[game_preservation] support

[István Fábián]

Most contractual publishing work has expiration clauses, so the rights are
reverted back to the original authors after a period of time, or in case of
inactivity of the publisher regarding the title, bankruptcy etc.
So the contract works we talk here quite often legally belong to their
authors now, not their publisher - even if some of them actually permits the
use of their old game. It is like letting people use your old car, that you
sold years ago... as long as you can find it and nick it without the current
owner noticing.

The situation with in-house work is much more complex. Most of the original
copyright holders, the companies producing the title went bankrupt (some
even just recently like Acclaim), merged with others (like EA buying out
everything, or ((Ocean->Infogrames) & (Atari->Hasbro))->Atari now) and so
on.
These companies have assets: Intellectual Property and Licenses are usually
important factors. Many of them are know belonging to banks and other
shareholders of the company assets.
When it comes to licensing it is also important to consider the original
terms of the licensor and the licensee, which again often held by different
companies.

What people do, and what is legal are two different things.
Obviously laws are often way behind everyday usage especially regarding the
ultra fast technology obsolence in the software/games industry and the
business viability of obsolete products.
Regardless, the products belong to their respective owners and people
working on preservation are working for the industry and as part of the
industry, for everyone's benefit. As such laws and keeping the laws is in
the best interest of all parties.

István

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at indiegamedesign.com>
To: "IGDA Game Preservation SIG" <game_preservation at igda.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:41 PM
Subject: RE: [game_preservation] support


> Allen R Partridge wrote:
> >
> > Anybody got any clues on what
> > if any sort of waivers / permissions we need to move ahead gathering
> > images / sounds / what about code?
>
> IANAL, but I could swear that the USA's Digital Millenium Copyright Act
> had something in it about being able to emulate or archive works whose
> playback machines are now defunct, meaning they're not manufactured
> anymore or not generally available or whatnot.  Some Googling would
> probably reveal it, I'm too lazy at 5:30 AM to do so.  :-)
>
> Also remember that if there's no company around anymore to sue you, it
> doesn't matter if you offend.  Just be sure of whether the rights have
> reverted back to some original author though.  Even then though,
> consider who can catch up to you in practice.  Hey, I'm only telling it
> like the son of a former corporate lawyer.  :-)  It's not just what the
> law is, it's what people can do.
>
>
> Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
> Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA
>
> 20% of the world is real.
> 80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
>
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