Did Twin Galaxies copy this site with permission?
8 years ago
United States

If you look at the Twin Galaxies site, they've coped category writeups from this site wholesale.

Plug in any game into the "Search Game" box here: http://www.twingalaxies.com/scores.php You'll see games from here with under the name "Game[-Speedruns]." Categories from here will be listed (though without Misc. categories), with the rules writeups from here.

Did they get permission before copying this site's content?

Gyoo likes this

wow, indeed...just checked some of the leaderboards which I am moderating and thy copied the categories + respective rules 1:1.

California, USA

I'm really saddened by how far Twin Galaxies has fallen. If this is truly happening without speedrun.com's knowledge, this is not a good way to regain respect among speedrunners.

Edit: I just ran through a few of the games I run and it doesn't appear they've copied ALL of them, yet. But it's still a pretty rude thing to do considering all the work that goes into moderating this site.

United States

I checked every single game I moderate and they're all there. I guess not ¤all¤ of them are there, but I figured it wasn't coincidence. :)

Norway

The site's API is open, I don't know if there are any licenses applied to the data it contains. Either way this is pretty funny. What do you reckon would happen if we put something mischievous, like a JS alert, in a game's description?

California, USA

Yeah I'm doubtful that there's any real copyright/license issue here. It's more of a matter of respect.

To me, plagiarizing the volunteers that moderate each game shows a total lack of respect for the communities that they're trying to draw in. It's one thing to make your rules conform to the community that runs the game, it's another to plagiarize word for word.

I also wondered if they're using an application and if it may still be updating from speedrun.com or if it refreshes. If it is, it would be funny if we altered some of the rules to say something silly like "Go to speedrun.com for the real leaderboards"

Norway

When the data is there and easily attainable, it's acceptable in my eyes. What point is there in an API if the community at large scowls at an attempt (a pretty half-hearted one, at that) at using it? Sure, giving credit to the site from which the data originates is something I would prefer to see, but as there are no set rules on that as far as I can tell from the documentation or from the API itself, they're not actually required to do that. It's amusing to see their attempts at staying relevant, however. I'd be more impressed if they had copied/scraped it over before the API was opened though.

Adam_ak likes this
California, USA

You're probably right; I just think giving credit is the right thing to do, whether it's a requirement or not, and it speaks volumes about the kind of organization they run.

United States

Under the Berne Convention and US law (which Twin Galaxies operates under), copyright attaches.

There are plenty of ways to use the API without copying it onto your own site with no attribution for a for-profit use, ignoring copyright and far out of any form of 'fair use.'

Especially when they're falsely claiming that 'TWIN GALAXIES' 'founded' the works in question.

California, USA

They've added a "Founded by speedrun.com" to the imported rules, or at least the few games I checked this morning.

Germany

It's kind of funny, when their rules reference stuff like time without loads, which doesn't even exist in their system.

United States

Yeah apparently they changed it. Clearly someone was reading, heh.

France
xDrHellx
He/Him, It/Its
8 years ago

There's a spy... SoonerLater

SickMyDuck likes this
United States

This is all news to me. Their intentions seem extremely ambiguous at the moment.

Seems like they took down some stuff. Either that or I can't navigate the site.

Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

They talk about this a bit here:

"we're working hard [..] to make Twin Galaxies THE place, that's it." "We definitely have more tracks than any other place"

Victoria, Australia
stoot
He/Him, They/Them
8 years ago

No kirkq, if you go to the 4th page of the link pld posted, it says that they have removed the speedrun portion of the website. They took on-board the perspective of some speedrunners in the thread over splitting communities, which is something they didn't intend to do.

United States

They are so full of it.

The original postings gave TWIN GALAXIES credit. Only after this was pointed out did they change it.

Screenshot: https://twitter.com/presjpolksda/status/618129873006145537/photo/1

United States

I'm told they're doing a show tonight on the matter.

http://www.twitch.tv/twingalaxieslive 9pm EDT (GMT-4)

Arizona, USA

The idea of a site like highscore.com or speedrun.com might be ultimately traced to the initial efforts of Twin Galaxies in the early 80's.

These clowns have acted like this for decades, is anyone surprised that they have never changed?