if it's not abandonware........

Assidragon on 5/9/2007 at 11:49

Quote Posted by Matthew

I know, that's why I pointed it out.

Yeah, but that was the case of developers being royally pissed at the publishers and trying to be generous to fans before going out of the market - hardly a trend, sadly. :tsktsk:

Al_B on 6/9/2007 at 23:01

Was the US copyright for Freespace 2 different from the UK one? I've just pulled my original boxed copy off the shelf and looked in the manual:

Quote:

COPYING PROHIBITED
This software product and the manual are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by Interplay Productions and are protected by the copyright laws that pertain to computer software. You may not copy the software except that you make a single copy for backup purposes only. You may not loan, sell, rent, lease, give, sub-license, or otherwise transfer the software (or any copy) unless expressly permitted to do so by Interplay Productions Ltd. You may not modify, adapt, translate, create derivative works, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise reverse engineer or derive source code from, all or any portion of the software or anything incorporated therin or permit any third party to do so.

This is certainly different to the license shown on wikipedia ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeSpace_2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeSpace_2) which raises some interesting questions about where copyright resides.

Assidragon on 6/9/2007 at 23:28

The license was updated at some point, as I recall.

Keeper Beege on 8/9/2007 at 12:25

Ahhhh, video game copyright laws. I honestly try not to ponder this subject too deeply, or else I might have an embolism. I suggest everyone else do the same for the preservation of personal sanity...

Game laws have got to be some of the most convoluted, semantically unsound, no-sense-making and just plain retarded laws this side of Statutory Rape. :nono:

Uranium - 235 on 10/9/2007 at 13:11

Quote Posted by Keeper Beege

Eh, 'game laws' exist in copyright form. Pirating a game isn't theft in any way, shape or form, as it falls cleanly under copyright infringement, a civil matter.

The issues come up when you consider EULAs, and the amount of people that are ignorant and/or completely hypocritical about them is astounding.

For example, most EULAs say you can't sell your copy of the game. Yet people are on THIS BOARD linking to Ebay. However, a cracked .exe is potentially an EULA violation, but if I were to post one here, people would flip. A cracked .exe isn't illegal at all, and isn't against any copyright law either. It's an EULA issue, and a gray area at that. They're actually probably more 'allowed' then selling your game on Ebay is, and yet no publisher has ever attempted to punish EITHER.

Why do you think gamecopyworld is still around? EULAs are meaningless.

cosmicnut on 10/9/2007 at 14:18

Yes, copyright infringement is a civil issue. That doesn't mean it's not bad news if you get caught.
People sharing music have been sued for hundreads of thousands, usually settling out of court for a smaller amount.

EULA's are a little on the grey side, yes, but they can and are enforced!

carcked exe's are still a piracy issue. You are ilegally copying game code! Just because you own the game doesn't mean you can grab a copy of someone elses file! Even the cracks that patch the exe rather than contain a full copy, contain illegally copied game code. You have copied this code from the server down to your PC!

There is also the law where you live. In America, hacking past security measures in software is actually illegal, fully illegal, nothing civil about it!

As for ebay. The makers could sue for breaking the EULA but its too expensive to be worth it, plus they would annoy gamers, potentially loosing customers.

Assidragon on 10/9/2007 at 23:57

If you get a patcher to say, remove a CD-check from an exe, there'd be no game code in it, and that kinda dents your argument there. Just a fyi.

cosmicnut on 11/9/2007 at 07:55

Not really. If yo live in the states, thats breaking software security and illegal.
Elsewhere, its OK but then your breaking the EULA by hacking the exe....

Assidragon on 11/9/2007 at 08:12

Patching the exe is forbidden? Then a lot of fan-patches/mods made for games are also illegal, starting with the hyperthread-fixed Shock2.exe. Also, I doubt EULA specifically mentions you are not supposed to patch the game, because, well, that'd also forbid the developer from sending you updates, unless there is a special clause specifically allowing it! (Not to mention there are official updates that break security, like for 1.4 for Dawn of War or some upcoming BSK as promised by Levine. How is that about "breaking security"? O.o)

Uranium - 235 on 11/9/2007 at 08:28

Quote Posted by cosmicnut

Not really. If yo live in the states, thats breaking software security and illegal.
Elsewhere, its OK but then your breaking the EULA by hacking the exe....

Under what law? Even the tripe that is the DMCA doesn't define what is an anti-copy measure or expressly forbid 'breaking' it, because that would pretty much forbid any kind of tinkering around whatsoever.

Again, Gamecopyworld has been around for damn near a decade and they haven't even had an angry lawyer deliver a Cease and Desist to them.