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Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate)

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I'll continue the top posting in case Brian wants to follow the thread.

What he proposes isn't actually all that unusual. A lot of open-source
games are dual-licenced, with the code under something like the GPL,
and the copyright holders of the “assets“ reserving their rights. Free
software purists don't like it, but it happens. And there's no problem
with “active protection“ rules, any more than Mozilla's trademarks are
threatened by their inclusion in Firefox. That's their distribution
model.

I think it would be eminently possible for a company to say that the
code of its 8-bit games was now under a BSD licence, but it retains
copyright and trademark rights on the graphics and characters. The only
likely difficulty is that in these old games, code and assets weren't
kept very seperate. I imagine that's the way these companies are
looking at it: how can you use two different licences for what is,
effectively, one single block of code? I'm not so sure that's a problem.

On Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:07:26 +0000
Phil Reynolds <phil-news@tinsleyviaduct.com> wrote:

> As this is in response to Brian, I'm top-posting...
> 
> The other thing is, some of us remember things like this. On
> principle I won't buy anything by Activision or Codemasters, and
> Ultimate is now owned by Microsoft whom I have long avoided anyway.
> It might be different if they were still selling the old titles in a
> form I could use, but in general they aren't. I apply the same
> principle to other companies too, of course, with Sony being about
> the only one I excuse a little.
> 
> 
> On 31/01/12 08:00, Brian Gaff wrote:
> > Its a real shame that companies cannot just issue a statement in
> > suitable legalese that basically says, this old code is fine to
> > distribute as a historical artefact, but all characters and game
> > designs remain the copyright of their respective owners, and any
> > use outside of the original code  is prohibited.
> > 
> >  Brian
> > 
> 
> 

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Thread

The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Espineter <espineter@gmail.com> - 2011-10-02 04:10 -0700
  Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) zx128k@gmail.com - 2011-10-05 09:45 -0700
    Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Espineter <espineter@gmail.com> - 2011-10-06 15:59 -0700
      Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) "Jason Orpington" <jasonorpington@teachers.org> - 2012-01-30 17:31 +0000
        Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) hp <ferd@farkel.net> - 2012-01-30 15:52 -0500
          Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) "Brian Gaff" <Briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-31 08:00 +0000
            Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Ivan Shmakov <oneingray@gmail.com> - 2012-02-05 13:22 +0700
            Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Phil Reynolds <phil-news@tinsleyviaduct.com> - 2012-02-05 08:07 +0000
              Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Duncan Snowden <duncan_s@talktalk.net> - 2012-02-05 18:59 +0000
                Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) Guesser <alistair@alistairsserver.no-ip.org> - 2012-02-05 22:48 +0000
  Re: The best collection of speccy games, denied included (Activision, Codemasters, Ultimate) korax1214 <korax1214@gmail.com> - 2011-10-24 01:45 -0700

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