Lucas Confuses ScummVM With Abandonware

Anonymous Coward writes: "Seems LucasArts finally noticed ScummVm although they seem to be confused about what it is. ScummVM is a 'virtual machine'(yes like Java) that allows you to play scumm games (Monkey Island, for example) in modern OS (Linux, BSD, err Windows XP) and weird machines like PDAs and the Dreamcast, but Lucas have confused them with an abandonware site."

Comments

Call off the dogs

[E1ven]

Although I'm glad that more people are noticing this, the natural tendency at Slashdot is to fire off an e-mail campaign, which is exactly what is not needed in this case.
Lucasarts has made a mistake. As was mentioned on the mailing list, they have to deal with hundreds of Abandonware sites weekly.
From their quotes, Lucas thought that ScummVM was re-distributing the original engine, and saying it was under the GPL.
I believe this situation will soon be resolved calmly, but a hundred "You SUCK!" e-mail cannot help.

I'm serious by this:

[Gannoc]

That is simply the nicest cease and desist letter i've ever seen.

"Purely for the record"... thats great!

Their response should have emphasized the fact that you still need the original game files to play.

They're still going to get shutdown, even if its not totally legal. Lucasarts wants to be able to re-release their games with updated engines, and if someone is doing it for free, it cuts into their profits.

Look at Nintendo's new games that emulate NES games on the GBA. How much cooler would that have been if we already hadn't had nesticle for 6 years.

Not agreeing w/ them, I just know their POV.

Re:Original software still required

[Twylite]

I was considering pointing out that everyone does not necessarily win. In particular, LucasArts.

A number of gaming companies (EA in particular) have percesuted AbandonWare sites precisely because they intend to improve and rerelease old classics for newer architectures - in effect doubling the life (and revenue) of the product.

On the Copyright side this is particularly sad: Copyright was never intended as a tool to allow owners to prevent access; it was intended to allow the owner to benefit (financially) from the work during its useful lifetime. But there are no provisions in Copyright law which force material to be placed in the public domain when it is no longer being used (or even when Copyright expires!).

LucasArts and Activision

[Sargent1]

Once upon a time, there was a company that had a bunch of games that ran under a virtual machine. Eventually, people who loved those games reverse-engineered the virtual machine and wrote interpreters for the VM that ran on everything and anything, from Palms to BeOS to OS/2. And the company decided that that was okay.

The company was Activision, which bought up Infocom in the late 1980s. Remember all those Infocom text adventures? People reverse-engineered the virtual machine, known as the z-machine, and wrote plenty of z-machine interpreters, all of which are freely available. Activision apparently decided that this was fine with them, as long as the games themselves weren't being distributed.

Now LucasArts is in a similar situation. Will they be as calm about a new VM interpreter as Activision was? Sadly, I'm not so sure.

Here's The Lawyer's Response

[dbretton]

Paraphrased:

While this would be true, it could still be argued (successfully) that the emulator would have a negative impact on potential future revenue of LucasArts products, such as a LucasArts Classics package for BSD.

There are 2 arguments that the scummVM ppl need to make. However, they only made one of these arguments.
1. ScummVM is an emulator, and was created using legally valid and sound reverse engineering techniques. (this agument they made)
2. ScummVM was created as an academic exercise in software and reverse engineering techniques. As such, ScummVM is not bound to the DMCA, or any other such laws, as it is considered a form of free speech, and is protected under First Amendment Rights.

-Dennis

Re:Here's The Lawyer's Response

[BadmanX]

Absolutely fascinating premise: Could LucasArts take the SCUMMVM engine (which is GPL) and combine it with the original game data (which is copyrighted) and sell it? "LucasArts Classics, now on Game Boy Advance!"

They could claim that they are simply selling their copyrighted game data and are providing the engine free simply as a service. Is this something the GPL would allow? Because if so, it would make the GPL a lot more attractive to game developers, who could release the engine for free and sell the actual game content, and stay in business.

But last I heard, clause 2b of the GPL definitely suggested that if a program has a GPL component, the entire program must be provided to third parties at no cost. Which kind of shoots this idea out of the water.

Here's clause 2b of the GPL, just for reference:

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

Any way we can get a ruling on this?

LucasArts just missed a great opportunity...

[meringuoid]

... I've bought the DotT / Sam & Max 2 in 1 pack; it doesn't work, because the .exe files are so old and can't cope with modern hardware. LucasArts provide patches, which work, sort of...
I've also bought the Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3 pack, and the result with 1 and 2 is the same. Doesn't work out of the box, works, sort of, once you get the patch. The patch at least gets the game running, but the sound is decidedly dodgy. I don't even want to think about what happens to WinXP users...

But now there is ScummVM. All these games run better than they did in the first place, they run on machines and OSes that LucasArts never bothered with, and they run perfectly.

What LucasArts should do with ScummVM is write the authors a great big thank-you letter and start bundling it with all their old games. There's no reason why they shouldn't. Trying to shut down a project that's doing for free what you should have done a long time ago is just plain silly.

Re:LucasArts just missed a great opportunity...

[meringuoid]

The only people who can override the Legal department are... Marketing.

Someone ought to get in touch with some of these people and show them ScummVM. Show them Monkey Island 2 running under the DOS .exe, as supplied at present, and then show them the same game running under ScummVM, with anti-aliasing and superior MIDI. Then show them the same game running on about three million different platforms. Show them Dreamcast Monkey Island. Show them palmtop Monkey Island.

Then tell them that this marvellous technology is free, tell them they can use it in any future reissues of these old games, that they don't need to pay anyone for the privilege.

Tell them that they can market it as 'Monkey Island Classics Deluxe' and double the price.

Then watch those lawyers disappear.

Re:Copyright expired = Public Domain

[Twylite]

My point was not that it does not become public domain, but that there is no explicit legal requirement for the release of the material to the public.

That is to say, when (if) Disney's Copyright on Micky Mouse expires, there is no legal requirement that they hand over their Micky Mouse archives (or a copy thereof) to some sort of public institution. If you happen to HAVE a copy - sure, go ahead and copy it. But getting your hands on it may not be such a simple matter.

Abandonware is a case in point. Many games available on Abandonware sites do not exist somewhere in corporate archives, because the game companies simply went under -- there was no sale of assets, not buy-out by a bigger company. Just a quite whimper. Even though there was a threat (to society) of that information being lost forever ... there was no attempt or requirement to make it public.

Talking about software specifically, where is there any implication or requirement for (say) the source code to be made public? Simple, there isn't. No more than an author could be expected to make his/her notes public when Copyright expires (okay, this would be posthumous anyway).

So here you have the basis of the problem: Copyright is a LEGAL measure to prevent you from distributing something; but when Copyright expires you have no LEGAL resource to FORCE distribution. If the (elapsed) owner simply doesn't make a copy available, you can't force him to.

Activision, Coolness

[fm6]

Actually, Activision doesn't even mind people distributing the games themselves. Well, most of them. They've given permission to some abandonware sites, including this one. The Zork Trilogy is conspicuously absent, however. Activision used to offer free downloads of Zork 1-3 from their own servers, but apparently these titles are now back in print.

All of which is very cool of them. But not sueing people for writing virtual machines isn't coolness, it's just basic law. Infocom never claimed the exclusive right to implement the Z-machine specification, and probably couldn't have made that claim even if they tried.

Now, what I'd really like is to play is the original Zork. The one that the founders wrote for ITS while students at MIT. No, not "Dungeon," that's an unauthorized port, with an incomplete game and flawed parser.

Re:Original software still required

[Speare]

• On the Copyright side this is particularly sad: Copyright was never intended as a tool to allow owners to prevent access; it was intended to allow the owner to benefit (financially) from the work during its useful lifetime.

You're right that Copyright (as developed in the US Constitution as 'exclusive Right to their respective Writings') is not intended as a stick to beat the ass of society. However, you're referring to Copyright's purpose as if it were the goal. Copyright is not a goal, but a carrot to entice the ass of society to release their writings in the first place.

Justice O'Connor said in 1991, "The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but '[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.'"

To advance the arts and sciences, one must actually release what you've written or discovered. Many authors won't release their writings without some assurance in the form of Copyright. Many discoverers won't release their discoveries without some assurance in the form of Patents. Both are intended as temporary assurances to promote the writers and discoverers to advance their arts and sciences.

You need a clearer explanation....

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what your site is about, and your users know what your site is about...but when I looked at your index page, it was far from obvious to _me_ what your site was about. No wonder LucasArts' lawyers were confused! Frankly, your reply letter had the same problem, although the gist of the matter did gradually emerge.

I suggest that you rewrite your front page to say something like this:

"Remember those great old LucasArts games? Wish they ran on your current PC? Download our engine and they will!

NOTE: If you don't own any of the games, this engine won't do you a speck of good. This is not an abandonware site, so don't expect to download them here."