Copyright

Akela · #1 February 14th, 2009, 04:42 AM

I am not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV. However, I have a good friend (from high-school) who is a Trademark/Patent/Copyright lawyer and if people are really interested I will ask him if he will do me the favor of weighing in here. He is not a gamer though so he will laugh at me (again).

That being said, as far as I understand from conversations with him, copyright (and patent and trademark) is an area of the law that is often misunderstood by the general public (he means me). The general crux of the misunderstanding seems to revolve around the fact that the general public (including me) has a simplistic view of the law where things are either legal or illegal. Apparently to those "in-the-know", the world is not that simple.

The primary complication being that the "law" is composed of two components; that which is written and that which is established by previous judicial interpretations.

So as far as I understand ( and I repeat, I am not the expert here) with copyright law (as well as patent) the State itself does not protect the body of work against duplication, it merely enables the Copyright Holder to enforce their "exclusive rights" to the work in question. The difference is subtle, but simplistically a copyright work is available for duplication unless the holder is claiming their exclusive rights. The same thing is apparently true for a patent. If you (the patent holder) do not actively attempt to defend your patent, the State considers you to have given up your claim to exclusive rights. It doesn't defend it for you.

So if you go to some abandonware site and download an old game my guess is that you are in pretty safe territory. It is definitely not considered illegal unless the copyright holder (and there almost certainly is one) actually cared (and they almost certainly don't), and even then it is not a criminal offense (most likely) merely civil. In other words the copyright holder could sue you for $5.99 but the FBI will not come and put you in jail. (Remember, I am not a lawyer, have I mentioned that? If you get put in jail for downloading Temple of Apshai don't come crying to me.)

Now all that being said, none of this has any bearing on what you can or cannot discuss on these forums. Our First Amendment rights prohibit the government from restricting what we can say, but those dimwitted forefathers left a huuuuge hole in there for Shrapnel to exploit. If only they had known.

Akela

P.S. I think this is the first time I have ever written a post like this where I actually *don't* expect to get flamed. This is a great site. If there are any lawyers out there, though, I do expect to be exposed for a fool. I'm used to that.

llamabeast · #2 February 14th, 2009, 05:02 AM

Er... Shrapnel's going to want us to lock this. Probably not a very fruitful area of discussion.

It is, of course, completely reasonable for Shrapnel to limit what we can talk about on their own forums. They do provide the forums to us as a service after all, and it costs them a fair amount of time and money (particularly time) to do so.

Fantomen · #3 February 14th, 2009, 07:39 AM

I guess a good example in case of dominions is the in modding. Where people constantly reuse and alter existing graphics from the game. I suppose technically illwinter would have the right to restrict this (enforce their exclusive rights) and require all new graphics to be original, but chose not to as long as it benefits their game.

Still I don´t really see the point of your post. It is pretty clear from previous "discussions" that both Illwinter and shrapnel intend to enforce "their exclusive rights" where need be.

llamabeast · #4 February 14th, 2009, 08:36 AM

I think he's following on from discussions in another thread about abandonware. You get in trouble if you host old LucasArts games, even though they're not commercially available. I have to agree that it's not the choice I'd make if I were LucasArts, but I guess it is their choice to make.

Tifone · #5 February 14th, 2009, 08:37 AM

I think it was just a general discussion, and not referred to the specific case of dom3 or Illwinter

Tichy · #6 February 14th, 2009, 10:59 AM

Shrapnel limiting speech on their forum isn't a "loophole" in the first amendment. It's the online equivalent of those signs in bars that say "we reserve the right to refuse service for any reason." Completely legitimate.

This has no bearing at all on the abandonware legality discussion.

And I'm totally piping back down if I'm missing a huuuge bit of tongue-in-cheek on the first post.

NTJedi · #7 February 14th, 2009, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tifone

I think it was just a general discussion, and not referred to the specific case of dom3 or Illwinter

Correct... and thus does not belong in the dominions forums, but instead should be moved to the shrapnel general forum. This topic only pushes more relevant topics out of view.

Strider · #8 February 14th, 2009, 12:36 PM

This is not an "Off Topic" that applies specifically to the Dom3 game or players.