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World of Spectrum gets a Visit from the IDSA

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wrong-tree-barked-up dept.

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.

6 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Since the link doesn't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here is a working one. They are surprisingly pro-rights-holder. Unlike most such sites, they don't simply say 'we can distribute this because we want to', but they acknowledge that a company who has spent many hours (albeit 10 or 20 years ago) and money developing a game has the right to distribute it (or not!) as they feel fit.

    Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....

    1. Re:Since the link doesn't work by pak21 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....



      That's certainly not true. Whilst the WoS team (of which I may be considered to be a part) and in fact, a significant proportion of the ZX Spectrum emulation community will respect the decisions of a few companies not to have their work distributed, the way the IDSA is going about it (trawling the web and sending off threatening letters based on filenames) is completely out of line.



    2. Re:Since the link doesn't work by pak21 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think that's a rather harsh way of putting things. The contact e-mails which are sent are rather more detailed than that, and attempt to explain why we're doing this as well.

      As I said above, the decision to distribute 'non-denied' games is a pragmatic one; we've never tried to claim that what we're doing is 100% whiter than white legal, but we are making an effort on this front. From a personal point of view, that matters a lot to me.

  3. From another perspective by jkgamer · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Why o Why? by psychofox · · Score: 5, Informative
    I think the point the article is trying to make is that the copyright owners aren't trying to 'track down' these things.

    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...