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Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
by st3fan 8y ago
Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
- nacs 8y agoWell you're free to do this bit of charity after buying it yourself.
- djsumdog 8y agoWell no, he says in the post he doesn't own the IP. The winner could post it, but it'd probably have to be as a torrent or from a country that won't enforce the IP/copyright.
- TheDong 8y agoUnfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively increases it again.
- djsumdog 8y agoYea that's what confuses me. Is he even legally allowed to sell this stuff? Should he even still have that stuff?! This gets into sketchy legal ground. I wish he had contacted the German company he claims currently owns the rights and just asked if he could post it all up for free. It's not like it's going to hurt sales on platforms like GoG if they still have it up. He's already gotten some of the rights back for LSL1 at least when he did that remake (which honestly isn't all that great). He could have posted all the code and then sold the originals too; so it's in the commons and one person gets to be a collector and everyone wins. So .. EA doesn't own this? I thought Sierra was owned by EA (or got bought by some company that got bought by EA). I know The LSL rights went to some other company for a bit who produced the two PC/PlayStation Larry games (the university and movie one. Honestly I liked the University one; don't know why people hated on it. It was funny).
- code_duck 8y agoIt’s like selling a copy of a book that you own. Unless you signed some sort of confidentiality agreement, there’s nothing that prohibits you from transferring the physical copy to someone else.
- rabidrat 8y agoSoftware is different from books. The EULA that you implicitly sign may prevent you from transferring ownership to someone else.
- code_duck 8y agoThere could be such a thing about books, it’s just that nobody does it. This guy worked for the company. He is not covered by that sort of license agreement, though definitely something could’ve been in his employment contract about the company’s property. Since he’s not claiming to own the code or the license to it, it’s physical property, not intellectual property. And with software, when it is covered by such a license agreement, typically you can do exactly this – sell your physical copy without claiming that you’re transferring any rights.
- jccalhoun 8y agoI think a better comparison would be owning the original manuscript. I might own the original manuscript to The Hobbit but that doesn't mean I can publish it.
- code_duck 8y agoCorrect, you couldn’t copy it and re-distribute, but you could sell your original copy.
- rtpg 8y agoI'm gonna take a guess that technically these disks were bought with Sierra money and aren't his except for the fact that they were lost to time from company inventory perspective
- crooked-v 8y agoDoesn't IA have an explicit copyright exemption for some purposes? See: their playable copies of some games.
- merb 8y agohow does it work when the copyright is unknown or what happens if a company/trademark folded (that might have held the copyright) does the company who reastablishes the brand get the ip?! I mean if the game was published under Sierra Entertainment 19xx and the company folded, is it still legally unforceable, even if the new company is now activision?
- TheDong 8y agoIf a copyright owner dies (without their IP being inherited) or the company dies (and its ip is not sold or kept by some individual of the company), then the material effectively enters the public domain. Note, this is only 'effectively' because it is still possible someone does have the IP and you were simply not aware. It's also possible the person who owns the copyright isn't even aware they own it, but it can still later be discovered and enforced. In practice, it is very difficult to verify when either of those events occur. I expect Sierra Entertainment's IP has been kept alive, even if the company itself died at any point in the past. It's almost always safer to just wait the full duration for copyright to expire and it to enter real public domain. If you're unable to safely wait around 100 years to legally access the material, well, that sucks I guess. Copyright is meant to ensure the public gets access to such material, and it's not the government's fault people don't live over 100 years to enjoy material made in their lifetimes.
- jfoster 8y agoIt's just law. There's also a practical side to this. You could go ahead, and then if a copyright holder emerges, you have to settle it with them somehow. That could end really badly or it could end up being not much of an issue.
- stormbrew 8y agoI mean, the government choose the term. So it actually is their fault if people don't live to see the end of the term, even if the human lifespan itself is not their fault.
- 8y ago
- ru999gol 8y agoI rather somebody has it in some trusted hand even if they can't release it for another 65 years, rather than lost forever. Preservation of human culture/knowledge is more important than copyright, I know a foreign concept most people will be to ignorant about to agree with.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kalleboo 8y agoWho gives a shit? Just upload it anonymously. Nobody even knew he had the source code until now.
- tomnipotent 8y agoExcept it's not anonymous since Al will know who he sold each game to - won't be that hard to find out who the guilty party is.
- mschaef 8y ago> Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. Dunno about you, but for me, it's hard to imagine an 85 year old in the year 2083 even caring about seeing this code legally.
- cenal 8y agoIt’s likely akin to an 85 year old today caring about schematics for a Model T. There are still people who do.