Glimpse at Activision Protos

[oesii]

The problem is that I don't honestly believe this comes down to protecting their "franchise players."  Let's face it - anybody who makes a crappy clone of a Mario game and tries to sell it as a legitimately authorized Nintendo product deserves to have their butts sued off.  That's not the same as letting people play Mario Bros. for free.  If anything, giving people the ability to play these games would EXPAND the value of their current Mario titles, which deserve the legal protection as long as they are still marketable and worth what you pay for them.  Letting people play old Mario games for nothing would get them interested in the NEW Mario games they have to pay $50 for.  It's just too bad Nintendo is so short-sighted.

 

 

I agree with you on the current copyright laws, corportations are getting them passed so they and their heirs can still get rich 100 years later. It has nothing to do with the original artists or the public's good.

 

I guess Ninentdo's lawyers would rather play it safe and go after roms that over 20 years old, otherwise they may not make as much money in the next few years. Short-sighted, maybe, but maybe not if they can count on money buying more and more political power in the future.

[The Night Phantom]

some rights now extend to the absurdly long time of SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS when at one time they were *coughs* ONLY fifty!

I haven’t heard about any copyright terms being 75 years under current law. I believe the standards since ca. 1998 have been life plus 70 years for works copyrighted by individuals and a flat 95 years for works copyrighted by organizations. From about 1976 until the current law, the terms were life plus 50 years and a flat 75 years, respectively. Recently the Supreme Court heard a case challenging these extended terms but hasn’t issued a ruling yet.

[MegaManFan]

I haven’t heard about any copyright terms being 75 years under current law.  I believe the standards since ca. 1998 have been life plus 70 years for works copyrighted by individuals and a flat 95 years for works copyrighted by organizations.  From about 1976 until the current law, the terms were life plus 50 years and a flat 75 years, respectively.  Recently the Supreme Court heard a case challenging these extended terms but hasn’t issued a ruling yet.

 

The change I'm referring to was either for motion pictures, but I know it was at least a 20 year extension. The issue came up because a film archivist who was preserving old movies for free suddenly fell into copyright violation because of a Congressional extension, even though previously all the films had been in the public domain. I think Disney was the chief architect behind both the extension and filing the copyright complaints, and that "Steamboat Willie" was somehow involved.