New Front In The Copyright-War: Abandon-Ware 280
Ventilator writes: "The New York Times (free login required) features an interesting story about out-of-print games and the copyright issues for dedicated Web sites. It also discusses the benefits for game developers if they would make those old games available to the public. "
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:1)
This is incorrect. "Alexander's Ragtime Band," for instance, slipped into the public domain in the early '90's when the publisher forgot to renew its copyright. There was an article in Billboard around the time with hilarious quotes from music publishers about what a horrible mistake this was.
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:1)
You'd have to be pretty dedicated to the idea of free music if you were willing to take a murder charge or two. Ohh... that Stallman! I'll get him... it's time that Emacs got out of under the thumb of those FSF dorks. [joking!]
This is exactly what the content cartels fear! (Score:1)
This is exactly what the various content cartels (RIAA, SPA, MPAA, BSA, etc etc) don't want to happen! A thriving trade in high-quality "abandoned" content (be it games, music, movies or whatever) would, in their view, cut into the profits of their ever-more-expensive-to-make "original" content.
Think I'm kidding? The major movie studies are literally allowing thousands of reels of film to rot in non-climate-controlled archives, so that when they finally slip into the public domain, it will be physically impossible for people to make copies to distribute.
Or look at Hasbro/Atari's recent lawsuits against makers of shareware clones of their "classic" videogames -- wouldn't wany any of the kids downloading a free version of Frogger when we can extract $40 from them for our brand-new, 3D-accellerated, completely-not-fun version!
The ugly truth here is that the content cartels (please don't call them producers) have, for all intents and purposes, completely obliterated the very concept of the public domain in the US legal code for now. The only thing that will change that is a massive legal challenge on basic constitutional grounds, and I can't think of any entity that could afford it, and I shudder to think which way the Rhenquist supreme court might rule on the matter.
Mark my words -- in a decade, we will all be content pirates by necessity.
correction... (Score:1)
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Re:It's the fun factor, stupid. (Score:2)
Another point, games used to be way more creative. Games today can be easily classified into a few categories. But Nintendo had games (Wall Street Kid and Downtown Cross Country Race or whatever) that were completely unlike any others. I'll often times start up a ROM and be amazed at the originality in gameplay and interface, not to mention graphics and music. Oh, don't even get me started on the beautiful music.
Re:Old games == educational? (Score:2)
Re:Damn the man! (Score:2)
The Act of Copyright exists to allow people to purchase authentic works. It has been mutated today into an act that allows publishers to make money from their art (which I haven't any problem with). The idea of copyrights expiring means that once the company has milked an idea for what it is reasonably worth (and trust me, Super Mario Brothers ain't worth even $5 anymore, I bought mine for $2!), the copyright would expire and allow anyone, including the poor, access to the works.
Why should we all have access to copywritten works, some might ask? The answer is simple: To preserve education and history. If copyrights take 100 years to expire right now, then ALL companies have to do to cover their mistakes is not release their stuff for the 100 years. There aren't many formats out there that will last 100 years. CDs get laser rot (if they are built poorly... they have to be built DAMN good to last 100 years), the magnetism of disks changes, film rots, arcade machines break, contacts on ROM cartridges wear out, etc.
If a company can cover their mistakes through copyright, they can rewrite their history. Sounds scary, no?
If copyright expires at the end of the useful selling period of an item, then the last few sold are still in good shape, and soon copies would exist (legally) ensuring that history is served. There is NO reason why a company needs to keep copyrights on computer games longer than 10 years, IMHO. Tell me ONE company that is still burning ROMS for new Nintendo cartridges of a 10 year old game. If you can't, you likely won't find a company doing it for any other system -- Nintendo was pretty much the most popular console 10 years ago.
>How is a book that was written 50 years ago any less relevant today than when it was first published?
How relevant a work is doesn't mean it deserves to enjoy an infinite copyright. Hell, the works of Plato are still relevant -- do you really think that whoever is still part of Plato's bloodline (probably a few million people now...
A Chilton's manual for a 1990 Tempo might be useful to someone trying to restore on 50 years from now (therefore relevant). Obviously it isn't going to be in print. And how many people have a preserved Chilton's collection? Should the knowledge of how to repair that car be simply lost? If you ask me, no. Releasing copyright after the reasonably saleable lifetime of the material would allow someone to copy the information. This means that 50 years from now, there could be a full older Chilton's manual collection, simply because if you combine what each Mechanic has, you will probably find a full set. But copying these old books to make a complete set for yourself would be illegal right now. That is just plain wrong, unless you are a masochist and WANT others to spend ungodly amounts of time talking to hundreds of mechanics to get one damn book.
But, at least for Chiltons manuals, you MIGHT have a chance at finding them in a library. Not so for most all computer software. Now THIS is where the real problem is: Libraries need to start carrying computer games for historical and archival purposes, using OUR money. Or copyright has to be diminshed, costing almost nothing. I like the last option.
Conservancy (Score:2)
First, anyone concerned about the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 should help with our lawsuit to overturn it--see http://eon.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/ [harvard.edu] and please join the OpenLaw discussion linked from there or just get up to date on the online briefs.
Unfortunately, even if Bono is overturned, no computer games will enter the public domain for many years, companies who own copyrights will have few incentives to make them free, and so-called "piracy" will remain the only option for most of those who wish to enjoy and learn from these old programs.
So, secondly, please help me somehow with an Intellectual Property Conservancy, even if Bono is not overturned. The idea is to set up a non-profit, independent, tax-deductible, educational and publishing corporation. This Conservancy could accept donations of online publishing rights, copyrights, patents, and so on. After the work goes out of print or is not worth retaining except defensively, then the copyright owner could get a tax deduction for donating rights so the work could become freely available.
The idea is that the public would benefit from this "progress of science and the useful arts" and so ought to PAY the creators or copyright owners, instead of TAKING without payment their products. In past years, copyright owners had to register and renew copyrights, but today many works are out-of-print and it is impractical to reprint them except online.
I happen to agree with RMS that software patents are bad and copyrights of proprietary software ought never to have been allowed. But I think with this Conservancy idea we could LEVERAGE current copyright law to enhance freedom for all of us.
Then a Games Museum could come about, along with donated old computers and machines and software, so that all of us could not only enjoy ourselves, but also learn from the wizards of yesterday, and make future games and other products even better.
The Conservancy idea is very practical. Not only has at least one company donated patents to the FSF, but recently another company was able to get tax deductions for such a gift. Proctor and Gamble donated some of its "too many" patents to Western Michigan University, which can do better packaging research and develop better products based on these patents. All of us might win thereby!
Even those are longer. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:5)
Since then, the world has become faster and the pace of change has increased. News is now minute-by-minute rather than week-by-week, technologies come and go in years rather than decades, the popularity of music waxes and wanes far faster than it did then. Yet the copyright term has become longer and longer, for some reason. It now ranges from life plus fifty years, to life plus ninety years. That's an effective copyright term of a century and a half in some cases - totally unjustified by any substantially increased incentive to create new works.
Unfortunately, international treaties prevent countries from adopting more sensible policies, even if they wanted to. Or rather, it means that greater political will is required to get past the 'hiding behind our international "obligations"' stage. (IMHO intellectual property law, like taxation, is best decided individually on a country-by-country basis.)
I reckon that the copyright term will be put right during my lifetime; if it ever became an 'issue' it would certainly provoke a lot of support for a reduction to the original 14 years, or some other reasonable term. Unfortunately, the large media conglomerates such as Disney are those who keep pushing for another twenty years every decade or so, so it's unlikely that any of the mainstream media would start actively campaigning on this issue. But sooner or later, it is bound to get attention.
Regular renewal sounds a bit bureacratic and could be an excuse to favour those who can afford the lawyers and paperwork. Having to prove (ultimately before a court) that your work is still worth copyrighting could bog the whole world down in endless appeals and wrangling. Better to have something which is clear-cut and automatic; such as, if the author is alive you can extend the copyright up to a maximum of 28 years; if a book is out of print, however, copyright expires after 10 years.
Old games == educational? (Score:4)
I find it easier to learn a programming concept by looking at a small program. Try to learn anything by looking at the Quake source. Ugh, my brain isn't that big. But I could probably learn a few concepts from looking at the source for Asteroids!
PLay arCAde CLASSics (Score:2)
Lots of fun time wasting activities available as long as you install the shockwave software.
Re:piracy (Score:2)
These collections are usually hampered by the desire of the publishing company (usually not even the original company that released the games initially, due to buyouts 'n mergers 'n rights-transfers 'n stuff) to put bloated frontends on the emulators and the like -- who can forget Activision's first Atari 2600 "Classics" pack, which required Windows 95 (and chafed my po' Windoze 3.1 britches back in 1995) and featured a nagging parental voice every now and then telling you to turn off the game and do your homework?
The collections are further ruined by idiot game reviewers who obligingly review them in between gaming sessions of Diablo 3 Arena Tournament EverCraft Online and trot out the same rehashed "the grafx sux d00d n its not in 3D" arguments -- remember, these are the people who complained that the Lost Treasures Of Infocom collections were boring cause they were made up of only words and no pictures. Each review is also not complete without an original, witty reminder to "stop living in the past." These insightful reflections provide more than enough inspiration to run right out and completely trick out your computer so you can play the latest FPS for a few months until another one comes out which renders your entire system obsolete.
The game companies therefore believe these collections have no real sale value and in an industry where you're expecting (and obliged, almost) to create the Next Big Game Franchise with every release, such collections are deemed a waste of production money. Meanwhile, nobody can understand why Daikatana has seemingly alienated a key portion of its intended audience already -- those who wish for a fun, playable game over the glitz and technical 3D card wizardry and oodles of Deathmatch weapon options.
I heartily applaud those who live in the past. Historical context is never a bad thing -- and yes, the games did have better play value, goddammit. I can still get hours of enjoyment out of MULE, and its theme music can still give me chills.
No Login Required! (Score:2)
I've been doing my part to keep them alive (Score:2)
However, I also do think that the media that they are stored on is getting old and rather unreliable. I am fortunate that most of my 15 year old C= disks still work, as does my 1571 drive.
C= people have done a great job so far of cataloguing everything and were among the first to put it on CD-ROM. I cannot say the same for other formats. If I want to archive my old Commodore floppies on CD-R, my hard drive, or even 3.5" disks, I can. However, for many of these old videogame formats, and especially some of the games for older machines like the Spectrum, Apples, TRS-80, and MSX, it is not as widespread. It's there, but I can't just do it like I can with a C=.
This is not just an issue for games, it's an issue for many other packages too. Quite frankly, a lot of the programmers back then had a lot less to work with and made the best of it. There are many applications, file formats, and extremely COOL code floating around on these unreliable formats.
Don't laugh. Some of those people that programmed the TRS-80 built functionality into 16K of code for a word processor that I didn't see until Word 95. The people who wrote a lot of C= code did so with a machine that was not even the best machine of its time, however it was the most hackable of all of them for cool A/V effects.
Its programmers turned its bugs into features, unlike most MS programmers today.
However, I am doing my part to save these old games by keeping my archive of C= games (which is at over 500 disks from the 80's in my office here) safe, and gradually making
Some of what these programmers did just amazes me in how ingenious it is. The least we can all do is preserve it, study the code, and try to apply it so that we can write tight code in the future.
Re:Old games == educational? (Score:2)
Nope. In my opinion, 6502 assembler is the best possible way to teach programming. In fact, I'd make a strong case for it being a first language, even before higher level languages. It's simple enough to be easily understood, yet it's complex enough that the student should be able to recognise certain traits when they get to higher level languages -- explaining pointers in C to someone that understands indirect addressing is a lot easier than explaining it to someone that doesn't. Having a quantity of available 6502 code would be a great teaching aid.
Perhaps a solution... (Score:2)
Re:Thoughts (Score:2)
The Coming Console Crash... (Score:2)
Right now, we have a video game industry that is, to put it mildly, profit driven. I know what some people will say, "But all industry is driven by profit! All any sane person gives a damn about is money and profits! Nothing else matters!" These people are wrong, because games, DVDs and the like, are luxuries. A person doesn't need games to survive and if the market becomes driven entirely by greed, it will collapse. (Although, people do seem to be willing to put up with a lot from the IP tyrants, they won't put up with crummy, junk games... because they don't have to.)
What has this got to do with emulation? It's simple, companies refuse to release old games, which were actually good in any format. They also refuse to allow games that don't fit into their idea of what people would like in a region to enter that region. They are trying to turn the gaming experience into "rental only."
I've reached a point where I am losing interest in consoles altogether, because I realize that very little that is actually good is produced for them any more. The best games I've bought for consoles recently were Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Final Fantasy Collection, both old games from the age of 16-bit consoles. It's a sad day when the game you are most hoping will come out for your system is Chrono Trigger/i> because you don't expect anything modern to match it.
No wonder the gaming cartels are so afraid of the games from their glory days!
Re:piracy (Score:2)
As for violating the GPL, more power to you. The BSD license allows exactly what you've said. That, however, is not what I'm arguing. I'm not saying its all right to violate any license just because there's no economic harm done. Actually, what I was saying about being able to take a copy of software without impeding the proprietor's ability to use it, is part of the justification for the GPL!
What I am saying is that there is no reason for these companies not to make these old games available to those of us who spent lots of quarters and many hours after school and on weekends playing these games in our youth. I don't play games on my computer much any more, apart from the occasional Tetris or Asteroids, but I would play these games, and I'd be willing to pay. As it stands now, you can get them (pirated?) for free, if you know where to look.
Re:Why stop at games? (Score:3)
This is why Brittney Spears outsells Frank Zappa.
So to sum it up:
New Music -> masses = MOST money for RIAA companies.
Old Music -> masses = less mindshare for new artists = less profit optimization.
Old music raped by new artists -> masses = better hype for new artists = even more money for RIAA companies = less artistic integrity overall, and destruction of human history, elimination of posterity.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
The origin (Score:3)
> I don't think you guys understand. I made something. I invented
> it. I can do with it whatever I want to,
Certainly. But so can I, without interfering physically in any way with your use of it. That's the whole problem.
> It is not something that I happened to "find",
Actually, technically, yes it is.
The fundamental schism between material property (made out of matter) and copyrighted 'property' (like your book, song, invention, or process), is that one is capable of being physically posessed, the other is not, the other is an idea. Albeit sometimes it can be a highly complicated idea, it's still at the root, just an idea. A thought. A train of logical knowledge and information.
An idea. It can be posessed by everyone at once, with almost no cost. It can be obtained by anyone independently of one another given the right circumstances. It can also be obtained by anyone through mere observation of one who already 'posesses' it.
Let us answer the question: What right does anyone have to claim ownership over an idea?
What fundamental source of thought or logic would provide the basis for the 'right' of 'ownership' over an idea?
In fact, we might want to think for a minute about the following: where does the right of ownership for anything come from? The objects in your dwelling. Your dwelling. The ground your dwelling is built on. The trees someone cut to build your house with. Trace the ownership of *all* of these physical objects back to their sources. You end up asking, who owns the the mountains? The air? The moon and mars? And how did a small part of one tree on the side of that mountain come to 'be yours'?
I find two answers. Firstly, everything belonged to everyone in the world, collectively. Society owned it all. And little by little, for society's good, parts of it were given (in return for some compensation) to individuals. Secondly these individuals added their efforts to the 'worth' of the objects, now in private hands, and so things went, until you ended up with them, having 'obtained' them in return for some of your own efforts.
Where do ideas and information originate?
Clearly the idea of a wheel, a circle, or how to start a fire existed before mankind existed. Just like the mountains. Just like the carbon that ended up in the trees, oil, and steel that became your chair.
Clearly then, society must 'own' them before any individual does. Whether society actually knows about the gold in that mountain or not is immaterial.
Remember how 'things' ended up in private hands? Society assigns 'ownership' based on what is considered best for all.
Would it feel right to you, to have a system where someone could be given the right to derive benefit, in perpetuity, from the 'innovation' of concentrating heat with a combustible and a flow of oxygen to create a self perpetuating combustion reaction? Certainly it would have been worth it to reward the individual who first comes up with the idea. But to give his descendents a large share of the rewards of its use by *all* mankind, forever? Surely someone else would have come up with it sooner or later.
Clearly we cannot allow someone to 'own' an idea in perpetuity, no matter how innovative nor complex. It would be too potentially damaging to the good of mankind.
In the long long long run, your descendents will completely and utterly mix with all of mankind. In the end, your 'innovation' *will* belong to everyone else. (unless there's some moderate inbreeding or abstenance in your family... :) When all of this logic is applied to something simple like fire or the wheel, it all makes perfect sense. I guess it could get a little more complicated when we're talking about highly complex 'ideas' like a musical composition or your book. But they are still merely 'information'. We're simply left deciding how *much* of a *finite* reward one should get(*).
Physics tells us that quite literally, one immortal monkey with one arm tied behind his back would eventually re-create your work. Some of us are a lot smarter than monkeys. And there are four billion years until the sun goes out.
Damn I'm good.
-NH
BTW: I've raised this point before, but I don't think we got a good answer. Without doubt mankinds greatest philosophers and thinkers have gone over this idea before. Where can we find a definitive summary of their train of thoughts and conclusions? Any historians out there who can point out the way? Clearly it would be idiotic to have to work this out from first principles all by ourselves over again.
It would be most efficient if we could just re-educate ourselves, our politicians, and everyone else, with what mankind has already likely learned, from a definitive respected source of information.
(*) I'd agree with you about 10 years being too short for your book. But I CLEARLY think that the life of the author PLUS 50 years is WAY too much. I liked the original 28 + 28 year terms. I don't mind *automatically* assigning copyright to the creator.
Personal note: It almost feels like the wisdom with which our society was created hundreds of years ago is being torn down by mediocre elected morons at the behest of the naked greed and aggression of bureacratic corporations. Anyone else feel this way?
Re:piracy (Score:2)
PATENTS were/are about fostering innovation
COPYRIGHTS have always been about lining the copyright holders pockets. That's their entire point, to prevent unauthorized copying, to guarentee that the author has control over their works, etc....
No, no, no! Read The Constitution of the United States of America, please. In the U.S., both Copyright and Patents exist to guarantee innovation and advancement in the useful arts. The wording goes something like "Congress shall grant for a limited time". Pay attention, it says "limited time." But, don't take my word for it, read it for yourself. [gpo.gov]
Re:Problems with copyright (Score:2)
To them, popular culture isn't culture, it's just a way for their buddys, the media barons, to make huge fortunes (and give some of it to them.). They see themselves as superior to the people they govern... and that's the quickest route to fascism I can think of.
Re:piracy (Score:2)
Using that logic, then it is permissible for me to take a GPLd program, modify it, then redistribute binary only under a different licenes. The original code is still there! I am not depriving the GPL author of it's property! Is this what you are arguing?
I am perfectly willing to accept the dissolution of copyrights as a premise. Are you willing to accept the logical conclusions of that premise?
OT: Request to Slashdot editors... (Score:5)
Muchas gracias...now back to our program already in progress...
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
Their own worst critics? (Score:2)
If this is true, shouldn't everybody in that company be hanging their heads in shame over the fact that many of us would rather be playing Tempest or Robotron than bothering with their latest and greatest?
If they are worried about competing with 15-year-old games that we all mastered and got bored with long ago, doesn't that lead one to think that they must be doing something very, very wrong?
Re:Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:2)
Given that Disney-owned ABC, Viacom-owned CBS, or AOL/Time/Warner-owned CNN are unlikely to allow these issues to garner significant national attention, I'd say you're an optimist.
The corporations are the government. The mass media annointed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (that is, GW and Al Gore) as our presidential candidates years ago, long before a single vote had been cast; such a system can only survive by keeping substantive change off the table.
-Isaac
Re:piracy (Score:2)
And what evil means did she commit? Breaking a an evil law is not an evil act. Her means were fully consistant with her ends.
If you goal is to do no wrong, then do your very best to do no wrong! What is so hard about understanding this? If you commit wrong acts in the pursuit of good goals, you are a liar if you then go and claim that you did no wrong. Worse, you are a hypocrite. You cannot try to balance the evil with good and expect the result to be good.
I think ~15-20 years (for corporate copyrights), and the lifetime of the author (for individual copyrights) would be ideal.
I would agree. I've advocated just this position on Slashdot previously. However, do you realize that some of these "abandoned" games are less then 15 years old? Do you realize that the members of Metallica are still alive and kicking?
Article I, Section 8 (Score:2)
Clause 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
That is where the Congress's authority to make Copyright laws comes from. Notice that it says, "authors and inventors," not publishers and manufacturers. I think they're really stretching the "limited times" bit with the DMCA, don't you?
Re:Some Points to Consider (Score:2)
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:Problems with copyright (Score:2)
You hit it on the head. Remember that TW/AOL, Disney, et al. will be glad to teach you history - from their point of view of course. Big Brother is here, only he's not a govt, he's several corporations. But then again, they own our govt, so what's the difference?
Problems with copyright (Score:5)
Congress is authorized by the Constitution:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
The purpose of copyright is not "to provide for the welfare of artists," or "to secure the intellectual property of artists." The constitutional authorizes copyright strictly to promote the creation of more creative speech. The fact that some people and companies can get rich from copyright is a side effect of copyright, not its purpose.
Copyright doesn't come for free, and more isn't necessarily better. Copyrights are a restriction of free speech. They are a constitutional compromise. Copyright temporarily trades away part of the natural right of free speech -- the right to repeat and build upon other people's speech -- in exchange for what is hopefully a public benefit -- the creation of more speech by artists.
The original copyright laws reflected this. Up until 1978, if you published something, but neglected to include a correct copyright notice, your work immediately entered the public domain. This forced artists to identify the works that they considered valuable, and provided protection for those specific works. Furthermore, after 28 years had passed, the work would revert to the public domain unless the copyright had been renewed. This took care of the abandoned-works problem. Works that were abandoned would enter the public domain faster.
The idea that everything you create is automatically your property protected by copyright is a very, very new idea. 1978 exactly.
In 1978, the law was changed so that everything that anyone creates is automatically copyrighted. This was a great deal for publishers, because instead of having to keep track of all of their copyrighted works, and renew them when necessarily, their copyrights would just take care of themselves.
What was lost was the public domain. Prior to 1978, vast amounts of material were published without copyright notice, or even registration, and immediately entered the public domain.
This was 22 years ago; which probably corresponds to the age of the average slashdotter. This is the first generation to come of age in a world with no contemporary public domain of ideas -- where all ideas are someone's private property, and will remain so long past all of our lifetimes.
It isn't surprising that the new generation is philosophically rejecting the theory of "near-perpetual copyright on everything ever published." There is no moral or ethical basis for functionally perpetual copyright on anything and everything. The copyright terms and conditions are, at this point, simply out of proportion to any possible public benefit to be gained by them. No surprise that many people are very dissatisfied with copyright law. Right now, it mostly exists to benefit the large media monopolies, and is being used to destroy our culture as fast as it is created. The DMCA makes it illegal to make a preservation copy of a copy protected diskette. Most old Apple II games are on copy protected diskettes. In a few decades, as those disks decay, the only records of the early days of home computers will be illegal records. Same for DVDs, and anything else that is distributed on encrypted media.
How can you preserve history and learn from it, when the very act of preservation and dissemination of abandoned historical material is illegal?
The destructive effects of the DMCA will be most acutely felt when future generations seek to study our era, and discover that most of our contemporary culture no longer exists in any form because our Congress outlawed its private preservation at the request of the RIAA and MPAA. At that time, our grandchildren will be awash in a sea of deteriorated, encrypted media from the early 21st Century, unable to read any of it, and the "benefits gained" from the DMCA will seem very small indeed. The only traces of our culture that will remain will be the few works that were continually preserved and restored by their copyright owners, and those works that have been illegally decrypted and preserved, using programs like DeCSS.
That is why the copyright problem is the most important issue of our generation.
Re:What about the statute of limitations? (Score:2)
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Re:Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:2)
Your scheme is interesting, but it needs some tuning to accommodate authors whose work is not appreciated five hours after it is published. Perhaps if we reverted to the conventional 14 year renewable scheme for personally held copyrights and applied your rules to copyrights held by corporations.
Then, of course, Windows would be copyright Bill Gates instead of Microsoft and we really would have to kill him to see the source code. Hmmm. Maybe your idea is pretty good after all...
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Re:Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:4)
Part of the idea is that things that end up making a lot of money will justify their continued copyright, whereas things that weren't able to, enter the public domain.
The numbers could be tweaked, certainly, but I'd like to know what people think of this idea.
Re:Old games == educational? (Score:2)
iD: Doing things *correctly* (Score:2)
When iD wanted to make Wolf3D, they did not have the Wolfenstein name. Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle WOlfenstein were done by MUSE Software, which was out of business. Did iD just unilaterally declare that the title was 'abondoned' and use it? No. They did the grunt work in tracking down the holder of the copyright (some granny in Maine, iirc), and *LEGALLY* got the name.
I commend them for doing things *rightly*.
Who says we can't learn from their example?
With copyright law as it stands, things *will* remain copyrighted for a darn long time unless you do one thing: ASK. Ask the copyright holder if they'll reclassify it, just as iD did with Wolf/Doom/Q1. If they say yes, everyone wins.
However, if the copyright holder says no, then it's time to prove we can behave like someone older than a two-year-old who's had his favorite toy taken away from them. Accept their judgment on the matter, and don't allow it to be copied (or posted for download).
It all boils down to respect for the author: if they say "freely copy this under BSD|GPL|XYZ license" then listen to them. If they say "don't copy this," then listen to them *the*same*way*.
- Nathan Mates
GameMuseum.org (Score:2)
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:4)
No item has been placed into the public domain due to expiration of copyright since (IIRC) 1923. The US Congress has extended copyright terms every single time that the issue is about to come around. (The conspiracy theorist will point out that new copyright bills are introduced at the same time that Disney's copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire.)
As it stands now, something is copyrighted for nearly 100 years from date of creation. I believe you're thinking of patents, which are protected for 17 years from date of filing.
(keeping my opinion out of this; I don't need to get tagged as flamebait.
Re:piracy (Score:2)
As far as laws are concerned, since the current copyright laws exist are we suppose to just shut up and live with them? I don't think so. We are suppose to get on the web and complain about them. It may turn out to be a form of power. Corporations already have power, most notably in the form of money. Maybe most people do not like the current laws. Maybe most people think that we as a society have the right to re-examine the definition of whether or not "the shirt or game is abandoned."
The truth is, most people don't care. They will take whatever is given to them, and will not even think of other possibilities. And even fewer would care if not for the efforts of nerds who have enough free time and expertise to salvage lost arts. That is why their actions should be protected. Who came up with these laws? I seriously doubt that you would find much support in the public for criminalizing the salvage of outdated, off the market video games. What are these companies afraid of? That you will have sufficient entertainment with the old games that you will not buy the new ones? Probably not, that would be about ridiculous. It sound's like corporate assholeism.
"You can't buy it, because there's not enough demand, but you can't have it for free either. If you would like to play the game, then you must be willing to pay for it. Therefore, if you play it for free then we are losing potential revenue. Still can't justify bringing it back to market, though. Sorry. How about a nice new game?"
Is that the mentality?
-tta
Abandonware Movements (Score:2)
Right now, I'm trying to compile some collections of older, abandonware-ish things that aren't necessarily software. I've taken most of my old audio tapes that can't be found any more (Jim Henson's Muppets, in particular) and made mp3s and/or cds out of them. Another thing I'd like to do is take classic television shows that people have recorded on various VHS tapes and put them into mpeg form. Knight Rider, The Muppet Show, Pinwheel,
If anybody is interested in this sort of thing, please email me: dlugar at byu dot edu
Dlugar
Copyrights don't expire anymore. (Score:5)
Re:Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:2)
My girlfriend suggested the idea of having copyright only extend until you have made a certain amount of profit off of the copyright. It would vary depending on the amount of work put into it (though that is hard to quantify in some cases), the type of the media, etc. (If something never hit its profit limit, then there would still be a time limit on its expiration, or vice versa; i.e. a movie copyright would last for 20 years or $500 million in total revenue, whichever came last, so that would prevent mega-blockbusters from becoming public domain in a year (which probably isn't a good thing), but would prevent corps from holding onto them forever.
Re:Yes you are (Score:2)
If it's okay to copy frogger because the original is still there, then the same argument applies to copying then changing gcc. Admiring the concept of copyleft is not a justification for holding to a double standard.
Please put 2 seconds into your OWN rebuttals.
Some Points to Consider (Score:2)
2. Nobody is really losing any money by having old games become more "public"; If anything (as with the Mp3 controversy) it's only giving them some free publicity. My brother recently went out to purchase an old NES system and a whole mess of games after screwing around with Nesticle for a while. MAME, likewise, brings arcade games to home, but is that really taking anything away from the Pac Man terminal at your local supermarket?
3. Old games, instead of fading into oblivion, can be revived, bringing new publicity and respect for the companies that originally created them.
Why stop at games? (Score:5)
For example, music. How many old LPs are out there, mildewing in somebody's basement, that will be destroyed and unusable in another decade? Quite a few, I'd guess. This music should be allowed to be digitally recorded and publically displayed, for example, on Napster (another good use for that medium).
Or, say, old tapes. They don't last very long, and most aren't being produced any more. If I want to go find a tape of some obscure 80's artist, I'm usually SOL. Once again, these should be encoded and put online.
Modern CD's probably come the closest resembling the situation with games of anything I've mentioned so far. There are plenty of old CD's that nobody buys anymore, that will be obsolete when, say, DVD-Audio comes about, and that have not been updated in YEARS. This is music that has been left by the side of the road - nobody has remastered or rerecorded or remixed it for years or even decades. Why let this music die in its staleness when everyone who wants a copy owns it? Digitally redistribute it!
Or, even better, just like the optimal solution would be to Open Source abandoned games so that they can be further improved, we should Open Source abandoned music. I propose that any music that has not been rerecorded in any form within the past five years should have all the masters freely made available so that the public will have an opportunity to improve and enhance the original, and add features that have been requested for a very long time (for example, adding definition to "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky" on Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix). Many ears make bad mixing shallow, and somebody unknown may have the perfect sample for you out there if you'd only let him play with your master copies and make his contribution.
So why let your favorite music grow stale and die when it could be made fresh again every single day? Sleep on that thought, and I guarantee you'll agree with me.
Re:piracy (Score:2)
And how is that different, exactly, from breaking bad copyright law? Civil disobedience is as civil disobedience does, Arandir -- you can't laud the principle in one instance and condemn it in another. You can condemn the exercise of the principle in the case of abandonware, sure, but that's not what you did.
If you commit wrong acts in the pursuit of good goals, you are a liar if you then go and claim that you did no wrong. Worse, you are a hypocrite.
Whoa, stop right there. How is hypocrisy worse than lying? In fact, why are lies and hypocrisy prima facie wrong? The ability to lie well, more even than a virtue, is a key survival skill today, and people who avoid hypocrisy all day, every day, soon find themselves friendless and alone.
Prevarication, obfuscation, and veils of all sorts are crucial to human interaction (this may explain why programmers tend to suck at it, since lying to computers is seldom the Right Thing).
You cannot try to balance the evil with good and expect the result to be good.
Of course you can. Say Dr. Mengele's horrifying research in the death camps yields useful results that can save dozens, even hundreds, of lives. That's a good result, and there's no reason to turn it down because of its evil source. Balancing evil with good often results in good. Yeesh.
Of course, abandonware is in itself a moral good, since trading and copying these programs has negligible effect on the copyright holder (and is therefore morally neutral with respect to the corporation, insofar as a corporation can be considered an entity to which morality applies, which is not particularly far) and produces a moral good (enjoyment) on the part of the recipients of the abandonwarez.
gomi
i mean, duh
A preposed idea for abandon-ware IP law (Score:2)
Unused IP should be protected for about 5 years after first installment of the patent. If applyed within that 5 years then the IP should remain valid for 5 years after applyed or full legth (whatever is shorter).
After 5 years the IP may be applyed to anyone but dose not enter public domain automaticly. If the IP holder applys the IP and publishes this fact in a publicly accessable forum (on an offical governemnt website or on the companys own website) then the unatherised IP user has 6 months to terminate use.
If an IP is in use for 5 years by an unatherised user and during those 5 years an athersied user dose not reclame ownership though application of same IP then the IP reverts to public domain.
The idea here is that dorment IP is captive IP. An IP that is not applyed by a third party might not be applyed at all and as such the ownership should not be reguarded as "in captivity" but in a "bad time" as in lacking marketshare.
The downside is that an idle IP user may risk losing his effort to the IP holder. This means idle IP use is likely to remain within the hobby community as hobbys don't lose proffit margens in terminating projects. However hobby projects may devise new and novle uses for an idle IP. Clearly a company dose not own a hobbys matereals to spite the IP use (this should be drafted into the law for redundency clarification) so the IP owner would have to buy off thee hobbys matereals. A hobby being in the position of not needding to generate cash flow remains in the bargenning position when a company wishes to relcame it's IP.
IP published as public domain by it's owner remains in public domain. This may be allready true however it should be stated clearly and made retroactive.
This is my preposal for future law...
Take it... modify it.... improve it... then take the results and contact your representives...
If such a law existed companys wouldn't be so quick to abandon IP...
Fair use usage of IP should be void from the 5 year use rull. This encurages corprations to cease the reduction of fair use sense fair use during idle dose not decay the IP.
Software Copyrights Gone Mad. (Score:3)
However, what is befuddling is why those software companies would refuse to release the copyright to those games. That is, it is befuddling at the first glance. After all, nobody is making games for the original NES or Colecovision any more. The 8-bit graphics of the NES seem laughable to the N64 and the Dreamcast, and so the mass market would dismiss these products right away. Clearly, there is no money to be made in keeping up these copyrights.
We must remember, though, that a software company is driven (generally) by profits first. As silly as it sounds to us, Nintendo is right when it says that the old games directly compete with its newer lines. Remember--the old gaming platforms (and old PCs, for software based on PCs instead of consoles) were ridiculously limited by today's standards, and so the programming involved probably used a lot of nifty software hacks to squeeze every drop of performance out of those machines. Those same hacks, while not useful in their native form, could point the way towards design philosophies and methodologies that would enable a software company to create a product that is a little better, a little faster than its opponents. That is what the software companies fear.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps there is something else in those old ROMs that software companies don't want anyone finding out about. After all, it is easy to denounce a few gaming enthusiasts as misguided, paranoid, or wrong. It is much harder to denounce the majority of your target market, and much harder on profits.
Think of how many children and adolescents were turned into zombies by those old games. I know people that, even though they haven't touched a NES in years, can still remember where all the secrets in a particular game were. If that isn't brainwashing, then I don't know what is.
What are they hiding?
Damn the man! (Score:2)
Not quite (Score:2)
I had to get rid of an appartment full of obsolete computers becouse the manager didn't like the living room piled up with it.
My sister isn't a computer fanatic at all. She dosn't even have a computer at current time. Well she dose now. She asked for one Commodore 64 with disk drive, Pacman cartrage and a game based on the Rocky Horror Picture show. She has it now.
It's all abandonware.. and thats all she wanted.
She dosn't want Quake or doom. She dosn't want a P5. She dosn't want anything current. What she wants is the old games. The stuff she played as kid and had me stash away.
It's in her closet now...
She knows she must protect it becouse if anything happends she'll never see it again.
She won't pay $5 for anything current but would pay for the old stuff...
Thankfully her older brother is a computer fanatic and keepped everything in storage for her.
I miss some of my old games. (Score:2)
I remember playing games like Zaxxon and Wizardry and Skyfox on my Apple II. THose were classic games. Lots of fun. You could do all sorts of things with them. And considering the relative limitations (compared to what we have now), some of them looked damned good. Do you remember SkyFox? First-person combat flight game. Amazingly cool. I still have my Apple ][+, and I sometimes hook it up to play Skyfox.
And Costikyan knows it, and so do other people. How many great games of the past are lost? Who remembers Choplifter? Who remembers the original Lode Runner? When the point was simplicity and not 'hey, what graphics board can we overexploit today?'.
If Dr. Jenkins is right, if gaming is ever to be understood as an art form that is worthy of study and has valuable things to offer, critics and academics and gamers must come to appreciate the history and development of the form. That appreciation can be created and sustained only if they have access to the games of the past.
Places like the Obsolete Computer Museum [obsoleteco...museum.org] are keeping it alive. But looking at some things... I'm not sure people care. Look at the news: Diablo II! Quake 3! Warcraft 3! (with the fifth race [penny-arcade.com]!) Yeah, everyone wants the next big thing.
But no one wants the last big thing. Come back, Roadblasters... come back.
----
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:2)
Looks like I'll just have to keep posting this over, and over, and over, and......
It's the fun factor, stupid. (Score:3)
It's not 1985 anymore, and we demand higher quality from games today than any of these "classics" provide.
The moderators will probably say that parent is (f)lame-bait, but I'll take the hook, line, and sinker:
Those games are still fun. Graphics don't make the game; otherwise, the GIMP [gimp.org] would be the hottest selling game. What makes the game is the fun factor. Super Mario Bros. was fun. Tetris® (1988 or so) was fun. And they're still played.
Tucows is the REGISTRAR, not the REGISTRANT. (Score:2)
The person who bought this one is:
Registrant:
Gamemuseum.com
P.O. Box 20013 4839 Leslie St.
Toronto, ON M2J 5E4
CA
Domain Name: GAMEMUSEUM.ORG
Administrative Contact:
Khan, Saleem khancorp@idirect.com
416-494-0908
Technical Contact:
Admin, Network postmaster@easyhosting.com
(416) 233-7150
Billing Contact:
Khan, Saleem khancorp@idirect.com
416-494-0908
Record last updated on 19-May-2000.
Record expires on 19-May-2001.
Record Created on 19-May-2000.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Hello? We've moved on since then... (Score:2)
Many older games display inventiveness and risk-taking that are simply absent in today's gaming market, where 'innovation' means 'new graphics over the old gameplay' or 'bigger tits on our Lara Croft lookalike'. There is the occasional breakout game, the rare Something New. And it's not like cloning and flavour-of-the-month games weren't unknown ten and twenty years ago. But preserving older classics -- the original Ultima trilogy, Starflight, Darklands -- is a valuable thing to do, and we should not expect or force companies to do things that have nothing to do with their bottom line -- that's not the business they're in. It falls on the gaming public as a whole, then, to preserve the history of gaming, to learn from the mistakes and successes of the past.
Gaming is more than seeing how many more polygons or neato-keeno eyecandy you can push to the screen. The basics of design, plotting, and immersion haven't changed very much. Only the technology is different.
gomi
Speaking of Pitfall... (Score:2)
Made by Microsoft?
Some things never change.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Obligatory link (Score:2)
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:2)
gomi
Ancient copyright and no-one wins (Score:2)
It's just a shame that companies have lawyers on retainer with nothing better to do than look at copyright infringements, without realizing the "quality" of the situation: 1)these games aren't being sold any more 2) these games aren't being sold by the so-called "pirates" 3) if anything, this generates good PR for what the company produced in the past, sort of a testament to their greatness. It's not about dollars, it's about sense.
However, I'm not sure the old game designers have their old code... I think at most they have assembly of their code (not the easiest to learn from, considering it's hardware dep.), and considering in the 8bit days they hack just to get the whole game to fit into 4k (or maybe 8k) with graphics and music, it probably is all based on machine exploits. But I could be wrong
An idea (Score:2)
Re:Hello? We've moved on since then... (Score:2)
Even though they only require a 386, they've yet to be duplicated. They're fun, and they'll never stop being fun.
Losing our culture to copyright laws (Score:5)
Clearly, the laws must be changed. Any sane government should recognize that even popular culture items are part of the overall culture and it's in the public interest to preserve them. The duration of copyright protection needs to be shortened. One way to do this which would quell the corporate fear of having a money-maker torn from them by the law and given to the public domain, would be to tie some sort of "marketability burden of proof" on the item -- if it hasn't been sold, made money, etc, in several years, and it's past the expiry, off it goes into public domain. If it's still selling, then the copyright holder gets an extension.
But regardless, something must be changed. We lose enough information on a daily basis as it is, we don't need laws that force us to lose our culture to bit rot.
an interesting solution (Score:2)
of course, it'd be a better world if the software companies would just shrug and say, "aw, what the hell, you can have it." it would give them some say in the matter, as well as market data.
but any rom collector knows that this won't happen. because the companies are stingy. they don't want their software available for free. and i wouldn't blame them, really, if it represented a revenue stream. but it doesn't. and litigation doesn't improve their image.
in my opinion, crack-downs on this sort of activity cause an opposite effect than the game producers intend. it tarnishes their image to gamers, or a segment of gamers. then those same gamers have a choice: download the game for nothing, or purchase it (if possible) from a company they no longer have any respect for.
i prefer to pay money where respect is due.
Shorter copyrights (Score:2)
Re:Old games == educational? (Score:2)
Heh. Kids today. With their accelerated 3d cards and surround sound!
When I was young I wrote a 256 room fantasy game for a calculator with a one line alphanum display and 4k of storage.
While a number of game genres have certainly benefited from the advance of computer hardware, I still play the Zork trilogy. There is definitely a lot that could be learned from those old games - not coding techniques, neccessarily (that game I mentioned above required that I, literally, give a unique meaning to every bit in every byte of the game data. I'm proud of the data compression work I did, but I doubt it's useful to anyone today.)
But certainly the pacing and concepts of games like Joust, Asteroids, Suspended, could teach a lot to modern game designers.
--
Greetings New User! Be sure to replace this text with a
Re:Old games == educational? (Score:2)
Thoughts (Score:2)
There are NO racing games today that offer both the playability AND realism of Revs.
Repton, for all it's age, rocks. (Pun intended.)
Galaxy Wars (for the PET) is -STILL- the most challanging 2-player space combat game out there.
For all it's age, Manic Miner is still a good game.
How could ANYONE imagine the Zork trilogy as aging?
Wizardry's I, II and III are old, but blow =ANY= modern D&D-style game out the water.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2.0 was a powerful piece of software.
Double Phantom was an ingenious networked game with -very- low net overhead.
When it comes to -some- games (eg: Elite, Frontier), the Authors HAVE now released the source code. And congratulations to both Ian Bell AND David Braben for doing so! It proves their maturity as human beings.
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:2)
> I forget -- someone who actually knows copyright law, please feel free to correct me).
Quick websearch reveals that it's life-of-author plus 70 years, with work-for-hire and other corporate copyright considerations set at 95 years from date of first publication or 120 years from date of creation, whichever is shorter.
Because of the differences in copyright over the past 100 years, determining the status of copyright of any given work is a
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:2)
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm [unc.edu]
Why They Are Not Actively Enforcing Copyrights (Score:2)
Hmm. What about requiring regular renewal? (Score:3)
Subject to renewal.
In other words, if I create a copyrighted work, it's only legally protected for five years. When the five year deadline arrives, I have to renew my legal protection.
If I fail to renew the copyright, then my work is automatically placed in the public domain.
If we then place a cost (say $100) on the renewal process, we force companies to think about whether or not they really want to renew that copyright. The renewal fee is low enough that a regular person can afford it, but high enough that gigantic corporations with thousands of items under copyright protection will want to think twice before just blindly renewing everything they own.
. . . or at least that would be the theory.
Let us not forget (Score:2)
1. Greedy
2. Shortsighted.
A game museum for people to play out of print games? Out of the question.
Re:Copyrights expiring (Score:2)
I thought patents were protected for 17 years from date of grant, or 19 years from date of filing, whichever expires
Interesting... (Score:2)
I was also pissed to learn that there was an exhibit last year in a local (baltimore) museum dedicated to the original video games of the 70s and 80s. Sigh...
-p.
Re:More misuse of words (Score:3)
We can steal the term from them they way they've stolen "hackers" from computer enthusiasts.
"Bill Gates said that he repected the efforts of open-source programmers? Man, is he a journalist or what?"
Jay (=
Re:piracy (Score:3)
Now, that said, I don't condone piracy. Once in a while, you'll see a disc of these old games for sale from a legitimate source. Somebody could make some money if they'd put together a web site and charge something like $5 or less to download the ROMs to old games. Give the emulators away for free, since most of the best ones are free anyway, but sell the ROMs. The game company that wises up to that clue will be making money for nothing. Yes, no support, other than install instructions on the web site, and a BBS for the users. Now, that's a business model that would work for older games.
If someone at Midway (or whatever they are now) is reading this, please do it!
Here's someone who did (Score:2)
Interestingly, someone reverse engineered this game to create their own version. Rather than suing them, complaining etc., he (Ian Bell) compliments them on the achievement, and includes the resulting game on his site.
Finally, he links to a couple of emulators. Makes a refreshing change, dontcha think?
Keeping up the copyrights so they can sell ports (Score:2)
The 8-bit graphics of the NES seem laughable to the N64 and the Dreamcast, and so the mass market would dismiss these products right away. Clearly, there is no money to be made in keeping up these copyrights.
Nintendo keeps up its copyrights because (for example) it doesn't want people selling exact (emulated) clones of Super Mario Bros. to compete with its port of SMB [nintendo.com] (not the NFS wannabe from Microsoft) to Game Boy Color.
So don't make it retroactive. (Score:2)
ex post facto which means after the fact, and is unconstitutional.
Ex post facto applies only to criminal cases. Copyright is normally a civil offense.
Which means that they'll say that making copyrights they applied for and receive for 95 years expire after 20 years is unfair
Then make it retroactive to whatever the copyright term was when the work was fixed (a long time ago, it was 28+28).
Re:Copyrights don't expire anymore. (Score:2)
"The act of smashing into a tree?"
Could be. I understand he plagiarized the Kennedy clan for that one.
carlos
What someone should do: (Score:4)
A week later, the Nintendo of America lawyers would send a letter to Slashdot telling them to remove the post. This would stir a censorship debate throughout the country.
Slashdot will gather their lawyers together, and then send a letter back to Nintendo saying that
a) "Donkey Kong" is obviously taken from "King Kong", so Nintendo doesn't really have a trademark anyway.
b) The tricks in Donkey Kong were lifted from Highland Gorilla training tricks originally developed by animal trainers at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology, and therefore the game belongs to all taxpayers.
c) Since the game can be gotten so easily on the Net anyway, how can Nintendo claim that the game is copywrited?
Mattel Inc will respond by blocking the Slashdot or any Donkey Kong related site with their censorware. A brave group of librarians will then prove that what they have done is block access into any site that mentions donkeys, or even horses, ponies ,zebras and unicorns.
This, will of course, cause even more controversy, especially when rival toy maker Galoob claims that Mattel only did this so they could prevent children from getting to their "My Little Pony Web Site"
Bank of America claims that they have a janitor working in their St. Louis branch with the name and likeness of "Mario", and would Slashdot please take this down?
I think I have run out of silliness. Thank you for listening to my silly rant.
31337 for NES? (Score:2)
Elite, by Ian Bell and David Braben, for the BBC, Nintendo (NES)
Elite has never been released in the States for one reason: It is not compatible with American NES consoles. The graphics engine in NES Elite is so complex that it requires more CPU time per scanline than an American NES can give out (European TVs have a slower scanrate for higher spatial resolution). Plus, there is no emulator that can run the Elite ROM (which is freebeerware on the legal ROMs [zophar.net] sites).
Re:Thoughts (Score:2)
I expect the source is ASM anyway, not much use to me
Re:Some Points to Consider (Score:5)
Not that I disagree with the underlying point, but I think that there's an important thing that you're missing, here. You're fundamentally comparing the cream of the crop from the good old days with the run-of-the-mill games from today. Sure there were some really great games available back then that involved creativity, good design, and great hacking to get the most out of the system. But there were also a ton of lousy knock offs and lame brained games that were boring after you tried to play them for more than a few minutes. We just forget about the ones that sucked and remember the great ones.
Re:Why stop at games? (Score:3)
Re:No Login Required! (Score:3)
--
Re:piracy (Score:2)
Rosa Parks was BREAKING A LAW when she wouldn't
give up her seat. This CRIMINAL act started a movement
that ended segregation.
Repeat after
I'm not saying violating copyright is right, just
saying your argument is flawed.
Although I do think that copyright is corrupt in America.
The original spirit of fostering innovation has been replaced with lining corporation's pockets.
I think ~15-20 years (for corporate copyrights), and
the lifetime of the author (for individual copyrights) would be ideal.
I dunno, just my opinion.
Old games as assetts (Score:2)
Nowadays though... YOu know what? I *LOVE* my c64 emulator. Hey.. if you want me to spend money, show me a fully vintage, but in brand new condition c64, and show me vintage software! on real c64 floppies! and cartridges! oh.. but wait... you better give me some kind modern CDRom with the software on it from which I can make disk images.... cuase those disks will corrupt eventually...
Seriously. If companies were to offer 'retro packs', ie: emulators coupled with massive archives of out of print games.. I would *gladly* buy it, if it's fairly priced.
Let's face it though. To me, and I'm sure, to many of you, the games of old, and the computers of old.. the whole computer/video game culture was *art*. It was art, pure and simple.. a subculture unlike any other. Hell.. I'd still love to open an arcade...
Re:infocom (Score:2)
And here [csd.uwo.ca] is another site that's bristling with cool Infocom info.
Re:piracy (Score:2)
It's not for YOU to decide if the shirt or game is abandoned. Slashdotters need to realize very clearly that the ends never justify the means. Repeat after me: "The ends (that cool game I really, really want, oh please please please) do not justify the means (theft, piracy, copyright infringement).
Consoles too hard to program? (Score:2)
This was the main reason Sega Saturn was never popular. It was easy to access half the power of the Saturn (the part that was just like Genesis 32x), but it was extremely difficult to master the odd multiprocessor scheme it used (required to achieve PlayStation level games). It seems Sony is making the same mistake Sega made; Sega wins round 4 of the console wars:
Re:Some Points to Consider (Score:2)
Actually you are wrong. In the article I will quote this. "Copyrights and trademarks of games are corporate assets," Nintendo says on its Web site. That doesn't sound like the copyright holders and not Nintendo, it sounds like Nintendo and not the copyright holders becuase they are smart enough to know they have made their money from it already and have moved onto other stuff. If you have a counter example of one of the copyright holders getting mad I would love to see it.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Regular renewal $$$? (Score:2)
$100 ... The renewal fee is low enough that a regular person can afford it
What about poor open source hackers like myself? Can we afford $100 to maintain a copyleft?
What makes GAMES so special? (Score:2)
Why should this sort of discussion involve only games? What about other software that's out-of-print and no longer supported?
Putting old games into the public domain would set a precedent that the business software developers do not want to see. All old and unsupported software would become fair game, and Micros~1 innovation would be exposed for what it is - meme recycling.
First, let's consider that there's lots of good ideas out there, and someone still owns the rights to them. It's quite possible that the holders of these rights would like to act on them, but are waiting for a statute of limitation to expire before they do so. For example, maybe IBM would like to bring back the SmartSuite; they own the rights via their acquisition of Lotus - but there may be an injunction preventing this action for some number of years... IANAL and all that.
Now for the more likely (IMO) scenario:
What would happen for example, if M$ suddenly HAD to open DOS 6.0, and EMM386.EXE turned out to contain some undocumented calls that
Thing is, code is code, and who's to say what makes a particular piece of code into a game.
For example, James Gleick's Chaos: The Software (featured for free here [sjsu.edu]) is educational in nature; but I consider it a game. So is GIMP in my book, since I don't use it 'for work'. Same with AutoCad... It's just a fun little drawing program for me... Open up all but the current version, I say!
Now, this would be great for me, and most of you. But the rights-holders for old software may have some objections to openning up old software.
Copyright law (Score:3)
This of course doesn't say anything about formats, but it seems to *POTENTIALLY* cover the net-libraries of ROM images, IMHO. However, this law also has some specific requirements the library has to follow to avoid infringing, and the one ROM archive I've seen wasn't following those rules. A library trying to set itself up to use this defense should get an attorney, 'cause I ain't one...
Re:Thoughts (Score:2)
There are efforts underway, by a number of uber-geeks to translate it into C and various assorted GUIs.
Re:Copyrights, Abandonware, Legalese, oh boy (Score:4)
So it's retroactive. BFD. The change to 95 years was in itself retroactive. If it wasn't, Mickey Mouse would've been in the public domain a LONG time ago.
Long live Choplifter !! (Score:2)
And all of the Choplifter copies suck. We need the real thing. Sure, a few hundred delays would need to be added in to compensate for today's CPU speeds, but it sounds like a worthy goal.