Ultima IV — EA Takedowns Precede Official Reboot

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Ultima IV — EA Takedowns Precede Official Reboot

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:57PM from the textbook-evil-empire dept.

Kevin Fishburne writes "According to posts at the Ultima fan site Ultima Aiera, both the browser-based Ultima IV Sega Master System emulation at Master System 8 and the IBM-PC port at Phi Psi Software have received cease and desist letters from Electronic Arts, the current IP holder of the Ultima franchise. The post states that despite the widely held belief that Origin had allowed the Ultima Dragons to distribute Ultima IV freely in 1997, in fact that is no longer the case. It further suggests that the EA takedowns are preceding an upcoming browser-based Ultima IV reboot by Bioware Mythic. Has EA lost an eighth, or are they well within their rights by going DMCA on a 26-year-old game they had no hand in developing?"

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If they own the copyright... by Derekloffin · 2011-03-28 19:59 · Score: 5, Informative

As far as I know, doesn't matter that it is older, or that they didn't personally develop it. It is still copyrighted, and unless someone can show it was given to public domain, EA is within their rights to do this.
1. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 20:02 · Score: 0
  
  yup
2. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 20:16 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It being within their rights certainly doesn't make it right, though.
  As for Mythic making an Ultima reboot, yeah, no.
3. Re:If they own the copyright... by mikaelg · 2011-03-28 20:59 · Score: 1
  
  They are still being quite reasonable about it. They just sent a cease & desist letter, while they could have outright sued them or send some killing robots to take care of the programmers.
4. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 21:55 · Score: 0
  
  Hmm? It has been more than 14 years since it was first published, so basicly it is in the public domain regardless of some temporal rent seeking one sided "agreements".
5. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  Come with me if you want to live!
6. Re:If they own the copyright... by Dunbal · 2011-03-28 23:08 · Score: 1
  
  IANAL but this brings up an interesting point: would not any EULA for Ultima IV have been between me and Origin Systems (the original publisher). Since when can EA assume that I agree with their (new) terms just because they bought the company? They bought the company and the property owned by the company. They didn't buy my rights. However they may do so for the low low sum of $15 million.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
7. Re:If they own the copyright... by SuperDre · 2011-03-28 23:26 · Score: 0
  
  Well, why wouldn't it make it right? the not being right was putting up the current versions at all without a written permission from the copyrightholder (at least I think they didn't).. Because it's old doesn't make it right to just publish it using an emulator or something, even if you do not make money off it (but remember, most of those sites are filled with advertisement, and that's how they make their money).. Be original, and go out and create your own game if you really want to publish something and make money..
8. Re:If they own the copyright... by Bobakitoo · 2011-03-28 23:27 · Score: 1
  
  However they may do so for the low low sum of $15 million.
  Personally, i would agree to EA's new EULA for only $1 million. Not that i play the game, but i would click the 'accept' button for that low amount!
9. Re:If they own the copyright... by PopeRatzo · 2011-03-29 00:11 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Because it's old doesn't make it right to just publish it using an emulator or something
  Of course it does. Copyrights aren't supposed to be eternal for a very good reason, despite the best efforts and desires of culture vultures who believe that they should have a license to get paid forever for work someone else did.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
10. Re:If they own the copyright... by tepples · 2011-03-29 00:15 · Score: 1
  
  I've read plenty of EULAs claiming to be between the end user and the publisher "or its successors in interest" or something like that.
11. Re:If they own the copyright... by .sig · 2011-03-29 00:30 · Score: 1
  
  I've read plenty of EULAs ...
  You're too early, save that one for Friday...
  
  --
  -Space for rent
12. Re:If they own the copyright... by AmonTheMetalhead · 2011-03-29 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  I can't even remember there being EULA's with those games back in those years....
13. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:18 · Score: 0
  
  No, it doesn't. Just like I can't just take a 20 year old version of GCC, relicense it as I see fit and then re-release it. But you're probably one of those GPL zealots that think that only copyrights on proprietary software, music and movies are the only things that shouldn't have eternal copyrights otherwise you'd be pushing for the public domaining of lots of old and abandoned GPL code as well.
14. Re:If they own the copyright... by delinear · 2011-03-29 01:40 · Score: 2
  
  Ironically it's probably the emulator crowd that's helped to keep many of these old games alive in people's minds. If it wasn't for people preserving and giving an avenue for others to carry on playing said games, a load of them would have fallen into obscurity - now there's a demand for fun but technically unchallenging games for mobile devices, or browser-based play it's suddenly a revenue stream. Once money re-enters the equation all bets are off, but the industry should be giving a big thank you to the emulator crowd, not sending out threatening legal letters.
15. Re:If they own the copyright... by TheCRAIGGERS · 2011-03-29 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  It has nothing to do with being reasonable. The simple fact of the matter is that it's not worth their time / money to sue them, considering lawyer time is expensive and they're unlikely to even get their court costs covered even after they win their case.
16. Re:If they own the copyright... by mlts · 2011-03-29 02:24 · Score: 2
  
  On the contrary, it actually benefits the game companies if the old stuff gets forgotten. This way, they can dredge up forgotten IP, market it as a gritty reboot and have something to sell.
  Take EA for instance. I wonder how long it will be before they decide to make a Wing Commander reboot for the consoles. Cybermage? The old Origin IP they are sitting on can provide them with decades of IP to attach to what would be another boring FPS.
17. Re:If they own the copyright... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 03:30 · Score: 0
  
  Ultima IV was in the unofficial category of Abandonware, which essentially means, "It's not technically legal to distribute it, but it is no longer being sold and the copyright owner so far seems not to care if you download it, so go ahead."
  That being said, all Abandonware runs the risk of the copyright holder changing their mind and asserting their rights, as is the case here. I've seen other cases where Abandonware games were subsequently offered for sale on GOG.com and therefore removed from the Abandonware sites.
  Note that computer game makers tend to be less paranoid than the MPAA/RIAA. Most of them don't mind people distributing games that aren't making them money anymore. They would be well within their legal rights to throw a tantrum like the RIAA and try to shut down all the "pirate" sites, but they don't. We really shouldn't complain when they occasionally ask the sites to stop distributing a particular game.
18. Re:If they own the copyright... by Sigmon · 2011-03-29 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  Origin probably still exists as an entity... It's just owned by E.A.
19. Re:If they own the copyright... by yeshuawatso · 2011-03-29 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Not always. If EA or whomever they bought the IP from failed to make reasonable efforts to protect their copyrights, then they can lose them. If these games existed for quite a while and EA or the original holder knew of them and did NOTHING to stop them, then it's possible that a judge could throw the works into public domain. A cease and desist is a great example of a "reasonable effort," but waiting until you come close to releasing another sequel or remake to protect said copyright, then it isn't hard to argue that you didn't care for it at all.
20. Re:If they own the copyright... by LocalH · 2011-03-29 04:06 · Score: 2
  
  If EA or whomever they bought the IP from failed to make reasonable efforts to protect their copyrights, then they can lose them. If these games existed for quite a while and EA or the original holder knew of them and did NOTHING to stop them, then it's possible that a judge could throw the works into public domain.
  This is so incorrect. You can't lose your copyright because you don't defend it. You can lose trademarks that way, but nothing will ever force the work into the public domain.
  
  --
  FC Closer
21. Re:If they own the copyright... by bhcompy · 2011-03-29 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  You probably can't force the work into the public domain, but the rest of the point stands and has been demonstrated in property law
22. Re:If they own the copyright... by tbannist · 2011-03-29 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  It may be within their rights, but it's also a clear example of why copyrights on computer games shouldn't last for 26 years.
  
  --
  Fanatically anti-fanatical
23. Re:If they own the copyright... by nomadic · 2011-03-29 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Please don't tell me you're arguing adverse possession here...
24. Re:If they own the copyright... by Uberbah · 2011-03-29 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  On the contrary, it actually benefits the game companies if the old stuff gets forgotten. This way, they can dredge up forgotten IP, market it as a gritty reboot and have something to sell.
  Uh huh. And who makes up most of the audience for aging rock bands that announce "reunion" tours - people that have never heard of it before or people that were fans of the band in the 80's?
  Nostalgia sells for a reason.
25. Re:If they own the copyright... by mlts · 2011-03-29 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  Different markets. There are far fewer people who played Ultima 1-4 than there are aging hippies who yearn for another Woodstock.
  The games are being sold to 14-30 in age range. Yes, some of the older gamers may remember some of the Origin games, but most of the people marketed to consider World of Warcraft a classic game, and Everquest a rickety old MMO for old people.
  So, EA and other companies with older IP will have their bean counters tell them to try to get the old stuff as forgotten as possible, so later on, they can do a "grittier reboot" of it.
26. Re:If they own the copyright... by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  Since when can EA assume that I agree with their (new) terms just because they bought the company
  It depends on what terms we're talking about here. When one company buys another, it IS the bought company. You can say "Ah, but I never made an agreement with EA." But EA is Origin. It can be both, at once. And you didn't make an agreement with Richard Garriot, you made a deal with Origin (hypothetically speaking, of course).
  This moot, since the 'rights' being talked about here (basic copyright) don't require any acceptance or agreement on your part.
27. Re:If they own the copyright... by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Ultima IV was in the unofficial category of Abandonware, which essentially means, "It's not technically legal to distribute it, but it is no longer being sold and the copyright owner so far seems not to care if you download it, so go ahead."
  I think this is a good point. It's basically "We'll just look the other way"-ware.
28. Re:If they own the copyright... by Darinbob · 2011-03-29 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  They don't necessarily need to show that it was in "public domain" but that some parties were given the rights to copy and distribute it. Copyright holders do not have the ability to retroactively take back copies that had previously been allowed. If some earlier copyright holder once allowed another company to freely make and distribute copies this can't be undone. Of course there's the legal issue of having to prove what the actual circumstances were, what the evidence is, how many copies were allowed, etc.
29. Re:If they own the copyright... by PopeRatzo · 2011-03-29 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  otherwise you'd be pushing for the public domaining of lots of old and abandoned GPL code as well.
  I'm all right with "public domaining" old GPL code.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
30. Re:If they own the copyright... by HiThere · 2011-03-29 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, *I* never liked Ultima. And *I* don't think it's right that copyrights should last that long. 5-10 years is reasonable, if there's no DRM. If there's DRM, then the work should not be copyrightable. The entire *purpose* of copyrights is to get works into the public domain. It has not other justification for existence. So DRM should make the work uncopyrightable. And the period of copyright should be long enough that most of the profit can be extracted from the predictable customers, but no longer. So 5-10 years. I can understand reasons for making it shorter, but I don't accept them. The only reason I can understand for allowing it to be longer is greed, and that shouldn't be encouraged.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
31. Re:If they own the copyright... by Gaijin42 · 2011-03-29 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  I agree adverse possession is stupid. Except IP owners continually try to gain all the advantages of property law. If they get the advantages, they should get the disadvantages too.
32. Re:If they own the copyright... by davev2.0 · 2011-03-29 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  The entire *purpose* of copyrights is to get works into the public domain.
  No, that is not the purpose of copyright. The purpose of U.S. copyright law is set forth in the Constitution of the United States of America, Article one, Section 8:
  
  To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
  Now, are you done proving your ignorance?
33. Re:If they own the copyright... by shermo · 2011-03-29 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  Yours is a common viewpoint, but it's not true.
  "While the average age of a gamer is 35, over a quarter (26%) is age 50 or over. The bulk of gamers are in the 18 to 49 year age range. "
  http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2009.pdf.
  The 'average' gamer of 35 was 11 when Ultima IV was released.
  Also I suspect older gamers are more likely to pay money for their games as opposed to cash strapped teenagers/students.
  
  --
  Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
34. Re:If they own the copyright... by SCPRedMage · 2011-03-29 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  My my, harsh words. Particularly from someone who doesn't quite grasp what "progress of ... useful arts" is supposed to mean...
  Human storytelling has ALWAYS been based on the past; most "new" stories play upon some older idea, maybe with some new twist. Completely fresh ideas are a rare thing.
  The original copyright law (known as "the Statute of Anne", if you weren't aware of it) was written with this in mind. The idea is to protect your ideas in the short term, in order to encourage you to share these ideas, so that society can freely use them in the long term. This is the "progress" that passage you quoted refers to.
  The main problem with modern copyright law is the massive inflation of that "short" term; now, by the time society gets to play with these ideas, they're either forgotten or irrelevant.
  
  --
  My sig can beat up your sig.
35. Re:If they own the copyright... by WorBlux · 2011-03-29 12:05 · Score: 1
  
  It's promissory estoppal.
36. Re:If they own the copyright... by wondafucka · 2011-03-29 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  As far as I know, doesn't matter that it is older, or that they didn't personally develop it. It is still copyrighted, and unless someone can show it was given to public domain, EA is within their rights to do this.
  And I don't blame them for doing so. Ultima IV is better and has more depth than a majority of it's modern descendants. I would assert that Ultima 5, 6, or 7 were better than any Final Fantasy game.
  
  --
  postmodernsideshow.com
37. Re:If they own the copyright... by yeshuawatso · 2011-03-29 13:23 · Score: 1
  
  Correct, not the legal definition of public domain, but how the worked can be used will essentially be the same meaning. If I created a work, registered that work to be copyrighted, then along comes Joe Somebody who takes my work and copies it, and I don't take reasonable action to protect my copyrighted work, then when it comes time to argue it in court, I'm not going to have much ground to stand on if I wait 20 years vs waiting 5. I may still own the copyright, but I'm going to find it damn hard to stop usage of it when I have precedent against me for not caring enough to take reasonable efforts to protect my IP. Reasonable effort is the key and it's not hard to establish because it's so broadly defined. Say I wait 20 years to take action because I couldn't afford an attorney, so I sent a letter every year asking Joe Somebody to stop; that's reasonable effort. If I sue Joe Somebody the day he copied my work for personal use, that's still reasonable (maybe even extreme) effort. But if I sit on my hands knowing about the infringement and do nothing for 20 years, then the courts and a jury will most likely believe that I simply didn't care enough to do anything about it, so I must not care who uses it. I may own a copyright, but it might as well be public domain.
38. Re:If they own the copyright... by davev2.0 · 2011-03-30 01:07 · Score: 0
  
  We are dealing with American copyright law, not the Statute of Anne. Maybe you weren't aware of that, or maybe you are just an asshole. Either one, the effect is the same. And, just to show you exactly how stupid your comment is, in the time of the Statute of Anne, the Anne in for whom the statute is named overruled a colonial law prohibiting slavery. Therefore, I can only assume that because you wish to use the laws of the 1700s, you also want to bring back slavery.
  
  If you don't like the length of the modern copyright as defined in the laws, you work and change the law. Oh, wait, that would mean doing something besides violating copyright law, complaining about copyright law, and liking things on Facebook.
  
  Until you are actually willing to work to change the law, shut the fuck up, asshole.
39. Re:If they own the copyright... by HiThere · 2011-03-30 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  I'm aware of thaat text. That does specify what was written to justify copyrights. It doesn't say what "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" means. To me it means the works become publicly available. I.e., public domain.
  You demonstrated your ability to quote, but not to understand.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
40. Re:If they own the copyright... by davev2.0 · 2011-03-30 05:41 · Score: 0
  
  And you demonstrate you ability to read and then not understand what you have read. You completely fail to understand the letter of the law and the stated intent. Rather, you substitute your own desires and ignore the obvious in favor of you opinion in hopes of getting your own selfish way.
  
  Stated bluntly, you have the morals of a 3 year old child. "I want it so it is MINE!"
41. Re:If they own the copyright... by sortius_nod · 2011-03-30 13:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yeh, I saw the parent's comment and laughed too. I can't say I've played many games with people below 25 lately. Sure, you get the odd kid, but the average gamer is closer to 40 than 14. Where you find most of the kids are in free to play titles and on consoles. PC gaming is definitely dominated by the 25+ crowd.
  The averages for different countries do vary, but the average age is going up, not going down. We all grew up on these games that are getting rebooted, unfortunately the reboots are generally piles of dogshit that can't even compare with the originals. The churnhouses like EA, Ubisoft & Actiblizzard really don't care if they get a good development team to give reboots the justice they deserve, just how much profit they make.
Who developped does not matter by aepervius · 2011-03-28 20:07 · Score: 1

Who hold the copyright matters. And hate it or not, they are perfectly in right to remove a distribution right they have given before. That said, after having bought ultima 4 to 9, UW1 and UW2, and having felt the pain of playing thru ultima 9, I think I can imagine that any browser based U4 will be about : a very basic strategy / rpg game , with the possibility to buy for $$$ a few useful item. "buy 30 karma for 0.99 $ !". YURK.

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
1. Re:Who developped does not matter by ShakaUVM · 2011-03-28 21:07 · Score: 2
  
  >>buy 30 karma for 0.99 $ !"
  Brings new meaning to the dungeons in Ultima IV:
  Deceit
  Despair
  Despise
  Wrong
  Covetous
  Shame ...all apply equally well to the developers of microtransaction, spam-based social games, and the players that play them.
  (Pedants: Yes, I'm ignoring Destard and Hythloth. Whatever.)
2. Re:Who developped does not matter by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 06:15 · Score: 0
  
  Who hold the copyright matters. And hate it or not, they are perfectly in right to remove a distribution right they have given before.
  I guess it all depends on how it was worded; if there was no caveat that it was for a limited time, or that they reserved the right to revoke, then no: once given, it's gone.
3. Re:Who developped does not matter by Darinbob · 2011-03-29 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  When distribution rights are given there's usually a contract that says when, how, how many, etc. They can't just arbitrarily change the terms of the contract at their whim, they have to wait until the terms of the contract expire. The issue is whether or not Ultima Dragons were or were not legally given the rights to freely distribute. There does not appear to be a typical legal document to this effect, but rather a very informal email from someone who may or may not have been the copyright holder (often it is the company that holds the copyright, not individual officers of the company).
Never understood why ultima IV was so great by quietwalker · 2011-03-28 20:11 · Score: 2

I remember abandoning it for Might and Magic (I & II), and then returning to the series when I got a hold of Ultima V. Ultima V kicked serious butt!
How come no one ever wants to remake/re-release/re-whatever that one?
*goes in a corner and plays the stones song*
1. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Tapewolf · 2011-03-28 20:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You might want to look up Lazarus. It was a total conversion for Dungeon Siege - fan made, but very well done. I was one of those folks who couldn't really get into anything pre-Ultima 6, though I did play Ultima 4 end to end.
2. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by pinkstuff · 2011-03-28 20:35 · Score: 1
  
  Two major things, 1) it came out before M&M I (albeit, just before), and 2) you couldn't get M&M on the Sega Master System ;). Ultima IV is one of the games I have the fondest memories of, it introduced me to RPG's and had a fairly good story line.
3. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by marsu_k · 2011-03-28 20:43 · Score: 0
  
  Seconded, Lazarus (considering it is a fan-made effort) rocks. You'll need a copy of Dungeon Siege though, but you should be able to find one from the likes of eBay (or just get a torrent, if you're so inclined).
4. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 21:11 · Score: 0
  
  I can still feel the soul-crushing boredom of Dungeon Siege pressing down on me as I view those screenshots.
5. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by gl4ss · 2011-03-28 21:20 · Score: 1
  
  there's many remakes of all ultimas before 6.
  6 is the bee's balls superduper though. the world in it is far bigger than in dragon age, or anything hand done. ultima7 feels like a kid's park compared to the size(ultima7 has no caves, for example, just those pseudo caves).
  also, ultima ix isn't half bad. no computer could run it when it came though.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
6. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by omglolbah · 2011-03-29 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  Assuming one is still on winxp of course. DS wont run on win7 for instance :p
7. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Tapewolf · 2011-03-29 00:38 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, I haven't tried it recently. There is also a mac version, but I don't know whether that will still run either. I do remember that Lazarus wouldn't run under WINE at the time, but again, I haven't tried it for a while.
8. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by aapold · 2011-03-29 00:50 · Score: 1
  
  In the context of what came before, it was the first game I can recall where the ultimate victory was not based on killing a bad guy, but rather a personal quest. It was also the first time we got the world of Britania (Ultima ]I[ had been Sosaria, ][ was earth through time, and I... I dunno, something like Alkabeth I imagine, never played that one). It was the first time we got to journey with Iolo Fitzowen, Dupre, Shamino, et al.
  
  Yes it was over the top in its morality, and Ultima V was directly a response to that. But the role of Ultima IV should not be ignored or minimized. It advanced the bar in terms of these games beyond anything else at that time.
  
  (dusting off old sig)
  Asgrim Dragon, UDIC
  
  --
  "Waste not one watt!" - CZ
9. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  Story depth and complexity of the interwoven virtue "formula."
  Games used to be about story, plot and themes and not simply hack and slash. While I've enjoyed all of the Ultimas (even 8, /shudder), 5's combat system, while allowing plenty of control, took too long and slowed down the flow of the game. It was almost as cumbersome as the Times of Lore combat system where one battle of a group of 6 against 6 monsters took a good 20 minutes.
  I am, of course, talking about playing on the Apple/PC. Combat on consoles was simplified because consoles require simple interfacing.
  U4 to this day ranks as one of the best games of the past decades due to the seamless integration of quest objectives with free form world interaction.
10. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Culture20 · 2011-03-29 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  And no computer can run ultima ix well now given its reliance on voodoo/glide instead of OpenGL.
11. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:39 · Score: 0
  
  For classic games, you can beat the Amiga versions. The way I play them is via Win UAE on Win XP inside VirtualBox on my ArchLinux host. Sounds a bit circuitous, but it works well.
12. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:18 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, Ultima 9 runs not badly under Windows 7, assuming you install the 1.18 AND 1.19f patches that are available for it at the site linked in the main article.
  Parts of it are pretty buggy, which probably is a graphical issue, but there is a team of fans working on squashing those bugs even now.
13. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by eharvill · 2011-03-29 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  It ran fine on my Win7 64-bit rig last week (DS ran flawlessly, Lazarus still has some graphical hiccups). I even bumped up the resolution to 1080P. You might be having more of a video card issue than an OS issue if you cannot get it to run.
  
  --
  At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
14. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by WWWWolf · 2011-03-29 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't tried any Wine stuff in a while, but circa Wine 1.0, Dungeon Siege (and Lazarus) definitely ran pretty well on it, at least on Linux_x86. Some glitches and performance issues (videos looked really crappy and mouse cursor was glitchy), but definitely playable enough. I'm hoping the direction is only upward.
  Lazarus definitely looked awesome, but I really wish EA would hand the IP to Bioware and tell them to remake stuff from U4 onward on Dragon Age: Origins (or DA2) engine.
15. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  I've used Voodoo library wrappers before to get Voodoo games running well.
  Diablo II, for instance, only "supported" (it was really a Voodoo trick) running at 1600x1200 if you used Voodoo instead of DirectX, and I installed a Voodoo to DirectX wrapper to make this work.
16. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 06:30 · Score: 0
  
  You can use DirectX just fine with Ultima IX, I was actually playing it the other week using a GeForce GTX 285. You do need all the patches for it to work decently though :)
17. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by omglolbah · 2011-03-29 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, works now it seems... Didnt 6 months ago when I tried installing it last.. wonder what changed.
18. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by MemoryDragon · 2011-03-29 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  And no computer can run ultima ix well now given its reliance on voodoo/glide instead of OpenGL.
  Not really true, U9 runs pretty well nowadays because Origin also rolled a D3D port of the engine, this was way slower than the Glide port back then, due to D3D having been a slow crapfest back then, but given the advances of the hardware by now it should run a solid 100-200fps+
  That does not make the bugs of the game less.
  Either way, the EA takeover was the downfall of Ultima as a franchise. U7 was released in a buggy state, but could be fixed, Ultima 8 was in the beginning branded as super mario avatar thanks to the pointless jump and run elements EA insisted on, and U9, well it was an utter mess.
  U8 was fixed but the missing parts were never added, U9 should have been what it was planned originally, the entire premature move to a 3d engine and the reduction of elements and world size did not help. If one Ultima part would need a decent remake it would be Ultima 9, the engines nowadays could make a tremendous game with the original storyline. Just imagine an Ultima 9 being done with the Oblivion engine. An entire game like Ultima 6 or 7 with all its complex Environmental interaction could be now done with those engines without sacrificing anything.
19. Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great by Culture20 · 2011-03-29 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  U7 was released in a buggy state, but could be fixed
  I loved the bugs. Carrying a cannon in my hand and a barrel on my back beat spam spam spam humbug any day. In case you're not familiar with the cannon reference, in Ultima7, you could lift an item but if you placed it in an invalid location, you'd get a red X, and the item would be placed in its original location (based on your mouse cursor). You could cheat and move yourself behind a super-heavy object, put your cursor over the object and over yourself, then move it into a wall, get the Red X, then the engine would move the object back (on top of you since your cursor was on you), and then the item would go into your inventory without a weight/space check since moving an item on top of yourself meant "move into inventory".
I'd say it's more a case of... by Tomsk70 · 2011-03-28 20:11 · Score: 1

....they're desperate to not have to pay anyone to develop original titles, so they're trawling their back-catalogue to recycle anything that might even partly make money.
Kind of like Sony with Blues Brothers 2000.
Just so long as it remains readily playable by RogueyWon · 2011-03-28 20:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

If EA are sending out takedown notices, then they really had better have an official port in the pipeline. I'm going to leave aside the moral dimensions of copyright law for a moment and focus on something else - the fact that this is a game that needs preserving in an accessible form.
Ultima IV is, to my mind, one of the most important games in the history of computer and video gaming as a medium. While the first three Ultima games (and Akalabeth) had been relatively straightforward "hack and slash" type RPGs, Ultima IV was revolutionary. It was a game based around morality, where the objective wasn't to defeat the big bad and save the world, but rather become a paragon of virtue. It was an early sign that the medium was capable of "growing up" and its influence over the years has been immense. While hack and slash still predominates, you can see the influence of Ultima IV underpinning pretty much every Bioware RPG, as well as a whole host of other games which attempt to tell more sophisticated stories or allow the player a degree of freedom in how to accomplish objectives.
In terms of significance to the development of the RPG genre, I'd rank Ultima IV as sitting alongside the second installments in the Final Fantasy and Baldur's Gate series - the former for its development of what we now recognise as the standard model for Japanese RPG storytelling and the latter for re-popularising the genre in the West following a major period of decline in the mid-90s.
It's a sad fact that because people at the time saw them as ephemeral, many of the significant early works in film and television have been lost forever. It would be nice - and no doubt welcomed by future generations - if we could actually preserve the most important early gaming titles in a readily playable form.
1. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by the_enigma_1983 · 2011-03-28 20:19 · Score: 1
  
  Where's my upvote ... I mean mod points when I need them.
2. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by kamapuaa · 2011-03-28 20:45 · Score: 1
  
  The game is in no danger of being lost to time. And a copyright violation notice has nothing to do with whether or not it will be lost to time.
  The game was based around wandering around a fantasy kingdom killing monsters. That made up approximately 100% of gameplay. They mentioned morality in the parts nobody cared about. It's no more deep than the cut scenes in Mario, where the Princess is in another castle.
  The morality system of Bioware games is so incredibly trite, who cares what its inspirations were?
  
  --
  Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
3. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 20:47 · Score: 1
  
  On the contrary, I think it's a sign of how little the RPG sector has grown up that you think Bioware is a good example of sophisticated story telling. There's more emotional involvement in a run and gun survival horror like Dead Space 2 than yet another "bring items X, Y and Z to the generic character in your party so you can have TEH NOOKIE". That's not a dig at Ultima, by the way, I think IV genuinely did try and move the genre on, but the likes of Dragon Age don't add anything but a bit of spit and polish to what's been a stagnant sector for a long time.
4. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by MareLooke · 2011-03-28 21:23 · Score: 1
  
  You are probably referring to the recent Bioware games (judging from your reference of bringing items to characters, which is something that only really happened in Dragon Age: Origins a game you also refer to), which are very shallow reflections of the games most people refer to if they talk about story telling in Bioware games (in other words, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment, a few others can be argued about I guess).
  I still feel more affinity with my BG2 companions than with any of the newer Bioware games (say, anything starting from Neverwinter Nights onwards, incidentally this is also when EA took over, coincidence?), you also spent way more time with them since you picked a group and stuck with them, unlike the trend to keep group members around in some compound and swap them around at will (Mass Effect 2 was horrible in this respect, so many companions that you barely could take all of them somewhere before the game ended). RPGs also have become way too short to put in any form a meaningful character interaction with NPCs. The newer games have fun companions, but nothing as memorable as some of the ones in the old games.
  This is possibly due to the focus on graphics and voice overs instead of great writing. Needing to have every line voiced obviously doesn't help the writing, things need to be shorter, more concise because hiring voice actors for a game with as much dialogue as PS: T would be horribly expensive I imagine (and possibly horrible to sit through, I still read way faster than most people talk) and the arguably more (graphically) detailed environments make for longer development times and thus less time for more content.
5. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 21:51 · Score: 0
  
  You're confusing Bioware with Black Isle Studios.
6. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 00:28 · Score: 0
  
  AMEN TO THAT BROTHER!!! Ultima IV was a GREAT game!
7. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by dinadan · 2011-03-29 01:11 · Score: 1
  
  "They mentioned morality in the parts nobody cared about."
  Sorry, but this is bullshit. You could not complete the game without complying to the eight virtues.
8. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Hatta · 2011-03-29 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry, Ultima IV will always be readily available on the internet. I can assure you that.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
9. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  U4 may not be in danger of being lost to time, but hundreds of less popular but culturally significant games are. After all it's art and culture preservation we are talking about.
  And even with U4 it's really only the illegal sharing of it that guarantees its survival. All the physical copies _will_ self-destruct in time and I have no faith in companies like EA caring at all about preservation. Or even if they care, knowing anything about it, or being willing to put money into it.
  Games, like many other works, absolutely should fall out of copyright after a certain period of time to guarantee their preservation. I don't even care to argue about how long that should be, I don't even care if it's 30 years, but effectively not having a limit at all is an atrocity.
  The more complex games get, the worse this will be. Any 12 year old kiddie can hack the copy protection off old DOS games, plenty of practicing coders can and will put together perfect emulators of old systems, but the more complex games and platforms get, the more content is offloaded to remote servers and so on, the more we are going to, in our lifetimes, see plenty of culturally significant games simply disappear from time completely and utterly, as code and specs are, at best, buried in a dusty warehouses, at worst lost through the endless cycle of acquisitions and bankruptcies that are inherent to the gaming industry. I think the current generation of consoles will be the first platform that suffers this to a large extent, and we'll see it happen within 10-15 years. Emulating them is damn difficult (we dont even have anywhere near perfect emulation of the xbox 1 or ps2 yet), and more importantly theres a lot of online content to ps3/xbox360 games that you'd have to be smoking crack to think Sony or Microsoft will ever release into the public domain someday in the not that far future when they're not making money off it anymore and have shut down the last dust-clogged PS3 server. We've already had a taste of this with the early online games, or does someone know where I can now play the awesome Battletech game that ran on AOL and Genie? How long before Ultima Online is permanently shut down? 2 years? 10 years? Does anyone think they'll release all that content to the public domain for historical preservation purposes out of altruism? No damn way.
  Rest assured we're aaaaallll doooooooomeeed!
  The rest of your post is just trolling, so I'll ignore it.
10. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Doctor_Jest · 2011-03-29 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  It may not be "deep" now, but in the context of when it was released, Ultima IV was groundbeaking. This half-assed attempt by EA to quash the game outside of its own walled garden is nothing more than a revenue grab. It's typical of a company like EA, of course.
  And who cares if Bioware's implementation didn't advance the morality system further in the mid 90's... Ultima IV did a great job on computers that had less memory than your wristwatch.
  Stop trying to wrap today's game ecosystem around Ultima IV. If you compare it to modern games, sure it's definitely dated and uninspiring. But like the Silent Films of yesteryear, you wouldn't HAVE $140 million blockbusters if people hadn't started making films in the first place. Ultima is like that.
  
  --
  It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
11. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 03:44 · Score: 0
  
  Forget it. EA is here to make money and lay off employees. Preserving your culture has absolutely no place in a capitalistic society. If only markets can be freed of legislation, then companies can earn more money. If only they earn a cent more, it'll be worth it, because they've then earned a cent more.
12. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 04:59 · Score: 0
  
  The game was based around wandering around a fantasy kingdom killing monsters. That made up approximately 100% of gameplay. They mentioned morality in the parts nobody cared about. It's no more deep than the cut scenes in Mario, where the Princess is in another castle.
  Uh, did you actually play it? In all those fights, if you struck a fleeing opponent you lost an eighth. If you ran from the fight, you lost an eighth. You had to talk to hundreds of people, and if you said something mean to them you lost an eighth. You spend hours seeking out temples and reciting mantras, and if you said the wrong mantra you lost an eighth. You had to learn the 8 virtues, the 3 core tenets of those virtues, and apply those virtues, or you'd never get those eighths back.
  I'd say that more than half of the damn game was wandering around towns trying to figure out how to do good deeds so you could get those damned eighths, and if you think that combat was "approximately 100% of gameplay", you either never played the game, or you never got even 1/8th of the way through it!
13. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-29 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  if we could actually preserve the most important early gaming titles in a readily playable form.
  Oddly enough I think that software pirates are already doing this. There is also Gog.com.
  
  --
  That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
14. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by MemoryDragon · 2011-03-29 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Actually I would rate Ultima 6 and 7 as high or even higerh than Ultima 4. They simply laid the groundwork of how an open world RPG has to work (and why so many which dont follow its footsteps ultimately fail), Ultima 7 also showed how you can make a complex environmental interaction a vital gameplay element, and it also was one if not the first RPG which used themes like cultism and murder in a complex manner. U6 had racism as a theme.
  Ultima 4 broke the kill the bad guy mold, but I think Ultima 6 and seven were driving the genre really forward and have so many elements completely underused in many modern rpgs that it is a shame. The entire open world aspect was way better implemented than nowadays in Oblivion or for instance GTA. It never prevented you to go anywhere but you had to prepared to get a serious beating for entering the wrong areas unprepared, people felt like people in their daily routines changed reactions upon events etc...
  To some degree Gothic 1 + Gothic 2 managed to capture the spirit as well as Risen but outside of that I cannot remember a single game which comes close to Ultima 6 and 7. (Maybe the Witcher 2 will, the videos look quite good)
15. Re:Just so long as it remains readily playable by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 13:32 · Score: 0
  
  Final Fantasy 2 was groundbreaking in many ways, from the keyword-based dialogue trees, to essentially doing away with experience levels and replacing them with a fully skill-based system, as well as introducing the Job system (although at the time they called it something else, I think.) I don't think I've ever seen another JRPG that had the keyword dialogue though, and the Job system was used in what, one or maybe two other Final Fantasy games? I think it was really more like a spiritual predecessor to the Elder Scrolls series, especially Morrowind.
  Of course, you probably meant Final Fantasy 4 (released in the U.S. under the title Final Fantasy 2, so people didn't ask questions about the missing games) - in which case I have to say that while having very little really innovative about it, FF4 was certainly where Square started refining their storytelling technique to a razor's edge that would easily fleece money from the pockets of fanboys (myself included... I love me some FF4, 6, and 7.)
  But seriously, if you meant FF4 you owe it to yourself to find a copy of the REAL Final Fantasy 2 (and an English translation patch if you don't understand Japanese) and try it out. It had so many good ideas. Some of them could have been implemented better (everything's a skill... so to level your HP, you have to get hit a lot... so to power-level your HP you take off your weapons, get into a fight, and start punching your own party members. Personally I never found it really necessary to do that, but I know people who liked to grind and they marveled to me that the game "made them do this"... I just shook my head, but you know, to each his own) but the game as a whole is really well done, and has an interesting plot - and the "ask" command which allows you to ask individual people about specific keywords is something I really like for flavor (even if for most people/keyword combos the answer is "I have no idea what that is." -- if they had carried it into future titles I'd assume it would have been expanded on)
That's correct from a legal standpoint by Sycraft-fu · 2011-03-28 20:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Though one can ask if it is correct from a moral one, and also if it SHOULD be correct from a legal standpoint.
My feeling is no. Copyright is far too long. The idea of a limited time copyright is to keep people creating new works. You make a work, you get to make money off of it, but only for a little while. After that it belongs to the public and you need to make new works if you wish to keep making money.
Seems fair to me as that is how most professions work. If I fix a computer, I do not continue to receive pay for that computer so long as it is in use or functional. I am paid for doing the job. If I want more pay I need to keep working.
Personally I'd do copyright something like this:
You get 10 years, upon the creation of the work, no registration needed. That way everyone has a chance to profit from a creation of theirs that is valuable. Once the 10 years are up you've three choices:
1) Do nothing and allow the work to fall in to the public domain. If you do this there are, as they say on the playground, "no taksies backsies." The work is public now and forevermore.
2) Register and renew the work with an exclusive license for another 10 years. You get to dictate everything about its usage, just like the first 10, you've complete control. After that, it falls in to the public domain, no further extensions permitted.
3) Register and renew the work with a mandatory license agreement for another 20 years. In this case you get to keep copyright longer, however part of the terms are that the government mandates a reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing of it. People can make derivatives and pay you a set fee for that and you cannot stop it. You can still profit from your work, but on fixed terms. After that, the work falls in to the public domain.
This was people still have plenty of time to profit from their works, but they can't hold on to them forever and ever and just milk a single gravy train. Also, if someone abandons a work and doesn't bother to register, it falls in to the public domain quicker. After all, if you are still making money 10 years later, you can take the time to register. If you can't be bothered, obviously it isn't that valuable to you.
So while under current law they are 100% in the right, I feel they are being dicks and I feel current copyright law should be changed. You shouldn't be allowed to just hold on to something forever. Many of our more modern favourite works are directly possible because of the use of public domain earlier works (like most of the famous Disney cartoons). That needs to continue.
1. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by antifoidulus · 2011-03-28 21:00 · Score: 1
  
  Thats exactly how the first Copyright law in the United States worked(well the period was 14 years and another 14 years if the author was still alive and wanted it extended). Every other copyright law after that should be repealed.
  
  --
  Monstar L
2. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by MPolo · 2011-03-28 22:56 · Score: 2
  
  I could even see allowing additional extensions beyond the first, but the cost of these should increase exponentially. If Disney is convinced that derivatives of Steamboat Willie are going to drive them into the ground, they can pay an ever-increasing fee to protect it. Something like first renewal costs $10,000 (or more), second is $20,000, third is $40,000 and so on. At a certain point, even Disney would be moved to let things slip into the public domain... The reason for the high renewal fee is that if the work isn't generating serious income, there is no point in renewing the copyright, and if the work is that valuable, the public has a vested interest in getting it into the public domain
3. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Digital+Vomit · 2011-03-28 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  Fourteen years is still far too long in today's world (and twenty-eight years is beyond an eternity).
  According to typical sales records, maybe two or, at most, five years is more than enough protection.
  
  --
  Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
4. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Digital+Vomit · 2011-03-28 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  The renewal fee should be a percentage of the gross income from the protected work, not a flat fee. Otherwise it hurts the small copyright holder and is ineffectual against the large copyright holder.
  
  --
  Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
5. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 23:22 · Score: 0
  
  This is a disaventage for small authors that can't afford renewal. Instead, to renew, the original author could simply demonstrate that income from the copyrighted work generate a significant portion of his income. This could be demontrated ever 5 year or so after the initial limited time copyright and allow the original author to renew copyright for his entier life.
  What is a significan portion of the income will be different from a small author and a large corporation. In the case of Disney, for as long there are good sales of 'Steamboat Willie' DVD, they should be able to renew the copyright. If no one is buying it, it is public domain.
6. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by malkavian · 2011-03-28 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  0.5-1% of the cumulative gross of the work would be more like it. Cumulative being the vital thing (otherwise, if something just doesn't sell after the 'big hit few years', then you effectively get the extension almost free as a big studio. Steamboat Willie not selling much? Well that renewal is $50 for the year; go for it!). This won't affect the small time authors much either; will cost a pittance for a work that doesn't sell much, but at some point, they'll just not care enough to keep it going, especially if they're doing other things that also need protecting).
7. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 23:46 · Score: 0
  
  Two years? Given that time frame, the copyright on a movie script would expire years before the movie was released. A typical author takes 3-5 years from completion to sell their first novel. Self published albums can take 5 years or more to make back their investment. Video games take 2+ years of development, and then typically another 1-2 years to turn a profit. How would TV shows work? After season 2 every other network just takes your characters and starts making episodes of the same show?
8. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by TheLink · 2011-03-29 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  Gross income? Look up Hollywood accounting.
  
  The Corporations will just structure it so that the copyright holder earns nothing.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
9. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Skarecrow77 · 2011-03-29 00:53 · Score: 1
  
  Why would you buy any form of entertainment new if you knew you would be able to get it legally for free in 2 years?
  I sure wouldn't. Any book, movie, video game, tv show etc, can wait. I'll just watch/read whatever was the big deal in 2009 while I wait.
  Popular culture moves quickly, but not as quickly as you think.
10. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Skarecrow77 · 2011-03-29 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  How would TV shows work? After season 2 every other network just takes your characters and starts making episodes of the same show?
  While I certainly agree with you, I feel the need to point out that TV networks have been doing exactly this for decades, they just rename the characters and add in a random quirk the original show didn't have.
11. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by delinear · 2011-03-29 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  I think 2 years is too little - about 5-7 feels right - but if the protection ran for the entirety of develpoment/production plus two years it would protect movies/games that take a long time to be released and still give them the same opportunity to generate a profit. I'm not sure the TV show example works, after all, most shows are incredibly formulaic already, there's not much originality - the selling point is the quality of the production and the writing. I'm all for more competition in this arena (if another channel can write the same show better then it's clearly in my interests as a viewer to see that happen).
12. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by delinear · 2011-03-29 01:48 · Score: 1
  
  For the same reason people pay a premium to see a movie in the first run at the cinema instead of waiting for the DVD, or that they buy the DVD at release price instead of waiting 18 months and picking it up in a bargain bin? People like to see the latest movies, play the latest games, read the latest books, just because a few people are willing to wait to save money doesn't mean the majority won't continue to pay a premium to experience it early.
13. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:01 · Score: 0
  
  Of course, it becomes a point when they tell some friendly republicrats something like this...
  "You know 1.28 million dollars, I can either pay that to the copyright office, and keep my copyright, or I could contribute that to someone's campaign fund, and with their help making one or two slight alterations to the law I will keep my copyright... so it's up to them, do they get my money or does the copyright office get my money? hmm..."
  And of course, you know what 99.99% of the republicrats will do...
14. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Cederic · 2011-03-29 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  I don't mind paying for content.
  I'm already 18 months behind the curve on (most) computer games. I'm buying them at a quarter of the price on Steam instead of paying the 'brand new game' premium.
  Some games (online ones and FM2011) need immediate purchase, but a lot don't - last week I put 43 hours in Dragon Age, while on steam my friends are playing Dragon Age II. I'm playing the Ultimate Edition of the original, with all the DLC and expansions, which I paid a lot less for than they've paid for less of a game in the sequel.
  If the games became free after 2 years, that would hurt sales. Making them free after 5-10 years would not. Making them free after 5 years and charging me a nominal fee to add them to my Steam account (and keep them running on 'latest' Windows version) would be very worthwhile.
  C&Ding a 26yo game does feel rather excessive though, even if it is legally still under copyright.
15. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:06 · Score: 0
  
  Relevant
  http://xkcd.com/606/
  Also
  http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/5/
16. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by ThirdPrize · 2011-03-29 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  Do you really want to see those classic golden age Disney movies f***ed to within an inch of their lives? It is only because Disney knows it can sell them for a nth time that you get the nice DVD\Blu-Ray\(probable)3D masters that we get now. Believe me, if someone thinks they can make a few quid selling a box set of TV ripped DVDs then they will probably try it.
  
  --
  I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
17. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by ThirdPrize · 2011-03-29 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  This is why you can never compare games and movies. A movie comes out and you pay top whack to see it in the cinema. Initial DVD release is 6 months later and after a year it is mid price. After 5 years it is in the bargain bin and after 10 it is in a box set. It is not making as much, but it is still making money 10 years later. Now compare that to games. Apart from RPGs (mass effect, etc) most games are dead within the year. Certainly all the 09, 10, 11 sports games are. If games were around longer they would sell more. Ask Steam.
  
  --
  I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
18. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by thePowerOfGrayskull · 2011-03-29 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  You say in "today's world" 14 years is too long; but you don't explain why; nor do you explain the source for "typical sales records".
  This can be easily abused by those who make their living profiting off of others' work. For example, studios would gain a huge advantage in terms of book-to-movie deals. It can take months to proceed to the point of getting an offer; with a two year limit the seller is now forced to take the first offer for fear of losing all rights while trying to negotiate. Even better (for the studio) ... by tacit agreement all studios could simply place a moratorium on buying movie rights, so they'd all be free to use anything they wanted as source material after two years. This effectively means they can begin production as soon as the book is off the presses -- since many movies span years in production.
  This doesn't get into the huge disincentive a 2 year span (or even 5 year) provides for most people engaged in the act of creating for profit. Most authors are not best-selling authors; they rely on long-term sales to make a living. While 75+ years is preposterous, 14+14 was and still is reasonable. Oh, and hey - you know all that GPL code in the wild? Well under this law, GPL would no longer apply for the vast majority of it. Free for all. And while that's a more accurate portrayal of "information wants to be free", it's not one that most proponents of that belief will subscribe to.
  On the other hand if "today's world" means "the world of people who must have it all now - and will take it whether you're ready or not", you might be right. 14 years is too long. But for most of that crowd, 2 weeks is too long - no change to copyright law (short of eliminating it) will prevent them from doing what they do; copyright law doesn't exist for the benefit of those who won't respect it anyway.
19. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by asylumx · 2011-03-29 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  Though one can ask if it is correct from a moral one, and also if it SHOULD be correct from a legal standpoint.
  That's all well and good, but unfortunately it doesn't change the facts or context of the case.
20. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by elrous0 · 2011-03-29 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Good luck arguing that before Congress. My advice would be to bring a a LOT of generous campaign contributions with you when you come.
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
21. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Skarecrow77 · 2011-03-29 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you're a multi-millionare and have a real "Movie room" in your mansion, chances are good that going to a real theatre is something that you simply can't replicate at home 2 years later. That I understand. it's an "experience" thing.
  What I'm saying is whether I read stephan king's new ebook for my nook on release day, or 2 years later, it will be the same experience. Whether I play mass effect 3 on release day or 2 years later, it will be the same experience (probably better 2 years later as my computer will likely be newer/upgraded further so i'll have a higher res or better frame rate or both).
  The only benefit to getting/watching things on release day that would have the same experience 2 years later is the camaraderie of discussing it with friends or "at the water cooler" the next day. Me, I don't care that much. I miss most of a season of ultimate fighter or big bang theory or whatever and then catch up all at once watching 10 episodes in a single week. Sometimes I wait years and watch several seasons of a show like Breaking Bad over a month period or something like that. I didn't read the harry potter books until all 7 were released and the psychotic fan hype wore down. I'll occasionally buy something on release day, but not often (WoW expansions and Civ 5 were about the extent of my release day purchases in the past several years).
  Now of course I benefit from lower prices doing this, but most of it is purely by accident. I just don't care that much anymore about getting the latest and the greatest just because it is new, I'll get around to it when I get around to it. That's just the way I am. My point is that since I have that predisposition anyway (and I would imagine I'm not truly unique in that regard either), if I knew that waiting 2 years would make most of my entertainment completely free (legally, obviously it's all on bittorrent and usenet illegally already), I'd actually go out of my way to wait without much effort needed to do so. 2 years is way too short.
  I agree that 5+ years, as you suggest, is a much better timeframe to convince me to purchase something instead of waiting for it to enter public domain.
22. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  Why do people buy movies when they know they can rent them for a dollar in 28 days?
  The answer to your question is many-fold, but there's two points I'd like to make specifically:
  1) It's valuable to participate in culture at the same time as your peers.
  2) Many value rewarding their favorite creators, almost as a form of patronage, even when they don't strictly have to.
23. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 03:52 · Score: 0
  
  Gross income? Look up Hollywood accounting.
  You may wish to do this yourself, as you would then realize that Hollywood accounting is designed to reduce the “net” income a film claims, to avoid paying out profit-sharing agreements based on net income. By basing the renewal fee on the gross income, you can't get around it. Not that I think that's a great solution in any case...
24. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Ihmhi · 2011-03-29 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  10 years is far, far too long. Don't movies usually make 90% of their money in theaters like in the first 4-6 weeks after release and the same time period for DVD release?
  20 or even 10 years ago, I'd agree that 5 or 10 years makes sense. But now, the best tradeoff would probably be 1 or 2 years IMO.
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
25. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by tbannist · 2011-03-29 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  That, of course, depends on how you define reasonable. According to Rufus Pollock, he determined that about 14 years is the optimal balance point for copyright. I think at that point the author has earned about 97% of the copyright rents that can be earned from most works.
  
  --
  Fanatically anti-fanatical
26. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by dstyle5 · 2011-03-29 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Copyright is far too long. The idea of a limited time copyright is to keep people creating new works. You make a work, you get to make money off of it, but only for a little while. After that it belongs to the public and you need to make new works if you wish to keep making money.
  Seems fair to me as that is how most professions work. If I fix a computer, I do not continue to receive pay for that computer so long as it is in use or functional. I am paid for doing the job. If I want more pay I need to keep working.
  Personally I'd do copyright something like this:
  *Disclaimer - I'm not a content creator, only a consumer.*
  
  Comparing fixing someones computer to writing a novel, creating music, spending tens of millions of dollars creating a video game or movie isn't a valid comparison. How long does it take to write a novel, or a movie script? What if I spend years of my time writing something that people find value in, only to have the copyright shortened because people don't want to pay for my work? Too many people want things for free these days, especially those who are purely consumers, not creators. What if you were the one creating something?
27. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by nomadic · 2011-03-29 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  In other words, U4 would still be protected even under the first copyright laws.
28. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Tharsman · 2011-03-29 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  My feeling is no. Copyright is far too long. The idea of a limited time copyright is to keep people creating new works. You make a work, you get to make money off of it, but only for a little while. After that it belongs to the public and you need to make new works if you wish to keep making money.
  Seems fair to me as that is how most professions work. If I fix a computer, I do not continue to receive pay for that computer so long as it is in use or functional. I am paid for doing the job. If I want more pay I need to keep working.
  If I build a house, it belongs to me until I sell it. By your logic, my house should become a public shelter and I should go out and build a new one if I want to keep the benefits of having built my home.
  Creating something, and servicing something are two very different things. A guy fixing a computer just serviced it. He MAY add new parts, but he actually sells them to me. Creating goods allow you to sell them or duplicates of them.
  You should be able to milk your creation for as long as anyone is willing to pay the asking price. The market should decide if you will profit from it 50 years from now or not.
29. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-29 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Try Arx Fatalis or Amnesia : The Dark Decent. The first one is older and cheap, the second one is a must play and is cheap (indie).
  
  --
  That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
30. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Cederic · 2011-03-29 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm, Steam tells me Amnesia: The Dark Descent is Action, Adventure, Indie.
  The Indie bit works for me, Action games can be fun but I've never had the patience for Adventure games. (Action Adventure games are even worse, but to be fair that doesn't look like one to me).
  The reviews are exceedingly positive and I doubt for a moment that it's a superb game. I just don't think I'll get on with it. There's a demo available, I'll give that a go, see how it goes..
  Arx Fatalis for Â£2.99 on Steam is downloading as I type this..
  Thanks for the recommendations :)
31. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-29 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  I can't even play Amnesia for very long without getting too flustered. You are alone in a haunted castle, no weapons (ever), and something is following you. Arx is an incredible game, easily a top RPG of the decade. The magic system is sort of hard to use, so you may want to look up the runes to get a feel for what they actually mean (like the "Create" rune + "Fire" rune lights torches, but you don't know the actual english names for the runes). Be ready to search long and hard without hints for things. Just remember to look under stuff you can move.
  
  --
  That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
32. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by TheLink · 2011-03-29 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  You may wish to do this yourself, as you would then realize that Hollywood accounting is designed to reduce the âoenetâ income a film claims, to avoid paying out profit-sharing agreements based on net income.
  
  You're naive if you think Hollywood accounting is designed to reduce the net income. Hollywood accounting is supposed to make a certain few parties as rich as possible.
  
  By basing the renewal fee on the gross income, you can't get around it.
  Oh yes they can. Before assuming I'm wrong, go look up "gross profit":
  
  gross profit or sales profit is the difference between revenue and the cost of making a product or providing a service
  Gross profit is not revenue. Go figure.
  They can also have one entity owning the copyrights and not making much revenue at all, while licensing out the "limited use" rights to another entity which makes the money. So if you even if you make a "percentage of revenue deal" if the deal is done with the "wrong party" you're not going to make much if anything.
  I think you're not familiar enough with the extent of tricks possible.
  Of course if it goes to court, a jury might say "this is unacceptably fucked up" and punish such swindlers. This has happened before.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
33. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 06:01 · Score: 0
  
  There are two problems with this. Firstly, the fees scale too quickly for individuals (likely to have lots of copyrights on smaller works that are only modestly successful). They wouldn't be able to afford the first extension unless each entire calendar year was batched as a single work, and even then they wouldn't be able to afford a second extension.
  Secondly, the 12th term (11th extension) still only costs just over $10 million, so corporations are going to hold on to anything even remotely successful for far, far longer than they could today. Today that's still "only" 90 years, which is too long. But with your fee scale and 14 year terms, anything that makes over a million dollars a year will still be locked down 168 years later. You bet Steamboat Willie would be still locked down in 2090, and the Beatles further (even if they had to pay per song). Keep inflation in mind, also; $10 million isn't going to be worth as much 150 years from now. Checking with an online inflation calculator, the last 14 years saw a combined inflation in the 30% range.
  You'd want something more like 50 years covered under one low initial registration fee, then yearly renewals after that for $ 2^n, n being the renewal number. Then year 51 is $2; but year 60 is $1024; year 70 is $1,048,576; 75 is $33,554,432. That would mean the vast majority of works would be public domain in 50 years, and even the fairly popular ones by year 65, and even the megahits by year 85 ($35,184,372,088,832.. that ought to outpace 85 years of inflation). Which is at least a sane range for the human lifespan, where, really, the music you heard when you were a baby ought to be free by the time you die. And IMO, that strictly numerical range works going forward even if we get dramatic life extension, because you still don't want to much of recent culture locked down for too long.
34. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  You don't need to be a multi-millionaire to have a real 'movie room' in your house, especially if you only want to equal or surpass the iffy quality of the standard multiplex. If you want to equal the quality of a very good theater though things get very expensive very quickly.
  $10,000 or so will buy you a decent projector (The Epson Home Cinema series is quite bright and HD quality) and screen, a PS3 (still one of the better consumer Blu-Ray players on the market), a receiver, decent (but not spectacular) speakers, and professional installation.
  The biggest barrier isn't installation, or finding the right components...
  It's wife-aggro (or husband). Getting someone to put up with all that until they see the results, and the loss of the room to be dedicated to media.
35. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Darinbob · 2011-03-29 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  But the copyright duration isn't really the issue here. The problem is EA disagreeing that Ultima Dragons was given the right to distribute the game in the past. I suspect it's a lot like SCO in some ways, EA obtained some copyrights that they think are more valuable than they really are.
36. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Darinbob · 2011-03-29 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  I wait at least two years now. I'm not bothering with movie theater prices, and sometimes I'm not going to deal with pay-per-view fees, so I'm often waiting until a movie shows up on TV. Music needs a lot of time before I know it's worth spending money on. Books usually need to be in paperback form and that's often well over a year from first publishing and two years before I even hear of them, and another couple of years before I get around to reading it anyway.
  Two years is almost nothing if you're over 30, but an eternity if you're under 18.
37. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 06:51 · Score: 0
  
  In that case, explain movies.
  Theatre - $14 - See it now
  Pay Per View - $7 - See it in 3 months
  DVD Rental or Netflix - $5 - See it in 6 months
  HBO/Streaming Netflix - Probably works out to $2 a movie for most - See it in a year
  Broadcast TV - Free - See it in 5 years
  If what you're saying held true, nothing but HBO/streaming Netflix would make any money on movies; yet for most of them, the goal is to break even within the first 1 or 2 weeks of release, and many reach that goal.
38. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by guybrush3pwood · 2011-03-29 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  last week I put 43 hours in Dragon Age, while on steam my friends are playing Dragon Age II.
  40 hours of anything besides fucking and sleeping is too much
  
  --
  Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
39. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by WorBlux · 2011-03-29 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  Funny thing is that Steamboat Willie is a ripoff of Steamboat Bill.
40. Re:That's correct from a legal standpoint by Krohon · 2011-04-12 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  Copyright-able stuff always belongs to the public, business entities get a monopoly to copy and sell it for some time. I believe copyright owners abuse of their present rights and I hope for newer laws to prevent "owner" of abandoning and kill great IP. If nobody is marketing it, the Intellectual Property must pass to public domain.
Has EA lost an eighth by deniable · 2011-03-28 20:18 · Score: 2

Um, what?
1. Re:Has EA lost an eighth by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:27 · Score: 1
  
  I'll expound Tigger's Pet's excellent explanation.
  In U4 you gained "skill" in each of the eight virtues. Once you "ascended" in each virtue you gained an eighth of an ankh. If you took any action counter to that ascended virtue, you lost it and had to again work through regaining it. Even if you were fully ascended (all eight pieces of the ankh) and did something that went against honesty and the other three virtues based upon the axiom of Truth, you might see...
  "Thou hast lost an eighth!!!"
  "Thou hast lost an eighth!!!"
  "Thou hast lost an eighth!!!"
  "Thou hast lost an eighth!!!"
  ...and half of your ankh just disappeared.
It's an 'in-joke' by Tigger's+Pet · 2011-03-28 20:21 · Score: 5, Informative

Quote from http://everything2.com/title/Thou+hast+lost+an+eighth%2521 - to stop me wasting my time re-wording;-
A warning that first appeared in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Earning all eight pieces of the ankh is a major part of the aforementioned quest. You have to act in harmony with all eight virtues in order to earn each piece. If you act unvirtuously, by cheating a blind herb-seller, attacking a peaceful citizen, etc., you will lose that virtue. If you've earned that virtue's piece of the ankh, you will also lose that eighth.
On the Ultima-related newsgroups, "Thou hast lost an eighth!" is used as a rebuke when someone asks a stupid question.
"Thou hast lost an eighth" also appears in Doom II -- when you want to quit the game, the confirmation dialog occasionally warns you that "Thou hast lost an eighth" for wanting to quit!
1. Re:It's an 'in-joke' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 21:35 · Score: 0
  
  And here I was thinking that it was a reference to smoking drugs which was screwing up their brains.
2. Re:It's an 'in-joke' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:52 · Score: 0
  
  It was always fun to wander into a town and use the Skull of Mondain and watch all eight eighths disappear instantly. :)
At the same time... by MrEricSir · 2011-03-28 20:34 · Score: 1

...this kind of dick-ish move is the same sort of thing we've come to expect from EA. Remember the takedowns sent from Fox to Simpons fans in the 90's? This seems fairly similar.
Being anal about the distribution rights of a 14 year old video game seems like it's an issue of screwing your most dedicated fans, the very people that the company should be catering to.

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
1. Re:At the same time... by Golden_Rider · 2011-03-28 21:53 · Score: 1
  
  Being anal about the distribution rights of a 14 year old video game seems like it's an issue of screwing your most dedicated fans, the very people that the company should be catering to.
  Actually, the DOS version of the game is about 26 years old.
2. Re:At the same time... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 22:17 · Score: 1
  
  EA does not give a rat's ass about hardcore RPG fans.
  EA cares about consoletards and Madden.
  Actually that's probably a good litmus test, if you know what Ultima was EA doesn't give a rat's ass about your kind of game.
3. Re:At the same time... by Ltap · 2011-03-29 00:52 · Score: 1
  
  Personally, I would have released it on the same disc as the reboot and called it the "authorized emulation release" or something similar. Id re-releases its older games, and so does Bethesda. I even recall games like Bloodrayne being re-released on the same disc as their movie adaptation. The fact is that it is against EA's ideas of what business should be: they want gaming to exist like the world of 1984, with everything in the present and where the past can be erased or altered based on their whims. After all, if people played older games, they might not be constantly buying new ones. Better to try to force people nostalgic for the original game to buy the new version instead of playing the old one with an emulator, at least for EA.
  
  --
  Yet Another Tech Blog
  (but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
  http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
All they need to do is... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 20:47 · Score: 0

Ring up EA, ask to speak to Iolo, then say "SPAM" "SPAM" "SPAM" "HUMBUG".
Situation should easily be sorted out soon after that.
Virtues by alephnull42 · 2011-03-28 21:23 · Score: 2

EA fails on Humility, Honor and Compassion at least.... off to the dungeons!

--
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
1. Re:Virtues by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention Honesty, Justice, Sacrifice, Sprituality...
  I guess they have Valor because they never seem to stop or back down from anything especially where money is involved.
  Aw hell, I'm quite certain EA as a whole *is* The Guardian, Mr. Muppet himself.
2. Re:Virtues by Purity+Of+Essence · 2011-03-29 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Naw, you don't get Valor for attacking non-evil creatures. You of all people, Mr. Avatar (if that is your real name), should know this.
  Also, it was well established in the events of Ultima VII that the Guardian is in fact behind EA (which is to say Elizabeth and Abraham).
  
  --
  +0 Meh
I haven't enjoyed an EA game since... by Unka+Willbur · 2011-03-28 22:20 · Score: 1

They published Archon II: Adept.

--
"Remember when I said I would never lie? Well, that was the first time."
1. Re:I haven't enjoyed an EA game since... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 22:56 · Score: 0
  
  Mass Effect was good. Of course they had to ruin the sequel with their usual lots-of-DLC-and-little-actual-game money-grab.
2. Re:I haven't enjoyed an EA game since... by Cederic · 2011-03-29 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  I need to retry Mass Effect. Bought it, tried playing it, kind of ran out desire to go back to it.
  I loved SW:KOTOR, enjoyed SW:KOTOR2 (despite the negative comparisons everyone made to KOTOR) and I'm currently having a lot of fun with DAO, so the genre/approach clearly works for me. Just Mass Effect didn't..
  (I do still consider Baldur's Gate as one of the top RPG games though, having had surprisingly few good RPG experiences prior to that)
3. Re:I haven't enjoyed an EA game since... by praxis · 2011-03-29 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  I've heard great things about Mass Effect. Sadly, I have not been able to find a non-DRMed copy for sale anywhere.
Asking Slashdot by metacell · 2011-03-28 22:33 · Score: 1

"Has EA lost an eighth, or are they well within their rights by going DMCA on a 26-year-old game they had no hand in developing?"
Asking this on Slashdot... I wonder what the answer's going to be? ;-)
1. Re:Asking Slashdot by HiThere · 2011-03-29 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  Both, except that it would have been 4/8ths, except that they'd previously lost the other three.
  I.e., if rights are determined legally, then they are within their rights. If rights are determined morally, then they are immoral.
  If you believe "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights", the the usage is clearly moral. But if you're a lawyer, then it's the other way around.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Can still be downloaded legally by no+known+priors · 2011-03-28 22:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

You can still download the Ultima IV legally. Or, at least, according to both that page and the first article linked to from the summary. And, from that page there is a link to a Usenet post with the permission:

>I've been the recipient of a forward from Edward Franks (Fortran)
>regarding the distribution of Ultima IV and I'm mighty confused..
sorry for the confusion... let's see if I can clarify
1. the U4 distribution in the magazine was intended to be an 'exclusive'
for the mag.
2. Once the mag distribution was over, it was felt nothing much could be
done to stop redistribution of U4 after that
3. KickAss was offering U4 for d/l, but the Dragons couldn't (per a
previous 'restriction' by Origin?)
4. I said, that's not fair to the Dragons... They've been honest about
this. Why not let them offer it as well.. Answer: Your absolutely right..
5. Ergo: email to Fortran Dragon 'OK'ing' the ability to offer U4 for free
d/l by Dragons
So, I just went and downloaded the game. Go me!
As far as I can tell, EA is only going after those who didn't have permission in the first place. Which, is perfectly legal, and not even that dickish when considered from that perspective. (From another perspective, that copyright is shit, and/or that copyright for a 26 year old game is shit, it is dickish. Whatever.)
But yeah, to bad nobody reads the article around here hey. Too bad the summary didn't mention this little point about the game still being available from some places.

--
Appended to the end of comments you post. The maximum is 120 characters.
1. Re:Can still be downloaded legally by delinear · 2011-03-29 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  It's not even that the summary doesn't mention this - the summary does mention the Dragons' distribution rights explicitly - it says EA claims they're revoked. So either the page you linked to can expect a letter soon or the summary is just plain wrong or some spokes person for EA spoke out of terms.
2. Re:Can still be downloaded legally by arth1 · 2011-03-29 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Where does that "26 year old" come from?
  2011 - 1997 = 14, no?
3. Re:Can still be downloaded legally by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  copyright for a 26 year old
  
  Where does that "26 year old" come from?
  2011 - 1997 = 14, no?
  
  Nope! Well, yes, 2011 - 1997 = 14, but Ultima IV was published in 1985.
4. Re:Can still be downloaded legally by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-31 15:13 · Score: 0
  
  Michael "Contrapuntal Dragon"/"ThatFlemingGent" here. Grandparent has it dead right.
  As of this time, I've not received a take-down notice and given that it was Origin/EA's lawyers that gave the go ahead (under certain terms I have stuck to, but others appear to have not) I don't expect to get one - I've abided by their original request to the letter. If they send one, then I'll have to consider it carefully (and not call them backstabbing douchebags without seeking counsel first :-)) but at this time it's not been revoked.
  Origin/EA made it pretty clear at the time that it was the CGW version that we (Ultima Dragons) could distribute and only that version. It's clear in the mail trail and backstory on my site (the original mbox lost to ye olde Iomega ZIP disks..), If you've distributed it outside of those very easily met criteria (anyone can join the UDIC if they've played an Ultima) then you've screwed up and EA's lawyers are right to C&D. Serves 'em right for taking the TL;DR approach (and I side with landsharks extremely rarely - 2nd time in 20 years!)
I hate to say it... by pyster · 2011-03-28 22:41 · Score: 0

First one could argue that since they did not enforce their copyright on it all this time that they abandoned it. This is often the reasoning used when companies enforce their copy right on things they no longer care about. I do not know what the legal precedent for such is. It sucks for those who spent all that love and energy creating the work... but I feel that EA making an official release of a reduex will bring one of my favorite games to a new generation. Right now ultima's are a niche market, but with new advertising and buzz its sure to reach a new generation. But EA is often full of dicks only concerned with the bottom line. This is clear in how they treat their sports game fans. I'd avoid buying any EA shit except that Alice in coming out soon.
I really don't understand by yamamushi · 2011-03-28 22:56 · Score: 2

Why do people keep spending money on EA Games? They treat the gaming community like utter crap at every opportunity, yet people continue to keep eating it up constantly. I refuse to spend a dime on any EA product, and I have no doubt many /.'ers share my sentiments.

--
- Aetheral Research -
1. Re:I really don't understand by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-28 23:17 · Score: 0
  
  Haven't bought an EA game since they killed 'Earth & Beyond' (IMO way better game than WoW...)
2. Re:I really don't understand by westlake · 2011-03-29 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  Why do people keep spending money on EA Games?
  EA publishes the games they want to play.
  Dragon Age
  The Sims
  Madden NFL
  Medal of Honor
  Crysis
3. Re:I really don't understand by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:02 · Score: 0
  
  I cringe a little whenever the EA logo pops up, but they publish some good games.
4. Re:I really don't understand by Darinbob · 2011-03-29 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  All easy games to avoid purchasing or playing.
5. Re:I really don't understand by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  Why do people keep spending money on EA Games? They treat the gaming community like utter crap at every opportunity, yet people continue to keep eating it up constantly. I refuse to spend a dime on any EA product, and I have no doubt many /.'ers share my sentiments.
  It's probably because most people don't pay attention to the publisher of a title, only the title itself. I don't think "oh hey, another shitty EA game," much like I don't think "Oh, that movie was made by Paramount? They can't make anything right," or even "that artist signed with MCA. PASS." (Well, if I still bought music, anyway...)
  There are a few rare exceptions where publisher loyalty really comes into play (like Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks for movies, Bioware, Valve, and Blizzard for games), but the more that the creative people aren't direct, permanent employees of that publisher, the more people disassociate the publisher from the product.
6. Re:I really don't understand by praxis · 2011-03-29 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  For me, I've considered Dragon Age but the DRM shied me away from that purchase.
Series going forward by fervus · 2011-03-28 23:36 · Score: 1

Well, in my point of view, as long as they got their hands on the license (which I have no doubt they did) it's their license now. If you love the Ultima universe then you'll at least be glad there is somebody with enough resources to continue the series in a dignifying manner. At least they are obviously going to get out at least one more game (browser or not) as opposed to other licenses they got their hands on and just killed.
1. Re:Series going forward by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:04 · Score: 0
  
  Such as the utter crap game called wing commander on the 360? The ultima underworld series, strike commander (the strike begins summer 91!), the system shock games, and dozens of other properties from Origin that they utterly ignore.
  Origin got sucked into making 1 MMO (one of the early ones) and everything went into that. They stopped making worlds. The owner got bored and left.
  That being said they (mythic) have been pretty cool with some sites. Such as http://www.wcnews.com/ and letting them host some of the wc games (you have to dig for it though).
The eight virtues: by aapold · 2011-03-29 00:03 · Score: 1

COMPression
HUMIdity
SACRilege
HONEy
SPIRals
VALOrem
HONOlulu
JUSTico (these days you could use JUSTintimberlake or JUSTinbieber... but I did not know who the former was back then and the latter did not exist back then).

(the Ultima IV language parser only read the first four letters of any word) you could pass all the challenges where they asked you questions about the virtues by answering with thse...)

--
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
1. Re:The eight virtues: by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:37 · Score: 1
  
  Hahaha! I knew of the parser limitation, but I never considered you could enter other words.
  Of course, the purist that I am, I cursed my friend for using my U7 save game and killing Lord British with the Blacksword. :-)
An eighth? by russotto · 2011-03-29 00:36 · Score: 1

More than an eighth. They've USEd the Skull of Mondain (losing an eighth in every category).
Why Ask Moronically Stupid Questions? by GooberToo · 2011-03-29 00:52 · Score: 0

Has EA lost an eighth, or are they well within their rights by going DMCA on a 26-year-old game they had no hand in developing?"
If they own the IP, which according to the post, they do, why are you asking moronically stupid questions to which we all already know the answer. Yes, absolutely, if they own the IP, they are absolutely within their rights.
Why are so many stupid people attracted to slashdot these days. The fact I keep coming back seem more and more evident I now fall into such categorizations.
1. Re:Why Ask Moronically Stupid Questions? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:04 · Score: 0
  
  One of the arguments companies have used over time is that if they do not police their copy right they somehow lose it legally. Do you have citation where this is not the case? They have not enforced this copy right for a very long time and have allowed clones to flourish and copies to be freely distributed. While I agree most of the comments here are by crack smokers this is still something that needs explored in the topic.
2. Re:Why Ask Moronically Stupid Questions? by GooberToo · 2011-03-29 01:10 · Score: 2
  
  One of the arguments companies have used over time is that if they do not police their copy right they somehow lose it legally.
  Wrong. That's trademarks. You must actively defend your trademark or lose it. You are confused. Copyright is commonly ignored until market reasons can justify otherwise. This behavior is actually pretty common.
3. Re:Why Ask Moronically Stupid Questions? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 03:25 · Score: 0
  
  Why are so many stupid people attracted to slashdot these days. The fact I keep coming back seem more and more evident I now fall into such categorizations.
  I'm in the same place you are. What kind of personality defect leads me to waste time on this drivel?
Moral rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:04 · Score: 0

IANAL, but I do know the original maker still has moral rights over this IP.
I think he can contest the takedown from EA since it might not be what he wished. Say, because of multiple passing rights (EA bought a company that bought another company that bought Origin, dunno if that was the case)
Anyway that would be an interesting venue to check.
"No EA! You're gonna stop your shit! Right now!"
cap: botches
Do what you will about it.
1. Re:Moral rights by JSBiff · 2011-03-29 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  I am not a lawyer, but I think I have a decent basic understanding of copyright law.
  If you sell your car to someone, can you tell them what they can and can't do with *their* car? If you sell your house, or your computer, or any other thing (well, sometimes in the sales contract you can dictate some things, c.f. Homeowners' Associations, but if it's not in the contract, you can't retroactively make demands of the new owner - it's too late, the ownership has transferred).
  Ownership carries with it the right to determine what's done with something. That's true for cars, computers, and just as true for copyrights.
  However. . . if the original owner gave a license (which it sounds like they did) to some people to distribute the game, and if that license did not specify any circumstances for termination (e.g. an expiration date, or a clause say "we can terminate this license at any time through written notice), etc), then the license obligation does still carry over to future owners of the copyright - they have to honor the license.
  So, if Origin Systems sent, say, an email to someone, saying they could distribute the program for free to other users, as long as it was not for commercial purposes, and the email did not specify any circumstances under which the license would terminate, those users would still have that license.
  On the other hand, unless a license specifically says it is transferrable, it does not transfer. So, let's say Origin gives a license to "Alice", to re-distribute the game. Alice then, under the rights granted by the license, gives a copy to "Bob". Bob cannot legally re-distribute another copy to other people - the license does not transfer, unless explicitly stated by the copyright owner.
  I suspect in this EA case that people who were not the original parties which were granted licenses, are re-distributing without a license. In that case, EA is within its rights to tell them to cease and desist.
10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... by RobotRunAmok · 2011-03-29 01:16 · Score: 1

...but then the government needs to police and prosecute like friggin' Elliot Ness on steroids the torrent seeders and other violators. Root 'em out and hang 'em up to dry. Every kid, every grandma, every wise-ass college nerd pleading poverty: shut 'em down and cleanse their hard drives clean of any content they did not pay for that is not in the public domain. Everyone needs to understand that they have three choices for possessing entertainment content:
1. Pay Now and Get It Now
2. Wait 10 years and Get It For Free
3. Take it before 10 years and suffer a steep fine
Then the abbreviated copyright term works.
So... call me when y'all got that set up...
1. Re:10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... by delinear · 2011-03-29 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is they seem to be working on steps one and three and ignoring step two. It's like the chicken and egg situation with public transport (in the UK) - the government want more people to use public transport instead of cars, but instead of investing in good public transport, they focus on punishing car drivers. The car drivers have no real alternative so they continue to use their cars while fostering resentment. Give us sensible copyright laws first and then focus on punishing those who break them.
2. Re:10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... by RobotRunAmok · 2011-03-29 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  Give us sensible copyright laws first and then focus on punishing those who break them.
  No.
  Law enforcement cannot adequately police the torrents now. Songs are merely a dollar on iTunes -- less other places -- yet the latest pop music album is but a two-minute download via Vuze or some other client within a few days of its release. How will diminishing the copyright term -- which at least assures the artist of some revenue from reputable distributors and honest consumers -- increases the technical efficacy of the forces policing copyright?
  Demonstrate how the consumer genie can be placed back in the bottle and then we can have a discussion about attenuating the creators' term of copyright.
3. Re:10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... by denobug · 2011-03-29 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Give us sensible copyright laws first and then focus on punishing those who break them.
  No.
  Law enforcement cannot adequately police the torrents now. Songs are merely a dollar on iTunes -- less other places -- yet the latest pop music album is but a two-minute download via Vuze or some other client within a few days of its release. How will diminishing the copyright term -- which at least assures the artist of some revenue from reputable distributors and honest consumers -- increases the technical efficacy of the forces policing copyright?
  Demonstrate how the consumer genie can be placed back in the bottle and then we can have a discussion about attenuating the creators' term of copyright.
  Buddy, you got this whole this up-side-down. Fix the structure where it becomes reasonable then most people will find it to be easier to be honest. More people uses iTune to acquire music legally now or using streaming music from legal sources than pirating music nowadays (at least in my circle of friends now). Majority of people will do what is right when they don't feel like being ripped-off on a transaction.
4. Re:10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 07:44 · Score: 0
  
  You, sir, are an idiot.
Abandoned Ware Realities by pyster · 2011-03-29 01:25 · Score: 0

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Abandonware Looks to me that EA is being uncharacteristically non-dickish here and is following the spirit of Abandoned Ware. During the time they believe they would not be developing the product they let fan enjoy many many freedoms with their IP. Now they have decided that they want to do something with their IP and have sent cease and desist instead of filing a copy right infringement case. Anyone who thinks EA is out of line here is a crack smoker.

EA has done some really crappy things to gamers as of late, but sorry, this isnt one of them. If they are seriously going to release a redeux of Ultima IV it is one of the best things they have done for a long while. It will breath new life into one of the best games that has ever been produced. They have the advertising and promotion clout to bring this tale of greatness to a new generation... and one that I think is sorely in need of finding some kinda moral compass.

I wonder how Skittle the Skeleton has fared after all these years. A very close friend of mine passed away last friday. One of the only possessions of his I deemed of value was his Ultima IV Ankh, and thusly I snagged it to save it from the trash. It sat on his desk, under his monitor, for 25 years. (I lost mine at the beach in the 80s). This game was seriously important to many of my generation. Not only because of the great story, the morality, that demanded an emotional response, and left with something we would reference for the rest of our lives, But because Lord British was one of us. He was our age and way too in love with technology. Lets hope that EA's resurrection rises from the ashes like a phoenix.
xu4 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 01:27 · Score: 0

What about xu4? http://xu4.sf.net
1. Re:xu4 by Rakarra · 2011-03-29 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  What about xu4? http://xu4.sf.net/
  Grey area. I've never used it, but from the readme, it sounds like an open-source engine to play the original game. That is, you need the original game and it uses the original game files. "The actual data files from Ultima 4 are loaded at runtime, which means that a copy of Ultima 4 for DOS must be present at runtime."
  It then follows that up with: "Fortunately, Ultima IV is available as closed-source freeware on the internet (legally). A copy is mirrored at xu4.sourceforge.net." That at least is incorrect (it is no longer freeware), and xu4 is merely currently under the radar.
Abandonware by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:35 · Score: 1

I'm sure someone with more time to research than I will come up with this answer, but what is the limitation of IP? When does software become "abandonware" as so many products out there are? An Ultima 4 port to Windows was given away with a magazine in the mid- late 90s.
Just because EA plans to re-release (and likely ruin) a title, does that mean they have the right to stop all the independent, original and to the best of my knowledge *non-profit" work? If people were making money off of it, I could understand, but how does freeware harm EA? Oh, yeah, because a handful of independents will do much better work than EA and their legion of slave coders.
EA will never get another dollar of mine. They've ruined enough games and there are plenty of other developers taking the time to deliver quality.
Lose an eighth? I don't think EA as an entity would ever get past "Name? Job? Join?"
1. Re:Abandonware by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:01 · Score: 0
  
  When does software become "abandonware" as so many products out there are?
  "Abandonware" doesn't really exist. It's just an unofficial term for old, otherwise unavailable software. All abandonware titles are actually still under copyright. There's just no one enforcing that copyright, although sometimes people refer to software as being abandonware simply because it's old, even though the copyright actually is still being enforced.
Oh, crap - they own me? by Avatar8 · 2011-03-29 01:40 · Score: 1

So if my character name, "Phaltran Pogammon," is on a gravestone in Skara Brae in Ultima VII, does that mean EA now owns my character name and I no longer have the right to use it?
Guess I'll get the GMs in WoW to change it to "Phuquea" (phuq you EA)
1. Re:Oh, crap - they own me? by JSBiff · 2011-03-29 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  What are you talking about? No one cares about your character name, unless it also happens to be the name of an NPC character in the game, or in someone else's book, movie, tv show, or game, etc which you ripped off.
  There's nothing in the linked article about character names, so I don't even understand why you bothered posting this?
"thou hath lost an eighth" by v1 · 2011-03-29 01:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

I seem to recall if you were stupid enough to attack a villager in a town, you'd not see that once, but about six times over. (I don't recall which few virtues you didn't lose)
But EA probably is within their rights to do this. It does no good to get upset at them because they're playing by the rules. As we all know, it's the rules that are broken.
BUT, the reason the rules are broken are because companies (like EA) have brib...er lobbied congress critters to write those laws. But again, that's still them playing within the rules, and again leads back to the rules being broken. It's a problem that's two levels deep, and in both cases comes down to a defective legislative system. Defective, not malfunctioning. It's working as designed, it's just designed wrong. Unfortunately certain aspects of its design (such as lobbying) make it a problem that's self-perpetuating to a large degree.

--
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
1. Re:"thou hath lost an eighth" by Beerdood · 2011-03-29 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Really, that's what they meant by "Thou hath lost an eighth"? Shit, I always assumed that meant I had somehow misplaced one of my reagents...
  
  --
  Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
2. Re:"thou hath lost an eighth" by v1 · 2011-03-29 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  bet you'd have paid more attention if it said "thou hath lost a fifth"
  
  --
  I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You don't have to develop something to own IP by skrowl · 2011-03-29 01:50 · Score: 1

Owning the IP to something has nothing to do with if you actively developed it or not. There are companies that do nothing but buy/sell/manage IP without actually developing anything.

--

Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
Why not reboot the whole series? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 02:01 · Score: 0

Seriously, it would be great to see them do 1-6 as modern PC games. Get someone like Bethesda to do it with the oblivion engine or a modified/upgraded version that adds party support.
No need to reboot from 7 onwards because 7 was excellent in it's own right and 8 and 9 are really not worth rehashing.
The part that confuses me by Weaselmancer · 2011-03-29 04:41 · Score: 1

Why bother with a DMCA takedown if you still own the copyright? Are they saying they don't mind people distributing the content, just so long as nobody reverse engineers it?

--
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Mod parent down by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 04:53 · Score: 0

Hollywood accounting messes with net income (primarily by fiddling with overhead charges); gross is largely unaffected.
1. Re:Mod parent down by TheLink · 2011-03-29 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  You're the one who should be modded down not me.
  There's revenue (which can be split/siphoned/"counted differently"/etc), then after subtracting direct costs, you get gross profit (which after all isn't the same as revenue).
  If you think Hollywood doesn't play about with "direct costs" you're pretty stupid.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
Ultima Online has been abandoned? by apparently · 2011-03-29 06:14 · Score: 1

I'm sure someone with more time to research than I will come up with this answer, but what is the limitation of IP? When does software become "abandonware" as so many products out there are? An Ultima 4 port to Windows was given away with a magazine in the mid- late 90s.
Someone should let EA know that they've abandoned the Ultima franchise so that they can shut down the UO servers.
Get it from SourceForge while you can! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 07:14 · Score: 0

HTTP://XU4.SF.NET Get it while you can!
Steamboat Willie is not a rip of Steamboat Bill by westlake · 2011-03-29 14:04 · Score: 1

Funny thing is that Steamboat Willie is a ripoff of Steamboat Bill.
No it's not.
The only thing they have in common is using a steamboat as a prop.
Steamboat Willie - Plot
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Steamboat Willie builds its slapstick gags around synchronized sound effects and an ararchic Mouse who could have given Harpo Marx a run for his money.

Mickey pulling a cat's tail and then swinging the cat by the tail above his head, picking up a nursing sow and "playing" her babies like an accordion keyboard, and using a duck as bagpipes
Keaton's comedy is fatalistic and famously dead-pan.

Keaton stands in the street, making his way through the destruction, when an entire building facade collapses onto him. The attic window fits neatly around Keaton's body as it falls, coming within inches of flattening. Keaton did the stunt himself with a real building section and no trickery.
fucking stupid! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 22:54 · Score: 0

Fucking stupid, doesn't make sence at all!! Fuckerss
Within their rights? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 11:13 · Score: 0

Who cares? They're not DOING ANYTHING with the property. It's in limbo. If they won't distribute it or redistribute it, then let others do so for free for f*ck's sake.