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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."
An unfortunately oversight on the part of the ScummVM representative, was the failure to mention that to use ScummVM you still require the original (LucasArts) software!
Had this be pointed out, along with the fact that ScummVM extends the accessibility of the original software beyond its original platform, it may make it less likely that the lawyers will respond with tougher measures.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
(sorry, it had to be said)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
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.
Colin Davis
The Familiar GNU/Linux distro has packages of ScummVM ready to install. Only the game data files have to be added, for Purple Tentacle to conquer the world on a iPAQ, Zaurus or Yopy. :-)
"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.
Since when, in America or any other part of the world, has ignorance on an issue prevented someone from filing a lawsuit? Heck, I'd say that the odds of Lucasarts pressing ahead with litigation are about 50/50, if they can't bully them into submission.
I like Lucasarts (though I used to like it more), but you've got to realize that this issue with ScummVM probably won't make it past their lawyer department, who probably have all the technical aptitude of a pack of (three-headed) monkeys.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
LeChuck is a pirate. I seriously doubt he would be involved in anti-warez activity of any kind.
Duh.
I believe this situation will soon be resolved calmly, but a hundred "You SUCK!" e-mail cannot help.
/. remains true to form) and a personal boycott of his products (past, present, and future) even more so.
You are absolutely right.
But a mental note to self that "Lucas sucks (even worse than his last two films)" when Slashdot starts promoting the low-rez sorinsen quicktime tailers for Episode III might be appropriate (in the next story, if
As an aside, one has to wonder what sorts of payola scams exist here, for a site the promotes free software and open source as this one does to constantly be promoting the wares of the one industry that has launched successful attacks against free software and its developers (unlike Microsoft).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
INSERT IANAL DISCLAIMER.
This is a boiler plate letter. They had a legal assitant (billing rate: usually under $100. Pay rate: $15? plus overtime.) do the research on the web. Criteria: does this allow someone to play LEC games? If yes, fill in the blanks and send the letter. Charge the client. Go home happy.
Given the response, this may get boiled up to a summer associate (hasn't passed the bar but has somewhat of a clue regarding the law) (bill rate: $125) or (egads!) and associate (a *real* lawyer) (bill rate $150 min.) who will weigh the ScummVM developers claims and decide wether to persue.
If they investigate the research on the "applicable state laws" will be given to a Legal assistant or a summer associate and that will determine the amount of work necessary to determine if ScummVM is an actual infringement.
I'm not saying LEC is poor, but I doubt they will waste their money past here.
Any IP lawyers who would like to clarify?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
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.
The reply to lucas arts states:
We mean no ill harm to LucasArts, and it is well known that many people (at least 50 to my knowledge, although I am sure there are many more) have brought classic LEC games simply to play them using our software.
which clearly mentions that people purchase the original software to play using ScummVM. And...
ScummVM is a valid clone of the SPU engine, designed to facitiate the playing of LucasArts adventures on modern machines and operating systems.
Which I think also clearly states that ScummVM is a clone of SPU, and not the original engine, or any original game content.
Also their FAQ clearly states in section 2:
1. Do I need original CD or Floppy disks?Most definitely. ScummVM won't work without them. If you would like to buy these games, we suggest you browse Ebay. Do not ask the ScummVM team where you can download the full versions of Lucas Arts games. These requests will be ignored.
What else should they have done? A little "research" into the site would quickly have shown that this is not an abandonware site.
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Credo quia impossibilis -- Tertullian
Sorry, Offtopic, but anyone else remember when Lucasarts games were this funny? Heck, I don't think you can even put that third line of text in a game nowadays.
(IIRC, what Elaine had asked Guybrush in that screenshot was something like "What have we learned from all of this?" at the end of the game.)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
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
They already have :)
:)
Roblimo himself sent a nice e-mail to me with suggestions (plus the warning that the site would vanish if I didn't reply to him in 72 hours).
I've asked SF not to remove it, as what the letter cites is on our site.. obviously isn't. We arn't distributing any software by LucasArts themselves on there.
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead ScummVM Developer
Slashdot Troll of the Hour
... 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.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
They could have been clearer on that point. But if i were LucasArts i'd offer the spec in exchange for direct link to the LucasArts online store for all games that work.
They could be selling their classic games for a lot a platforms if they work with these guys. I think that would be a good deal for both parties...
Incorrect. Go to the Lucasarts Store, and pretty much all of their old games are happily available for sale.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
LucasArts is probably retaliating against Sourceforge for all those stupid "Star Wars"-ripoff ads ;-)
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Of course if those Empire lawyers get a look at Source Forge's web ads, SF could have lots more problems than hosting ScummVM! :-)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
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.
I heard about SCUMMVM (and PocketScumm!) a month or so ago, and used it to play my old copy of Monkey Island. I had so much fun with it, that I bought Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and Sam & Max Hit the Road from LucasArts. I'm playing through IJFOA on my PocketPC at the moment. I will be buying The Dig and Full Throttle as soon as they're supported fully by SCUMMVM.
.exes, which means that people like me will buy games from lucasarts to use with scummvm!
I hope that LucasArts takes a step back and realizes the three most important things here:
1. You need the original games to play scummvm.
2. Scummvm lets people play lucasarts games on platforms that aren't supported by the original SCUMM
3. Scummvm was reverse engineered, and does not infringe on the original SCUMM engine.
You would think LucasArts would *like* more sales, freely implemented support for new platforms and happy customers. I really hope this is a genuine mistake.
I don't think LucasArts wants to re-release SCUMM "Monkey Island" with an updated engine. I think it's a great game, but it's still played partly because there's a nostalgia element to it. It hearkens back to the days when super 3D graphics weren't needed for great gameplay.
If LucasArts releases a new Monkey Island title, it'll obviously be a whole new game, with AI NPC's, an immersive 3D world, and so on. I don't expect they're too worried about competition from the pixely, 2D 10 year old original...
Freedom: "I won't!"
I am saying, why not just reverse engineer the more major ones like Office. Not the entire OS, but the programs MS needs to sell the OS.
... and so on.
For example, MS Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint,
Wouldn't these be easier to reverse engineer and implement in a Linux structure, then the entire OS?
~ kjrose
I am sure they understand what this software actually does. They probably want to stop it because they want to re-release the software updated to run on todays OS and if someone makes something that would put a dent in those sales they will do anything to stop it.
Actually, they may want to repackage it one day and sell it as classic games. By making the old games accessible on the new systems, this might scratch there plans a bit.
So what? I paid for my Indiana Jones game. It won't play on my G4. If someone writes software that lets me play the software I've already paid for, then kudos to them. Lucas can't stop them by saying "I was going to do that -- and charge!" If they make a classic games pack, I might buy it to get sound support and a newer version of The Fate of Atlantis. But claiming that a product that allows people to use LucasArts software may hinder their ability to sell a compatibility package or upgrade is pointless since there's nothing wrong with doing that.
OT: I actually ordered The Last Crusade for Mac because I had a 5.25" floppy version for DOS. Instead, I received The Fate of Atlantis -- before it was officially released. I was pissed because it wouldn't play on my black-and-white Classic II. I had to play it on the color Performas and LCs at school. When I finally got a color computer, the first thing I did was install the game. Since I got some weird early version of the game, I have it on floppies and it doesn't have spoken text for dialogue. I'd love to get the CD version that actually had spoken dialogue -- particularly since my G4 doesn't have a floppy drive.
t'nera semordnilap
How? You still need to purchase an original copy of the game in order to play it with SCUMMVM. It doesn't matter if that's the first package released or the spiffy brand new Classic package. Either one will work just fine. But you have to buy it. So SCUMMVM doesn't hurt LucasArts one bit. Quite the opposite.
I recall Nintendo and Sega using similar arguments to go after sites distributing console emulators.
True. That's why you can't find any console emulators anywhere anymore.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Copyrights are automatic and do not need to be protected, Trademarks have to be applied for and do need to be protected.
Bleh!
The ScummVM guys could really use an editor! That email was chock full of typos and spelling errors! It was painful to read!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Yea... more likely than not, they're probably paying an intern $5/hour to scan the 'net for violations, and then send "fill-in-the-blank" e-mails to any "violating" site. Glad to see a reasonable response, and thank for all your work, it is appreciated.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I'd never even heard of this before seeing it posted on slashdot; ironically I spent an afternoon not too long ago rebuilding my 486 for the very purpose of playing these games (fast cpu + win2k + pci soundcard == no DOS games :( ).
This is absolutely amazing.. the setup is a bit of a bitch to figure out (their readme is a bit obtuse), but once configured, the games run (as far as I can tell) flawlessly. Taking into consideration the much better MIDI support on my SBLive! card (the intro tune for Sam N Max is incredible) and the antialiasing, the games look as good as anything 2D I'd expect.
Even better is the ability to run them off the harddrive (back in the day my whopping 540MB woulda been filled with just Sam and DOTT). No more swapping CD's!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It's official, SC2 is getting native ports to several platforms, see following URL:
e tsc/
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/
Looks like they'll be using SDL to pull it off, very cool.
If impatient, some good leads on buying the DOS version are here:
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/g
Running the classic with sound, best bet if you do not have an ISA soundblaster card is dosemu. There are Dosemu sound patches at the following URL that improve the accuracy of the sound emulation with games like SC2 with DosEmu, while not perfect, can be a stop-gap until the ports are officially released.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/lonnberg/DOSEmuSound.html
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I bought these games a long time ago for the Macintosh. You *cannot* run them under Mac OS X, even under Classic because Classic requries virtual memory to be on and the games do NOT play well with Classic's virtual memory.
So what this allows is for me to play these games on the same Macintosh I bought them for (A G3/266) without having to reboot my machine and kill my web server and other stuff I have running under Mac OS X.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Unless you owned it in old form and now are going to buy it again in new form.
Of course, that's the only way this can hurt LA financially, and do they want the PR hit of saying "We'd rather charge people for the same product twice, thank you?"
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
However, they might make money on handheld machines. Therefore, LucasArts would prefer their old games to be unplayable on modern PCs, so that they will appear fresh and exclusive when they are released for handhelds.
Do you believe in death after life?
D'oh! Unfortunately for them (if this is what they're really thinking), ScummVM has already been ported to the PocketPC. And I love it, and have already purchased 3 new games for it directly from LucasArts' online store.
http://arisme.free.fr/PocketScumm/
"Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity."
This has all the markings of a simple misunderstanding on LucasArts' part, and not a malicious assault. Once an understanding is reached (that is: 1. ScummVM didn't steal anything, and 2. ScummVM causes people to buy more LucasArts games) the two sides will hopefully see the light -- provided they work towards the goal of understanding each other together, and don't turn this into an antagonistic battle.
LucasArts and ScummVM stand to benefit from each other; ScummVM needs to work towards achieving an understanding with LucasArts. ScummVM's response looks like a good step in this direction.
Perhaps. It's all in the soundcard. Or, more accurately, the drivers. I actually keep a copy of Privateer, amoung other games, on my laptop, which, admittedly, runs win98, not XP. But I boots it into dos, and the yamaha sound chip in it has KICK ASS pure dos drivers for soundblaster 16(! not pro!) emulation.
That having been said, I also built a P120 with Awe32 for the games that use damn timing loops.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.