5 ms·

This might be the earliest case of corporations abusing (electronic) copyright laws to influence competition I know of. Clearly, there is no real basis to claim

This might be the earliest case of corporations abusing (electronic) copyright laws to influence competition I know of. Clearly, there is no real basis to claim that a memory poker infringes Nintendo's copyright, but Nintendo successfully lobbied against it anyway.

schoen 6y ago
Not successfully at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin.... (Perhaps successfully later on with the DMCA.)
- zinekeller 6y ago
  Yikes, broken link. This one should be fixed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc.# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin... (Hint: if the last character is not alphanumeric, put a # (a blank URL fragment) to work around HN's autodetection of punctuation) (Edit: I don't recommend percent-encoding URLs, mainly because certain web servers react differently to percent-encoded URL, like https://www.google.com/search?q=world+dog https://www.google.com/search?q=world+dog and https://www.google.com/search?q=world%2bdog https://www.google.com/search?q=world%2bdog (first one is interpreted by Google search server as space, second one as a plus sign) while a blank URL fragment is guaranteed to be safe.)
  - codetrotter 6y ago
    > Hint: if the last character is not alphanumeric, put a # (a blank URL fragment) to work around HN's autodetection of punctuation I usually use URL encoding (aka percent encoding) [0] in this case but that’s a pretty neat trick and certainly more convenient than for example pasting the URL into https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ and pressing the encode button and copying the encoded URL. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - qu4z-2 6y ago
    So, fun fact about percent-encoding: the space character can be percent encoded as %20 or +, and a literal plus must always be percent encoded as %2b. When you put plusses in Google Search those are actually pre-percent encoded spaces, which is why it treats them as spaces. Of course, if you chuck it into a percent encoding script again it treats them as literal spaces since presumably the input isn't already percent encoded (just as it'd encode the % in other encoded characters). At least that's if I recall correctly and it wouldn't surprise me if other servers do handle things in zany ways.
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  Actually successful later on with the DMCA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar....

schoen 6y ago

Not successfully at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin.... (Perhaps successfully later on with the DMCA.)

zinekeller 6y ago
Yikes, broken link. This one should be fixed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc.# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin... (Hint: if the last character is not alphanumeric, put a # (a blank URL fragment) to work around HN's autodetection of punctuation) (Edit: I don't recommend percent-encoding URLs, mainly because certain web servers react differently to percent-encoded URL, like https://www.google.com/search?q=world+dog https://www.google.com/search?q=world+dog and https://www.google.com/search?q=world%2bdog https://www.google.com/search?q=world%2bdog (first one is interpreted by Google search server as space, second one as a plus sign) while a blank URL fragment is guaranteed to be safe.)
- codetrotter 6y ago
  > Hint: if the last character is not alphanumeric, put a # (a blank URL fragment) to work around HN's autodetection of punctuation I usually use URL encoding (aka percent encoding) [0] in this case but that’s a pretty neat trick and certainly more convenient than for example pasting the URL into https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ and pressing the encode button and copying the encoded URL. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- qu4z-2 6y ago
  So, fun fact about percent-encoding: the space character can be percent encoded as %20 or +, and a literal plus must always be percent encoded as %2b. When you put plusses in Google Search those are actually pre-percent encoded spaces, which is why it treats them as spaces. Of course, if you chuck it into a percent encoding script again it treats them as literal spaces since presumably the input isn't already percent encoded (just as it'd encode the % in other encoded characters). At least that's if I recall correctly and it wouldn't surprise me if other servers do handle things in zany ways.
kmeisthax 6y ago
Actually successful later on with the DMCA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar....