On 2003-12-01 13:17, udgoverload wrote:
Second, the police etc aren't the ones who will pursue copyright violations anyway, it's a civil matter which is handled by the current copyright holders.
Under English law, not necessarily (I'll ignore any jurisdictional issues here). See the CDPA 1988, section 107(1):
"A person commits an offence who, without the licence of the copyright owner [...] distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work."
Thirdly, I think it's a shame no one on here has discussed what happens to copyright when a company goes bankrupt (which unfortunately is the case for a lot of speccy software publishers).
That's easy. The IP rights in the software are part of the assets of the company and will be sold by the liquidators. Any assets of obvious (or even marginal) value will be sold individually; what I believe happens to the rest is that somebody ends up buying "all other assets" of the business for some nominal sum (generally UKP1); if the IP rights weren't sold elsewhere, whoever bought the paperclips lying around the office may well own the games as well.
How does one trace the copyright on software?
There is no general mechanism for doing this.
What WoS is mostly concerned with (I think) is the majority of Speccy software where the current copyright holder is unaware of their status and untraceable by others
Whilst that may be true by count of number of programs, for the games people know and care about, we do know the copyright holders for many of them: when I looked over the Top 100 games last week, I make it that we know the copyright holders for (about) 70 of them.
(Jon Ritman seems to have no idea who now owns the rights to Batman, for example).
That's an edge case and (IMO) irrelevant to the wider picture: it's going to be either Atari or DC Comics. Permission is probably needed from both before it can be legally distributed.
I quite enjoyed those old episodes of Dad's Army, and I (and the current copyright holders) are jolly glad someone was thoughtful enough to make a copy while they had the chance.
I think that's a misrepresentation of the position: the people who took the copies didn't do it because they thought that the BBC might go and delete their master copies in the future; they did it for their own personal gain.
OK, so we are illegal and we should delete 90% of the archive, destroying classics like Manic Miner and Tomahawk, and leaving us with only some crappy BASIC programs.
Do you guys propose we do that ? If so, form a group and hand Martijn over to the authorities, and destroy one of WoS's most important parts, the archive. The visitor count will drop by 99999% and we will all be very happy.
If not, then I hope this discussion won't rage for too long. It seems that people (myself included, unfortunately) really get off on constantly reminding themselves of how negative their situation is. If we can't do anything about this, there's no use in discussions like:
A: We are legal.
B: No, we are not legal.
C: Oh yes we are.
B: No, we are not.
A&C: Are too !
B: Are not.
A&C: Are too !
B: Are not.
...
On 2003-12-01 14:44, GOC wrote:
OK, so we are illegal and we should delete 90% of the archive, destroying classics like Manic Miner and Tomahawk, and leaving us with only some crappy BASIC programs.
Do you guys propose we do that ?
Of course I don't. How likely is it that I would be listed as a co-maintainer of WoS and be running the Instructions Project if I thought that?
If not, then I hope this discussion won't rage for too long.
To be honest, I'll leave this when people stop quoting things which are just plain wrong. So far in this thread I've seen "we've got permission for all the games in the archive", "there's nothing preventing us from distributing games we don't have permission for" and various other things.
Don't get me wrong: I don't like the legal limbo that WoS is in, but I don't think that ignoring it and pretending the archive is legal is the right way to deal with the problem.
All i know is :- wos might be legal, it might be illegal, but i love speccy games and to play em and have all the other trimmings either legally or illegally
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
A question to the "it's illegal so lets deal with it camp" - wot exactly do you propose that WoS should be doing?
I, for one, can't see any way around this except that WoS continues to do wot it is doing right now - take a pseudo-moralistic stand on the legal aspect and pray that more and more authors will give permission to distribute.
I, for one, can't see any way around this except that WoS continues to do wot it is doing right now - take a pseudo-moralistic stand on the legal aspect and pray that more and more authors will give permission to distribute.
Phil and I haven't advoctaed anything different - we've merely been pointing out the facts surrounding this issue.
Everyone else has taken it as an attack that must be repulsed. Please get a grip on the situation people.
On 2003-12-02 12:26, Arjun wrote:
A question to the "it's illegal so lets deal with it camp"
Are you including me in that? If so, could you quote what makes you believe I think that we should "deal with it"? Please remember to include in any evidence that fact that I'm a co-maintainer of WoS and helped make the current policy in the first place. Thanks.
On 2003-12-02 13:50, Philip Kendall wrote:
Are you including me in that? If so, could you quote what makes you believe I think that we should "deal with it"? Please remember to include in any evidence that fact that I'm a co-maintainer of WoS and helped make the current policy in the first place. Thanks.
Ehrm... I read Arjun's message differently, where "let's deal with it" means "let's resolve it" rather than "so be it so shut up". He continues by posing the question how to resolve it.
Perhaps I'm the clueless one, or there's a multiple language barrier, but I don't understand Cyborg's and Phil's response to it. Isn't Arjun exactly right?
Perhaps I'm the clueless one, or there's a multiple language barrier, but I don't understand Cyborg's and Phil's response to it. Isn't Arjun exactly right?
I didn't disagree - I was just pointing out the fact that people do not want to seem to acknowledge the full implications of the situation.
On 2003-12-02 18:14, mheide wrote:
Isn't Arjun exactly right?
Well, I certainly agree with WoS's policy :) As far as I'm concerned, it's the right balance between dealing with the rights of the copyright holders and the rights of the users, which (IMO) are not properly catered for by copyright law when it comes to things like computer programs, which have a "useful life" of much less than the things (books, etc) which the 70 (or more) years laws were devised for.
FWIW, I interpreted Arjun's comments as putting me in with a group of people who apparently want a different policy for WoS; I'm not quite sure who these people are, but was confused as neither Cyborg nor myself have said that's what we're after. Sorry if I misinterpreted (you|him).
[ This Message was edited by: Philip Kendall on 2003-12-02 18:38 ]
Phil, I posed that particular question (which wasn't meant to be a barb at anyone - I'm suprised it came off that way. Perhaps I should have been more circumspect in my choice of words) precisely b'cos someone said that "turning a blind eye to the problem (the illegal aspect) is not the solution" (approx quote). hence the question.
however, if there really isn't any practical way out of this then we are back to square one.I don't think it's a matter of turning a "blind eye" or anything. there just doesn't seem to be any other way (short of taking down the archive).
In general, this topic is current as long as circumstances continue the same.
IMO there's two alternatives to the future of WOS: 1) some more companies might deny the distribution of their software (because of brand, distribution of new/old games as some WOS users have already brought out in earlier messages). In this case WOS continues to function as before (of course dependent on the time, effort and resources of the maintainers) and will be "tolerated" by those copyright owners who have neither denied/allowed distribution.
2) The toleration of the legally grey/black(?) area will end and there'll be a noticeable change on the archive. In that case I just hope that the denied software would be easily and affordably purchaseable (legally), but that's another story.
So either the archive tree will lose some of it's branches one by one, or there'll be a sudden, much larger lopping off.
Comments
Under English law, not necessarily (I'll ignore any jurisdictional issues here). See the CDPA 1988, section 107(1):
"A person commits an offence who, without the licence of the copyright owner [...] distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work."
That's easy. The IP rights in the software are part of the assets of the company and will be sold by the liquidators. Any assets of obvious (or even marginal) value will be sold individually; what I believe happens to the rest is that somebody ends up buying "all other assets" of the business for some nominal sum (generally UKP1); if the IP rights weren't sold elsewhere, whoever bought the paperclips lying around the office may well own the games as well.
There is no general mechanism for doing this.
Whilst that may be true by count of number of programs, for the games people know and care about, we do know the copyright holders for many of them: when I looked over the Top 100 games last week, I make it that we know the copyright holders for (about) 70 of them.
That's an edge case and (IMO) irrelevant to the wider picture: it's going to be either Atari or DC Comics. Permission is probably needed from both before it can be legally distributed.
I think that's a misrepresentation of the position: the people who took the copies didn't do it because they thought that the BBC might go and delete their master copies in the future; they did it for their own personal gain.
OK, so we are illegal and we should delete 90% of the archive, destroying classics like Manic Miner and Tomahawk, and leaving us with only some crappy BASIC programs.
Do you guys propose we do that ? If so, form a group and hand Martijn over to the authorities, and destroy one of WoS's most important parts, the archive. The visitor count will drop by 99999% and we will all be very happy.
If not, then I hope this discussion won't rage for too long. It seems that people (myself included, unfortunately) really get off on constantly reminding themselves of how negative their situation is. If we can't do anything about this, there's no use in discussions like:
A: We are legal.
B: No, we are not legal.
C: Oh yes we are.
B: No, we are not.
A&C: Are too !
B: Are not.
A&C: Are too !
B: Are not.
...
Erm no. Denied games are not 'deleted' - they exist in the archive, you just can't get them.
Give the melodramatics a rest.
Of course I don't. How likely is it that I would be listed as a co-maintainer of WoS and be running the Instructions Project if I thought that?
To be honest, I'll leave this when people stop quoting things which are just plain wrong. So far in this thread I've seen "we've got permission for all the games in the archive", "there's nothing preventing us from distributing games we don't have permission for" and various other things.
Don't get me wrong: I don't like the legal limbo that WoS is in, but I don't think that ignoring it and pretending the archive is legal is the right way to deal with the problem.
I, for one, can't see any way around this except that WoS continues to do wot it is doing right now - take a pseudo-moralistic stand on the legal aspect and pray that more and more authors will give permission to distribute.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Phil and I haven't advoctaed anything different - we've merely been pointing out the facts surrounding this issue.
Everyone else has taken it as an attack that must be repulsed. Please get a grip on the situation people.
Are you including me in that? If so, could you quote what makes you believe I think that we should "deal with it"? Please remember to include in any evidence that fact that I'm a co-maintainer of WoS and helped make the current policy in the first place. Thanks.
Clueless.
https://discordapp.com/invite/cZt59EQ
You or me? I'm certainly by now lacking any clue as to what you're going on about :)
Perhaps I'm the clueless one, or there's a multiple language barrier, but I don't understand Cyborg's and Phil's response to it. Isn't Arjun exactly right?
I didn't disagree - I was just pointing out the fact that people do not want to seem to acknowledge the full implications of the situation.
Well, I certainly agree with WoS's policy :) As far as I'm concerned, it's the right balance between dealing with the rights of the copyright holders and the rights of the users, which (IMO) are not properly catered for by copyright law when it comes to things like computer programs, which have a "useful life" of much less than the things (books, etc) which the 70 (or more) years laws were devised for.
FWIW, I interpreted Arjun's comments as putting me in with a group of people who apparently want a different policy for WoS; I'm not quite sure who these people are, but was confused as neither Cyborg nor myself have said that's what we're after. Sorry if I misinterpreted (you|him).
[ This Message was edited by: Philip Kendall on 2003-12-02 18:38 ]
however, if there really isn't any practical way out of this then we are back to square one.I don't think it's a matter of turning a "blind eye" or anything. there just doesn't seem to be any other way (short of taking down the archive).
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
In general, this topic is current as long as circumstances continue the same.
IMO there's two alternatives to the future of WOS: 1) some more companies might deny the distribution of their software (because of brand, distribution of new/old games as some WOS users have already brought out in earlier messages). In this case WOS continues to function as before (of course dependent on the time, effort and resources of the maintainers) and will be "tolerated" by those copyright owners who have neither denied/allowed distribution.
2) The toleration of the legally grey/black(?) area will end and there'll be a noticeable change on the archive. In that case I just hope that the denied software would be easily and affordably purchaseable (legally), but that's another story.
So either the archive tree will lose some of it's branches one by one, or there'll be a sudden, much larger lopping off.
SpecMem