Old Classics - Copyright Question

[Gareth Rees]

Markus Moenig <ze...@jupiter.tng.oche.de> wrote:
> As an avid lover of the old adventure type of games i wondered if it
> would be legal to port the old classics over to inform.
>
> All of these games are long forgotten and the companies have probably
> all closed down. Would it be legal to port these games over to inform?
> (PD of course).

It would not be legal to port these games. Copyrights do not lapse just
because a work is out of print. You have two choices: (i) attempt to
contact the copyriht holders and ask for permission; (ii) go ahead
anyway and hope none of the copyright holders notice, or that if they
notice, they won't care.

--
Gareth Rees

[Markus Moenig]

As an avid lover of the old adventure type of games i
wondered if it would be legal to port the old classics
over to inform.

I mean all those great pieces of fiction i played in my
youth on my C64 :

The Hobbit (dont know the publisher, have to dig it out again)

Amazon / Fahrenheit 451 / DragonWorld / ? / by Tritum(?)

The Mask Of The Sun and many others ...

---

All of these games are long forgotten and the companies have
probably all closed down. Would it be legal to port these games
over to inform ? (PD of course).

--

Markus Moenig - Amiga and OS/2 Software Developer
Business mar...@mainconcept.ac-copy.com
Private ze...@jupiter.tng.oche.de

[Paul David Doherty]

In article <zeus...@jupiter.tng.oche.de>,

Markus Moenig <ze...@jupiter.tng.oche.de> wrote:
>
>The Hobbit (dont know the publisher, have to dig it out again)
>Amazon / Fahrenheit 451 / DragonWorld / ? / by Tritum(?)
>The Mask Of The Sun and many others ...
>

>All of these games are long forgotten and the companies have
>probably all closed down. Would it be legal to port these games
>over to inform ? (PD of course).

No, it would be illegal. But I wonder: Why would anyone want
to port them over to Inform (which, I assume, would mean to
spend a lot of time on finding out how they worked, copying
all the messages etc.) when all of them can be played "as is"
on most computers, using a C-64 emulator? That's what emulators
are for, isn't it?

[Fredrik Ekman]

In article <zeus...@jupiter.tng.oche.de> ze...@jupiter.tng.oche.de (Markus Moenig) writes:
As an avid lover of the old adventure type of games i
wondered if it would be legal to port the old classics
over to inform.

I mean all those great pieces of fiction i played in my
youth on my C64 :

The Hobbit (dont know the publisher, have to dig it out again)

While I don't know anything about the other games you mention, I can
say for sure that you are technically not allowed to do anything about
this one. Beam Software holds the copyrights for the game and even if
they could be persuaded to release it to the public, I have a strong
feeling that the same would not be true for the Tolkien Estate, who
has the rights to the characters. Of course, it may boil down to what
sort of license terms they have. I think I have an address to Beam
somewhere...

/F

[Giovanni Maga]

In article <4amvno$r...@joker.rz.hu-berlin.de>,

h014...@joker.rz.hu-berlin.de (Paul David Doherty) wrote:

> No, it would be illegal. But I wonder: Why would anyone want
> to port them over to Inform (which, I assume, would mean to
> spend a lot of time on finding out how they worked, copying
> all the messages etc.) when all of them can be played "as is"
> on most computers, using a C-64 emulator? That's what emulators
> are for, isn't it?

I guess you're right, but unfortunately emulators are available mostly for
pc. For example, are you aware of any c64 or Spectrum emulator that runs
on a Mac?

[Fredrik Ekman]

In article <maga-18129...@130.60.120.18> ma...@vetbio.unizh.ch (Giovanni Maga) writes:
I guess you're right, but unfortunately emulators are available mostly for
pc. For example, are you aware of any c64 or Spectrum emulator that runs
on a Mac?

There are such emulators. I don't know how good they are, but they exist.

Check out the comp.emulators.* FAQs and http://www.freeflight.com/fms/comp/
for more information.

/F

[Neil K. Guy]

Giovanni Maga (ma...@vetbio.unizh.ch) wrote:

: I guess you're right, but unfortunately emulators are available mostly for

: pc. For example, are you aware of any c64 or Spectrum emulator that runs
: on a Mac?

Yep. FWIW, both C-64 and Spectrum emulators are available for the Mac.
The former even runs native on PPCs. I downloaded them once and looked
at them, but since I'm not an 80s home computer junkie didn't keep them
around. Anyway, they should be available at your local Mac FTP software
site.

- Neil K. Guy

--
Neil K. Guy * ne...@sfu.ca * te...@tela.bc.ca
49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada