Licensing an Abandonware Game? 148
WolverineOfLove writes "I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years. The situation is detailed further in a Slashdot journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want to recreate an abandonware title as an open source game? I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but there is a real possibility that this game's copyright holder will do nothing with the rights, and I'd much prefer preserving it for others than letting it fade away."
Contact the Owners (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about the copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Make your new game. Don't use any exact names or words from the original. By all means select your names so that people know this is a successor to the original.
After all, open office exists along side microsoft office. Afterstep came after nextstep. You need a name like "afterstep" so that people know what you are on about.
Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk to people who have done it before (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why you want to create an exact port of the original game.
If you want to preserve the original game, then use an emulator like DOSBox on the original executables. It will save you a load of time.
If you want to popularize the game, then contact the owners to see if they'll sell it to you or put it under an open license. That way you can redistribute the game for use on emulators without legal worries.
If you want to make something new, then you should really put your energies into a new game inspired by the old one.
By the way, I once made a game that was a clone of a game on a portable system (with the intent of adding Internet play). It was an unexpectedly massive undertaking and by the end I was wondering why I was pouring so much energy into a derivative project that I might have to worry about lawsuits over when I finished it. It's really not worth it. You'll feel better in the end if you spend that time making something new that you can proudly take credit for.
Re:Contact the Owners (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only might they surprise, they might even be supportive!
If they aren't, then at least one has learned that you'll want to alter enough things so they won't succeed in complaining. (Or loses could be cut now before time is invested...)
Either answer they give is a win.
PS: Document attempts to contact in case they don't respond, at least you can show a good faith attempt.
SDINAL (Score:4, Insightful)
I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but...
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
Give it a try (Score:4, Insightful)
The people you want to talk to, by the way, are the publishers, not the developers. In some rare cases the developers own the copyright, but in 99.9% of cases games are works for hire and the publisher owns the copyright.
Now, as to what they'll do? Well who knows? There have been varied results. You may well find them very amenable to the idea and they may want little or no money. You may find they flat out say "No," or don't even respond. However you don't know until you try.
A recent example of a success in that regard is Stardock just got the license to distribute and update Total Annihilation. The CEO is a big fan of it and talked to Atari and got the rights to sell it on Impulse, as well as the rights to update it with new features. So this sort of thing can happen.
However there have been failures too. In one case, Xcom I think, it turned out the original source code had been lost so the publisher couldn't license it out, even if they wanted to since they didn't have it.
You don't know until you try what will happen. However, do be prepared that they may blow you off. One thing that may improve your chances is if you have a solid plan for what you intend to do with it. Show them a business plan, more or less, that shows you have seriously thought out how you'd improve it and so on. They may be more likley to deal with someone they believe will make something rather than someone they think might just be playing around.
Re:Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
If he's trying to recreate a game from the 1980s, any relevant patents would have already expired by now.
Make use of the Original (Score:5, Insightful)
How about coding yours so that it loads resources it needs from a copy of the original game which you leave it up to the end-user to acquire? This is how Quake reimplementations work and ID don't seem to have complained about it.
I've done this before... (Score:5, Insightful)
First thing I did was emailed a few of the principal owners of the game, and told them about my intent, and asked about who holds the copyright and trademarks. I got the go ahead, with the caveat that another company owned the trademark to this particular game.
I also searched the web to look at other projects based on remakes. It seems that the best way to handle remakes of abandownare games is to not to bother the company that made it (especially if they're big like EA or Activision). The unwritten rule seems to be if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. Otherwise, they'll just say no and might put the kibosh on the project.
This should also be obvious, but don't sell the game. Just don't.
I never finished the game I was remaking since writing the tools to make it got laboriously time consuming.
Re:SDINAL (Score:1, Insightful)
Slashdotters ... advice is worse than useless
Including this:
you need to go to a legal expert
Re:Not so fast (Score:3, Insightful)
Or more importantly, that SOMEONE could still have the copyright, and that they might not be very nice.
Then how does one go about locating this SOMEONE if the game's original publisher is defunct?
Re:Forget about the copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
And there's OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org], which is a completely different product from Open Office. Which brings us right back to copyrights and all that...
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd imagine he wants to make an exact replica of the game for the same reason people build Warhammer battlefields, model train sets, etc. by hand.
Yeah sure, there's something out there you can already buy and get working, but I bet I could make a really good (if not 1:1) replica by myself!
The Game Is More Than The Code (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as it isn't covered by a dreaded software patent, you should be fine. Software patents need to die in a fire.
The gamer-geek will be pursuing other game assets which may be independently licensed and legally protected: character designs and props, background art, music and audio effects, story, script, dialog, vocal performance, and so on.
I've heard music composed and performed for the LucasArts adventures used in Disney television animation.
Re:How does one find the copyright owner? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the registry kept up to date ? E.g. if a company gets bought by another and that company then decides to sell part of its IP, etc. A lot of old game companies from back in the 80's went through that dance several times.
Re:Not so fast (Score:3, Insightful)
With difficulty, unfortunately. Asking the game's creators might be a good start, as they might have an idea of what happened to the rights- their company was bought by A, that company was bought by B, etc.
If you try looking and after a reasonable amount of effort still can't locate anyone, then maybe just go for broke and press on with the project. At least you tried though.
Re:SDINAL (Score:1, Insightful)
(Anyone who mods this as anything other than humour is a complete moron).
First you give us that delicious bit of irony, then you go and spoil it!
If he hadn't included that then the moderators would have savaged him. Slashdot moderators are so retarded that if they were to compete in the Special Olympics not only would they lose but the other competitors would take great pains to point out what hugely retarded losers the Slashdot moderators were.