Just seems like people are looking for reasons to get "mad" and complain now...which I guess is what the internet is used for...besides porn.

"Can't we all just get along?"

You know how companies post pictures or videos on Facebook? Pics of their new game on the line for instance, Stern does that. Inevitably someone posts that they don't have a Facebook account and asks for someone to post the pics here. And someone is always nice enough to.

Does that somehow mean the company in question has lost the copyright to their work or is being materially harmed? Nope. They're probably delighted that their social media strategy is working and the images are being spread to the masses. No one is trying to sell MMr postcards here.

It boggles my mind that we're even still having this discussion days after I thought it was publicly resolved amicably.

East Coasters - here's your chance to see MMRLE... :

Hobbit / Medieval Madness Remake Release Party on Saturday 2/21 from 11 am - 4 pm at Old Sled Works in Duncannon, PA (outside Harrisburg) with Jersey Jack Guarnieri !

We will have a Hobbit, one of the first MMR LEs off the line, and a WOZ there (maybe a AMH too). Jersey Jack will be there to sign anything you have and to hang out with us all day and to talk all about the Hobbit and JJP !

Old Sled Works is run by a friend and fellow coin-op collector, Jimmy Rosen. Jimmy used to run the Hershey Gameroom Expo that ran for a few years about 10 years ago. For 85 years Old Sled Works was an sled factory (owned by his family) that has been turned into a antique vendor mall with 125 vendors and even a Sled Museum ! Plenty to see and do there for the ladies who like antiques so you might want to bring them along. There is also a huge old time ARCADE there - all old / classic games - woodrail pinballs, skee ball, baseball pitch and bats, gun games, whacky arcade games, pre-war pinballs, and more ! There's also a working soda fountain where you can grab a spinning stool and order a hamburger or hot dog or a root beer float like it's 1955 ! Bring the kids, bring the lady, bring a friend, all are welcome ! I'm still working on the particulars (giveaways ?, tournaments ?) - those details will follow.

Admission will be $ 25 per person, of which 100% will go to the PinballSTAR charity fund. In return and to support our charity cause Jimmy has graciously offered up his entire pay to play arcade for FREE play to our guests - you will get a big bucket of unlimited quarters to dig your paws into to use in the arcade all day ! And we'll surely have some giveaways as well... Bottom line you will get your $ 25 back in stuff and free play all day...

Attendance may be limited. If you would like to reserve a spot to attend - please email me at [email protected] (do not PM on Pinside) back the following info for EACH person attending :
Name, city/state, email address, phone, which games that we distribute do you own ? (bought from us or not) - this helps to plan some potential giveaways.

Check out their site for info / address : http://www.sledworks.com/ - you might even run into a Pinup Girl or two (the location is used frequently for pin up photo shoots much to Jimmy's liking !)

You tube TOUR of OLD SLED WORKS :
» YouTube video
IT'S GOING TO BE A FUN DAY ! MARK YOUR CALANDER AND COME JOIN US !

PinballSTAR Amusements CHARITY :
We donate WOZ pinball machines to children's hospitals. We have donated two so far - one in Philadelphia and one in Pittsburgh... For the Hobbit we are considering donating a Hobbit machine to a local Pittsburgh Veteran's facility for use by members of our armed forces. This would be donated at the ReplayFX show in Pittsburgh in July. Details being worked out on that donation ! : )
Details of our previous WOZ game donations to children's hospitals are at these links :
http://www.pinballnews.com/news/wozdonation.html
http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/1066736/Therapy-in-play
http://papa.org/2014/07/23/pinball-star-donates-wizard-of-oz-machine-to-pittsburgh-hospital/

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK :
If you are not yet a 'friend' of us on Facebook - go and LIKE us now - I do post a lot of updates there on all games and the pinball world in general - You will get instant info there when new news is released that I may not always send out in email.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/PinballSTAR-Amusements/281515171950637

We are distributors for
Jersey Jack Pinball -
Wizard of Oz Standard and WOZ 75th Anniversary - IN STOCK
The Hobbit - Standard, LE, and Smaug SE (we have Smaugs !)
Planetary Pinball -
Medieval Madness Remake - Standard and LE (we have a FEW LE's available)
Spooky Pinball -
America's Most Haunted - (we will have some previously ordered games available SOON)
Virtuapin (Video pinball)

Contact us for your best pricing and info on all games ! Payment plans available !

IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND THE HOBBIT / MMR LE PARTY - EMAIL US TO GET ON THE LIST !

Joe Newhart
PinballSTAR Amusements
[email protected]
570-357-0042
Facebook Keyword - PinballSTAR Amusements

The tantrum over the pics is unreal.

Let. It. Go.

Aurich did nothing wrong and had the balls to stand up to the bully.

I'm 1082, black, pd in full 7/7, was told not in first batch....hmm

You weren't being reasonable, you went out of your way to do exactly what people were asked not to do.

We should probably just burn Aurich at the stake and have done with it

This isn't about pictures, rather control. From my perspective he wants the pps forum to be the pinball destination for discussion where he controls the narrative. In order to out draw pinside, he needs exclusive content not available here on pinside. Eventually people frequent there more than here. I have said it before, I'll say it again. Wolf in sheeps clothing. Sorry your dealing with harassment from a business owner like that Aurich. Truly shamefull and unprofessional

facebook is a public forum, PPS is a private forum. If someone goes to porn site and downloads the pics legally and reposts them somewhere else its clearly copyright infringement, same as this. That's the whole point of the DMCA.

yeah go figure he wants to control the talk about his business, no freaking way! Go there see whats there, then go talk where you want about it.

But why would Rick NOT want as many people as possible to see the games being built. This is an advert for SUCCESS FFS

Whatever man. You're clearly in rick's pocket. Congrats on being pps's number one fan.

no, ricks a complete dick, but hes getting the job done, unlike wayne

because rick is a freaking moron, but that still does not mean people should go and steal his content that he put on his site and requested to not be reposted. As for being an advert, he does not need it, they are already sold, if you want one he's the only place you're going to get one, for this and any other BW title.

If the pictures were derogatory or in some way harmful to Stern /PPS then I could understand Ric being upset. But the pics that were posted were nothing but positive and helpful to the cause.

Its exactly how viral marketing works and many companies pay huge money to engineer such free publicity.

The pics are in the Cloud anyway so if they get posted anywhere, Mr. Personality can go f*** himself. What a buffoon.

One word.

Control

In the end both Rick and Aurich ended up butthurt, but at least we got to see the pics.

wow...this thread makes all pinball guys sound insane...buy the game or don't...yeesh

I bet if everyone let it go it would not be an issue anymore. Just saying...

Won't happen...THIS IS A HUGE DEAL!!!! HUUUUUUGE!!!!! It's a conspiracy for CONTROLLLL MAN!!! Don't you see it?!! It's like the moon landing...

Just as well CGC are doing all the coding on MMr eh

I cant help but wonder if the whole Pic-Gate issue isn't moot due to fair use?

"§ 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use40

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors."

from 17 USC Section 107

Absolutely. I got no horse in this race but still find myself so irked by the guys dickhead attitude. It's great to see so many folks getting a great game. But if you're not sitting around having a circle jerk party over his every statement, he becomes defensive and paranoid. Good luck if you find yourself with a problem game ...

I guess you just leave your front door unlocked with a note that says "Please don't rob me"? I mean, you asked nicely.

Your porn analogy doesn't work either because those photos are a revenue source from a pay site, while these photos are from a *PUBLIC* website open to *ANYONE* and are for *PROMOTIONAL* purposes.

A normal, rational person would be *thrilled* that their promotional efforts were spreading without them having to do anything, but instead you get Rick who seems to be stuck in the era of fax machines. Guess what Rick - if you put it on the internet, you can't really control it! Surprise!

It's not a public form, you had to register which required agreeing to the rules.

That's been my fear since I 'discovered' Rick's abrasive personality, bullheadedness, and pomposity. I hope to God I don't have any major problems with my pin. I feel like I will be hung out to dry if I need help with my MMr from PPS/CGC. Lloyd could be our only salvation.
Mike in Kentucky

P.S. Why did I just get the distinct feeling that Rick pissed in my MMr as it came down the assembly line this week?

Your special order, coming right up mr customer

image.jpg

I'll still buy an AFMr from this cranky jackass!

Fair use is a tricky thing, it can often boil down to one of those "I know it when I see it" kind of judgement calls. There are general rules, but they're very transmutable.

Generally speaking though you want the usage to be transformative. Meaning that there should be some kind of criticism or commentary accompanying the images that makes their use an essential part of your thrust.

I didn't add any such thing. I certainly could have, I think everyone can agree I'm perfectly capable of typing too damn much.

Honestly it doesn't really matter. Because Robin can take down something whether it's fair use or not, we've seen that. He's not a copyright law judge, he's just running his forum how he sees fit. I don't always agree, see my argument with Jack, but I respect that it's his playground and his rules.

As for the rules of Rick's forum, he's free to enforce those as he sees fit there. He could ban my account for instance. It wouldn't be difficult to discover it there, I didn't hide it. What he doesn't get to dictate to me is what I post on Pinside. He needs to go through the official channels for that. I'm stubborn that way.

Meanwhile, here it is days later, and we're still talking about this stupid subject because out of the blue he decided to start contacting me about it again after saying he was dropping it. I was certainly over it, the point had been made, people had seen the pics, I'm struggling to figure out the reasoning for stirring it all up again. I mean, if you really want me to act like a dick then you can keep poking me until I give in and do so I guess.

Either way I will no longer be posting PPS photos here. My annoyance at people not being able to see what they deserved to has been outweighed by my apathy towards doing anything that promotes this project any further.

Is there a pinball game being discussed in here or copyright/free use law?

Yeesh. I can't believe somewhere in here is a brand new game from 1997 and a hobby we all love.

Personally, if I was about to bring back one of the top 5 most revered pinball games of the modern age, I'd be HONORED to have people posting pictures for free, potentially bringing me new clients - kinda like, oh I dunno, Pinball Arcade did back in 2012 or so.

No good deed.... Aurich. You did good man. I loved seeing the new machines being made. Won't deny, seeing real progression kicking into gear now, it made me want to consider saving up for a potential AFMr.

Great point! Good luck with that.

I hope we can get this back onto topic for MMR. I'm curious to see the packaging for these

Lloyd and Jack are great people in the customer service department. If you bought the pin through Jack, that's a saving grace. Jack and his service department have always gone WAY out of the way to help his customers. (won't get into all that here) The PPS service department is yet to be seen... but there is an old saying... "it trickles down"

It is easy to get sidetracked when the guy driving the bus seemingly has really poor people skills...

Are people comfortable with how PPS will warranty their product when it is one day past the warranty period?

Three pages of posts and most of it is all about picture/gate/dictator...WTH!

Hard to believe MMr's are finally on the line and this is what we come up with.

Hopefully games will ship soon and we can all post a shit ton of MMR pictures

You won't.

And should a problem arise. It will be taken care of. PPS and CGC are doing a lot behind the scenes to make support happen.

LTG : )™

I hope the games come out great and everyone loves them, and Rick goes on to make more that people want and those go well too. Just to be super clear I have no agenda and no personal beef here. My hope is for happy pinheads, and if people make money making them happy then good for them.

The photos I want to see are the ones where people are unboxing them. Anything else is just hype anyways at this stage. I'm sure the packaging will look like cardboard boxes.

I'm delighted to hear that coloring of the DMD appears to be actually happening. Curious to see what kind of options they put in it, ColorDMD has stepped their game up lately. Hopefully the screen tearing goes away with that too. It's not a huge deal really, but it was pretty obvious at Expo to me at least.

I'm also curious to see what the translites look like when they're next to other games. I wasn't really that impressed with the ones I saw at Expo. Looked like inkjet prints, a little too washed out. I'm pretty picky about translites though!

I still wouldn't worry. Rick has been working on this for a long time. A year ago he announced the warranty. A little over a year ago he announced I'd be helping with tech support.

Rick more than anyone, me, CGC, anyone, wants to have an efficient service program in place should the need arise.

LTG : )

I would say that's a good thing (that your picky aurich) I'm thinking of trying to check out the MMR at pps as I'm really hoping to see it in person (especially if they announce a AFMr) so I appreciate others that are highly critical with a eye for design to help me look out for how these remakes fair.

One thing I enjoy with the older machines is the amount of customizing people have done with led'ing their translites

If you are standing behind it Lloyd, I think most buyers should be feelin' pretty good. The LTG trademark is better than the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

I asked other people what they thought and they noticed too, so I don't think it was just me, but I don't know if those were final or not. I'm kind of guessing they were, my suspicion (with zero actual evidence) is that these are being printed more "on demand". The reason I think that is that PPS is offering those Getaway translites with the custom license plate. That would require easy one-off printing to make happen. (It's a really cool idea by the way)

The process my printer uses for my translites isn't ink based, it's photographic. So RGB instead of CMYK, since it's light based instead of dithered ink. One downside to the particular way we do them is they're a little on the dark side when they're not lit up. The tradeoff though is they really light up beautifully, no washing out at all. To me that's the most important trait.

I verbally would be more for a CMYK process but I confess I haven't looked into translite printing so of course I'd be a fool not to look at this now.

You should really do a write up on translites and how their done (various styles ect ect)

Years ago National Lampoon had a Club you could join (or have your friend join) called "Dick's of America Club" I think your name had to be Richard, or you just had to be considered a dick to be in the club, after you pay your entry fee. I remember we sent it in for a "good" friend of ours. I remember we had a P.S. to the letter..."P.S. Don't be a Dick, send the info quick!!" Our "friend" got his Dick's in America club certificate in the mail shortly thereafter. What a laugh!! I miss the 1980's, National lampoon, MAD Comics, and Spy vs Spy. I don't miss Dicks!!! Too many in this world as it is.

Hey Rick: be thankful you got the chance to reproduce these great games, the World is not out to get you. Lay off the medical MJ and lighten up Francis!!

Ya know....
Based on recent law, if a monkey took those photos, they can't be copyright'ed.

I doubt Rick will allow posting pics of our own games except on PPS forum

Along with each of us being sued for posting picks of any MMR ever in the future...
Probably will be refused warranty support if for any reason he decides to put someone on a naughty list

Sound like the similar level of "power" and "control" observed over the last year?

If I were Williams and saw how my licensee was generating this much GLOBAL negativity with my licensed Brands, I'd be getting seriously pissed !

This has got to be the absolute most depressing pinball machine experience in the history of ever !!
Fuck