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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
They have *every* Spectrum game I hold copyright on up there. No-one has ever asked for permission to distribute and I've not given it.
Please accept the apologies of the WoS team for that; we have made good faith efforts to contact copyright holders of all Spectrum programs we know about, as can been seen from the lists available.
If you do wish your games to be removed from WoS, mail mia (at) worldofspectrum.org and they will be removed ASAP. However, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your permission to distribute your programs from WoS. Contact me or WoS if you would like any further details.
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!
Let me get this straight: You attempted to contact copyright holders, and when you didn't receive a response from them, you assumed it was okay to continue to offer their works for download? In other words:
Dear Copyright Holder:
We are offering your works for download on the internet for free. If you would like to Opt-Out of this arrangement, please let us know by clicking the link below. Otherwise we will continue to offer this service, even though we don't actually have your permission.
Cheers,
The WoS team.