I think that's a rather harsh way of putting things. The contact e-mails which are sent are rather more detailed than that, and attempt to explain why we're doing this as well.
As I said above, the decision to distribute 'non-denied' games is a pragmatic one; we've never tried to claim that what we're doing is 100% whiter than white legal, but we are making an effort on this front. From a personal point of view, that matters a lot to me.
Is this really how they are doing it? If so, can anyone post the list of file names that they are looking for?
In all honesty, don't know. However, they certainly didn't appear to do much more than that. Getting as far as WoS's database entry for Soldier of Fortune (one click away from the game listings) clearly shows that it's not the modern game.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, that's the most clear-cut case; some of them (eg 007) I don't believe the IDSA are representing the copyright holders to the versions on WoS, even if we don't have permission to distribute them. Others (Mario, Frogger, etc) the IDSA may be representing the copyright holders, at least for some of the versions. If the IDSA responds to Martijn's reply, then action may be taken with respect to those games.
Pragmatism: it would also result in a site which wasn't actually a useful resource. Martijn van der Heide (WoS's maintainer) has tried contacting every copyright holder we know of, and the vast majority of these queries have simply never been replied to.
For many games, there's also the problem that nobody actually knows who the copyright holder is: the game was produced by some small company who went bust, who now owns the rights has vanished into the mists of times.
The disc (as seen on the Spectrum +3) was a real 3" disc. The 'fast tape' was the Microdrive and was available for the original Spectrum (and later the QL...)
They have *every* Spectrum game I hold copyright on up there. No-one has ever asked for permission to distribute and I've not given it.
Please accept the apologies of the WoS team for that; we have made good faith efforts to contact copyright holders of all Spectrum programs we know about, as can been seen from the lists available.
If you do wish your games to be removed from WoS, mail mia (at) worldofspectrum.org and they will be removed ASAP. However, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your permission to distribute your programs from WoS. Contact me or WoS if you would like any further details.
Given that the ISDA is a self-proclaimed authority that, in fact, very few copyright holders (and almost none outside the US) are members of, and given than the copyright holders of most of these programs have long gone the way of the dodo...
However, members of the IDSA do hold the rights to a significant number of Spectrum games (most notably the Ocean and Ultimate games), actions designed to annoy them probably aren't the wisest course of action. As has been pointed out elsewhere, we don't have permission to distribute most of the games on WoS, despite our best efforts (or more precisely, those of Martijn van der Heide, the owner of WoS, who had previously contacted every IDSA member telling them we had their games available and asking for permission to do this).
Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....
That's certainly not true. Whilst the WoS team (of which I may be considered to be a part) and in fact, a significant proportion of the ZX Spectrum emulation community will respect the decisions of a few companies not to have their work distributed, the way the IDSA is going about it (trawling the web and sending off threatening letters based on filenames) is completely out of line.
As usual, much too late for anybody to read this...
Obviously, the people that host ROM sites aren't about to do the research to see what is legal or not
The best (IMHO) one does. See World of Spectrum's Permits effort - an attempt to contact the copyright holders/authors of every ZX Spectrum program for permission to distribute them; the programs belonging to the few that have denied permission have been removed from the archive.
Another possible problem is identifying the proper legal owner of the code; many old software companies have gone out of business, and finding out who inherited the intellectual "property" may be quite difficult. (Unfortunately, even if the actual author is sympathetic, some company or another usually owns the copyright and won't be as sympathetic, unless they still value that author.)
Being involved with this on the ZX Spectrum side of things (see World of Spectrum), the problem isn't so much companies not being sympathetic (almost all give their permission) as just ignoring you completely...
Because then they lose all control of the characters and whatever else in the game. "Why not release the games for free[1] distribution?" is what I don't quite understand.
[1] As in beer...
have a legal repository of such
There is already an effort underway to do this for the ZX Spectrum. Check out `World of Spectrum' and the `Copyrights' section.
..that if you put something up on the web, you've made it publicly available for people to link to.
Yes, but there are right ways and wrong ways to do it - to take an example, the fantastic World of Spectrum has thousands of ZX Spectrum games available. Some people then link directly to the games (say here), trying to make it look like they've put the work in to build up this collection (I've seen sites with "here are some of my games for you to download" and then linking to WoS).
We ought to spend the money on manned space exploration of the solar system. That way we get access to the asteroid belt's natural resources, which we need in order to construct the massive equipment we'd need to both monitor and protect against incursions from that same asteroid belt.
But monitoring the asteroids when they are in the asteroid belt will do no good whatsoever. They are all in chaotic orbits, so current observations don't allow us to predict their future paths.
Quantum Computing permits acting upon every possible input to an algorithm simultaneously. It'll render all current crypto-systems obsolete
Not as I understand the situation (which isn't perfect, I'll happily admit). By taking advantage of quantum mechanics, you can devise a system in which there is no theoretical way to eavesdrop on the communication succesfully (see the New Scientist article referenced elsewhere around here).
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's a rather harsh way of putting things. The contact e-mails which are sent are rather more detailed than that, and attempt to explain why we're doing this as well.
As I said above, the decision to distribute 'non-denied' games is a pragmatic one; we've never tried to claim that what we're doing is 100% whiter than white legal, but we are making an effort on this front. From a personal point of view, that matters a lot to me.
Is this really how they are doing it? If so, can anyone post the list of file names that they are looking for?
In all honesty, don't know. However, they certainly didn't appear to do much more than that. Getting as far as WoS's database entry for Soldier of Fortune (one click away from the game listings) clearly shows that it's not the modern game.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, that's the most clear-cut case; some of them (eg 007) I don't believe the IDSA are representing the copyright holders to the versions on WoS, even if we don't have permission to distribute them. Others (Mario, Frogger, etc) the IDSA may be representing the copyright holders, at least for some of the versions. If the IDSA responds to Martijn's reply, then action may be taken with respect to those games.
Pragmatism: it would also result in a site which wasn't actually a useful resource. Martijn van der Heide (WoS's maintainer) has tried contacting every copyright holder we know of, and the vast majority of these queries have simply never been replied to.
For many games, there's also the problem that nobody actually knows who the copyright holder is: the game was produced by some small company who went bust, who now owns the rights has vanished into the mists of times.
The disc (as seen on the Spectrum +3) was a real 3" disc. The 'fast tape' was the Microdrive and was available for the original Spectrum (and later the QL...)
They have *every* Spectrum game I hold copyright on up there. No-one has ever asked for permission to distribute and I've not given it.
Please accept the apologies of the WoS team for that; we have made good faith efforts to contact copyright holders of all Spectrum programs we know about, as can been seen from the lists available.
If you do wish your games to be removed from WoS, mail mia (at) worldofspectrum.org and they will be removed ASAP. However, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your permission to distribute your programs from WoS. Contact me or WoS if you would like any further details.
Given that the ISDA is a self-proclaimed authority that, in fact, very few copyright holders (and almost none outside the US) are members of, and given than the copyright holders of most of these programs have long gone the way of the dodo...
However, members of the IDSA do hold the rights to a significant number of Spectrum games (most notably the Ocean and Ultimate games), actions designed to annoy them probably aren't the wisest course of action. As has been pointed out elsewhere, we don't have permission to distribute most of the games on WoS, despite our best efforts (or more precisely, those of Martijn van der Heide, the owner of WoS, who had previously contacted every IDSA member telling them we had their games available and asking for permission to do this).
Already been thought of :-)
See the Spectrum emulator for the Nokio 9210.
Reading that link you realize that essentially they are PRO-IDSA.....
That's certainly not true. Whilst the WoS team (of which I may be considered to be a part) and in fact, a significant proportion of the ZX Spectrum emulation community will respect the decisions of a few companies not to have their work distributed, the way the IDSA is going about it (trawling the web and sending off threatening letters based on filenames) is completely out of line.
As usual, much too late for anybody to read this...
Obviously, the people that host ROM sites aren't about to do the research to see what is legal or not
The best (IMHO) one does. See World of Spectrum's Permits effort - an attempt to contact the copyright holders/authors of every ZX Spectrum program for permission to distribute them; the programs belonging to the few that have denied permission have been removed from the archive.
Phil
Probably much too late for this to get noticed now, but...
Is there an archive of ZX81 software anywhere, possibly in WAV or MP3 format?
The best by far is ftp://ftp.void.jump.org/pub/sinclair/ zx8 1/, part of World of Spectrum. These are generally RAM images, rather than tape images.
Other places worth going are the comp.sys.sinclair newsgroup, and its FAQ (although this is more ZX Spectrum biased. And maintained by me :-)).
Phil
Another possible problem is identifying the proper legal owner of the code; many old software companies have gone out of business, and finding out who inherited the intellectual "property" may be quite difficult. (Unfortunately, even if the actual author is sympathetic, some company or another usually owns the copyright and won't be as sympathetic, unless they still value that author.)
Being involved with this on the ZX Spectrum side of things (see World of Spectrum), the problem isn't so much companies not being sympathetic (almost all give their permission) as just ignoring you completely...
Phil
Why not release it into the public domain
Because then they lose all control of the characters and whatever else in the game. "Why not release the games for free[1] distribution?" is what I don't quite understand.
[1] As in beer...
have a legal repository of such
There is already an effort underway to do this for the ZX Spectrum. Check out `World of Spectrum' and the `Copyrights' section.
Phil
[partners.nytimes.com link]
Yeah, we all know about it by now, EXCEPT THE PEOPLE POSTING THE STORIES, but a link is easier to use... :)
Given that the NYT wants us to link to www.nytimes.com, isn't that what we should be doing?
Phil
Yes, but there are right ways and wrong ways to do it - to take an example, the fantastic World of Spectrum has thousands of ZX Spectrum games available. Some people then link directly to the games (say here), trying to make it look like they've put the work in to build up this collection (I've seen sites with "here are some of my games for you to download" and then linking to WoS).
Phil
We ought to spend the money on manned space exploration of the solar system. That way we get access to the asteroid belt's natural resources, which we need in order to construct the massive equipment we'd need to both monitor and protect against incursions from that same asteroid belt.
But monitoring the asteroids when they are in the asteroid belt will do no good whatsoever. They are all in chaotic orbits, so current observations don't allow us to predict their future paths.
Phil
Quantum Computing permits acting upon every possible input to an algorithm simultaneously. It'll render all current crypto-systems obsolete
Not as I understand the situation (which isn't perfect, I'll happily admit). By taking advantage of quantum mechanics, you can devise a system in which there is no theoretical way to eavesdrop on the communication succesfully (see the New Scientist article referenced elsewhere around here).
But I may be wrong :-)
Phil