59 replies to this topic

[buzard]

I don't think there is any problem with an updated demo. A lot of people said their additions could not be used in any maner where a fee was charged. Distributed for free is fine, as long as credit is given.

[John Woods]

buzard, on Dec 22 2015 - 05:58 PM, said:

John Woods, on Dec 22 2015 - 05:29 PM, said:

What does that mean, "original license's are still good"?

The original license agreement is still valid. There was no time limit to the contract. No expiration date.

What licensing agreement?
Who were/are the parties to the agreement?

[M Needforspeed]

tema, on Nov 30 2015 - 06:55 PM, said:

I believe there's more than just copyright-related plexus when you're re-releasing an old game who's publisher is long gone.

There's also problem with the subject. "Formula One", or "Formula 1", or F1, whatever. How much CVC Capital goons charge these days for the F1 label? Shudder to think.

OK, it's not F1, It's "Grand Prix". But I believe that the "Grand Prix" term (at least related to autosport) also belongs to someone. Most likely to Bernie and his mugs, or maybe it's FIA. The latter case makes little difference -- they're also cash-hungry and quite angry. Given that GOG is a small private operation and not some multinational gargantuan entity like EA, AB (or even Valve) -- my expectations are quite... quiet. Fingers crossed.

   I am not sure, but doubt a lot  that the two words grand prix can be claimed by any organisation, as the ACF used it for the first time in 1906. Long before that year, it was used in french tongue for qualifying many differents sporty events. In french, anybody can use those very ancient words without any big "G" and " P ".
   It is commonly used for some Tennis events, horses racing, golf, one day bicycles races  ect, ect, ect ...

generally speaking, those words when first used, were not related to motor racing

Edited by M Needforspeed, Feb 09 2016 - 04:25 AM.

[David Wright Lo67]

buzard, on Dec 22 2015 - 03:21 PM, said:

Also note rF2. Old spa, monaco and monza. No conflicts because those tracks no longer exist ( in those forms ) so no current contracts are violated.

Not sure what you mean by "no current contracts are violated" but they still require licensing.  Indeed one of the reasons SMS have recently given for some historic tracks not appearing in pCARs is some tracks want a payment for the current track and a payment for the historic version.

Edited by David Wright Lo67, Dec 23 2015 - 03:13 AM.

[buzard]

I'm not a lawyer, so I will defer to those with more experience. I'll let you guys work it out.

Edited by buzard, Dec 23 2015 - 03:58 PM.

[John Woods]

Had not found mention before of an agreement that is still current.
Pretty sure none of us are lawyers, so without one just trying to figure out what's up.
But seems no one knows anything much or anything yet for sure?

[buzard]

I was able to send and e-mail to Sold Out Software asking who they obtained rights from when they reproduced their version. They are on a 2 week xmas vacation.

Tracking down the rights was somewhat more complicated. Sierra was sold to Vivendi which changed names and parent companies several times. They ended up selling everything to Activision. Who I can't seem to contact via the internet.

I recall that Krammer purchased code and or copyright to N2K3 , if not more of the Papyrus material from Vevendi before they sold out to Activision. So right now I'm not sure what is where.

[Bernd Nowak]

Voted

[tema]

buzard, on Dec 22 2015 - 03:21 PM, said:

Also note rF2. Old spa, monaco and monza. No conflicts because those tracks no longer exist ( in those forms ) so no current contracts are violated.

These are third-party free mods, otherwise ISI could run into huge legal troubles, current form or not. Don't get yourself confused.

[weldmetal12]

Voted finally! Been a member using GOG since 2011.

IL2 sturmovic, commandos series, arma cwa, sniper elite all great DRM free games purchased there.

[one2fwee]

I think this is a very bad idea sadly.

The only benefit it will have is providing renewed legal  access to the game rather than having to get it second hand (now that the sold out software release is "sold out" heh).

Sadly, the dangers and downsides are numerous.

The game does not work correctly without fan patches. If it were to be sold on GOG then they would likely include these fan patches, even without permission.

We have seen this on GOG in the past - they included cracks of copy protection that they didn't make, compatibility mods they didn't make etc.
In fact, they even include scans of manuals that they download from replacement docs and then remove the replacement docs logo. They don't even bother doing a quality commercial grade scan, they just use other people's work that is not even necessarily that high quality.

And for games where they can't find manuals on replacement docs, do they bother to go and scan them themselves from a copy of the actual game? Of course not! That would be work, effort and giving back.
They have Theme Park for sale however they don't include the manual (something very important for that game) and the game has numerous issues and bugs that have never been fixed. They do include one community fix in it but that doesn't fix the issues (I actually have the original CD release from and i applied the fix myself, but even with it the game is far from unproblematic).
Look at his comments here concerning ultima: https://www.pixsorigi...ultima-1-scans/

Then you have companies like Night Dive Studios (basically just one guy, Stephen Kick) that buy up ip for dirt cheap and then send cease and desist letters to the community who have been supporting the games and keeping them running for years. Then they take the communities' mods, a lot of the time without even asking, and then do interviews claiming that they did all the work themselves:
https://www.rockpape...2-comes-to-gog/

From what i have heard from people posting about SS2, they didn't even ask with that one, no compensation, no credit, no nothing.
I heard bad things about Strife like that too.

For SS1, one of the people responsible for keeping the game alive by hosting it as abandonware after all this time since the demise of Looking Glass was really angry at their takedown and posted this:

Quote

Hello Larry,

I have removed the download of System Shock Portable, into which a whole community including myself have invested years of work.
This game was once created by a bunch of extremely smart people in Boston who favoured individual thinking and personal skills over capitalism and following the rules. Have you played it?

The laws that you are using now to make money from their and our work were once put in place to protect creative workers and those who invested in their endeavours to ensure that they get paid.
But your company never created anything. "Night Dive" is just a device to misuse the legal system and fill Stephen Kick's pockets.

Go get a real job, Larry. Do something that isn't just enough to pay the rent. Write. Draw. Create something. Be more than a leech.
And play System Shock.

Sincerely,
Nicolai "Kolya" Sandow

To be honest i agree with him, and it was more sad to see people telling him to grow up.


The thing i have issue with with GOG and Night Dive and other people like them is they are taking community work, a lot of the time without even asking and then using that to sell their product, without compensating the people who patched and fixed the games or uploaded scans of the manuals or whatever in any way.
I mean, have GOG even supported, given money or even contributed to the Dosbox project? I have seen no evidence that they have, and sadly i would suspect that they haven't. All these companies only care about making easy money leeching off of years of fans work. If they actually contributed something themselves with scans and emulation improvements and patching the games i would feel differently, but it is all take, take, take and no effort or giving back.

They are simply leeching off of work that other people did out of love for the games, only to make a profit.
Also a lot of the time the games still don't even work properly.

Still at least GOG is far better than the evils of Steam. But none of these companies are your friends as they try and pretend to be.



Even if they did seek to ask permission from the community, who would they even ask - most of the people that made the patches have left. I am guessing they would just include them and not care, which is all kinds of wrong. They would at least need the CPU speed / core fix and i'm pretty sure that's a community patch. That's if you ignore the need for new rasterisers and everything too!


And then you have the problems with licensing that could mean that they can't anyway as we have seen with the digital releases of GTL / GTR2 remove ferrari and porsche.
Putting GPL in the public eye again with a new release could also draw rights holders attention to the GPL modding scene and modders could get threatening emails from car / track companies etc. It is unlikely, but still a possibility.

Also, anyone buying the rights to GPL then has the opportunity to be callous and malicious to the community and threaten modders, much like Iracing (ex-papyrus) did to the NR2003 community when they bought the nr2003 source at the close of Papyrus to use for a base for iracing - they even sued some modders i remember!


From my point of view, if someone wants GPL and hears about it and has an interest, they can quite easily find it on the internet somewhere if they want to and considering the developers are dead, they are not hurting anyone, despite the immorality of copyright law.

I just would be very sad if it ended up that a company leeched off of all of this communities hard work in order to make an easy profit, then took all the credit.

[tema]

one2fwee, on Feb 14 2016 - 11:21 PM, said:

I think this is a very bad idea sadly.

422 votes so far, so there's nothing to fear by now. In fact, it's highly unlikely that re-release of GPL will ever happen: see, NOLF has more 21K votes, yet it doesn't have a chance; and GPL legal situation is very similar, for better or worse.

The SS1 story is really murky one ethically, regardless of legal side, and I understand Kolya's reaction. Yet I bought the thing almost immediately when it appeared in GOG store. And, as non other than MAHK himself (one of the said clever people from Boston) has clarified on ttlg, "calm down people, you had the actual chance to support us -- when the game was released and you blew it". On the other hand, I've seen the original letter from "filthy Larry", the attorney to whom Kolya responses, I think he meant an offer among other things. On the up side: the franchise was effectively reanimated, third instalment is in pre-production (together with re-imagination of the first one). The downside: they may screw us up (and Warren Spector's involvement will contribute to that, kekeke).

GOG themselves -- they're totally on my side, it's just unfair to compare them to Steam or Ubi: they have different business models (GOG lacks DRM protection which is way more risky). I mean, for me personally, in GOG's case, for everything they do there're more ups than downs.

Sue modders? AFAIK, the key issue with GTP was nocd patch shipped with the mod, not the mod itself. Ok, maybe the whole modding thing is in semi-grey area, but rFactor and AC disprove this by simply relying on mods in order to have some value for a player.

Would I like to be able to easily and legally obtain a copy of NR2003? Hell yes. But it will never happen.
Because.

Edited by tema, Feb 19 2016 - 12:00 AM.

[Nicolas]

Reading all this, I'm thinking I may want to make a backup of my original GPL and RBR while they still work... CD-ROM's don't always have eternal life.

Edited by Nicolas, Feb 28 2016 - 01:58 PM.

[Saiph]

Nicolas, on Feb 28 2016 - 01:58 PM, said:

Reading all this, I'm thinking I may want to make a backup of my original GPL and RBR while they still work... CD-ROM's don't always have eternal life.

Wise thinking. I've made backup copies of my original GPL CD too. One was tested and is now kept pristine, the other is used for any reinstalls I need to do. The original CD is not touched at all.

[marco lenarduzzi]

A bit late to the game,GPL has my vote! Done I'm new to GPL so I would just like to thank this community for keeping this amazing sim alive ! Thank you all, for the great add ons,tracks,carsets and seasons. You have my respect and admiration.