*A games, spring, legal status - Page 2

*A games, spring, legal status

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Forboding Angel
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by Forboding Angel »

One day you guys need to learn to read. Let me help you.
Forboding Angel wrote:That is not a workaround, fuckencool, because that content was directly ripped out of TA and put into an entirely different engine that has nothing to do with TA at all. As a result, it constitutes actual theft.

It's the equivalent of you making a mapmod for starcraft2 and ripping all the assets from supreme commander to do it. GPG would nail your ass to the wall.

Whether atari would ever bother doing anything about it is another story. If all of a sudden spring got super popular and started attracting the masses, I imagine the lawsuits would roll on in. However, mass popularity isn't likely, and neither is a lawsuit.

The as an open source community, the blatant theft is a large disgusting mark on the community as a whole. As I remember, large swaths of the linux community would have nothing to do with spring because of it (though since the purging of all things *A from the engine, that has since changed).
Forboding Angel wrote:
Funkencool wrote: In other words, GPG would only nail you to the wall if you released that map to the public (which is what the *a games of spring are doing). I believe its all legal on a personal use level though.
This is inaccurate, as it is completely against the EULA (ya know, that wall of text on the installer that no one reads :-)).
It is theft. Period. Will atari do shit? No. Does that make it right? No.

For clarification, read the giant-ed and bold text.
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SinbadEV
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by SinbadEV »

Forboding Angel wrote:This is inaccurate, as it is completely against the EULA (ya know, that wall of text on the installer that no one reads :-)).

It is theft. Period.
This thread is going nowhere fast so I'm going to jump in and blow on the flames and see if it makes them go out or get bigger.

You seem to be using a definition of "theft" that I am uncomfortable with... Worst case I would call it "making use of copyrighted material in a way that is explicitly forbidden by the copyright holder"... in most cases the extent of a companies authority in these matters is to refuse to provide technical support and deny access to patches. You can call it wrong but it's not theft anymore than loaning a DVD to a friend or recording a TV show so you can watch it later and fast forward through the commercials. If you call those things theft then maybe you should pursue a career in politics.
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smoth
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by smoth »

forb it isn't theif, it is reverse engineering/desconstructing the game files of OTA firstly. I am not sure that the misappropriation of the assets into an *A project could be argued at "theft" persay but these guys are just having fun playing on a word and are really more interested in the language discussion.

thread is becoming flamebaiting and derp

here is the ota user manual:
http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.937

the ota art assets are part of the "software" and are not meant to be extracted as part of a decompile. The only reason hpi view was allowed to exist was because it was a tool used for the creation of TA mod content. So the assets of OTA were being used by OTA.

We have had this thread over and over again, yes *A is shady as hell because of the way they aquired the assets. No that doesn't make it illegal but the fact that they have the assets is because the only way to get them is to deconstruct(through a tool) the OTA software.

Does anyone care? no.

Can we just hot link to this post in the future? I don't see any reason we give a shit. No, *A will never qualify for linux distros because of the OTA content. BAR and ZK have taken the high road and replaced/replacing the ota content. So if you want to help, go help BAR or get the hell out of the way.
raaar
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by raaar »

such bitterness...

i know it is ilegal, but it is not "theft", it's way softer than that.

I suggested a way to give them something and ask for permission to use the old content in return....any comments on that?

I'm not asking that *A mods get included in linux distros or whatever. You can have a decent community with hundreds of active players without being tied to official channels like steam or linux distros. You can have spring bundled with bar/zk/whatever reworked mods even if there are other mods that violate some aspects of copyright.

the copyright violation may include aspects of the file formats used in ota, namely 3do and cob. As it is now, spring is the ideal place for *A mods, it's better than ota in every way...and still somewhat compatible with its data files. Having put a considerable amount of time on one of them, i also want to check what the community here feels about it, namely the devs and their circles...To put it directly : are they going to remove them or keep them in the next months or few years?
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smoth
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by smoth »

"such bitterness..."
go eat a bag of geoducks. you could have found all your answers in the forum. It is an old topic and we have discussed it to death.

You talk as though zk doesn't already do that. I am mean because I am tired of half-assed threads where the posters don't really look at what is being done/is available. They look at BA and assume that is the extent at what the projects have tried.

I could bother to list what evo, gundam, kp, zk and others have tried. It doesn't really matter because I would have to repeat myself to the next person who feels entitled to a detailed answer. In the end it doesn't matter because no matter what information is disseminated on this forum you lot will never make any real effort. Don't mistake my complete and utter contempt as bitterness.
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very_bad_soldier
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by very_bad_soldier »

Wow, I am surprised (or better: shocked) there are still people who are calling such stuff "theft" and giving examples like "its like steeling a car from your neighbor" :roll:

I thought we left that point behind somewhere in the 90s when people had no idea about the internet and computers in general.

I expect people nowadays to be able to discuss stuff like that in a far more informed, differentiated and reasonable way.

I agree its not right and it is against the law tho.
raaar
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by raaar »

yes i read some of the threads. It has been discussed here...but never got anywhere.

i didn't just ask about it again...i gave a suggestion:

- dedicated TA memorial web page
credit/advertising to devs/owner and in return get permission to use TA stuff. (the limit would be to warn players that they should own TA to legally play the mod)

- html link tag that would be embeddable in web sites and main forum threads of all *A mods

it seems this hasn't been tried before, not in a standard way.

some more arguments for it:
- make the questionable moral/legal itch go away

- help identify and separate the *A mods from the other original mods and spring engine itself

- spring has an obvious advantage as a platform for TA derived mods, and could draw in escalation, talon and others. It could be THE place for TA mods in the future.

feel free to add constructive feedback or express your contempt....
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smoth
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by smoth »

"never got anywhere"

"make suggestion"

this is why it never gets anywhere.

We have tons of suggestions. How many people are doing anything? Not many, I respect DOERS not people with SUGGESTIONS who wish to do nothing.
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PicassoCT
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by PicassoCT »

All mods ending with A (BA, CA, NOTA, ...) are illegal warez, and should not be in any repository. Stuff like Spring1944 and KernelPanic are mostly CC, and can be packaged without any hesitation.

Copyright starts with the original holder- in this case, Atari. Cavedog, like any developer for a big publisher, would have had to give their rights to Atari (or whoever owned Cavedog back then, who would have sold those rights as part of Atari's purchase, etc.).

Even "innocent infringers", who thought what they were doing was legal, aren't immune. For example, there are lots and lots of retro-game sites that have had to remove many games, due to DMCA requests. There have been many, many, many instances in which Nintendo has either shut 'sites down, or eradicated the distribution of Super Nintendo ROMs, even though they haven't made the hardware and no new games have been published in years. They'll probably stop someday, but not yet- I read, the other day, a ROM 'sites declaration that certain titles, like the Final Fantasy series weren't being distributed because they'd been threatened by lawyers. The people distributing these works weren't the hackers who got rid of copy protection or copied the ROMs. But they're still infringing.

In short, no, that section's not providing a fig leaf for CA. Just because Caydr was the original copyright violator does not mean that further violations are all right- otherwise, people putting out hacked copies of games would just change a few things and say it was theirs, for example, which is clearly illegal.

It would be great if Atari sent Spring a cease & desist order about the Totala Annihilation Intellectual Property (lol at the term), because it would mean the termination of all talks and mentionning of TA based mods, and so a forced to switch to Expand & Exterminate, PURE, Gundam, or any other of those great games I can never find an open battle for.


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LordMatt
Post subject: Re: OTA Ownership
PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:28 am
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zwzsg wrote:
It would be great if Atari sent Spring a cease & desist order about the Totala Annihilation Intellectual Property (lol at the term), because it would mean the termination of all talks and mentionning of TA based mods, and so a forced to switch to Expand & Exterminate, PURE, Gundam, or any other of those great games I can never find an open battle for.

Not really. The spring dev team does not distribute OTA content any more. And while some sites might have to stop hosting it, there would be others beyond the reach of the C&D to keep hosting TA mods and content. If somehow TA mods were prevented from being played, there would suddenly be a whole lot less players playing spring.

The search button, it works.. ;)
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KaiserJ
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by KaiserJ »

surely this becomes moot when the BA:R model set is done
It would be great if Atari sent Spring a cease & desist order about the Total Annihilation Intellectual Property


that would be a boon for spring, we could jump on other websites and complain about the injustice and some people would download the engine and mods just to be supportive of free speech.

when i first joined this site, OTAIP was a hotbutton topic; not just for the legal relevance but for people either championing or denouncing a mod or game (i.e. "your game sux because it's illegal") and overall i'm just glad we've all managed to get beyond that point.
luckywaldo7
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by luckywaldo7 »

KaiserJ wrote:that would be a boon for spring, we could jump on other websites and complain about the injustice and some people would download the engine and mods just to be supportive of free speech.
:D
KaiserJ wrote:surely this becomes moot when the BA:R model set is done
I think this is about XTA, as that is what raaar played. And yeah, it is sort of getting left behind, as there doesn't seem to be any public plan to finish replacing models.

So the drama isn't even purely about IP, but also one guy saying "Hey, my favorite *A game is getting left behind, can I make it the responsibility of the rest of the general community to get it up to speed?".
luckywaldo7
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by luckywaldo7 »

Except the 'getting up to speed' plan is a terrible idea that isn't worth anyone's time investing in anyway.
raaar
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by raaar »

luckywaldo7 wrote: I think this is about XTA, as that is what raaar played. And yeah, it is sort of getting left behind, as there doesn't seem to be any public plan to finish replacing models.

So the drama isn't even purely about IP, but also one guy saying "Hey, my favorite *A game is getting left behind, can I make it the responsibility of the rest of the general community to get it up to speed?".
that's not the point:
- i'm making a *A mod derived from XTA. After some "scouting" i figured it would be pointless to try to argue with the XTA community about the changes i wanted to make

- i think *A mods in general should have a place in spring in the future (like i said, it's an obvious advantage this engine has)

- BAR with new models will probably be liable to copyright infringement claims the same way new releases of old games are


some googling of Atari's handling of it:

--- 2012, unfavourable (removing reworked versions of old games from app stores)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201201 ... ling.shtml

--- 2010, favourable (partnerships with copyright infringers)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201009 ... eals.shtml
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... infringers
(yes i put two links on the favourable one that seem to be the same...i am THAT biased!)

This is a delicate issue...so it shouldn't be "one guy" that is relatively new here to try to email Atari to get these mods and hosting sites etc. in the clear. At least for free versions.
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KaiserJ
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by KaiserJ »

i can promise you from the very bottom of my heart that BAR will be fresh, clean, and devoid of direct connection and infringement to its spiritual predecessor
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Funkencool
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by Funkencool »

Although Mr. bob did ask to have his units used only in BAR, I think it would be fair if;
BAR becomes the the official *A replacement and any TA mods on the spring engine without original content, in turn become BAR MODS - not TA mods ported to the spring engine.

Although spring may be a better engine, legacy models belong in a legacy engine. Not to say ta mods aren't good, in fact there awesome, but instead of figuring out how to keep using legacy Atari IP, refer to above. I'm sure it's easier modding an original spring game into a replica, than actually importing all the models and scripts anyway.
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smoth
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by smoth »

And so you twist the reality to suit you raaar. The times have changed and IP law has become politicised, making legal and illegal very fluid. Your personal moral feelings and arguments are irrelevant. The *A projects are blatantly in violation of ip law. Ta held no patent on gameplay concepts, that is more recent bullshit(see apple inc), if you think BA is a remake, you never played TA it is similar to supcom in that it ran with elements of ota. It just used ota content to do so.

Funken, this is why we have mutators. Once bar is done.. Xta could make a mutator. Bam, done.
raaar
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by raaar »

smoth wrote:And so you twist the reality to suit you raaar. The times have changed and IP law has become politicised, making legal and illegal very fluid. Your personal moral feelings and arguments are irrelevant. The *A projects are blatantly in violation of ip law. Ta held no patent on gameplay concepts, that is more recent bullshit(see apple inc), if you think BA is a remake, you never played TA it is similar to supcom in that it ran with elements of ota. It just used ota content to do so.

Funken, this is why we have mutators. Once bar is done.. Xta could make a mutator. Bam, done.
i'm not twisting reality, you are misunderstanding me.

i already agreed they were illegal. I pointed out a suggestion on how to make them legal by asking the copyright holder. It could bring more security to the spring community (namely the one that tampers/plays *A mods), but it could also backfire. But instead of getting direct feedback about it...i got this...

you ppls are aware that the model shift from 3do to s3o, even with gameplay tweaks, may not be enough to clear the copyright problem?
Last edited by raaar on 03 Oct 2012, 22:37, edited 2 times in total.
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smoth
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by smoth »

For your last paragraph...
ZK: it is more than tweaks.
BA: if they rename then units and remodel them, if they are free of the ota sounds and scripts. They are good2go. The gameplay is THAT divergent.

On the copyright holder, that changes as the wind in the trees. What one holder might allow, the next might not. And a more or less dead ip can change hands as a bargaining chip in a negotiation..."ok we'll sell you pacman and as a bonus give you TA" etc
luckywaldo7
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by luckywaldo7 »

I am simply beyond baffled that someone thinks a tribute website makes 'stealing' content ok while completely replacing all said stolen content with new original content does not.
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zwzsg
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Re: *A games, spring, legal status

Post by zwzsg »

raaar wrote:What about the people who come here saying "hi i'd like to remake old game x in spring, is it doable?". Are they blatant thieves?
If they directly extract models and textures from game X data then yes they are blatant thieves as well. However, almost all of those old game remakes start by remaking the unit models in prettier higher def.


raaar wrote:some googling of Atari's handling of it:
Not the same "it".

Your link are about people copying the concept, the gameplay, of ancient Atari games.

BA does not just copy the concept and gameplay of TA. It's made of files, such as models, textures, sounds, etc... that were extracted from TA.

Beside, your link seem to indicate Atari would only be interested in a parternship if Spring was a facebook game.
Last edited by zwzsg on 04 Oct 2012, 00:11, edited 1 time in total.
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