Playboy got yanked!

OK, I might not have been entirely clear in my post, sorry :p

I do not think it has to do with IP and Copyrights, I suspect the reason specific MG slots are not available in DK is due to the Danish Gambling licensensing oganisation "Spillemyndigheden", who I think somehow has to approve every single game, or at least every underlying "engine" - This would explain why the second TFROL was ok at one casino, it showed up at the others, same with the newer Netent slots and other MGs.

As for Isis and The dark knight, I think it is due to the progressive jackpot (hall of gods are not available in DK as well), I believe the "spillemyndigheden" somehow requires Danish taxation on the progressive pool :eek:

Also, it seems NordicBet tried to get the WMS slots to DK but failed (I found online "play for free" versions, with NordicBet tags and all text translated to Danish, but they are still not available at any casino with an official DK license)

And BTW "Spillemyndigheden" was certainly not formed with the players in mind, but simply to ensure Danish tax revenue when the EU refused to allow the monoply held by "danske spil" to continue. And to some extend to protect the former monoply at "danske spil" since they pay part of their revenue to Youth organisations of political parties, disability organisations and local youth sports in DK.

The only official DK casino I have seen with an international progressive, is "danske spil" which also runs the official lotteries and used to be the monopoly (and I think it's fair to assume that they are VERY close with "spillemyndigheden" )

What about the non progressive Isis, this shouldn't be a problem.

The UK is bringing in a similar regime, so I hope we don't start getting similar unexplained oddities.

However, from a player's point of view, a slot being yanked without notice nor explanation is far worse than it not appearing at all due to some local issue.

For months, Playboy was fine in Canada, and then suddenly it isn't, and not just suddenly, but with incredible urgency such that even the operators couldn't be told, let alone a press release prepared. That looks very much like a big corporation got completely caught out, and had to resort to panic measures. Perhaps something along the lines of it never having supposed to be available to start with, and suddenly finding out that for the past 2 months they had been making a SERIOUS mistake, and risked the wrath of Heffner descending upon them.
 
better not be the start of a trend

Doubt it (although Batman could follow). It looks like Playboy doesn't want its name associated with online gambling in places where the legality is sitting in a grey area (which is one more reason why copyrighted themed slots suck). NetEnt did the same with South Park (I've noticed that it's not available for us at some casinos).
 
I really hope that MGS releases a generic clone of this slot (like they did with LOTR/Girls with guns). We don't need semi-nude girls or flashy graphics though, 7's and bars would be just fine!

The one thing that sucks if they were to do that is I have to unlock all the features again, which usually is a costly mission for me.
 
Copyright etc

Just my 2c:

Copyright and TM law is very complex. The rights to a brand like Playboy as an online slot does not even always belong to the obvious party (in this case it does though), these things gets sold, licensed, sub-licensed and who knows what else, and then also per territory, country state and any other arbitrary location you care to come up with. I bet this one has something to do with "Outside the US" vs "North America". I know of at least one (totally unrelated) case where only static images where allowed of a well known brand licensed to a party on the web, as animations would infringe online movie rights (yes, lawyers will go that far).

And as for slots like Isis in Denmark: when operators have to pay for every single game they want to release to be certified, I am sure they will go with what they think will work best in that specific market and slowly build up their portfolio.
 
Just my 2c:

Copyright and TM law is very complex. The rights to a brand like Playboy as an online slot does not even always belong to the obvious party (in this case it does though), these things gets sold, licensed, sub-licensed and who knows what else, and then also per territory, country state and any other arbitrary location you care to come up with. I bet this one has something to do with "Outside the US" vs "North America". I know of at least one (totally unrelated) case where only static images where allowed of a well known brand licensed to a party on the web, as animations would infringe online movie rights (yes, lawyers will go that far).

And as for slots like Isis in Denmark: when operators have to pay for every single game they want to release to be certified, I am sure they will go with what they think will work best in that specific market and slowly build up their portfolio.

Still dosent make up for why all netent/igt/playngo/skillonnet slots always get released in denmark, only MG thats strange it even took 2½years for the first "new" Jason and the golden fleece/Karate Pig MG slots to appear on danish casino's, but the worst is still playtech think there is around 20slots and none been added in the almost 3years now.

Still waiting on WMS also if you read the statement when betsson got there licens, it even says in denmark is licensed but spillemyndigheden gotta allow it first, i cant imagine its about money to pay for each slot.
 
Minor problem at minimum bet, especially since the "good" feature in the 2nd one.

Ya but I have a thing where I can't/don't bet lower then a certain amount which is usually $1.80 so on the 243 ways slots it's 3 coins on 2 cents. I have Been like that since Break the Bank Again came out started betting max on 2 cents and now no matter what I play I have to at least bet 90 coins. Also I can't play on pennies it has to be at least 2 cent denom at online or BaM casino's.
 
Just my 2c:

Copyright and TM law is very complex. The rights to a brand like Playboy as an online slot does not even always belong to the obvious party (in this case it does though), these things gets sold, licensed, sub-licensed and who knows what else, and then also per territory, country state and any other arbitrary location you care to come up with. I bet this one has something to do with "Outside the US" vs "North America". I know of at least one (totally unrelated) case where only static images where allowed of a well known brand licensed to a party on the web, as animations would infringe online movie rights (yes, lawyers will go that far).

Only recently became aware of this thread... I find myself agreeing with what Mustang has said above &
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pretty-much echo's what's stated re licensing per territory (IMO).
 
Only recently became aware of this thread... I find myself agreeing with what Mustang has said above &
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pretty-much echo's what's stated re licensing per territory (IMO).

There is no need to make it so complicated. The rights industry only has itself to blame when at best people treat it as a bad joke, and usually don't give a toss and just use the simplicity of torrents rather than navigate the maze that is the legal alternative.

For the internet at least, they need to create a separate legal entity called "the web", and treat it like one country, region, territory, etc, and licence a right to the territory of "the web" completely separately to any real world licencing agreements. Anything licenced to "the web" can be distributed to anywhere that can connect to "the web".

Now, if I move my monitor, am I infringing the online movie rights if it's displaying a static image of said well known brand?
 
There is no need to make it so complicated...

I don't disagree - I'm not the one who makes the rules, I'm simply highlighting something that may be the reason that a game from one supplier may not be available to players in certain countries.


For the internet at least, they need to create a separate legal entity called "the web", and treat it like one country, region, territory, etc, and licence a right to the territory of "the web" completely separately to any real world licencing agreements. Anything licenced to "the web" can be distributed to anywhere that can connect to "the web".

Perhaps, but if the brand owners can make more money by slicing & dicing, then commercially it may make sense to introduce the complexity.

It may well be those who signed the rights for licensed brands on one platform (e.g. offline) may not have considered what they wanted to do on another platform (online), and vice-versa. It may also be that when brand rights are signed, they are offered on limited duration agreements. If this is the case, a supplier may not wish to pay for the rights to distribute something on a platform they're not going to use during the life of aforementioned agreement.

Over the last few years we've seen slot providers launching their content onto platforms they're not traditionally associated with. On the up side, this introduces more variety into what can be played & (typically) more competition in a marketplace works out in the favour of the consumer / player. A down-side to this is potentially what we're seeing here.


Now, if I move my monitor, am I infringing the online movie rights if it's displaying a static image of said well known brand?
In this case, it would appear that if you're moving it (e.g.) from the UK to Canada then the answer is yes.

As players, we may not like it & moving forward, we may see branded slot releases following the preferred platform license you've stated (i.e. "separate legal entity called "the web", and treat it like one country, region, territory, etc"). Bear in mind however, there could be a player cost associated with this approach (e.g. lower RTP to cover the financial costs of signing brands to cover all territories).
 
I don't disagree - I'm not the one who makes the rules, I'm simply highlighting something that may be the reason that a game from one supplier may not be available to players in certain countries.




Perhaps, but if the brand owners can make more money by slicing & dicing, then commercially it may make sense to introduce the complexity.

It may well be those who signed the rights for licensed brands on one platform (e.g. offline) may not have considered what they wanted to do on another platform (online), and vice-versa. It may also be that when brand rights are signed, they are offered on limited duration agreements. If this is the case, a supplier may not wish to pay for the rights to distribute something on a platform they're not going to use during the life of aforementioned agreement.

Over the last few years we've seen slot providers launching their content onto platforms they're not traditionally associated with. On the up side, this introduces more variety into what can be played & (typically) more competition in a marketplace works out in the favour of the consumer / player. A down-side to this is potentially what we're seeing here.



In this case, it would appear that if you're moving it (e.g.) from the UK to Canada then the answer is yes.

As players, we may not like it & moving forward, we may see branded slot releases following the preferred platform license you've stated (i.e. "separate legal entity called "the web", and treat it like one country, region, territory, etc"). Bear in mind however, there could be a player cost associated with this approach (e.g. lower RTP to cover the financial costs of signing brands to cover all territories).

In this case, the online rights have not been signed away, so this shouldn't create problems. If an entity wants full exclusivity, they need to pay for ALL the rights, even if they don't intend using them.

Whilst slicing and dicing might appear to make more money, the confusion it creates makes enforcement harder, so "leakage" is likely to be higher. To ordinary people, the sheer nit picking involved makes it look like the big producers are having a "toddler tantrum", so it's a case of "well, sod you, I'll just use the Pirate Bay rather than indulge such behaviour". In this case, it would be using a casino that offers "pirate" versions of branded games because that is the only version available. Since the legal alternative to the playboy slot is unavailable in Canada, it's going to be hard for a Canadian player to spot that the only version they can find is actually a pirated copy, so they could end up playing it at Jackpots Heaven:rolleyes: and thinking this must be a legitimate casino as it's the only one offering a Playboy themed slot.

This whole thing has torpedoed the original concept of the multi provider platform, as such platforms make all this nonsense so very obvious to the player who finds slot after slot produces the error "not available in your country". We are well on the way to having the multi platform multiple provider casino as there needs to be a different configuration for each territory so that ONLY slots that are available to a player are shown to him. They then have to split the marketing so that players don't get told all about a great new game they are never actually going to get.
 
In this case, the online rights have not been signed away, so this shouldn't create problems.
To quote Nifty in response to one of your earlier posts in this thread, "Can you provide the source of this "information" please?"... I don't recall this being confirmed by any official sources, so I would be interested & thanks in advance for the info. If however you are stating your assumptions as fact, may I respectfully suggest that you refrain from doing so. (There are a number of other instances where you've tripped yourself up by doing this, so perhaps best to avoid it in future(?)).


If an entity wants full exclusivity, they need to pay for ALL the rights, even if they don't intend using them.
Agreed, but who stated either of the two companies in this example wanted full exclusivity?

Whilst slicing and dicing might appear to make more money, the confusion it creates makes enforcement harder, so "leakage" is likely to be higher. To ordinary people, the sheer nit picking involved makes it look like the big producers are having a "toddler tantrum", so it's a case of "well, sod you, I'll just use the Pirate Bay rather than indulge such behaviour". In this case, it would be using a casino that offers "pirate" versions of branded games because that is the only version available. Since the legal alternative to the playboy slot is unavailable in Canada, it's going to be hard for a Canadian player to spot that the only version they can find is actually a pirated copy, so they could end up playing it at Jackpots Heaven:rolleyes: and thinking this must be a legitimate casino as it's the only one offering a Playboy themed slot.
Potentially, but I haven't seen any "pirate" versions of the slot to date, so not sure how big of a problem this would be. (From a commercial perspective, I'm pretty sure no developers would go to the time and dev expense to produce it, only to then face the wrath of lawyers chasing for copyright and/or trademark infringements etc. If this wasn't the case, how come there isn't a plethora of 'pirate' games themed on household names?).


We are well on the way to having the multi platform multiple provider casino as there needs to be a different configuration for each territory so that ONLY slots that are available to a player are shown to him. They then have to split the marketing so that players don't get told all about a great new game they are never actually going to get.
Most of the big sportsbook websites have been doing this for almost a decade now, using IP geolocation and/or device default locale information to configure site language, promotions, game availability, etc for their customers. Country localisations have also been further enhanced by the dot country domain suffix now being applied to many site addresses. I guess this is where the 'casino-only' sites have to play catch-up with other sectors of the online gaming market.
 
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If the online rights had been taken, Microgaming wouldn't have been able to get them. This is evidence that this is a case of a company claiming that although it has the offline rights, it should not suffer competition from Microgaming who has the offline rights in the same territories.

Jackpots Heaven pirated a whole load of games from a number of providers, including Microgaming, Playtech, and RTG. They were not the first rogue software house to do this, and they won't be the last. Pirated slots are more common than you would think, and the pirates are outside the reach of the law. They were named and shamed, but the best lawyers could do was intimidate them or their registrars in the hope the site got shut down. There is no real time and expense, the pirated versions were just cheap copies of the slot games, but the point was that they were a copy of a respected brand. It's when one played them that it became obvious how crap a job they had made of pirating the games.

Microgaming initially released this slot everywhere, it was then pulled from Canada. Microgaming would only do this if they were made to by the licensor.

The initial idea of the platform was that it could offer the best games of a number of providers through a single site. Having to have configurations based on the players' country that wipes away large number of the best games rather defeats the object. In effect, some players end up with a cut down single provider browser based casino, and it's the games from the provider that lets them play the entire suite in download or true single provider browser platform that are the only ones available. This turns the idea on it's head, and makes the single provider option far better than the "best of many" platform.

This is likely to happen in the UK as the new rules also govern which providers may be used in the UK market as a source of games. It may mean providers like RTG, Rival, and TopGame would not be able to be used by licenced UK facing casinos because they are unlikely to apply for a software supplier licence since they supply so many "black market" operators facing the US.
 
This is likely to happen in the UK as the new rules also govern which providers may be used in the UK market as a source of games. It may mean providers like RTG, Rival, and TopGame would not be able to be used by licenced UK facing casinos because they are unlikely to apply for a software supplier licence since they supply so many "black market" operators facing the US.
I am sure they will find a way around it if they want to, by setting up separate companies.
 

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