After the tecmo press-release yesterday, a more serious/unbiased article was posted today about the subject on theregister.co.uk.

cypher35 posted on forums.xbox-scene.com a summary of the 70 some statements he got from Tecmo into 5 accusations:

1) The source code that we posted on the message boards (namely the xpr/cat files) constitute copyright infringement. They state that such files can be taken from the website and that copyrighted model and texture files can be extracted from them.

->God i wish we had switched to the .bos patch format earlier...

2) The tools developed soly for use with dead or alive to enable modifications to the source code (that is their definition of source code), are a violation of copyright. They go on to say that although we are building tools to open specific filetypes (xpr, cat, afs, etc...), the tools were made with dead or alive in mind because the would have little or no practical use outside of DOA modification.

->I had always believed that creating such tools was not an illegal practice. Could anyone find a legal document or another case to back up my assumption?
If we are to be allowed by the court to continue producing such tools after the case has reached conclusion, we need to proove beyond the shadow of a doubt that producing such tools is legal.

3) The modifications available to be made to the executable code (namely the "copyright circumvention" in doax and doau) constitute copyright infringement...

->any thoughts?

4) The modifications to the game have irreperably damaged the "goodwill" (they actually used that word) and reputations of the DOA Characters. They also go on to say that we misled the public into believing that these modifications were "created by, approved by, sponsored by, or somehow affiliated or connected with Tecmo".

->This is one of the accusations that i completely disagree with beyond any "grey" area.
We did not mislead the public, and someone would have to have a brain the size of a pea to believe that these modifications were endorsed by Tecmo. The very method by which the modifications are applied is a dead giveaway... What company would require game owners to open up their xboxs and transfer over files in order to manualy upgrade their product?

5) The posting of such modifications constitutes "unfair competition".

->While i can understand what they are getting at here, the simple matter of the fact is that you cannot recreate the game form the small percentage of the games content posted on the message board. It also requires an original copy of the game to run, so if anything it has encouraged sales.
Such an opinion might be dismissed, however, and i don't know if the judge will necessarily see this the same way.

Snippet of the article on theregister.co.uk:

The harm isn't just to the wholesome values of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, hinted Tecmo spokesperson Melody Pfeiffer. There's a principle at stake. "Hackers, if they're allowed to do this kind of thing, will be allowed to hack into any game, anywhere," Pfeiffer warns. "We spent millions of dollars to develop these games, and people are coming in and changing the code to their liking, and that's illegal."

Tecmo's Pfeiffer says the company is seeking $1,000 to $100,000 in damages for every custom skin swapped over the website.

Jason Schultz, an attorney with the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation, couldn't disagree more. "This complaint is absurd," said Schultz. "The law allows for fair use of other people's copyrighted works without any permission needed, and one of the key things that you're allowed to do is make copies in order to reverse engineer and understand how they work."

Everything the complaint accuses the defendants of doing is completely legal under well-established law, says Schultz. "If they'd offered a competing video game with Tecmo's code in it, it's a legal issue. But here, they have simply offered a way for legitimate game owners to modify how the game looks on their screen. Its like a home customization kit. It's not competing in any way with Tecmo's product. In fact, you have to own Tecmo's product to use this stuff."