X-Cult Threatened by Rival Research Group
X-Cult, the general gaming off-shoot of Sonic Cult, had its permission withdrawn to use content from three main rival sites over the weekend–and X-Cult will opt to ignore the warnings.
Administrator PACHUKA received this notice from representatives of GamerHistory, ProgrammingAce, and Hackur. and promptly popped it up for others to read:
I am hereby withdrawing permission, assumed or otherwise, for any representative of X-Cult.org to post audio, video, text or pictures taken from GamerHistory.com, ProgrammingAce.com, or Hackur.com.
I will be filling a letter of intent with the hosting provider of X-Cult.org stating this fact. I will be copying ICANN on this letter.
If any such content should appear, whether posted by a sanctioned site administrator or a forum member, I will file a DMCA take-down notice to the X-Cult.org hosting provider. If that hosting provider refuses to take action, I will petition ICANN to remove DNS records for X-Cult.org until such content is removed. I will be prepared to show in good faith that theft of such content presents an adverse effect on my business relationships and that such steps are necessary to protect future business relations.
Furthermore, I will be personally recommending to any webmaster who publicly shares game related content that may be of interest to X-Cult.org that they should take the same steps to protect their business relations.
TSSZ News Note: We can’t get a proper listing for Hackur.com when popped into Google–all the domain shows at the moment is that it is a parked address with GoDaddy. The other two sites are legitimate.
Forumers promptly scoffed off at the notice, and noted that if anyone could go after X-Cult, it would be the original creators of what is shown on the site.
X-Cult, with sister site Sonic Cult, is notorious for lifting information from other sources, typically without express permission, in name of total preservation of gaming history.
This notice is merely the latest in a long list of legal threats endured by the Cult in its history–primarily among competing sites. As with the previous skirts with the legal system, Cult administrators and members believe they are in the right.
There is no mention on either GamerHistory or ProgrammingAce of the notice or reaction that we can track down right now.