Despite Threat Of $50,000 Fine, Montreal Designer Plans To Release More 'Real World' Counter-Strike Maps

from the if-at-first-you-don't-get-sued,-try,-try-again dept

Recently, we covered the story of a Canadian Counter-strike enthusiast who created a map based on a Montreal metro station. It was greeted with a thorough lack of enthusiasm by Montreal's transport authority (STM), which claimed the map might "create panic among the city's public transport users," before deciding to head off the whole situation using good, old-fashioned, pre-murder-simulator copyright. Diego Liatis, the creator of the map, was threatened with a $50,000 fine by STM, which has done little to deter his efforts.

Ars Technica has a followup story, detailing Liatis' refusal to back down.

Diego Liatis, a Montreal gamer and entrepreneur, told Ars that he still plans on releasing a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map of Berri-UQAM, the city’s most well-known metro station. He's moving forward—the map is due sometime in March 2013—even if it means a drawn-out lawsuit brought by the local transit authority.

“If you ask me to change the name of the station—forget about it,” Diego Liatis told Ars, starting the sentence in French and switching to English for emphasis. “I understand [copyright law]. But there are limits, such as the name of the station.”
Liatis still believes he has the right to reproduce a real world location and is currently in negotiations (a polite word meaning "lawyers conversing") with the STM to determine what can be left in and what needs to be removed to satisfy the transport authority.
Liatis said he planned on meeting in person with STM representatives later this week. While he is willing to alter the STM logo and a well-known piece of art that hangs above a track, he’s not willing to compromise on the name of the station or its layout.

“Either [the STM] opposes me and we’ll meet in court,” Liatis added. “Or [the agency] will be OK with it.”

The February 11 cease-and-desist letter reminds Liatis that the STM “had warned you that it did not authorize you to use its image nor reproduction of the station in question for this project,” adding that use of its name, acronyms, graphic symbols, and seal are “prohibited by law unless permission is granted by the STM.”
Liatis may be logically "correct" but there's not much logic contained in IP laws. He may be determined to stick it to l'homme, but even members of the LAN ETS community are backing away from Liatis, most likely in hopes of a continued, lawsuit-free existence.
Simon Marin, a LAN ETS spokesperson, told Ars in an e-mail that the university, and by extension its LAN party event (LAN ETS), is "disassociating itself" from Liatis and his map. Marin did not provide any further explanation.
Despite the legal issues and disconnection from LAN ETS, Liatis plans to release the map in the near future. His pushback against government overreach and copyright-as-deterrent is admirable, but some aspects of this story are beginning to paint him as a possibly unreliable narrator.

As quoted in our original piece, and repeated in the update from Ars Technica, Liatis again states that the STM's representative had concerns about the map's usefulness to potential terrorists.
Liatis added that STM's media representative, Amélie Régis, expressed concern to him that releasing the map would allow it to be used by actual terrorists training for an actual attack. Régis also said it would be "insulting" to Montreal's Arab community.
The representative from STM, however, claims she never spoke to Liatis.
UPDATE Tuesday 5:42pm CT: Régis finally wrote back to Ars, saying that she had never spoken to Liatis, and was "really surprised to read the opposite." Ars has contacted Liatis again to clarify who exactly he spoke with at the STM.
Many governments have operated on faith-based paranoia since the 9/11 attacks, which makes it easy to believe Liatis' account of the events. Whatever concerns the STM might have had about "panics" or "terrorists," it may have kept them to itself. Nearly a week on from this interview, Ars is still waiting for Liatis to back up this claim. The STM may be using copyright to block a map it feels could potentially have this effect on would-be terrorists and/or the public, but so far, it hasn't officially stated anything to that effect.

Despite the lack of official statement, it still looks as if the STM simply wants to shut down something that represents its station but adds guns to the mix. Government entities are quick to shy away from anything controversial in the War on Terrorism age, and the STM seems to be no exception. There's a point to Liatis' efforts, but it's likely to be buried under a hefty fine and accompanying lawsuit as he shows no signs of backing down. It's a costly game of chicken and the end result may be nothing more than another footnote in case law reasserting the "right" of public entities to claim copyright protection on publicly accessible areas in order to prevent "misuse" by ordinary citizens.

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Filed Under: canada, copyright, counter-strike, maps, montreal, subway, threats
Companies: stm


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  • icon
    Jay (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 2:08pm

    This dude had balls the size of Bradley Manning's...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    change it, 5 Mar 2013 @ 3:27pm

    you know there right

    he should use the stm HQ instead>:D

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymouse, 5 Mar 2013 @ 7:00pm

    maps

    Maybe they will start blindfolding anyone who wants to use the station, at least then nobody will know what it looks like and they can protect it from terrorists.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Kingster (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 7:10pm

    So, what the STM is saying is that terrorists couldn't build their own maps of the station? How ridiculous.

    When the US Army licensed the Unreal Engine for the "game" America's Army (really a "training" sim), they opened the door. You could build custom maps from the get-go for that game (like you could for all of the Unreal Engine games), and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if those damned terrorists downloaded that game (it was FREE!) and built all sortsa cool maps.

    [sigh]

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Avantare (profile), 6 Mar 2013 @ 2:49am

    Wow, WTF are they thinking???

    This copyright thing is way out of control.

    As I said posted on Ars.

    Umm... Hello pot, meet kettle.

    Googled: berri-uqam metro station blueprints

    Results:
    http://www.metrodemontreal.com/index-e.html

    http://www.metrodemontreal.co m/map.html

    http://www.metrodemontreal.com/green/index.html
    http://www.metrodemontreal.com/orange /index.html
    http://www.metrodemontreal.com/yellow/index.html

    \quote

    And now the link from the above mentioned Ars article.

    http://www.stm.info/English/metro/a-m11.htm

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Gregg, 6 Mar 2013 @ 5:36am

    Fucking Quebec

    This isn't so much an IP issue, it's the fact that the majority of people running the government and municipalities in Quebec are assholes.... and short.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Brent (profile), 8 Mar 2013 @ 11:55am

    I'm not sure its right to even suggest that Liatis is not a reliable narrator simply b/c one of the employees of the agency currently trying to prosecute/fine/sue him says she didn't talk to him. Doesn't she have incentive to lie if they only spoke on the phone and there's no way to definitively prove that they spoke and/or what they spoke about? Especially since her alleged words are seem to work in his favor.

    I haven't read the Ars article so perhaps there are more details that aren't lining up but when i read that sentence in this article Liatis' credibility started to head out the door right away. Only re-reading the whole thing put it back into perspective...

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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