5 ms·

Game companies are learning old IP can be modernized for fresh new profits so most likely a lot of old game copyrights will become retroactively enforced and so

Game companies are learning old IP can be modernized for fresh new profits so most likely a lot of old game copyrights will become retroactively enforced and sources hunted down and expunged as they're remastered and made exclusively available in whatever online shop or subscription service. https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/22/17600008/nintendo-roms-lawsuit-cease-desist https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/22/17600008/nintendo-roms-law... https://www.maxim.com/entertainment/best-video-games-remasters-and-remakes-of-the-year-2018-1 https://www.maxim.com/entertainment/best-video-games-remaste...

pvg 7y ago
People have been reworking old IP, neglecting or enforcing various rights, etc for years. I don't think it's some new trend game companies recently learned or that it affects how aggressive (or not) owners are that much. Old sources in particular are not all that valuable in many cases, beside historically.
- benologist 7y ago
  Right, but at the moment there are dozens of old movies being reworked and dozens of old games being reworked and the volume feels like it's growing with new announcements all the time. Over the last 20 years I have only seen a few games remade to maintain compatibility, usually unofficially patched by fans or as open source homages. I think this is being fueled by movie and game outliers today being able to achieve their first $billion in their first week. That outsized ROI on gaming, like movies, completely changes the calculus on what old stuff is worth today. FAANG will throw billions into making games as soon as their movie pipelines are sorted.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Low value doesn't make copyright disappear.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
IMHO that shouldn't be too much of a concern. As long as it's just the sources leaked and you only distribute your modified versions of it plus binaries, but not all the games assets, players still need a copy of the original game to actually play it. (So as long as people don't pirate it, it should be fine and if it's still on sale make them an additional buck or two, but that question is somewhat orthogonal.) I'd even argue that you could be smart as the IP holder and release the code with a clause saying any modifications and extensions must be open source too and the IP holder had the right to use those and make money off of it. Then you can decide if you wanna take the risk of potentially working for some company for free when you take on porting that 90s racing game to the PS 4 in your spare time. Taking down leaked source is obviously pretty simple due to DMCA, but as history has shown that just leads to groups working on it behind closed doors and only doing binary releases. Which might be technically illegal too but probably much more involved for the IP holder to prove, so they don't bother in most cases.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Wow, this comment is far removed from reality. The copyright holders are the only ones allowed by law to modify and or distribute the game or any of its parts unless they hand out licenses. In other words, touching leaked source code is pretty much illegal. It is mostly a question of how long it takes until they will bother to send lawyers after you if you do. Game develipers often don't own the thengames they are working on. Nost publishing contracts transfer the rights to the publisher and all the studio gets is the money. So, the devs cannot do anything after they ar eww done with a project. It is up to the publishers to decide what to do with it. And these guys are bean counters fist, otherwise they wouldn't be able to run the core of their business the way they do (that is risk distribution between individual game projects). So unless you can give them a solid business case for releasing anything for free, they won't do it. So you need to prove to them iwith decent numbers that this works. Good luck with that.
  - iforgotpassword 7y ago
    After you sure you replied to the right comment? I don't think I said anywhere it would be legal. My post was about how released sources could actually be beneficial to the IP holder.
  - kjeetgill 7y ago
    Confusingly, the "you" in the parents post was meant to reffer to "you, the copyright holder" not "You, the pirate".
- hermitdev 7y ago
  This model is how early shareware/demos for the likes of Doom or Wolfenstein worked. All the final code is there, but you only include the asserts for the first level or so. That said, it's still up to the copyright holder on what to disclose, and pretty sure distributing a binary based upon stolen copyrighted source would still be a violation, but I'm not a lawyer. I certainly wouldn't do it...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

pvg 7y ago

People have been reworking old IP, neglecting or enforcing various rights, etc for years. I don't think it's some new trend game companies recently learned or that it affects how aggressive (or not) owners are that much. Old sources in particular are not all that valuable in many cases, beside historically.

benologist 7y ago
Right, but at the moment there are dozens of old movies being reworked and dozens of old games being reworked and the volume feels like it's growing with new announcements all the time. Over the last 20 years I have only seen a few games remade to maintain compatibility, usually unofficially patched by fans or as open source homages. I think this is being fueled by movie and game outliers today being able to achieve their first $billion in their first week. That outsized ROI on gaming, like movies, completely changes the calculus on what old stuff is worth today. FAANG will throw billions into making games as soon as their movie pipelines are sorted.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Low value doesn't make copyright disappear.

iforgotpassword 7y ago

IMHO that shouldn't be too much of a concern. As long as it's just the sources leaked and you only distribute your modified versions of it plus binaries, but not all the games assets, players still need a copy of the original game to actually play it. (So as long as people don't pirate it, it should be fine and if it's still on sale make them an additional buck or two, but that question is somewhat orthogonal.) I'd even argue that you could be smart as the IP holder and release the code with a clause saying any modifications and extensions must be open source too and the IP holder had the right to use those and make money off of it. Then you can decide if you wanna take the risk of potentially working for some company for free when you take on porting that 90s racing game to the PS 4 in your spare time. Taking down leaked source is obviously pretty simple due to DMCA, but as history has shown that just leads to groups working on it behind closed doors and only doing binary releases. Which might be technically illegal too but probably much more involved for the IP holder to prove, so they don't bother in most cases.

gmueckl 7y ago
Wow, this comment is far removed from reality. The copyright holders are the only ones allowed by law to modify and or distribute the game or any of its parts unless they hand out licenses. In other words, touching leaked source code is pretty much illegal. It is mostly a question of how long it takes until they will bother to send lawyers after you if you do. Game develipers often don't own the thengames they are working on. Nost publishing contracts transfer the rights to the publisher and all the studio gets is the money. So, the devs cannot do anything after they ar eww done with a project. It is up to the publishers to decide what to do with it. And these guys are bean counters fist, otherwise they wouldn't be able to run the core of their business the way they do (that is risk distribution between individual game projects). So unless you can give them a solid business case for releasing anything for free, they won't do it. So you need to prove to them iwith decent numbers that this works. Good luck with that.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  After you sure you replied to the right comment? I don't think I said anywhere it would be legal. My post was about how released sources could actually be beneficial to the IP holder.
- kjeetgill 7y ago
  Confusingly, the "you" in the parents post was meant to reffer to "you, the copyright holder" not "You, the pirate".
hermitdev 7y ago
This model is how early shareware/demos for the likes of Doom or Wolfenstein worked. All the final code is there, but you only include the asserts for the first level or so. That said, it's still up to the copyright holder on what to disclose, and pretty sure distributing a binary based upon stolen copyrighted source would still be a violation, but I'm not a lawyer. I certainly wouldn't do it...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]