Ubisoft Forced to Remove Incredible GoldenEye 007 Maps in Far Cry 5

People have been remaking levels from Goldeneye in Far Cry's map editors since at least Far Cry 3. Why does MGM only now care?

Plus there's other games that let you do this why bother with it now? So sad, they must be desperate for money or something

@PegasusActual93 Because the Liberal media are stealing our free speech!

Seriously, I have my money on another Goldeneye cash-in. Like when MS shut down Halogen because they had Halo Wars in the works.

Awww. I have never installed my copy of FarCry 5 as I got a bit bored of the big open world formula for a while. Would have done and downloaded these had I known about them. Used to love GoldenEye back in the day. Me and my cousins used to play the classic free for all with a few n64 controllers.

This is beyond appalling.
The dude used assets that were in Far Cry, he didn't steal or copy anything from GoldenEye.
I'm pretty sure they have no legal grounds to do this as he hasn't stolen assets or anything, just recreated the level design (which I think isn't subject to copyright, but of course I might be wrong on this whole thing).

F*ck MGM. F*ck Ubisoft who bows to this crap.
F*ck corporations.

That’s amazing

@clvr I think Ubisoft has not much to say about this but i agree its nonsense.

He could've re-named the video to something like "SilverFoot 128 level Dam".

Seriously though, this is pretty scummy.

That’s stupid. If anything, this showed the interest in Goldeneye and helped create interest in Bond games.

@clvr As far as I know, level design isn't copyright-able. Though I'd imagine if you copied a level exactly, with the same layout and general theme, I'd imagine a company could challenge it. Especially if they stole multiple levels and it had a direct monetary impact on you (which, since MGM aren't selling Goldeneye anymore, it doesnt).

And on the face of it, no, I don't think MGM have a legal standpoint to shutdown a dude's custom level. I'd imagine much of this falls under fair use. Especially since the creator is not selling the levels.

Unfortunately, Ubisoft, as the owner of Far Cry 5 and its services, does have the right to remove anything they wanted from their hosted servers. My guess is Ubisoft judged it easier to shutdown the maps rather than fight a very expensive and time consuming legal battle with a bully of a company, for some random YouTuber's maps.

Edit: if we are lucky, Legaleagle will do a video on it.

Their handling of the Bond license for things has been one of the worst in recent memory, as the only way anything like this can exist in a game is if you pay them to allow a game to have Bond content in it (like Forza Horizon 4). I know that technically should apply to everything, but it's just level recreations from a game that can no longer really be played anymore.

If I remember correctly, there was a version of the original GoldenEye floating around on something that was forcibly removed by the company, and now this. There's no point in anybody spending time trying to recreate things from Bond in games that have editors or having a game emulated, especially GoldenEye, as it will just get forcibly removed eventually.

Aw that heavy cartridge in a paper casing. But that cover art always had me thinking Bond's mouth was extending to the right making him look like a ninja turtle 😆

Were there not rumours microsoft were bringing this back for xbox and switch. Might still be in the works hence the cease and desist?

@clvr I'm wondering this... what exactly are they protecting? What is he "exploiting"? I assume the music is just for the YouTube video and not in the game... so... what properties are being stolen?

For those not in the know, Amazon is in works to purchase MGM for $8.45 billion. Most of their original IP had already been sold off, but the one major IP they retained was James Bond. Think of this as Microsoft buying Zenimax. Gamers lose when these trillion dollar conglomerates rob the public of what was once available to all. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google...these companies are anti-consumer...unless you invest in their ecosystem. That's why I will never own a Xbox.

EDIT: Full disclosure...although I will not own a Xbox, I'm in a position where I have to use Windows and Office. I have a smartphone, and my choices are one that supports iOS or Android. And Amazon? I am a Prime member. Our options to "protest" are very limited. Me not investing in Microsoft's anti-consumer gaming stance is one I can handle.

To people asking what was infringed, the James Bond IP is enough. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking film, tv, books, games, music, whatever. Level design, assets, how old goldeneye is etc are very much secondary matters.

Arguably, in the UK at least, you could defend this in court under the creative reuse copyright exception. But the money and time required to actually do so against a wealthy corporation will almost never be worth winning. It would almost immediately bankrupt the guy who made this if he tried, and Ubisoft would be tied up in court for years - would you put yourself through that for something you didn’t even make yourself and aren’t making money off? I know I wouldn’t.

People need to learn how to do this better. You can’t just say “hey look I made GoldenEye in Far Cry” and expect everyone on all sides to be OK with your little passion project, you’re leaving yourself WAYYYY too out in the open for this kind of stuff. There ARE laws in place, despite what some of us might feel about them. I would bet my house that they wouldn’t bat an eye at levels called “Spy Game Dam Level” or something equally ambiguous. They can’t trademark geometry afaik, but they can trademark things like GoldenEye.

If I'm being cynical, I could guess that is because Project 007 will include GoldenEye DLC.

@commentlife I'm looking forward to AureusOcculo maps shortly.

I reckon if Ubi fought this they could have won, legally i don't think MGM are in the right but Ubi understandably properly can't be bothered waste money and time fighting this when its just some fan made maps.

@Richnj
MGM made it clear in the past that they never liked the N64 Goldeneye game and it's popularity because of it's level of violence and felt it reflected poorly on the James Bond brand, which is stupid especially considering Bond kills dozens if not hundreds in any given movie.

@TheArt Wow, that can never be unseen, thanks for that!! 😲

@PegasusActual93 That is some laughable corporate BS.

Just given the limitations of the hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the body count of Goldeneye 64 is lower than most, if not all, other games and the films.

@clvr F*ck ubisoft? I don't see you praising ubisoft for integrating a map editor which is not an obligation to do and praising the fact that this map editor enabled the making of a lot of older games maps, you are one of those entitled bulls*its who talk about companies only when they f*ck up but when they do something good you don't give a damn.

@clvr @WallyWest Ubisoft definitely would've lost had they challenged this. The guy clearly copied the maps from Goldeneye. It doesn't matter that it wasn't the same assets from the original game, remakes infringe copyright. Unauthorized remakes get taken down by rights holders all the time.

@Richnj the maps weren't being used for something like an educational purpose, it doesn't fall under fair use.

@PegasusActual93 probably in the past MGM didn't know about the levels. The guy that made these in Far Cry 5 is blaming sites like IGN and Kotaku for spotlighting the levels, alerting a lot more people to them than just Far Cry players.

@EnragedGibbon 😆 Was like the first thing I saw when I had it in my hands, didn't get it, even thought it was a mistake in the design. Then I realized oh that could be his hand.

@OthmaneAD wow, that has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read.
Guess I should praise Napoleon as well, given his contribution to the history of France, the country that gave us Ubisoft. 🤷🏼‍♂️

It's obviously great that there's an editor in the first place, and as others have pointed out Ubisoft finds themselves between a rock and a hard place, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the débâcle at hand: they don't have to remove that content, they're not obligated.

Btw companies are not your friends, it's not healthy to have that mindset that you should be grateful towards them, especially if you're gonna be a j*rk to random people on the internet you know nothing about to defend them. Who the f*ck are you to call me bullsh*t and tell me what I say or don't about companies?
You need a Kit-Kat mate?

@Richnj yeah, let's hope LegalEagle makes a video on this, it's a weird situation indeed!
Great breakdown btw 👍🏻

@clvr Yeah I'd love to see it, because he obviously would have more knowledge, research, and depth than any of us.

@Milktastrophe "Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair"

Educational would help, but it's not the only thing that could help it be fair use. Like I implied, being noncommercial could help.

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

If you look, things like extent of copy, and damage to the copyright owner's brand or finances are taken in to consideration, and all are things I've mentioned, but fair use is so broad and vague (purposely so) that something like free player made custom levels could fall under fair use. The real challenge is defending it courts.

@clvr If a company ***** up, you'll see me first to criticize it, here you are blaming ubisoft as if any company will allocate resources to a legal battle about fan made maps. Be reasonable. I know I am nothing to any company but you gotta know that our collective actions that tells companies what to do, in ubisoft's case, everyone on the internet complained about mtx in valhalla without mentioning the great game besides the mtx, and ubisoft knows that people pay a lot for mtx so they're moving to live service games. If you shut your mouth about mtx and let them create great games with mtx that 99% won't affect your gameplay and you know it, none of this would have happened.

@Richnj From your very link, the nature of the copyrighted work and the extent that was copied is likely enough to disqualify it as fair use.

If being noncommercial by itself realistically worked as fair use, every platform would be clogged up with free fanmade zelda, pokemon, and everyone's favorite franchise games.

@OthmaneAD I already said that I don't expect them to have a legal battle, that was never my point. Point is they didn't have to comply, since nothing actually illegal is being done, even less so by Ubisoft itself.

"Be reasonable", said the dude who came barging in insulting me while not getting the point. The irony.

Regarding the last point, which has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, if you can't distinguish that the conversation about a game's quality and the conversation about its monetization are two different things, well, that doesn't surprise me.
Also, saying that MTX implementation has no impact on gameplay is naïve at best, and very often verifiable wrong.

Reply to your heart's content but know that I won't be wasting any more time with you, since your idea of interacting with people is straight up insult them right away.
Have a good night.

@lacerz PlayStation did it as well bought studios and made the games available on it's console only so they are no different at least on Xbox you get a great deal with Gamepass so you don't have to spend a lot buying games

@Milktastrophe "That said, some courts have found use of an entire work to be fair under certain circumstances."

It literally says this.

It sounds like you mean fans could just up and make their own games and give them away for free on all platforms, which would hit three very big snags.

1) The cost of publishing the game. Just getting a game through the review and ratings process costs money.

2) Trademarks. These are much more solid, unlike level designs or gameplay mechanics, they are a hard line. All Titles are trademarked, and will heavily be in the favour of the trademark owner. And it's why you see some fan made games avoid using the name of the franchise.

3) Competition. I highly doubt a couple of replica levels are driving fans away from buying the new James Bond game that was released in 2012. But brand new, fully featured, fan made games of Mario and Zelda could very well hurt the value of current Mario or Zelda games (or at least, that is what Nintendo can argue in courts).

Didn’t Nintendo do something similar when people were making custom levels in Dreams not so long ago? Spoilsports.

What’s the problem? It’s not like the creators are making money from it.

Didn’t MGM also sue the victims (and families) of the Las Vegas shooting a few years ago... in an attempt to shield itself from liability?

Edit: that was MGM Resorts not MGM Studios, which is a different entity it seems.

@lacerz Anti-consumer... First two Bethesda games since Microsoft bought them are times exclusive for PlayStation. Had they not bought them do you think they'd be the only timed exclusives Sony would pay up for? They were already asking for starfield. Thats not anti consumer?
What about the countless other times third party exclusives they've been buying up? Not anti consumer?

How about Sony charging for cross-play or denying us it altogether? Not anti consumer? Raising price of their games this gen when they come out needing patching and also cross gen?...not anti consumer? How thin is your line?

You'll never buy an Xbox because you don't now get access to Bethesda published games. That's fine. It's business. You probably spent a generation typing 'xbox has no games'...this is the response. You expect Sony to look after your investment...but Microsoft not theirs.

@Richnj How about the next sentence, which says even a small amount copied can be considered not fair use? In many ways the world/levels of a game are it's "heart", as that page puts it. You can't copy an entire game and claim fair use.

1) the cost of publishing a game on PC is effectively $0. You don't even need your own website, there's tons of file hosters you can upload the game to, then you just post it on some forum. So cost isn't prohibiting people from doing this. There's definitely people who would gladly pay to bring their fan work onto other platforms.

2) Guess this guy shouldn't have used the trademarked GoldenEye name on his levels then, as others have suggested, then maybe the rights holder wouldn't have become aware and they could've stayed up.

3) They still make new Bond games and movies, so a fan work could very well harm the brand.

At least we have the 360 version in HD...Project Bean?

@Milktastrophe "which says even a small amount copied can be considered not fair use?"

That's my point. The definition is so broad, that it could. Like I said, the test would be in court.

1) which is why all fan made games are on PC.

2) No he shouldn't, especially as it seems that MGM recently renewed the Goldeneye trademark (which is further evidence to my belief that this is MGM trying to clamp down on Goldeneye fan content so that they can release their own Goldeneye).

3) I'm not sure how in this instance. If it was a full fan made game that appeared to be a brand new game to anyone not in the know, then sure, but this is clearly a player recreation within Far Cry 5. To every one downloading this, it should be clear what it is. Though I wouldn't be surprised if MGM felt otherwise.

I am glad I played it then. Hopefully someone will make a Perfect Dark one And I can play it before it gets erm taken down

What MGM/EON simply did makes Kevin McClory proud and it sucks for GoldenEye fans.