Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Hot_Dog on June 18, 2011, 03:55:18 pm
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I'm asking for lots of discussion and help. Even if no one can do anything to stop me, I want to do the right thing. Yes, I'm an insistent, crazy do-gooder. :P
Anyways, as you can read in this website:
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/games/
Someone crawled into a garbage disposal outside the old atari building and recovered the source code to some games. I want to take some source code and port it, as well as change the graphics to make an entirely new concept. However, I don't know if the source code can be considered "stolen" and if it's wrong for me to view it myself. Sure, no one can stop me, but that's not the point.
So, if I view the source code, port it and change the graphics, am I doing anything that atari would be mad at?
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Since Atari is pretty much out of business and only really operating in France, you could probably sell new atari equipment without them caring.
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as long as the games aren't sold anymore, you wont make then mad, but I think it's only legal when the copyrights are outdated, and i don't know if that's the case.
EDIT: damm, ninja'd
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Yeah, Atari no longer exists, so they won't really care.
Also the Atari company in France is a different company who bought the rights to call themselves Atari. Dunno if they also bought all the stuff from the former Atari too.
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I ran the majority of those games through Abandonia's oldwarez list (http://www.abandonia.com/en/oldwarez/), which determines whether the games are more or less legal to distribute because of the expired copyright. All the ones that returned came back as Abandonware. So yeah, you're totally fine. It's extremely rare to see a game's copyright last more than 15 years, and these games are, at latest, mid-80's.
Though I shouldn't have to tell you that Atari wouldn't have hunted you down to spam cease and desist letters for making a calculator port of their 20+ year-old games. :p
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I ran the majority of those games through Abandonia's oldwarez list (http://www.abandonia.com/en/oldwarez/), which determines whether the games are more or less legal to distribute because of the expired copyright. All the ones that returned came back as Abandonware. So yeah, you're totally fine. It's extremely rare to see a game's copyright last more than 15 years, and these games are, at latest, mid-80's.
From Wikipedia:
"In most cases, software classed as abandonware is not in the public domain, as it has never had its original copyright revoked and some company or individual still owns exclusive rights. Therefore, sharing of such software is usually considered copyright infringement, though in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights."
I should probably mention, by the way, I'm thinking about the source code for the Atari 7800 game Commando
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Atari defunct? I don't think so: http://www.atari.com/ .
I'm really unsure about the legality, but the general idea sounds similar to a ROM hack to me. However you are intent on writing new code based on the old so it isn't exactly the same. In this case I can honestly say I don't think they would care since you aren't going to profit from it, and since you are going to be creating something different, not just re-distributing their old game. I'll also say that I don't see how anyone could consider them stolen since they were tossed in the garbage. That doesn't make the new owner the copyright holder, but stolen property they are not. Hope this helps.
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Yeah, Atari no longer exists, so they won't really care.
Also the Atari company in France is a different company who bought the rights to call themselves Atari. Dunno if they also bought all the stuff from the former Atari too.
Well, Atari changed their name, last I heard, so the current 'Atari' is someone else. Either way, I think Hot_Dog is fine.
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Thanks all. I do ask that you keep discussing (cause I want to hear from new people :D) but I'm going to carry on with the idea. Be aware that I'm experimenting right now, so I don't know how far this will go
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I ran the majority of those games through Abandonia's oldwarez list (http://www.abandonia.com/en/oldwarez/), which determines whether the games are more or less legal to distribute because of the expired copyright. All the ones that returned came back as Abandonware. So yeah, you're totally fine. It's extremely rare to see a game's copyright last more than 15 years, and these games are, at latest, mid-80's.
From Wikipedia:
"In most cases, software classed as abandonware is not in the public domain, as it has never had its original copyright revoked and some company or individual still owns exclusive rights. Therefore, sharing of such software is usually considered copyright infringement, though in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights."
I should probably mention, by the way, I'm thinking about the source code for the Atari 7800 game Commando
Yeah, abandonware in general is a gray area, and I am aware of that. Anything you do with a game in terms of distributing is almost always going to be not-legal unless given express permission or the game is released under a certain license granting you those permissions.
It was more to give you peace of mind, which seemed to be more what you were looking for than an actual assurance that what you're doing is given the a-okay by whoever the copyright holders are, because it's pretty obvious that wasn't going to happen. You asked "am I doing anything that atari would be mad at?", and that answer should be fairly evident. :p
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If anything I don't think Atari would ever hear/care about a calculator port of their games. Especially since it's under a different concept.
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Actually, that's the answer I was looking at: What I'm doing is NOT a-okay by the copyright holders :D Not that it will stop me, but it's apparent that what I want to do is not approved
EDIT: After seeing this, I now have peace of mind
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Atari-7800-Source-Code,news-4187.html
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Technically, if porting those games is illegal or not allowed, then all the Zelda and Mario clones on ticalc are, too. It is not fine to violate copyrights, but I am sure the companies won't care, else ticalc.org would no longer have such game anymore since long ago.
In most cases, though, I prefer that game ports or clones are made by people like you Hot_Dog or any of the experienced programmers around here, rather than brand new TI programmers, otherwise it sucks that some people put crappy Mario clones on ticalc.org just to get extra downloads with a popular name, while original stuff that is way better barely get any.
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In most cases, though, I prefer that game ports or clones are made by people like you Hot_Dog...
You don't know how good that made me feel :) I promise that I'm not being sarcastic or anything when I say that.
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Technically, as others have said, using source code could potentially be copyright infringement if the legal entity holds a copyright on it and still exists, but it can be hard to know for sure.
Making a clone of a game (writing the code from scratch entirely by oneself) may not violate copyright per sé (though I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong!), but it could be a trademark infringement. There have been companies that have occasionally written to ticalc.org and asked us to remove certain programs due to this; recently, the developer of FreeDOS did this for a file in the archives with this name, and apparently Mattell has done this with 8-ball programs a few years back, and there was that rumor once upon a time that Kirk Meyer was made to stop working on a Monopoly program for the same reason. Most of the time, they don't bother, but if they do write to us and complain, we may have to comply depending on the situation (and what Magnus tells us to do).
Again, though, I can make no warranty or guarantee about what I just said. If you need to absolutely know for certain, only a qualified IP lawyer would be able to tell you for sure.
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As far as I can tell, that source code is copyrighted 1984 (END.S in MSPACMAN.zip), which puts it within legal copyright until 2079 (SOURCE (http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html))
copyright laws are too long. :|
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I have to agree with that. US Congress has repeatedly extended copyright further and further over the last century, defeating the spirit of the Constitution when it says that Congress may “for limited times” (my emphasis) enforce copyright on content. However, when the case went to court, the judges ultimately did not agree that this activity was in violation, and so we're left with the situation we have now, where copyright essentially lasts forever in terms of human lifespans.