Slashdot Mirror
World of Spectrum gets a Visit from the IDSA
Dasaan writes "the
World of Spectrum
, a site that legally archives old Sinclair Spectrum games, has been accused of distributing copyrighted material by the
IDSA
.
The list of games supposedly being offered on the site include titles such as Soldier Of Fortune and Barbarian. And a quick search of the site shows that these titles are indeed being offered, however they are the original versions that were released many years ago and have now been officially made legal to supply by the current copyright owners." Their correspondence is also available.
IDSA is a company / organisation, not a gov body. Tell them to fuck off.
Same for the BSA and others. They carry no weight, they can represent who they want. its in the courtroom that matters.
Their correspondence is "Abuse denied?" With that attitude they'll get a lot of attorney friends.
Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....
Searches like this are probably sub-contracted out to the lowest bidder, which will come down to a couple of interns typing "soldier of fortune download" into Google...
Bit of a pain for WoS to have to respond to this kind of rubbish, but it's obviously sent out to intimidate (since when did the Berne Convention have anything to say about "Immediate Take Down").
I was wondering this...
Why are copyright owners tracking down such things which wouldn't get pennies nowadays (they were selling off the old cassettes for 10p long ago).
Only thing I can think of is that some people are realising the value of not so much the games, but the ideas. Things like Sabre Wulf is one of the old Ultimate franchises which can be updated, and its franchises which sell nowadays. A lot of licenses tied up in those games too (I think Ocean owned the franchise for Batman for a long time too), maybe thats what they are trying to protect.
Or maybe they're just going to sell them all back to us again, like nintendos been doing with the GBA.
I suspect the former... I mean, have you played some of those games recently? While they had value at the time, they are not up to par graphics wise to something like the GBA...
They might even be under the impression that the SOF download is one of the new Activision/Raven games. And then simply threw in a couple of more titles to give the letter some weight. This is typical heavy handed legal hardballing that the BSA is also famous for.
My apologies. I have removed the mirror after noticing that there was a copyright notice on the original page, prohibiting any reproduction of the emails.
I wonder if Google will cache the page?
-MFS
If you read WoS's FAQ it even pretty much admits that their archive isn't fully legal...And if you read the correspondence, it only really deals with SoF, it ignores the other infringing games such as Frogger, Donkey Kong, etc.
I'm a big user of emulation - some MAME, a fair amount of C64 and also Amiga stuff. However, I do feel that if the original copyright owners complain, then the fair thing to do is to take the downloads down. In this case, IDSA is being too vague and needs to give a specific list of titles. Once given though, I feel it is only correct to comply.
Cheers,
Ian
This would of course take time and effort and a general scare letter may work in the majority of cases.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
The IDSA wants all emulators to be banned. More on this here.
More bullying by IDSA and Cox.
I'm guessing the IDSA is a games-only version of the BSA.
Or, as is more likely, they'll be re-selling the rights to such classic games for inclusion on mobile phones...
Since most spectrum games were way better than anything seen thus far on a mobile phone...
I'm not familiar with their former actions, but this doesn't seem to be a good sign. Looking at their members, any questionable conduct could have very widespread effects. Don't wait until it's too late, let them know what you think now!
One huge problem with old software is that no one supports or sells it anymore, but many users still want to use it. Redistribution is still illegal, since it's copyrighted.
I think a law should be made to make it possible to declare something abandonware and enable non-profit redistribution, if the original firm holding the copyrights aren't selling/supporting it anymore.
There is probably lot's of problems with this approach, but I suspect there are more problems with going after people wanting to relive their memories, or wanting to let other people do so...
.: Max Romantschuk
Anyone else notice the from address? "dmca@idsa.com.no.junk.mail"
...Boulder Dash and Manic Miner were amongst the first games that made me sit and play all night. There will be some downloading tonight, I tell ya.
I think this is caused by the new versions of Mobile Phones.
In days of Olde, these games were so popular because of the actual gameplay. Yes they had limiting graphics, but what they had worked so well. Now in this day of new mobile phones (Ericcsson P800 springs to mind) people are looking back at these games and thinking "that could easily be ported".
I grew up and learned to program in the Spectrum era. In fact if you hunt closely you may find one of my games. (^_^) Mobile Phones are now reaching the kind of status as a portable entertainment device. And games obviously figure quite highly on the list of money making revenue that the providers like. Forget Tetris. Multi-player Barbarian anyone?
Ever play Elite?
Right now, on alt.fan.elite, there are threads going on where one of the joint copyright holders has 'asked for' (required) all Elite-a-likes to be removed from download. The reason was that he'd just realised a commercial Elite-a-like for handhelds, and when searching for reviews of it he found only illegal ports of Elite to the handhelds.
So yes, it may well be that they're trying to preserve copyrights so that these older games can be ported to mobile phones, PDAs...whatever. They do own the copyright, and they are within their rights to do that.
Cheers,
Ian
Perhaps this is an instance of one part of a company not knowing what the other is doing. Corporate laywers tend to jump onto what they see as 'problems' like a pack of wolves.
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
Something that you might want to consider is that, while the publisher or author has given permission to distribute these works, it is possible that the publisher/author themselves were in violation of copyright laws. During the late 70's and early 80's there were a lot of independent developers that programmed 'clones' of popular arcade games for home computer/hobbyist systems. These games were distributed without permission or license from the copyright holders of the original arcade games. Many old timers will probably recall the infamous "This game is over" ads from Atari concerning clones of its licensed games. Most notable of these were the PacMan clones. It was during this time in the industry that Atari asserted that just because a game did not use actual code nor actual artwork from the original, it was not immune from copyright infringement litigation if it could be reasonably concluded that it diluted the copyrighted work's value. From the list of titles given, it appears that each of them are well known copyrighted and trademarked entities. As such, it is the duty of the copyright holders to enforce any alleged misuse of those copyrights/trademarks. It is doubtful that the Spectrum version of PacMan, Donkey Kong, or even 007 were distributed through a valid license agreement with the original copyright/trademark holders. Perhaps with some clarification from the IDSA, WorldOfSpectrum could contact the copyright/trademark owners of the alleged infringing properties and obtain permission from them. Please don't misunderstand my take on this. I am not attempting to side with IDSA, I just happened to glance at this issue from a different perspective.
Dear non-copyright-holder.
Thank you for the concern you express about somebody else's intellectual property. If you forward to me a hardcopy of the document signed by the copyright holder giving you the authority to request my not offering ___ for dowload, or if the original copyright holder makes such a request, I will promptly comply.
Yours, blah-blah-blah.
Given that the ISDA is a self-proclaimed authority that, in fact, very few copyright holders (and almost none outside the US) are members of, and given than the copyright holders of most of these programs have long gone the way of the dodo...
-- MG
(1) where my definition of "abandonware" is the most common one: software published by a company which is defunct, and which can no longer be purchased.
The IDSA seems to be on a roll when it comes to stupid cease and desist letters. Lik-Sang's ISP recently received a letter from the IDSA alleging that they had "a good faith belief" that Lik-Sang was violating the DMCA (and apparently the DMCA applies to Hong Kong now?) because their prices were too cheap and that meant that they must be pirating the discs and selling them just above cost.
Lik-Sang, of course, went absolutely wild over it. They found it to be pretty hilarious and saw "So cheap, the IDSA finds it suspicious!" to be a brilliant selling point for their new "Price Crusher" promotion.
...as "dilution of copyright". You either have copyright on a work, or you do not. It's like saying "reduction of pregnancy".
That said, you were probably thinking of trademarks. If Atari had Pacman trademarked (which is likely), then a clone or near-clone of it would indeed dilute the trademark.
The other possibility is that the graphics of the clones were so close to the original as to be seen as a copy, in which case they would have been in breach of copyright.
I'm the sort of person that was pretty much raised on computer games. Although these game companies only consider games "consumer products", I consider computer games an integral part of our culture. Destroying computer games are not unlike burning books.
/Lars
There are several ways of destroying games and one of the most effective ways is to simply not preserve them while trying to stop others doing so. Spectrum games are stored on ordinary cassette tapes that unlike paper books does not stand the test time. The information deteriorates over time, and it's most unlikely that these cassettes will be usable in 10 years time and definately not in 50 years.
With the IDSA, MPAA and organizations fighting emulation with stupid laws like the DMCA and threats like this, they are making both themselves AND future generations a big disservice. How many here honestly believe that Nintendo (who owns the copyright of the Mario character) actually have a copy of Mario for the Spectrum?
I collect games. But I don't store 10000 old 8bit games so I can sit and play them all day. I also collect them to ensure that they aren't lost. Do take a look at the "Missing in Action list att WoS to see the names of games that didin't make it. I don't trust a single person or a handful of them to actually manage keeping this stuff alive for future generations. I would like as many as possible to store stacks of old games on CD:s in their homes.
Software companies could aid this preservation in mainly two ways. They can either:
1) Allow free distribution. There's no drawback in doing so for them. It's goodwill and it's allso an efficient way to keep your company name fresh in peoples mind. These games are not something they will make very much money off anyway, and granting free distribution does NOT mean that they would lose copyrights for the lucrative characters.
2) Sell their old games. And I don't mean in newly "touched up versions". Just fill a CD with the original games and sell it in bulk. Currently, no company does so, although I applaude Sega and Konami for releasing at least some of their back catalogue commercially in _almost_ original shape.
If for instance Codemasters* were to ship a CD with all of their 8/16-bit games (which would easily fit onto 1 cd), I would buy this CD. As it stands now, Codemasters probably doesn't even have all their games themselves so they can't even compile such a CD anyway.
As the situation is today, I consider sites that distribute abandonware and old games freely to be custodians of our cultural heritage. Future digital archaeologists will thank "petty criminals" like Martijn Heide for the work they put into preserving these games. They are heroes!
* I use Codemasters as an example since they have denied distribution of their old 8bit games.
But I think the point is, that no-one is expecting them to release their copyright, allow reverse engineering or unauthorised clones.
We're just talking about distributing games for a platform that's been end-of-life for many years. There's no financial loss involved and, due to the interest of the retro-gaming community, it could work out to the publishers' financial benefit.
The IDSA seems to be on a roll here. Threatening legitimate efforts. Look what they recently send to Lik-Sang for selling (!) videogames.
They make themselves look like a bunch of idiots this way.
Who the hell is Mika Boorem ?
It's just another way to stifle competition, in this case competition from older games/platforms.
1) File lawsuit against people making old games available.
2) Non-profit guys scared shitless, can't afford lawsuit, remove old games from site.
3) Old games no longer available, sales of new games up.
4) Profit.
On an almost on-topic note, I've gotta point out this site.
The spectrum had some of the coolest games ever, and the guys at Retrospec have made some great remakes. For those of you who were unfortunate enough to never have a Spectrum, I'd especially recommend any of the versions of Manic Miner, and Klass of '99 (a remake of Skool Daze).
I'm sure I still have a working Spectrum around here somewhere...
"If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated"
Only an RPN user would not do 6+7 in his head.
It was an example. Feel free to put pi, e, avadadro's (sp) number etc in place.
OK, let's go 5 ^ 13 + 2 / 3
ALG takes 9 keystrokes
RPN: 5 enter 13 ^ 2 enter 3 / + is 11 keystrokes
Congrads, you have found one of the rare examples where alg beats RPN. Now, lets double the result, then square it.
ALG: (2 * ans) sq = 7 keystrokes
RPN: 2 * sq 3 keystrokes
RPN comes out ahead now
There is a similar Amiga (and PC demo) site, Back 2 the Roots. It is a great site with hundreds of Amiga games, demos, music, and PC demos on there for download. The owner of the site has gone to great pains to get permission for every piece of copyright work (i.e. games and music) on there.
The site has been knocked out of action twice by IDSA. The problem is that the IDSA didn't check or anything (both times), they just told the ISP the site was illegal and the ISP complied!
I sent a complaint mail to them about it, but of course, I didn't receive anything back.
The IDSA may have their place, but they are being paid by the industry to do a job that they are obviously not doing properly.
For the record, these games:
http://c64.users2.50megs.com/Are absolutely fine by me. Its abandonware, I wrote them when I was a spoilt brat and I was really please to see a C64 enthusiast take them and put them on the net. (Just wish they were better games, I can write better than this now, honest!)
>>> read the letter first before posting i don't know why all you people are posting here? worldofspectrum have permission to host these files. the idsa have sent a letter to verify this and the webmaster has replied with the relevent information. end of story.
also the idsa are in washington usa while worldofspectrum is in the netherlands, so like others here i too can say that the idsa can 'fuck off'.
regards,
simone - british
p.s. fuck americans, their companies and the fbi.
The disc (as seen on the Spectrum +3) was a real 3" disc. The 'fast tape' was the Microdrive and was available for the original Spectrum (and later the QL...)
There should be a way to counter sue for damages and recoup all your losses to defend yourself against the ludicrous case in the first place.
Frivolous law suits are illegal, aren't they?
I'm sure a class action lawsuit with some high powered lawyers would put these people back in their place... oh wait.. the lawyers benefit more when the frivolous lawsuits are taking place... Hmmmm
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Can I go out with you? Please?
Such organisations as BSA, IDSA have legal and moral grounds to defend the products or services of their members.
Yeah, and they also have the power to prevent someone from starting their own business in the video game arena. All they have to do is sue someone that Produces their own games, whether it's for the PC or the Macintosh, and if the IDSA is in the wrong, they will continue to sue UNTIL their competitor is buried in legal fees. Remember, the IDSA has Three of the Largest conglomerates around as members (Micro$oft, Universal, and Sony-Bony. Of course, you Libertarian/Republican Dog-Eat-Dog/Survival of the Fittest Idiots either don't see that or Believe the rich does no wrong while the poor can do no right.
Hot Babes
News, All the Frigin Time
What a coincidence... something similar just happened to the German university of Münster.
k .src.rpm". Now *that's* one pirated office!
The BSA sent the university a cease&desist-letter and told them to stop distributing MS Office over their FTP server.
Unfortunately, the file mentioned in the letter is "/mandrake_current/SRPMS/OpenOffice.org-1.0.1-9md
Read more about it on Heise (sorry, German).
Two Worlds - One Sun [Spirit]
So, if you actually look at the gif associated with Donkey Kong, you'll see that the girl appears to be humping the monkeys leg furiously, while he sweats profusely and fights Mario off. And who can blame him?!?
The capabilities of the current and imminent crop of mobile gaming platforms (i.e. Java-enabled cellphones, etc), means that these 10-15 year old PC games are going to be about state of the art on them. There's potentially a lot of money to be made by selling download rights on implementations of these games.
I'm not saying that's what *is* behind an action such as IDSA's, but it wouldn't surprise me if the copyright owners have started to smell the coffee.
...that if you are playing OLD games, you are not buying NEW ones. Hence, no income on things they've already forgotten about.
Its like a phone that could possibly use Windows 3.1 - stuff Microsoft has forgotten about and stopped supporting could suddenly be sold again.
No, they don't have the power to prevent that you create and sell a game, at least till you steal intellectual ideas of another. Your statement about this one is having the same smell as those US 'intelligence' satellite pictures of Iraq. It stinks.
Look, I'm not in the mood in a fight about copyright protection or something. All I say is: try to respect the law. If you don't want to (and believe me, I don't respect it always either) then don't start moaning that it is unfair when they lock you away.
If you can't life with certain laws, then call your senator OR leave the country, go live in Hong Kong or Russia. In those place you can copy, steal, rape or whatever you want with intellectual ideas.
Living in a country, any country is always a matter of living in a consensus. You as an individual will not agree with everything, which is normal. But that wont say you just can break it.
Also, it is not because an individual or a company is rich, even extremely rich, that you, as a poor guy, are allowed to harm it.
If they're not just using a robot search program that go through their database of titles.
Another site that got attacked.
mmmm. Interns....
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Thanks god I own my Jet Set Willy original cassete, so I can play it on the 2.000 spectrum simulators lovely people had made.
from here
.
From: dmca@idsa.com.no.junk.mail To:abuse@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Berne Convention - Demand for Immediate Take Down - Notice of
Infringing Activity - Reference#: 922932 Date: 14 February, 2003 5:23 PM
Interactive Digital Software Association 1211 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20036 USA Attention: Piracy Enforcement - DMCA Officer
Telephone: 202-223-2400 Fax: 202-223-2401 E-mail: dmca@idsa.com Friday, February 14, 2003
Dear abuse@xxxxxxxxxx,
I am an authorized representative of the Interactive Digital Software Association ("IDSA"), which represents the intellectual property interests of almost thirty companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet.
IDSA is providing this letter of notification to make xxxxxxxxxx aware of material available via its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyright and trademark rights of one or more IDSA members. This notice is addressed to you as an agent of xxxxxxxxxx for purposes of receiving notifications of claimed infringement. We hereby affirm that the IDSA is authorized to act on behalf of the IDSA members whose exclusive copyright rights we believe to be infringed as described herein.
Based on the information obtained by IDSA that is provided in this e-mail's attachments, IDSA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ infringes the rights of one or more IDSA members by offering for download one or more unauthorized copies of one or more game products protected by copyright, including, but not limited to: 007 Barbarian Donkey Kong Frogger Mario Pac Man Soldier Of Fortune
Through the Berne Convention and other international treaties covering intellectual property rights, we believe that our members' rights in such games are entitled to the full protection of the intellectual property laws of your country. The unauthorized copies of such game product[s] appearing on, or made available through, such site are listed and/or identified on such Internet site by their titles, variations thereof or depictions of associated artwork (any such game titles, copies, listings and/or other depictions of, or references to, any contents of such game product, are hereinafter referred to as "Infringing Material"). Based on the information at its disposal on 2/7/2003 6:49:39 PM GMT, IDSA believes that the statements herein accurately describe the infringing nature and status of the Infringing Material.
Accordingly, IDSA hereby requests xxxxxxxxxx to immediately remove or disable access to the Infringing Material at the URL address identified above.
Should you have questions, please contact the IDSA at the above listed mailing address or by replying to this email. Please also include the above noted Reference Number in the subject line of all email correspondence. We thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your prompt response is appreciated.
Regards,
Robert L. Hunter, IV
Interactive Digital Software Association
Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
From: Martijn van der Heide
To: dmca@idsa.com.no.junk.mail
Subject: Your reference #922932
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 12:54:02 +0100 (CET)
Your reference: #922932
Dear Mr Hunter,
Thank you for your email dated 14th February 2003, 5:23PM CET. The World of Spectrum archive site at is a software preservation site, archiving software for the classic microcomputer, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
We strive to gain permission for redistribution for all software in the archive from the original publisher, and if the publisher no longer exists, from the original author. We publish all such permits on our site, and where such permission has been rescinded by either the publisher and/or author, we comply and remove the affected titles from the archive. Our copyrights policy is available in a dedicated section of the site, the Copyrights section, at
To this end, we take all allegations that we are carrying software to which we do not have permission very seriously, however, the list of titles provided to us by yourselves is unfortunately somewhat vague, and we believe there may in fact be 'false positives', with titles in our archive of old software originally made during a period between 1982 to 1992 matching currently available software. An example is the title 'Soldiers of Fortune', for which we have explicit formal permission from the publisher Firebird Software Ltd (a label from British Telecom). If there is indeed clear and present proof that the titles you specifically list are present in our archive, we will be happy to remove those titles to endeavour to retain the goodwill we have in the industry and our position as being responsive to creators requests. To this end, could you please provide further information on the titles you have listed, such as publisher (or relevant IDSA member), release date, platform and so on, so that we can properly investigate and expedite this request.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Yours sincerely,
Martijn van der Heide
--
Martijn van der Heide
Owner of the official world archive for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
The World of Spectrum, http://www.worldofspectrum.org/
-------------
The ______ Agenda
Back2roots.org which does legally downloadable Amiga games, has had this happen to them a couple of times. .zips and a list of recognisable names, and automatically fires off an email which makes threats over assumed piracy.
A bot scours the web looking for
Hey i take offense to that crappy 3" disk comment! Those 3" disks came out around 1985 with a mind-blowing 192k per side. They were lightyears ahead of the 5.25" disks people were trying to cram into their PCs and Apples at the time. They were positively indestructible, not like the still-flimsy 3.5" disks that came out a bit later. They were HARD plastic, like, frickin kevlar, man. If they weren't so damn expensive i wouldn't have been surprised if the British Army didn't buy boxes full to line their bullet-proof vests with!
Not the first time IDSA has had a go at organisations legitimately distributing Spectrum games.
When Sinclair User brought out the MegaTapes, the first couple of tapes had some decent stuff, games no longer available for resale. Then IDSA stepped in and complained that it was preventing people from buying newer games, which had the effect of turning the MegaTapes into a demo/reader written game range.
the way the IDSA is going about it (trawling the web and sending off threatening letters based on filenames) is completely out of line.
/games/ directory. Then we collect the threatening letters. If this works, we'll have plenty of evidence against them in court.
Is this really how they are doing it? If so, can anyone post the list of file names that they are looking for?
If we can get the file names, we can easily set up a sting operation. We just invite all our readers with web sites to create dummy files with those names, perhaps in a
It hardly seems likely (or even vaguely reasonable) that anyone could own the rights to a file name. I typically create hundreds (sometimes thousands) of file names each day during software testing. Right now I'm working on a web site, and a test I'm running is creating roughly 100 files per second. If I have to check for possible copyright infringement of every file name, the job becomes utterly impossible, since what was a 10-second test run will take years.
If companies are really making copyright claims based merely on file names, we should stop this practice right now. Anyone want to help?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
you should eliminate all humans first.
Yeah! That'll leave world full of psychopaths with us geeks building road-warrioresque ORVs and maintaining the oil rigs...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
We should have /. itnerviews with idsa and bsa... if we filter out the flames, that may be interesting.
We're just talking about distributing games for a platform that's been end-of-life for many years. There's no financial loss involved and, due to the interest of the retro-gaming community, it could work out to the publishers' financial benefit.
The problem is that there is a financial loss, in the eys of the business world. Even if the product is EOL, there are still some people out there that want to buy it. If the company in question kept producing them, would the person buy it? Maybe, maybe not. But if the person were to buy it, then the copy they downloaded constitutes a loss. It's a minor loss, but it is still considered a loss.
Also, because of the anal nature of the legal department of most companies, they would NEVER release the copyright. They would not even release a carefully worded license agreement.
Finally, companies don't want to deal with the technical issues of using older games on an emulator, or even a really old version of the platform it was created for. Mainly because they don't want to hire more staff, but also because they don't want to retrain their current staff to handle out of date games. Imagine a tech support person trying to help the average computer user with a beta copy of an emulator:
User: "Why does Emulator XYZ crash when I load this?"
Tech: "Uh, I dunno. what version are you using?"
User: "XYZb1029.76.38923773.5"
Tech: "Oh, that's because it's beta. Wait until a final release."
It's a very very ugly situation, one where the business entity's interests are in direct conflict with the public's.
It's unfortunate, but it's all too common.
--LordKaT
Laconia Bums Inc. A plug for my site, because I'm just that cool.
IDSA, BSA, RIAA, MPAA... they're all doing the same
thing. They're essentially denying our history
under the guise of protecting their precious
copyrights. Because somehow all of this old stuff
is still commercially viable... I'm glad there's
no alliance for prosecuting antique shops and
imagine the trouble that would be caused to orgs
like Goodwill that sell these things for less than
$10 with a bunch of software...
That old Donkey Kong clone from Ocean was in fact called "KONG" and was itself an illegal (not licensed) copy of the Nintendo game. Ocean did this rather often...
--- Frantisek Fuka (Yes, that's my real name and you have no idea how it's pronounced)
So close, yet so far. Too bad ./ doesn't let you know how many other posts are "in the queue" then you do it. And I only missed the shit by less than a minute. :(
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Good god, that's disgusting - and I aleady get mail like this for SPIN :-)
And yes, I do occasionally say "wait for the next release". It's sometimes the kindest thing to do....
D.
I make no excuses; I own a Apple IIGS, and an old Powerbook. Just what do these people expect?
The machines are unsupported, out of warranty, and are completely obsoleted by Apple. Yes, they have system software downloads for the IIGS, and for the Mac, but those stop at sys 7.5x (Mac.)
I own these machines, and will do whatever I want with them. If it takes downloading a .2mg file for the GS emulator on my mac, if I need to make a disk image of my mac HD, If I have to scour the net for a control panel that was EOLed and is not able to be purchased, I will in a heartbeat.
Screw these people who are 'defending' the copyright of 'Beneath Apple Manor', Cannonball Blitz, and whatever else runs on the IIGS. Show me where I can buy these, online or otherwise.
The copyright problem here is that software will outlast the machines they run on. 20 years from now, when the motherboard of the IIGS goes bad, all the software, and info that was created/stored on this machine can be used in an emulator.
I really don't care about the 'rights' of copyright holders in this context, it all comes down to what I need/want to do on these machines.
Some authors are still active, and are awake to the situation. They realize there is no point to holding on to their releases, and submit them as freeware. That's great. Even Shareware serves this purpose.
Cinemaware is a good example of this. They are rereleasing Defender of the Crown on new platforms (GBA/phones) *AND* making the old disk images available for download! Why not? Is someone going to walk into Software, ETC. and ask for the black and white Macintosh version anytime soon? I think not.
All best are off when the copyright holder is not available, or just sitting on this stuff. I will have it one way or another. Abandonware is illegal because copyright is (becoming) eternal. Frankly, I don't care.
I cut my 'pirate' tooth on a Apple IIe, (do legal copies of any Apple II game even exist?) and will continue to use and promote the Apple II software.
Abandonware should be legal. Out of print, EoL software should be legal. If I can't buy it new and supported from a store or online, it should be fair game.
When copyright is extended to absurd lengths, it only weakens the idea of copyright on new things.
Lots of people feel that Abandonware is fine and dandy to copy and distribute. Some even feel it's ok to charge for it. That's where I draw my line in the sand. If the copyright holders want to charge for it - Great! It's not Abandonware. If some guy wants to sell you a $4 floppy with Hard Hat Mack and Diamond Mine on it, no way. Don't sell this stuff.
Copyright lasts too long. Public Domain is already on it's way out. Abandonware is illegal. I will continue to break the law until the law is changed. Many people feel similarly, (50,000,000 Fans of Elvis using Kazaa Can't Be Wrong) and the copyright laws need to reflect this. Laws should reflect society and not lobbying.
My name is Steve Jobs, and I am a pirate.
I was being more generic: A lot of BSA style suits are frivolous and meant only to harass / intimidate and they should be taught a lesson.
If the suit legit, then of course I don't agree with the counter sue..
Piracy for profit is bad, and should prosecuted. Not aruging with that one, but in this specific case they have the permission to distribute, so this would fall under the ability to counter sue to recover any costs as far as I'm concerned.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
While a Java-enabled cell phone may have comperable computing power to an early 80's console game, that does not mean that it's going to be easy to port an old game to it; and a cell phone or PDA isn't going to have the horsepower to run an emulator. Since Java didn't exist when these games were written (and they wouldn't have been written in it even if it had existed), you're going to have to re-write the entire game from scratch in Java. (Alternatively, you could write a compiler and support library which would allow you to compile the original source into Java bytecodes; this would be a monumental effort of dubious value)
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
ORV... Bullet holes!
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
WoS tries to take the high ground and they look down their noses (in their section on copyright) at abandonware users who don't share their opinions on whether or not it is reasonable to enforce the abandonware copyrights. So what do they get? Same abuse the eyepatch-and-Jolly-Roger set gets. Just goes to show there's no reward for playing by the rules.
ALG: (2 * ans) sq = 7 keystrokes
On my calculator I just have to press
ALG: * 2 sq = 4 keystrokes
Sorry but ALG is still ahead
Solution: an all-in-one package. Take a trusted-quality emulator, stick it on the CD with the games, and sell the package for $4.99 as an impulse item. Make it autorun on Win95.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Too bad ./ doesn't let you know how many other posts are "in the queue" then you do it.
./? What the hell is dotslash?
slashdot!=valid HTML
Gee whiz. I don't know.
How will we ever solve this mystery?
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Hm, maybe with an Ask Slashdot feature. :)
slashdot!=valid HTML
Why doesn't someone take a page outta the researchers of network hacks books. Make a "small" company give it an online presence, make it seem like they are pirating massive amounts of software, when in reality they are not and can substantially prove it, have a lawyer consulted to take a case if neccessary, then let the dogs outta the gate and sooner or later they'll "find" the honey pot and threaten the
company, you'll effectively tell them to "fuck off I have done nothing wrong." They will serve you, and you have all your evidence as to your not pirating software because your firm DOES NOT OWN COMPUTERS! LOL. Just thought this trap method of making some cash from these orgs would be a novel way of income.
The reason was that he'd just realised a commercial Elite-a-like for handhelds, and when searching for reviews of it he found only illegal ports of Elite to the handhelds.
There's more to this than meets the eye.
Firstly, the "illegal port" of Elite (Elite - The New Kind, by Christian Pinder) was approved by one of the joint copyright holders of Elite (Ian Bell), and was a 100% faithful rewrite of the game in portable C from the original BBC BASIC / assembler. It was ported to a huge number of platforms.
Pinder contacted the other joint copyright holder of Elite (David Braben), asking for permission to distribute his free, 100% accurate re-engineering of the original BBC elite. Initially, Braben demanded that just the Pocket PC version be removed, as he was about to release another tired, buggy pile of crap under the Elite name for the Pocket PC. As Pinder had enormous respect for both Braben and Bell, he removed the Pocket PC port.
NOW, Braben has demanded that Pinder COMPLETELY remove ALL ports of his meticulous re-working from the entire internet. Good to know he wasted a year of his life writing it, huh? Why did Braben do this? It possibly has something to do with the fact that after the Pocket PC knockback, Pinder teamed up with Bell to write an open-source space trading and dogfighting game called Dark Kind.
Braben and Bell split up many years ago. Bell became a new-age hippy, and Braben has been writing increasingly bad remakes of Elite. The animosity between them is legendary.
Does my bum look big in this?
You're right, it's called postfix, because the operator comes after the operands (6 7 +), as opposed to infix (6+7) and prefix (+ 6 7).
:-)
It's also called Reverse Polish Notation, because it's the reverse of Polish notation (a.k.a. prefix), which in turn is called Polish Notation because it was devised by a Polish mathematician. The full gory details are on HP's website somewhere; go look for them yourself, I can't be bothered.
P.S. Why do I insensitive clod?
Really? On every single alg type calc I've ever seen, that won't work. What type of calculator will accept * 2 sq =, to double the last answer and square the result?
Perhaps the Idiotic Democracy-Stuffing Association should arrange for oil to be found under the WoS servers; then they could have President Bush send in the US Air Farce to bomb them into the ground... :-)
My TI-30
Nothing to stop anyone collecting the old games themselves, archiving them themselves, but not distributing them on the internet. Even if you knew no-one with any games, it wouldn't take much money to slowly buy them on Ebay, archive (copy tape into PC via sound card, scan insert), then sell the tapes again on Ebay.
nt
Why is it that the "Remakes!" post got a 3, but the exactly-equally-relevant reply (about the associated mailing list) is stuck on 0? (Do only people who are registered qualify for positive scores?)
BTW, the link to the list is this...
I am a freeware author who used to dabble in Gameboy homebrew software.
A couple of weeks back I wanted to show someone a game I'd written (Nibbler), so set forth to find a copy online. What did I find? a few pages with the game 'Removed at the request of the copyright holder'
Now excuse me - but what the F%*& is that?!?!?!?
Given the fact that I sat and drew the graphics, and wrote all of the code (WITHOUT reference to any official documentation) doesn't that make ME the copyright holder?
Whoever is behind this (some brainless copyright organisation no doubt) is infinging on MY rights as a software producer. if I decree that people can use my code and freely distribute it then that's what they should be allowed to do.
What next? Maybe a few 'false positives' aimed at Freeware/small indie shareware producers to force them offline so their member companies can conqueor the remaining 0.1% of the market they don't have already?
I'm beginning to wonder if what we have here isn't just a glorified protection racket.
-Sack
He who knows nothing, knows nothing.
But he who knows he knows nothing knows something.
And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
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