other titles. They will not go away.
The claiming party is totally within their legal rights to do what they did, per their discretion. (But it is really hard to just...be okay with that, and not believe that they have misused their right to exercise protection of their images, properties, likenesses, etc.)

SCE_SR · Mar 30, 2016

David Wright said:
Stock Car Extreme with almost identical content is still on sale.

Psschht, *whisper* ... say not too loud...

Peter Stokman · Mar 30, 2016

Whatever brand is causing this is not important imo , they should be happy that we are driving their cars in whatever sim , we make advertisement for their sponsors we drive around with their company names , THEY SHOULD PAY US FOR ADVERTISING THEIR BRANDS AROUND THE WHOLE GLOBE ,

Toymoi · Mar 30, 2016

Always small businesses. Reiza sure solves and is back in steam.

MysteryHelmet · Mar 30, 2016

R.J. O'Connell said:
So, here's some facts about who I believe made the claim *nudge nudge wink wink* from the sim racing side of things.

They have an officially licensed product which is marketed to an entirely different audience than the hardcore sim racing audience that Automobilista targets. And that's cool. The two titles can co-exist perfectly in the gaming landscape.

Automobilista portrays very similar vehicles to those found in those official titles, without official driver and team names, but in a more realistic manner than the official titles' developer wishes to implement, purely in terms of driving experience and simulating functions of the car.

If you are an avid follower of the sport run by the supposed claiming party, you can easily recognize who the teams and drivers are supposed to portray. This has been done for years by racing game developers who knew they had a top-quality product but could not acquire an official license. And it has been mostly okay to do that.

For at least two years in the last decade, that supposed claiming party had no officially licensed video games available to depict the years 2007 and 2008, while they were shopping the license to another developer. Meaning that third-party, non-commercial mods for accessible titles would be the only manner to portray those years.

Non-commercial mods have been available for official and unofficial titles portraying this type of racing for years for many other titles. They will not go away.

The claiming party is totally within their legal rights to do what they did, per their discretion. (But it is really hard to just...be okay with that, and not believe that they have misused their right to exercise protection of their images, properties, likenesses, etc.)

Question. Two separate ones actually.

A. Hasn't another significant game franchise used their likeness before without facing legal ramifications?

B. Does it really own its own likeness? I can think of several other series that Reiza could say they are modeling themselves after. Super Formula, A1GP, and a few more obscure series from the late 2000's that I can't quite remember the name of.

Kakha Jomardidze · Mar 30, 2016

we must create Petition

schlitty · Mar 30, 2016

Speculation isn't too useful beyond Reiza's statement. Valve isn't renowned for their checks and balances. End of the day it could be a great multitude of things. Cars, tracks, sponsors, FOWC, jerks, flat out "trolls" with a fabricated claim, etc. Just gonna have to patiently wait this one out.