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.
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'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.
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
"Posting pirated software on the Internet so that it can be run on an emulator is commonplace nowadays -- and also costly. The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) alleges that the $6.3 billion interactive entertainment industry loses $3.2 billion a year to software piracy, including this kind of Internet software piracy. Moreover, the IDSA alleges that this kind of piracy would not exist were it not for emulators."
ALthough they don't actually say it the implication is that emulators are costing the industry a lot of money. In whose world? its not like any of this stuff is making anyone any money. I can understand copyright owener wanting to protect franchises etc. but even then they surely would be hard pushed to show how they where losing money from it.
Notice the titles that they claim to be braking the law...
007 (007 Nightfire is released)
Barbarian (That new barbarian game is released)
Donkey Kong ( Donkey Kong's nintendo latest games)
Frogger ( Wasn't there a gba version?)
Mario ( New mario games for gba and gc are released)
Pac Man (Pac man world 2 is released)
Soldier of fortune (that 3d game that is released)
It seems to me that IDSA thinks that spectrum is a game console or a very high standard pc codename(if so, 48k should be enough for anyone).
What's next? They are going to stop anyone who makes pong distributable to other platforms?
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.
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.
...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.
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.
Every time you download and play an old game, you're not playing a newer one.
They don't want you to have free access to old games, they want you to buy new ones.
The problem is that for a small organization or a single person running a site, telling these companies to "fuck off" will end up putting them out of business. They'll drag your ass to court and you'll have to spend money on lawyer fees and court costs whether you are guilty or not. That's why a lot of times the mere threat of these is enough to get someone to roll over and shut down. Would you really want to deal with contacting a lawyer, shelling out money to retain them, preparing a legal defense, etc.? Most people don't since we're not comprised of professional lawyers, but the BSA and IDSA is. They have nothing better to do than make your life a living hell. Yet another reason why we should eliminate all lawyers.
Codemasters did release a CD with 30 of their games in 1990.
However, it required you load a small program from tape first and then load the game from an audio CD player via a lead supplied with the CD to the joystick port of the later Amstrad manufactured "speccies"!
This cunning method also loaded the games into the computer a lot faster than from tape iirc
R Tape loading error, 0:1
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.
But isn't this similar to why the RIAA *really* wants to lock up cheap distribution, etc.?
Anyone playing a game on an emulator is not playing a new game.
In other words, even if you are only playing crappy old Spectrum titles that are officially redistributable for emulation, it still cuts into their market because the time you spend playing around with emulation is not spend playing one of their new games. As a result, less new games are sold.
In other words, it is their oligopoly they are protecting rather than someones copyright.
...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.
I don't think anyone is assuming that a copyright holder's silence equals agreement; I think it would be more accurate to state that one would have to be severely stuck up to actually give a shit as to whether they followed every single copyright law all the time - in other words, some people constantly check whether they're being ethical and/or whether they are upholding the law, and most of us don't actually give a crap about your ridiculous notions of how to live.
Guess whose life is easier.
Now that's true greed. I'm so apathetic about something that I wrote 20 years ago that I can't even be bothered to be *contacted* about it, but you sure as heck can't use it or share it with the others who are trying to preserve the history of an ancient hardware platform.
Enjoy the company of your dusty floppy disks, and sleep well knowing that you deprived a hobbyist of a trifle of enjoyment just because you could.
--Just the place for a snark!