birdie3 Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Interesting read so far.. Just thought I would add a few words. Lets hope that we will soon get some sort of closure in terms of being properly informed on this issue as it appears as though there is quite a bit of confusion or general lack of direction as to where the red tape and legalities are destroying Atari Age and making it better. I am not totally sure if I can speak for many of us by saying that we all are hoping something really good is going to come out of all of this. Because nothing official has been offered to us, some of us are wondering what this all means and some of us are speculating as to whether this means the end of an amazing era. People will have a more valid and respectable opinion once the truth has been officially revealed. Hopefully soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 I'm not name-calling at anyone, I'm using words of invective to make a point. This doesn't stop with Castle Crisis and Atari has done nothing whatseoever to indicate that they have any consideration for the people who built this hobby. Of course InfoAtari has a mole or two in the community but it's not worth getting into a witch hunt over. That's the last thing we need. Dude.... Atariage is the largest and most visited classic game site on the net, the products show up on the front page and are rotated, its doesn't take a "mole" to notice things and a few clicks brings people into the store, its the sites easy to use interface that makes it easy to find stuff, I hardly think there is an air of cloak and dagger or outright dime dropping, but then again we've seen the supposed "wars" of sites and who knows... someone bitter and childish just might've been stupid enough to hurt it for all of us. Curt Stirring the pot... It does seem a little coincidental that this would happen only a few months after tension between the AA camp and the Digital Press camp, however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Stirring the pot... It does seem a little coincidental that this would happen only a few months after tension between the AA camp and the Digital Press camp, however. Let's not get completely paranoid, please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legeek Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Stirring the pot... It does seem a little coincidental that this would happen only a few months after tension between the AA camp and the Digital Press camp, however. Man F' that. How childish can we be? I think you should applogize for even posting the above. BTW I hope this issue gets resolved, I am really looking forward to the artist formally known as Adventure II... Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 by the way...just an FYI...it's not an arm and a leg either...I got the rights to the Pink Floyd song on 1,000 CD's for roughly $75 or so. Slightly different territory here - 5 years ago no one was pimping classic games - You can get Pink Floyd songs since no one is seriously interested in them - Im also sure that if Cadillac wanted a Pink Floyd song it would be for more than $75. Right now classic games are selling. The new Atari is going to sell 100,000 of their joystick units and such. Until this classics phase blows over Atari will be hounding folks to ensure their property rights are protected and I have no problem with that. Though, Im sure Atari isnt going after any 'Slot Racer' hacks If you take a second and visit the website I linked to you would see you can get basically any songs mechanical rights....and despite your bogus argument to the contrary, it's the same situation as far as hacks go...it basically gives you the right to "re-do" a song, not use the original song...all I was saying was that if the music industry with all it's flaws can come up with a way for people who want to cover a song to do so completely online without lawyers and a bunch of bullshit paperwork, and still do so at a reasonable price...then so could software companies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 InfoAtari is flat out lying when they say they need 100,000 units or whatever. It's a simple matter of standard licensing. Larger companies make smaller deals all the time. As an independent music promoter I was able to swing deals just for 1000 copies of a promo disc sold in Omaha. They have forms ready to be filled out for just such partnerships. InfoAtari just fills in the blanks for how much money they want. It's not an expensive process at all and unually is handled without lawyers drafting a single piece of paper. Companies like InfoAtari have lawyers on the payroll as well, so this bullshit about "it costs them so much to licnese to us" has got to stop. So get it through your heads kids; the reson that InfoAtari isn't being accomodating to the classic gaming community is because they don't want to be. As far as they're concerned, thirty bucks spent on a homebrew is thirty bucks that you won't spend on the Flashback II. Better take a close look at your code, homebrewers. Did you borrow anything from an old Atari program? A little routine or a graphics trick? Because if you think that Atari won't be going after that next then you're not learning anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 InfoAtari is flat out lying when they say they need 100,000 units or whatever. It's a simple matter of standard licensing. Larger companies make smaller deals all the time. As an independent music promoter I was able to swing deals just for 1000 copies of a promo disc sold in Omaha. They have forms ready to be filled out for just such partnerships. InfoAtari just fills in the blanks for how much money they want. It's not an expensive process at all and unually is handled without lawyers drafting a single piece of paper. Companies like InfoAtari have lawyers on the payroll as well, so this bullshit about "it costs them so much to licnese to us" has got to stop. Just because that's how the music business works doesn't mean that's how the game business works. I've been told by game industry people that small deals are impossible because the overhead of having the lawyers draft the paperwork outweighs any financial gain. While it's possible to draft boiler-plate agreements, I don't think these kinds of things exist. Even if they did exist, I'm not sure game companies are confident enough to rely on boiler plate legal copy without getting a lawyer to look at each situation on a case by case basis. Even without lawyers, time is money. Just going through channels to the point where upper management signs off on something like this could be seen as costing the company more in company salary (per hour) than the deal brings back to the company. Major game companies are highly beaurocratic and every minute item is budgeted with zero wiggle-room. Intangibles like good PR with the classic game community are totally lost on the movers and shakers if the numbers don't immediately add up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 I've made deals with clothing companies (Hot Topic), film studios (Viacom) , even video game companies (Sony) a variety of pop culture vultures. Game companies aren't any more complicated or legally expensive than any other corporation. My negotiation with Viacom was settled with two phone calls and a faxed one-page contract. Does anyone want to argue that Infogrames is bigger or more complex than Viacom? The video game biz is like the music biz in that they are the last to recognize what their customers really want and quick to kill the underground of innovation which feeds them in the first place. And like the music biz, companies like Infogrames will either open up their minds or find that they're trading profits today for long-term bad will. And bad will is never profitable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Well yeah, its obvious someone informed them that its similar. I doubt anyone from Infogrames was downloading roms and checking how similar they were to what they owned, someone had to have informed them. You know, it doesn't take a genius to download an atari 5200 emulator, download the rom to castle crisis, or even just to look at screenshots, and realize "this is just a ripoff of Warlords". No one had to turn them in. All it takes is someone with sway at Atari to finally get off his ass and notice the obvious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Well yeah, its obvious someone informed them that its similar. I doubt anyone from Infogrames was downloading roms and checking how similar they were to what they owned, someone had to have informed them. You know, it doesn't take a genius to download an atari 5200 emulator, download the rom to castle crisis, or even just to look at screenshots, and realize "this is just a ripoff of Warlords". No one had to turn them in. All it takes is someone with sway at Atari to finally get off his ass and notice the obvious. Why would they even care since they supposedly passed the Warlords game off to Midway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 Better take a close look at your code, homebrewers. Did you borrow anything from an old Atari program? A little routine or a graphics trick? Because if you think that Atari won't be going after that next then you're not learning anything. That goes against fair use. A given routine or programming trick does not fall within copyright...only an entire work does (as was pointed out in Sega vs. Accolade). Things like 6-sprite scoring can only work in a few ways...and if that is all that is similar between 2 programs, it wouldn't hold up in court (heck, it wouldn't even hold up if they tried to file a C & D). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 I still find it hard to believe that anyone within Infogrames would start downloading emulators and trying quite a few roms, and even know what Warlords was like. Possible, but I'm doubtful. I believe all Atari arcade titles before the company was split belong to both Infogrames and Midway. They both own the rights to things such as the arcade title Warlords. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 That goes against fair use. A given routine or programming trick does not fall within copyright...only an entire work does (as was pointed out in Sega vs. Accolade). Things like 6-sprite scoring can only work in a few ways...and if that is all that is similar between 2 programs, it wouldn't hold up in court (heck, it wouldn't even hold up if they tried to file a C & D). Do you want to be the one to test it? And we can't refer to old cases because copyright law is being constantly twisted to suit the coprorations. If a music company can sue over a single note geing copied (and they can) then a company like InfoAtari would be able to find a judge to back them up. All they need is one ruling in their favor. How many homebrewers have enough money to pay the lawyers and fight back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 I still find it hard to believe that anyone within Infogrames would start downloading emulators and trying quite a few roms, and even know what Warlords was like. Possible, but I'm doubtful. I believe all Atari arcade titles before the company was split belong to both Infogrames and Midway. They both own the rights to things such as the arcade title Warlords. Well, let's put it this way. You work for Atari today. You plan on releasing a compilation pack that includes games such as Warlords. As a result, you decide to go check out to make sure there's enough interest to warrant such a plan. What you find, is that though there is interest, there's also people who are essentially bootlegging your game under a different title, as is obvious by all the press Castle Crisis gets. So, you figure out how to download an emulator, check out the rom, and behold, its warlords. Don't act as though no one plays these things anymore-I'm sure they've picked up at least a few people who know how to run an emulator, and do keep tabs on this sort of thing. Hell, activision has people like that, a few of whom are active on this site, and, if you recall, activision's also asked this site to take down their roms and the like for their own compilations. It's not like it doesn't happen. So don't get all cloak and dagger here. Hell Taito, wasn't it, found out about Space Invaders Collection before it got released, but deemed it too small to really bother with. So Atari doesn't. Oh well. No one turned SIC in to Taito. And no one turned this into Atari. Deal with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 They don't need to. If Infogrames wants to try to press charges, they are welcome to. They'd still lose even to a court-appointed public defender...unless they could prove that the program did in fact use large portions of unaltered code, or copyrighted characters or game titles are involved. All a homebrewer would need to do is show them an assembly to prove them wrong. And then maybe file a countersuit for revenue/reputation lost I'd test it, but I haven't made anything besides hacks (which DO violate copyright). If a homebrewer wants to use my name as the author, go ahead. I've got the time to jerk Infogrames around in court. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 public defender = criminal civil suit = you are on your own Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 I AM on my own...and I've got plenty of time. The maker of a typewriter cannot sue somebody over a manuscript written on it...just as Infogrames cannot sue a homebrewer for a game that does not violate copyright. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted September 28, 2004 Share Posted September 28, 2004 you should file suit against them first then...any laws against being an asshole? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 The question is . . . what violates copyright? And the answer changes constantly. It's no longer about the work as a "whole." Each little piece can be litigated over. What if a court decides that Atari owns the rights to the HMOVE command? It's very possible. WarnerAtari forced Activision to pay a royalty for making 2600-compatible software. Why should homebrewers be exempt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted September 29, 2004 Author Share Posted September 29, 2004 Better take a close look at your code, homebrewers. Did you borrow anything from an old Atari program? A little routine or a graphics trick? Because if you think that Atari won't be going after that next then you're not learning anything. Don't worry about me. 90% mine, 10% Debro's and Alan's. I might as well give away a little secret that can no longer be in the game, it seems. There was a secret area in Adv II which had Adv 1 screens and duck dragons. You can forget that now though, those images would probably get me in hot water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted September 29, 2004 Author Share Posted September 29, 2004 OH NOOO!! I just realized, I use lda #$00 and lda #$FF all the friggin' time in Adv.. QftGC! I'll be sued!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 "WarnerAtari forced Activision to pay a royalty for making 2600-compatible software. Why should homebrewers be exempt?" What? This is the first I've heard of that after being online for 8 years. Sorry, but I think you're wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 HMOVE is not a command. It is the name assigned to one of the 2600's ram locations...which is specific to the hardware, not software. In the same sense, Microsoft cannot sue makers of a rival operating system because they both access hard drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 When it comes to technology, I listen to Nukey. I hope you're right about it being fair to borrow routines or pieces of a kernel. I just wouldn't count on it. "WarnerAtari forced Activision to pay a royalty for making 2600-compatible software. Why should homebrewers be exempt?" What? This is the first I've heard of that after being online for 8 years. Sorry, but I think you're wrong. Think again. You can find this info pretty much everywhere. A Goole search yielded many pages, I grabbed this one at random... http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/atari/Ata...i-Timeline.html Atari settles a lawsuit from Activision, and allows the development of third-party video games in return for royalties. Dozens of companies begin making games for the Atari VCS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 That settlement stemmed from an anti-trust and non-disclosure suit (because the founders of Activision used to work for Atari). It's notable that no other 3rd parties were forced into the settlement Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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