tired, I am glad you guys see what I am saying.
yeah, seriously. Atari does not give a rats ass about gundam annihilation and bandai was contacted about gundam century( a VERY shitty gundam mod) and they didn't care. The key thing it seems is where they(the respective rights holders) have their interest.
Honestly I think spring is not even a concern to atari once we get all the OTA textures and sounds out. All it would take is atari saying... "hey get our shit out of your game distribution" and spring would have a sudden halt. That is the reason that I URGE the other mod makers to make their own shit. Odds are the obvious, textures and sounds are where they will really care. I do not think the scripting is an issue. ESP if we are not making money.
thoughts?
Second E&E copyright discussion split
Moderator: Moderators
Dang. This game I'm in's never gonna start. =\
Alrighty then. =)
Step 1: Develop a list of all people who've been involved in Spring development (not to include "playtesters" or "suggestion givers") and mod development. Form a private discussion group, and hammer out a list of individuals who're willing to dedicate some serious time and effort to Spring, and get signed and dated releases from all folks in the discussion group but not in this pool for use of whatever material they've designed for Spring free of charge (although with their names in credits or something). *Note: the process just got derailed, as open source contributors are notoriously hard to motivate for these purposes.
Step 2: Develop a cash pool. This can be accomplished initially by obtaining contributions for "new Spring development" for mods that don't touch upon TA in any way shape or form, and would essentially consist of current players giving donations. This would pay for living expenses for about a month for one person who could spend the time to actually look into this issue further. This would require a serious individual that's smart enough to handle the situation and can spare a month. This individual would be responsible for analyzing the potential viability of Spring as a product, and would develop a Costs Analysis (including potential distribution methods) and begin the necessary paperwork for forming a business under whatever government folks want to incorporate under (/partner/whatever funky business entity a particular host nation might host). Any data available on current pc RTS market trends and discount gaming trends would be invaluable at this stage. *Note: the process just got derailed from a lack of serious individuals.
Step 3: Develop a list of potential investors. This could include some big name publishers, or even an existing startup company that's got more cash than it deserves, but would probably end up being any rich aunts and uncles of Spring players.
Step 4: Determine (internally) the viability of redesigning Spring from the ground up so that TA copyrights wouldn't be an issue. Should this prove undoable, contact Atari and ask what they'd charge for use of the TA engine and scripts (and whatever other relevent elements of TA Spring uses currently or has used at some stage in its development, to include art and unit names unless it's all designed from the ground up). Be sure to obtain retroactive permission for its use, but absolutely don't mention specifically why you need it (aka don't mention, or suggest, Spring in any manner). Upon consideration, it seems entirely unlikely that Atari would be willing to part with the TA license altogether, for whatever dumb reason, as Chris Taylor couldn't get it from them (presuming that he cared to, which he might not've).
Alternative Step 4: Ignore Atari altogether, and release Spring as fait accompli. Deal with potential suits afterward. This has the downside of dealing with courts, which are expensive and often involve really !@#$ing dumb judges). Maybe distribution would be stopped, maybe damages would be awarded, but if you structure your corporation correctly, at least liability will not extend to include more than the amount that you've invested.
Step 5: Determine a means of distribution. Determine your costs, and a price for the product (seems simple, but pricing is bloody hard if done properly). Step 2 individual should've already done some preliminary research into this, and the remaining discussion group should've reviewed his options and suggestions and modified/added their own. Also establish the means for multiplayer hosting and community gathering, as Betalord's High School might object to a business being run through them. =P
Step 6: Consult with your potential investors, offering the available array of options in the form of an investment prospectus. This should be a clean, concise presentations which includes cited summaries of all pertinent data obtained thus far, and all suggested possibilities for distribution. *Note: if you can't obtain a large enough investment to cover your least expensive viable option, game over.
Step 7: Clean the bloody game up so that the crashes are less frequent, some of the unit functions and animations are a little smoother, and a new GUI is finally developed (an actual cash investment could work wonders in this area).
Step 8: Visit the patent office yourself for the host nation and legal up your own butts for the unique elements of Spring. Might require a lawyer to tighten up the wording, but could probably be handled by an individual. If you can manage to patent any unique processes to Spring (anything at all about open source development projects), then stop right there, as you're all millionaires.
Step 9: Pull all of this crap together so that you have the legal rights to a clean product, a method for distribution, a method for advertising (which you can finalize once everything else's settled, but which you should've considered by now), and a legal entity to hold and distribute investments and profits (should there be any - the method for distributing profits would most likely be determined automatically by the business type selected, although compensation for any sales and support staff and for the Spring designers themselves would hafta be hammered out in the investment prospectus) and pay taxes and expenses.
Step 10: Profit (eventually... maybe).
Alternative Steps 1-10: Cease free Spring distribution, and charge $5 to download. Continue distributing maps and mods for free, or charge $.50 apiece or something if you think you can get away with it. Don't tell ~anybody~ that you're doing this, and don't pay taxes. Establish a firm escape route for when some bloody whistleblower rats you out (an Azu in the case of overmoderation, or a maudlin supporter who's been with Spring from the beginning, but just can't stand the moral corruption that's taken hold, as they're young, and haven't figured out that potty words in chatrooms are low on the Heaven/Hell sliding scale, in the case of undermoderation). This plan should include phoney mustaches and fake alchohol IDs if at all possible. Relocate to Cuba, Finland, or some other communist nation that's not currently sucking up to the UN, and modify the Core army to have 50,000x more HP than the Arm, renaming them the Red Saviours. Through a complicated set of bribes, have The People's Spring instituted as the nation's National PC Game (purchase mandatory for all citizens), and sell licenses to use it at $0.15 a pop, to be downloaded from the national repository for propoganda, which probably doesn't exist, and won't matter anyway, as most folks won't have PCs that can run Spring to begin with (unless you chose Finland, Sleksa's 0.8 gHz PC notwithstanding). Run for political office, assassinate your rivals, and declare yourself dictator for life with your unstoppable army of sized-to scale, hooptie AK replicas(TM). Refuse to pay Atari royalties on the mecha art, claiming that it was developed with a process common to all graphic artists everywhere, and is therefore free from copyright claims.
Ya know, whichever option floats your boat. Whoops - looks like my game's about to start. oO
Alrighty then. =)
Step 1: Develop a list of all people who've been involved in Spring development (not to include "playtesters" or "suggestion givers") and mod development. Form a private discussion group, and hammer out a list of individuals who're willing to dedicate some serious time and effort to Spring, and get signed and dated releases from all folks in the discussion group but not in this pool for use of whatever material they've designed for Spring free of charge (although with their names in credits or something). *Note: the process just got derailed, as open source contributors are notoriously hard to motivate for these purposes.
Step 2: Develop a cash pool. This can be accomplished initially by obtaining contributions for "new Spring development" for mods that don't touch upon TA in any way shape or form, and would essentially consist of current players giving donations. This would pay for living expenses for about a month for one person who could spend the time to actually look into this issue further. This would require a serious individual that's smart enough to handle the situation and can spare a month. This individual would be responsible for analyzing the potential viability of Spring as a product, and would develop a Costs Analysis (including potential distribution methods) and begin the necessary paperwork for forming a business under whatever government folks want to incorporate under (/partner/whatever funky business entity a particular host nation might host). Any data available on current pc RTS market trends and discount gaming trends would be invaluable at this stage. *Note: the process just got derailed from a lack of serious individuals.
Step 3: Develop a list of potential investors. This could include some big name publishers, or even an existing startup company that's got more cash than it deserves, but would probably end up being any rich aunts and uncles of Spring players.
Step 4: Determine (internally) the viability of redesigning Spring from the ground up so that TA copyrights wouldn't be an issue. Should this prove undoable, contact Atari and ask what they'd charge for use of the TA engine and scripts (and whatever other relevent elements of TA Spring uses currently or has used at some stage in its development, to include art and unit names unless it's all designed from the ground up). Be sure to obtain retroactive permission for its use, but absolutely don't mention specifically why you need it (aka don't mention, or suggest, Spring in any manner). Upon consideration, it seems entirely unlikely that Atari would be willing to part with the TA license altogether, for whatever dumb reason, as Chris Taylor couldn't get it from them (presuming that he cared to, which he might not've).
Alternative Step 4: Ignore Atari altogether, and release Spring as fait accompli. Deal with potential suits afterward. This has the downside of dealing with courts, which are expensive and often involve really !@#$ing dumb judges). Maybe distribution would be stopped, maybe damages would be awarded, but if you structure your corporation correctly, at least liability will not extend to include more than the amount that you've invested.
Step 5: Determine a means of distribution. Determine your costs, and a price for the product (seems simple, but pricing is bloody hard if done properly). Step 2 individual should've already done some preliminary research into this, and the remaining discussion group should've reviewed his options and suggestions and modified/added their own. Also establish the means for multiplayer hosting and community gathering, as Betalord's High School might object to a business being run through them. =P
Step 6: Consult with your potential investors, offering the available array of options in the form of an investment prospectus. This should be a clean, concise presentations which includes cited summaries of all pertinent data obtained thus far, and all suggested possibilities for distribution. *Note: if you can't obtain a large enough investment to cover your least expensive viable option, game over.
Step 7: Clean the bloody game up so that the crashes are less frequent, some of the unit functions and animations are a little smoother, and a new GUI is finally developed (an actual cash investment could work wonders in this area).
Step 8: Visit the patent office yourself for the host nation and legal up your own butts for the unique elements of Spring. Might require a lawyer to tighten up the wording, but could probably be handled by an individual. If you can manage to patent any unique processes to Spring (anything at all about open source development projects), then stop right there, as you're all millionaires.
Step 9: Pull all of this crap together so that you have the legal rights to a clean product, a method for distribution, a method for advertising (which you can finalize once everything else's settled, but which you should've considered by now), and a legal entity to hold and distribute investments and profits (should there be any - the method for distributing profits would most likely be determined automatically by the business type selected, although compensation for any sales and support staff and for the Spring designers themselves would hafta be hammered out in the investment prospectus) and pay taxes and expenses.
Step 10: Profit (eventually... maybe).
Alternative Steps 1-10: Cease free Spring distribution, and charge $5 to download. Continue distributing maps and mods for free, or charge $.50 apiece or something if you think you can get away with it. Don't tell ~anybody~ that you're doing this, and don't pay taxes. Establish a firm escape route for when some bloody whistleblower rats you out (an Azu in the case of overmoderation, or a maudlin supporter who's been with Spring from the beginning, but just can't stand the moral corruption that's taken hold, as they're young, and haven't figured out that potty words in chatrooms are low on the Heaven/Hell sliding scale, in the case of undermoderation). This plan should include phoney mustaches and fake alchohol IDs if at all possible. Relocate to Cuba, Finland, or some other communist nation that's not currently sucking up to the UN, and modify the Core army to have 50,000x more HP than the Arm, renaming them the Red Saviours. Through a complicated set of bribes, have The People's Spring instituted as the nation's National PC Game (purchase mandatory for all citizens), and sell licenses to use it at $0.15 a pop, to be downloaded from the national repository for propoganda, which probably doesn't exist, and won't matter anyway, as most folks won't have PCs that can run Spring to begin with (unless you chose Finland, Sleksa's 0.8 gHz PC notwithstanding). Run for political office, assassinate your rivals, and declare yourself dictator for life with your unstoppable army of sized-to scale, hooptie AK replicas(TM). Refuse to pay Atari royalties on the mecha art, claiming that it was developed with a process common to all graphic artists everywhere, and is therefore free from copyright claims.
Ya know, whichever option floats your boat. Whoops - looks like my game's about to start. oO
-
SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Swift, you've just been negative in your last two posts, and seem stuck on restating the obvious (of course I'm on crack). After my first post, you cited the same points that I did in an attempt to argue against me even though we agreed! oO
If you'd take a sec. to read my posts, you'd see that we agree again, and that your kitten is in fact quite silly looking. Good day, Sir!
If you'd take a sec. to read my posts, you'd see that we agree again, and that your kitten is in fact quite silly looking. Good day, Sir!
-
SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Tired 1
Sinbad -5.723
hey you have more than the one up oO
http://www.tiredvssinbadscore.org
^^
edit: sorry the link only works for people who aren't noob ;P
Sinbad -5.723
hey you have more than the one up oO
http://www.tiredvssinbadscore.org
^^
edit: sorry the link only works for people who aren't noob ;P
Then how'd you see it? =o
Tired 1
min3mat... poor min3mat. T.T
http://www.poormin3mat.edu ('cause you got schooled, gradeschool style!) =)
Tired 1
min3mat... poor min3mat. T.T
http://www.poormin3mat.edu ('cause you got schooled, gradeschool style!) =)