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Copyrights, Videogames, and LAN Parties?

Posted by simoniker on from the mechanical-royalties-for-mr.quake dept.

mse61 writes "I'm currently the sole organizer for what will hopefully be a large gamer club/LAN party on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. While booking the room for our next event (March 4th 2004) I was casually informed that I had to secure permission from the copyright holders for the games we would be playing. I was quite confused as to why they needed this, and their only answer was that it would be considered a 'public showing of copyrighted work', and therefore I must secure permission. I asked a lawyer about the policy and his best advice was to get a hard copy of their policy and then comply to the bare minimum. The University was unable to provide much hardcopy, but largely referred me to the University rule that all State and Federal laws were in effect. Have any Slashdotters ever run into this problem, and would they have any advice for a gamer lost in the mire of copyright laws?"

3 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Actually... by gamgee5273 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I contacted the companies years ago when I organized a "LAN Day" sort of thing at Wayne State up in Detroit. It wasn't for clearance (nothing of that type was requested of me by the university) but all the companies I contacted responded and some even sent along doorprizes and gifts to be raffled off.

    Call the companies. If there are any public performance issues they're the best ones to tell you if you need clearance. I suspect you don't, but it's always possible that if there is a audience (let's say you have a large bracket tournament for the best Halo player at BG), that the company might want you to get clearance, dictate that no cameras be present, etc...

  2. Copyrights by atomic-penguin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Our LUG has a monthly LAN party. We picked a LAN game that was easy enough for everyone in the group to afford: Unreal Game Of The Year -- Retail $10.00 at our local Wal-Mart. We temporarily store it on lab computers as necessary, and remove it after the game is over.

    We require everyone present to have a licensed copy to play. Most people bring in their own boxes, and each have their own copy.

    I suppose it depends on whether the players are using College property or their own personal property to play the game. It is in no way infringing for a group of people to bring in their own personal computer along with their own licensed copy of the game to have a gathering.

    Check the license agreement, for example you don't need a licensed "standalone" game server for Unreal Tournament. The standalone server is publicly licensed, because nobody is using it as a client.

    --
    /^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
  3. Commercial use or not? by RaymondInFinland · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess it all depends on the nature of your LAN party. Is it commercial orientated or just some 'geeks' getting together to play some games?

    For example, the product license agreement for my PS2 game Gun Grave reads:

    -snip-

    You Shall Not:
    Exploit this Program or its parts commercially, including, but not limited to use at a cybercafe, computer gaming centre or any other location-based site. Activision may offer a seperate Site License Agreement to permit you to make this Product available for commercial use

    -snip-

    I'm sure PC games have similair terms in the license agreements. It seems that as long as you are not commercially exploiting the games you should be in the clear. But as usual, IANAL.