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Sony cracks down on Concord custom servers, issues DMCA takedowns on gameplay videos
(thegamepost.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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This is 100% proof Sony is going to write this off as a tax write off
I firmly believe that anything "written off" in that manner - this includes movies, too, in particular - should have to be released into the public domain as part of that process.
Any business that's paying less taxes is harming the public good; we should at least benefit in some small way from that.
It's more likely they have contractual obligations with marketing companies, retailers, data centers, etc. If a product is discontinued they can get out of those obligations. Sure they will write off a loss and reduce the taxes they pay, but it's not as if a bigger loss nets them more money somehow.
Really what needs to be regulated is all of the excessive exclusive B2B contracts which mean a company can't just sell a product for a small amount of money to someone to maintain it when they're done with that product.
Well if it’s “written off” of their taxes that means it’s taxes they don’t pay which is essentially paid by the rest of us in taxes we do pay. So yeah it should be public domain since we “bought” it.
That's not accurate. A tax write-off isn't "taxes you don't pay". It's "lost income that isn't taxed".
The US corporate income tax is nominally 21%. If a company writes off 100 of loss (or charitible donations, or expenses, or anything else), their earnings are reduced by 100 dollars, saving them 21 bucks. There's no way to "profit" off of failure through write-offs.
Exactly, can't pay corporation tax on a loss because corporation tax is only paid on profit. Worked in a small company before and heard moaning from high up about having to pay corporation tax when Amazon don't. We could have paid no corporation tax simply by giving everyone a pay raise.
Imagine you create a product that is mechanically functional but fundamentally terrible. Only a tiny group is willing to pay for it, and even that isn't enough to break even. You have no choice but to pull it from the market and discard it. Then the government steps in and starts distributing that product for free. This is your personal intellectual property, you no longer control it or own it.
Your comment is deeply frustrating. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright and intellectual property, which is frankly astounding.
In the US our Constitution only grants you a monopoly on your creation for a limited time before it ends up in the public domain.
• The term endures for the life of the author plus 70 years.
• For works made for hire or anonymous/ pseudonymous works, the term is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.
Dude. I noticed that there is a collective misunderstanding of copyright and intellectual property on Lemmy y'all need to read some wikis or something.
The constitution grants Congress the right to create public domain laws, and that's it. With current law it's decades away from applying to this game.
I've noticed here on Lemmy that the general user base just doesn't like copyright laws or have a complete lack of knowledge of what a copyright is how they function and why it's beneficial to copyright works.
It's actually really frustrating mainly because you get downvoted for supporting copyright which is insane.
"Imagine you create something that ends up being terrible, you can't profit off it, and then people can get it for free!"
I don't understand what the problem is here.
Here lies the core of the disconnect. The property is not yours. When someone takes or uses something that does not belong to them, against the owner’s wishes, they have committed a violation. The owner’s reasons are irrelevant; it is their property.
Consider this scenario: you write a book you do not wish to publish. Then an external entity steps in and announces that they will publish it and distribute it for free. You would rightfully feel that your autonomy had been overridden.
This is why copyright laws exist. They can be exploited, like any system, but they remain the most effective framework we currently have.
Sony isn't giving the game away for free you're taking it by force.
How does community-run servers prevent them from writing off their losses?
I guess the loss could be argued against in court given that there is player activity, even though it's not endorsed nor hosted by them. Just speculation
Not really. Now, please remember, im not a Japanese or American tax lawyer. A write-off is just a bookkeeping manouver that means: we are never going to make a profit on this investment so we will take the remaining cost right now instead of in installment over the bookkeeping calculated time frame we intended. It might have a time-vslue of money effect on the total value of the cost, but it's not very significant. The tax write-off was always going to come; it was a cost after all. It's just a matter of timing.
Let me give you an example. I'm developing a game console and it takes me 10 dollars and a year to do it. In a naïve bookkeeping world, I'd have a cost of 10 dollars the first year and for the next ten years, I'd have the COGS (cost of goods sold) as the cost and the money people pay as the income. This is not how modern bookkeeping works. The cost of year one will be split on the (for example) first 10 years of the game console life as this more realistically reflects what is going on. Cashflow is a very different thing.
I'm sure I've used the wrong terms for cost and income, I always do. But no one that didn't already know what I said will notice....
No. A write-off is nothing more than a company expense. It's a deduction from their income.
You've said something with such absolute certainty that is not making sense to me.
Now I'm not versed in Japanese tax law, but Japan does follow International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I'm also not versed in the capitalization of video game development expenses.
A business is going to write down their asset based on their ability to generate future revenue from it. With Concord dead on arrival, it would be fair to say that they would write down everything related to the individual game development. If they left any asset on the books it would be related to the IP/trademarks/copyrights/etc (maybe some transferrable technology if they are getting really specific).
I'm not able to make the connection between issuing takedowns on community servers/videos and the accounting write off of an impaired asset. Issuing takedowns seems more in line with IP protection.
This is likely going to be the main reason for the takedown notices, Sony will be exercising their legal rights in order to defend their trademarks & copyrights on Concord assets.
If a company doesn’t defend them vigorously, then any unlicensed works that are allowed to exist are then used as legal precedent moving forward to null/void such copyrights and trademarks.
As an aside, Sony is a global corporation and can likely choose to write down these losses in the most preferred region to maximise the tax offset - so likely either the US, or Ireland.