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.
Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....
Already been thought of :-)
See the Spectrum emulator for the Nokio 9210.
Nintendo were very careless about licensing in the early eighties. Donkey Kong and Mario Bros appeared on several home computers before Nintendo realised they could make more money if they only appeared on the NES. It may well be that the companies that published the old Nintendo arcade games on computers in the eighties actually do have the right to make them freely downloadable.
That said, just saying 'Mario' is about as vague as it gets. How many Mario games are there now?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
The problem is with organisations like IDSA which stumble across websites offering games and then automatically assume there must have been a copyright violation.
The article explicitly states that the website in question had already obtained permission from the copyright holders to redistribute the material...
Curiously enough, the other joint copyright holder has just about every version of Elite ever released available for free download on his website. It seems the two no longer get along terribly well...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Show me a link to a Nintendo game on the site - otherwise I am pretty sceptical. I suspect that you may be as guilty of rushing in without checking the facts first as the the Lawyer from the main story - which is surely the moral here.
P.S. Donkey Kong may have originally appeared in the arcades on a Nintendo machine, put in the case of the spectrum, the Donky Kong game was published by Ocean and even then written by someone else - so just because it is called "Donky Kong" doesn't mean that it has anything to do, in copyright terms, with Nintendo (although the name Donky Kong may have been licensed from Nintendo at some point).
Sabre Wulf was a great game! But...Ultimate changed their name to Rare. Rare actually still uses their old stuff in newer games. They even used the name Sabre Wulf for a charcter in beat-em-up Killer Instict. The killer app for the original 16k Spectrum, Jetpack, appeared as a mini game in Donkey Kong 64
Note that Rare was recently purchased by Microsoft. Not very likely that they'll release their old Speccy titles for public use.
A ner Alien8 would be fun though...
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...
However, members of the IDSA do hold the rights to a significant number of Spectrum games (most notably the Ocean and Ultimate games), actions designed to annoy them probably aren't the wisest course of action. As has been pointed out elsewhere, we don't have permission to distribute most of the games on WoS, despite our best efforts (or more precisely, those of Martijn van der Heide, the owner of WoS, who had previously contacted every IDSA member telling them we had their games available and asking for permission to do this).
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"
What about the Interface2 roms, the were instantly loaded (Horace, loaded when you turn on! hello baby!) - though they were a flop they did exist...
.sna file.
r e were ten such cartridges released by Sinclair:
but regardless, I Think you're right he has mistaken 5 minutes of kraftwerk music to a rom because nowadays it comes in a little
[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/int2roms/]
The
Jetpac.
Pssst.
Cookie.
Tranz Am.
Chess.
Backgammon.
Hungry Horace.
Horace and the spiders.
Planetoids.
Space Raiders.
They were intended to compete with the games consoles of the day, but were not very successful.
>Note that Rare was recently purchased by Microsoft. Not very likely that they'll release their old Speccy titles for public use.
That's not necessarily true. Microsoft bought The Blue Ribbon Soundworks, creators of the greatest MIDI program in the world, Bars & Pipes Pro and eventually (after about 6 years) released the source code to the program back to the Amiga community.
Does anyone actually think of the complexities of _porting_ a game from a ZX spectrum to a mobile phone? First you'd need to update the graphics - consumers just wouldn't be satisfied with the graphics from ZX Spectrum era. You'd then need to update the interaction as many of these phones don't have the same keyboard layouts as a ZX Spectrum. %-) Finally you'd need to update the code from the assembler it's likely to be in into something maintainable - I think you'd end up going for C/C++ for these modern devices. All in all what I think you'd end up doing is re-implementing a "clone" of the game.
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...)
You do realize that copyright doesn't cover ideas, but the expression of those ideas? The words you used, the way you formatted, etc. is what you own the copyright on, but there's nothing to stop anyone else from writing about the same thing.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
The fact that they leave a site like Cherry Roms alone after the first letter is complied with says to me that, unlike the RIAA, these guys are either incompetent or smart enough to not bother sites with unprotected copyrighted material.
:)
Ask anyone in the Emulation community - the IDSA has been doing this for years but they certainly aren't heavy-handed - they demand you remove things that they have copyrights to and nothing more (unlike the RIAA, which doesn't discriminate).
Clearly, they investigate many sites and just have a list of copyrights they hold. Now, it may be that the IDSA is right and the redistribution rights of, say, the Frogger license, mean that the licensee (ie/ the game producer/publisher/author) do NOT have the right to redistribute the game for free. This has not been explained by either the original letter or the response.
Of course, Occam says that the IDSA just has a bunch of interns searching Google and Top50 sites.
I am only speaking from experience and I am always willing to hear different opinions and experiences people have had with the IDSA...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
nurb432 wrote:
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?
Technically, there are laws against frivolous lawsuits, but what they are and what you have to do to trigger them vary from country to country. In the US (where IDSA is located) it is very very hard to prove that a lawsuit was illegal. World Of Spectrum is in the Netherlands, which might have more protection, but who knows what jurisdiction any lawsuit will end up in this case.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be interpreted as legal advice.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
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
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.
Is this really how they are doing it? If so, can anyone post the list of file names that they are looking for?
In all honesty, don't know. However, they certainly didn't appear to do much more than that. Getting as far as WoS's database entry for Soldier of Fortune (one click away from the game listings) clearly shows that it's not the modern game.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, that's the most clear-cut case; some of them (eg 007) I don't believe the IDSA are representing the copyright holders to the versions on WoS, even if we don't have permission to distribute them. Others (Mario, Frogger, etc) the IDSA may be representing the copyright holders, at least for some of the versions. If the IDSA responds to Martijn's reply, then action may be taken with respect to those games.
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"?