GTA: Vice City Removed from Steam Over Music Licensing
It's no accident. According to Rockstar, the game was removed due to some licensing issues. “Due to some music licensing issues, we’ve had to temporarily remove Vice City PC from digital stores. We’ll make it available again as soon as possible," stated the developer.
The song in question that caused the "licensing issue" was apparently Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something", featured on Vice City's in-game radio station Fever 105. For some reason or another, Sony Music Entertainment blocked the content over copyright issues.
Hopefully, Vice City is restored to Steam rather soon. For those anxious about whether or not this will affect the iOS version, Rockstar's confirmed that the licensing issue won't delay Vice City's release on the App Store.
MJ died 3 years ago and they're still racking in the dough after his demise. Same thing with Whitney Houston or even Elvis. Wtf is wrong with the music industry?
Humans are awsome, thx got im a cat.. shit, now everybody knows.
On anothe side, they didnt have a problem with it before when i came on th PC? Or did they just catch up now with the problem?
MJ died 3 years ago and they're still racking in the dough after his demise. Same thing with Whitney Houston or even Elvis. Wtf is wrong with the music industry?
Patent and copyright infringement notices are best served cold. Better ROI that way.
tip though - the steam version didn't work when I bought it - you had to download some files to your documents folder on the harddrive and use a cracked exe back then. So maybe it's a good thing it's gone.
/does neither.
actually when they were making the game they did have the license to use the song . they didn't have the license for re-releaseing the song at a later date which is the case on the digital steam version. This same issue affects movies and tv shows . bassically it's the music industry being greedy .
Beavis and butt head when put on dvd had all the video sections cut out because mtv didn't have the licenses to release dvd's of those videos , however they did have the licenses to air them originally back in the 90's.
Return of the living dead (one of my all time favorite movies) got yanked from dvd release after 2003 becasue of dvd release licensing issues , it was later released with alternate tracks in 2007-8. I fortunately got a copy of the 1999 dvd release version with the original music.
just two examples of this "later release" licenseing. basically the music industry likes to count dvd or later re-releases as a seperate license. I actually saw this problem arisng years ago when i first played GTA vice city. Just pick any 5 songs off the game and i bet you all 5 have copyrights owned by different labels . each label of which may or may not choose to be d--ks about the game getting re-released with those tracks in it .
I am wondering what will happen to those who have already purchased it. Will they still be able to install it? Will steam's authentication allow it to be played? I originally pirated it, but bought it on steam as part of a collection. It would be Ironic if the record industry screwed me out of it.
You dont use steam because the RIAA are a bunch of greedy fucks trying to block content over asinine and mundane rules they created themselves? How about you dont use the RIAA or their "product", since that is the problem, not steam.
dont feed the troll...
but steam has its own drm-issues. I love steam but can see why others who take a harder line might not.
The time keep increasing. It is no longer 75 years. Now it is 70 years after the death of the author. For corporate owned works it is 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from date of creation. Since MJ's music was under a label it could be either case which would be about the same amount of time for his good stuff.
It will remain this way until Mickey Mouse reaches 95. In which case Disney will get labels together for a big lobbying push and get the years extended. Politicians will go for it because they get all sorts of perks without costing them any votes. Since virtually no one could give a rats ass if the copyright length is increased.