[HN Gopher] 'No One Lives Forever' turns 25 and you still can't ...
___________________________________________________________________
'No One Lives Forever' turns 25 and you still can't buy it
legitimately
Author : speckx
Score : 137 points
Date : 2025-11-14 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| ferguess_k wrote:
| NOLF2 is one of best and interesting FPS I played. I wish they
| remastered it.
| shalmanese wrote:
| So say someone decides to produce a remaster of NOLF. Does
| Activision have to produce this piece of paper once they sue to
| establish standing? If Activision's version of this piece of
| paper was chewed up by rats in the 90s, does their ownership
| stake vanish in a puff as well?
|
| If the potential victory from a lawsuit is $20K and Activision
| estimates it will cost them $50K to find this piece of paper, is
| the company relatively safe from a lawsuit?
| mandevil wrote:
| They would need to prove that they have the rights to it to win
| court, yes. The chances of Activision actually pulling the
| trigger and suing if you made a remastered version are
| definitely less than 50-50. They'd have to actually have owned
| the rights in the first place, they still have the
| documentation to prove it, and that they'd find a suit a
| profitable idea? Let's say it's a 1/3 chance. That means if you
| publish it, you'd have a 2/3 chance of not getting sued by
| Activision, that can have a positive E(V) if you just go ahead
| and YOLO it.
|
| But the killer is that WB and Fox (now Disney) also are sitting
| out there as maybe rights-holders. Let's say that each of them
| also has a 1/3 chance of suing and that they are all
| independent. Now you have a 8/27th chance of not getting sued-
| less than 1/3. So the expected value has to be twice as large
| as with a normal, single company situation to justify the
| increased risk of lawsuit from one of three companies. And so
| no one pencils out the choice as a good one, compared to the
| opportunity cost of working on some other game with a clearer
| rights situation.
| shalmanese wrote:
| Why would you set the probability at 1/3rd? It feels closer
| to 1/100 at most.
|
| They've admitted the documents, if they're anywhere, are
| buried in a file cabinet at Iron Mountain. You can set a
| lower limit on the amount of labor required to produce the
| document. Activision is not going to go on this quest if the
| labor required * chance of the document existing exceeds the
| amount they can win in a lawsuit.
| bluGill wrote:
| It is reasonably sure that each party has a 90% chance of
| suing if they have rights. There is a 90% chance someone will
| send you a cease and desist just because all 3 are the type
| that will do it if they think they have rights. There is a
| reasonable chance more than 1 will send a cease and desist
| (some weaselly "we are still checking rights but if we have
| them your notice starts now - just enough to avoid fraud if
| it turns out they don't have rights)
| shalmanese wrote:
| OK, but according to ChatGPT (so correct me if the AI is
| wrong), if you ignore the cease and desist, then the
| process goes into default judgement where the claimants now
| need to prove standing to collect judgement. You now know
| with 100% certainty that they need to hire someone to dig
| through a file vault at Iron Mountain to collect judgment
| and they're not going to bother doing that so the default
| judgement means nothing and you can go about your merry way
| ignoring their cease and desist.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that is wrong. Still
| consult a lawyer if you need real legal advice.
|
| If you ignore the cease and desist their next step is to
| sue you in court where the lawyers fight it out. They can
| sue immediately, without a cease and desist at if they
| want. However the reason to do a cease and desist is it
| costs a lawyer just a few minutes to write one up, while
| court often costs millions of dollars - thus if you just
| stop doing something after the cheap letter it is
| typically best for them to ignore the what they could
| have got by taking you to court right away. They can
| bring a cease and desist to court and show that they gave
| you time to stop which looks good to the judge and can
| influence how much the judge awards if they win (if they
| lose the cease and desists is at best meaningless).
|
| A default judgement is when they sue and nobody shows up
| in court. Because you don't defend yourself the courts
| just assume you are guilty (assuming the case isn't
| completely absurd). Sometimes you can get a default
| judgement when it is obvious someone is doing something
| bad but not who, and then if you later identify who you
| can collect immediately - but that person you accuse can
| fight the default judgement in a lot of ways.
| codingdave wrote:
| They also will send a cease and desist when they know
| there is no chance in hell of winning a court case, but
| people might stop anyway because they are afraid of
| getting sued.
|
| Ignoring such letters will result in absolutely nothing.
| The trick is to know which is which, and that is why you
| ask an attorney.
| nemomarx wrote:
| How do you get to 100 percent certainty that they won't
| do that, or that they need to go through the file vault
| at all? What if someone just needs to find it in an email
| server or etc?
| bluGill wrote:
| In the article: the documents in question was created
| before email or digital storage was used for this. It is
| believed that someone still has a copy in a file cabinet
| somewhere - but it will take a lot of manual effort to
| find it and nobody wants to do that if they don't have
| to.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _OK, but according to ChatGPT_
|
| Shut up.
|
| If that's the best argument you have, then you've got
| _nothing_.
|
| I, like most people, don't come here to see AI slop
| opinions. We can get that approximately everywhere else.
| We don't need HN to be filled with AI confabulations, and
| if it were to happen, we would _leave_.
| mindslight wrote:
| It feels like the right thing to do is to preemptively sue
| all three for a declaratory judgement, similar to obtaining a
| "quiet title" for a piece of real estate. Then they can put
| up or shut up. The right thing to do if you're trying to
| remaster the game, that is. The right thing to do if you just
| want to play it is to pirate.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| How much should the preemptive-plaintiff be willing to
| spend to get the declaratory judgement? And why would one
| expect to win? It is very clear that some combination of
| the three companies have the rights, and all they have to
| do is agree collectively to win. Each firm individually
| probably spends more on lawyers every month than normal
| people do in their lifetime. They have lawyers on staff, so
| their marginal cost of being hasslesome to you in court is
| near zero.
|
| It's all risk-adjusted cost/benefit, and there is almost no
| practical benefit to taking the risk. Yes, it would be nice
| to clear up the legal ownership rights and to have a non-
| pirated version available. But as an economic matter, there
| is almost no value.
| mindslight wrote:
| Yes, I get that the legal system can be horrible and adds
| some pretty ridiculous overhead and costs. I was just
| pointing out there is a path to actually clear this thing
| up - a process to give the possible-rightsholders notice
| that they have to actually respond with concrete evidence
| or drop the matter, rather than lazily sending "we might
| care" nastygrams. And doing that that would certainly be
| much less than being on the receiving end of a lawsuit
| with damages after paying for development.
| mandevil wrote:
| I'm sorry, you want to get into an IP lawsuit with the Walt
| Disney Company, _by choice_? You think that _starting a
| fight with the most fearsome collection of IP lawyers on
| the planet_ is the right thing to do?
|
| (Fox, one of the possible rights holders, was acquired by
| Disney in 2019.)
| bluGill wrote:
| > Does Activision have to produce this piece of paper once they
| sue to establish standing?
|
| Yes, but see below.
|
| > If Activision's version of this piece of paper was chewed up
| by rats in the 90s, does their ownership stake vanish in a puff
| as well?
|
| No, but complex. Legally the contract is still valid, but they
| still need to show the court what the details are. All parties
| to a contracts get a copy, and so Activation can legally force
| other people who should have a copy of the contract to produce
| it, any copy is enough (or several partially rat eaten copies
| may be enough to reproduce what the original said). Activision
| has all the time they want to find copies of the contract
| (unlike trademark, copyright isn't use it or lose it), so you
| are risking the above for a long time. Sometimes enough
| testimony in court of we did have a contract is enough - when
| it is obvious there must have been a contract at one time the
| court will put together obvious details which might be enough
| to sue. In this case the 3 parties can agree that while they
| don't know who as rights between the 3 of them the rights must
| be contained and so they can agree to a 3-way split for
| purposes of going to court - even if it latter turns out only
| one party had rights, that party agreed to the split (though if
| you years latter can prove a 4th party has rights they can sue
| the other 3).
|
| Of course if rats did eat all copies of the contract the lawyer
| fees to figure this out are likely more than the game is worth
| and so it probably isn't worthwhile to sue, so practically it
| may be as if they no longer have rights to the game just
| because they can't afford to enforce it. This is a very risky
| take though and so nobody should risk it.
| shalmanese wrote:
| > This is a very risky take though and so nobody should risk
| it.
|
| People keep on insisting when it comes to these things that
| various things are risky in a rather handwavey way but they
| never fully come out and articulate the risks.
|
| I asked this question to ChatGPT a bunch of ways and tried to
| understand what the specifics are when people say this is
| risky and I can't really seem to get to anything that is a
| nuclear level risk, just a garden variety risk that you need
| to manage amongst all the other garden variety risks involved
| in running a business (when inputted with a reasonable set of
| realistic assumptions, it's possible to create assumptions
| where this is a nuclear level risk but that doesn't seem to
| apply to the majority of real world cases, including this
| one).
| dbt00 wrote:
| You're not going to to get a good answer to this, because
| 1) 99% of people here aren't lawyers and 2) the ones who
| are lawyers or know the law have better things to do than
| argue with the nonsense machine, certainly not via proxy.
|
| Willful copyright infringement means liability for
| statutory damages, compensatory damages, claims on all
| profits, and legal fees (yours and theirs).
|
| (I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, chatgpt is a very
| bad lawyer).
| bluGill wrote:
| The risks are not something we can know. They are not we
| put you on death row bad. The courts decide what to do.
| Every country has their own laws and you could be taken to
| court in more than one. You can get a better answer from a
| real lawyer not me, but that will costs money.
|
| The worse case is if they have a registered copyright which
| means they get to charge triple damages. I'm not completely
| clear on what triple damages mean. I think that means they
| subtract your costs to publish the game and count only the
| profits, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if they assume
| your costs, or what they would have charged if they had
| done this (that is if you sell the game for $50 but they
| would charge $100) - you can bet their lawyers will argue
| for whatever gets them the most, and may also ask for
| lawyer fees.
|
| For a small company the above will bankrupt you.
| skibz wrote:
| NOLF is actually source-available [0][1][2], and it has been
| since not that long after its original release.
|
| There's also a community-driven project [3] keeping it playable
| on modern hardware - however, it hasn't seen any activity in
| several years.
|
| If you haven't played or heard of NOLF before, I highly encourage
| checking it out. It's a fantastic title, even after all these
| years.
|
| 0:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20020217233624/http://pc.ign.com...
|
| 1:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20010720053220/http://noonelives...
|
| 2: https://github.com/osgcc/no-one-lives-forever
|
| 3: https://github.com/haekb/nolf1-modernizer
| dfxm12 wrote:
| So you can't _buy_ it, but you can _play_ it, and the source is
| available. Is this really a problem? I know the article
| mentions this in passing, but preservation & the ability to
| actually play a 25 year old game is more important than its
| capitalization, IMO.
| voxic11 wrote:
| They do mention that you can pirate it. But that is kind of
| the point of the article, the only way to play the game is to
| break the law.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Oh, no! Anyway...
|
| Seriously though, break a law that no one is interested in
| enforcing? What are we doing here, exactly, carrying water
| for a handful of companies that had nothing to do with the
| original development of the game in the first place?
|
| ETA: This aside from the fact that you can buy a used copy
| and play it...
| nemomarx wrote:
| I assume the community goal would be to find out who owns
| the rights and get them to either use them or give them
| up formally and bless the community project?
|
| Used copies won't be around forever, it would be better
| to have a proper community version.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| What is "a proper community version"?
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Something like what happened with UT99 and the original
| Unreal: the source was made available to a dedicated
| community group (who continue to push out patches for the
| games), and when the games were no longer commercially
| useful, they allowed them to be posted on the Internet
| Archive for free access.
| nemomarx wrote:
| The rights holder can give permission to use the assets
| and IP let the community basically own the game. Marathon
| and Project Aleph is a good example of this where Bungie
| gave it up, and so the open source version of the engine
| has fixes and things now.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Nothing from the article suggests that is on the table
| here, but rather Nightdive wants the rights so they can
| sell a remake of the game without the threat of getting
| sued.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| Well, no, you can't play it because the source code doesn't
| include assets like the 3d models and textures and levels and
| sound files. You need to acquire those some other way if you
| want to build a playable version of the game.
|
| It's like GZDoom, you have to supply your own copy of
| DOOM.WAD
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I hope you aren't suggesting the only way to play the game
| is to build it yourself first. This is not the case.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| No he's stating that getting the executable is the easy
| part.
| babypuncher wrote:
| That isn't at all what they are saying. They are saying
| that you need to provide all the game assets. Exactly
| like you do if you want to play the original Doom with
| modern source ports. Since the game is not available to
| buy, this means either pulling those assets from an
| original retail copy, or pirating them.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Since the game is not available to buy, this means
| either pulling those assets from an original retail copy,
| or pirating them._
|
| Even if you don't want to pirate it, there are lots of
| copies for multiple platforms available to buy just on
| eBay. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| > preservation & the ability to actually play a 25 year
| old game is more important than its capitalization
|
| > Even if you don't want to pirate it, there are lots of
| copies for multiple platforms available to buy just on
| eBay.
|
| This feels like a contradictory position.
|
| On the one hand the important thing is the preservation
| and availability of a work. On the other hand it's okay
| if the it is only available as 20+ year old used copies
| and pirated copies.
|
| And any preservation or restoration project is under the
| shadow of 3 companies (Warner Bros., Activision, and 20th
| Century Fox) which have all recently "complained that
| they may have rights to [NOLF] and may sue over it"
| anthk wrote:
| Except that you can get FreeDOOM as a replacement, even for
| PWADs:
|
| https://freedoom.github.io
|
| Get a daily build.
| lanthade wrote:
| I loved NOLF and NOLF2. I was actually thinking about pulling
| them off the shelf and loading them up again the other day. I had
| no idea that the rights around them was such a mess.
| croes wrote:
| Everybody is waiting for HL3. I want NOLF3
| hnarayanan wrote:
| This. This was such a charming game series.
| keyringlight wrote:
| I'm torn about whether I'd want a direct continuation. It has
| similarities to the changing tone of the spy shows/movies and
| their satires that inspired it in that things change over time,
| and the reception to the feminism angle would be different now.
| A sequel would likely mean moving the time period on again
| which has additional challenges.
|
| I could definitely see starting over with a reboot, which would
| also give the studio involved a chance to dodge all the rights
| issues by doing a 'spiritual successor' and renaming
| everything. 25 years later you're likely trying to attract
| newcomers much more than you are fans of the old games that
| want specifically more NOLF. I'd also be interested in a cold
| war era spy thriller that played it straight, real spy history
| has a lot to pull from that could be weaved into an intriguing
| story to play through, and NOLF did touch on some of the issues
| around spying like taking advantage of people.
| visarga wrote:
| Copyright kills works when rights cannot be negotiated, usually
| because the rights holder is not to be found, but in this case
| because the situation is just "complicated".
| bluGill wrote:
| I've long thought copyright should only apply if the work is
| available for sale, or they are actively preparing another
| printing so they can sell it again in the near future.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Then there would be digital stores where old works go to die.
| Which might be better than now if price was reasonable and
| support good. But could easily be expensive, unsupported, and
| goes after pirates.
|
| Authors already have problems with getting their books back
| when out of print. Ebooks make it worse cause they can stay
| in print with low effort.
|
| I like idea of copyright with short span, like 10 years, and
| then have to register and renew for every subsequent decade.
| That would give registry of owners who are serious about
| work. Would never see public domain movies, but there are
| lots of obscure works that would be public domain.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| > But could easily be expensive, unsupported, and goes
| after pirates.
|
| nothing stops that from happening even now, tho
| PeaceTed wrote:
| When Microsoft was first looking to do a remaster of Goldeneye
| from N64, even they couldn't manage the legal trouble of that
| one.
|
| Microsoft had the original development team, Nintendo had the
| software and Activision had the James Bond License. Microsoft
| was willing to develop it for both Xbox 360 and Wii but they
| simply couldn't get the rights between all three straightened
| out.
|
| If those three, companies that are no strangers to handling
| legal issues cannot figure out, it doesn't look good for
| smaller titles like this.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I remember playing the demos for NOLF and NOLF2 years ago. If I
| had known it would be impossible to buy 25 years later, I would
| have bought the game!
|
| I also remember reading articles in Game Developer magazine about
| how sophisticated the AI in NOLF2 was. Wish I could find that
| article
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| A pertinent prior discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43146581
| Lammy wrote:
| Fuck "buying it legitimately" anyway when it's old enough that it
| would be Public Domain under a sane copyright regime.
|
| Relevant: NOLF Revival Edition (same as mentioned in the article
| and quoted article, but actual link):
|
| - https://archive.org/details/no-one-lives-forever-trilogy
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43146581
| xandrius wrote:
| Totally agree, buying makes sense if it helps the creator(s),
| if it is not possible or it is tainted, I'd say go to the high
| seas and enjoy.
| tavavex wrote:
| No One Sells Forever, eh?
|
| But seriously, the way the copyright system prevents people from
| preserving and re-experiencing works as soon as the "rightful
| owner" stops caring about them is a travesty. I say that when an
| IP becomes orphaned, stops being claimed by a new rights-holder,
| or some time after it stops being sold/used, it should be
| forcibly removed from the grip of copyright and opened up for
| everyone to use. Otherwise, we're heading to a world where only a
| slim subset of well-performing properties are being offered,
| while the rest lie in a gigantic graveyard of things-someone-
| owns-but-will-never-use instead of being potentially put to use
| by someone who would actually care.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| What is the downside to limiting all movie and software
| copyrights to 10 years?
|
| Source code and materials etc can remain trade secrets if
| desired?
|
| And all IP with a movie as well - including characters. This
| would stop a studio from forever milking the same piece of IP
| forever.
| eastbound wrote:
| No, the opposite. To be protected by copyright, sources must be
| uploaded to a Library of Software.
|
| Downside: Movies will be made to not last; Software will be
| made to be incompatible with everything on a 10-year timeframe;
| and the country who enabled this open mindset will displease
| its copyright owners who will move to the other countries.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| One downside is it would motivate companies to get intellectual
| property registered under a trademark with indefinite
| protection rather than copyright. Even with our current
| lifetime + 70 year protection we have companies like Disney
| getting characters registered as a trademark.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I struggle to understand why the (potential?) rights-holders are
| so intransigent about this.
|
| If a company came up to me and said "We have interest in reviving
| an IP of yours. We will take on the development costs, we will
| take on all the risk, all you have to do is say yes and you will
| get a fixed percentage of every sale"--that seems like an easy
| win-win, does it not? The only reasons I would imagine you would
| say NO were if:
|
| 1) Concern that the company will do a crappy job and tarnish the
| brand's reputation (which, fair, but Nightreign studios and/or
| GOG seem to have a pretty solid track record on this)
|
| 2) Your company's bean-counters are both so greedy and risk-
| averse such that their thinking is, "We only wish to allow
| something if it will be a guaranteed hit...but if it _is_ a
| guaranteed hit, we want to do it internally so that we get to
| keep _all_ of the profits! " In which case, the requirements are
| almost impossible to satisfy, since there is inevitably some
| level of risk undertaken during the remaster/re-release effort.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| 3. They believe the IP may have potential that you won't
| exploit to the fullest.
|
| In other words, they believe that they may be able to do more
| than you with it, if they ever get around to it.
|
| If your potential market is tiny--and lets be honest, the
| market for an unpirated version of this is quite small,most
| people sufficiently interested have pirated it already--then
| keeping it out of the public in favor of some unknown potential
| later is a consideration.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I imagine there is a legal/admin cost, to locating the paper
| contract in Iron Mountain/wherever. So if they wait for the
| game to go ahead anyways, they could wait and see if its a
| smashing success, then sue and have a budget for tracking the
| docs down. Perhaps a lawyer could explain if sending a "cough
| up the docs in 60 days or we are invalidating your claim" would
| work.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I think it's basically just "this is complicated, complicated
| means corporate lawyers, corporate lawyers are expensive enough
| and the potential profit is small enough that it's not worth
| it." It's not just "will this be net positive," either. There's
| an opportunity cost. Those corporate lawyers are needed for
| other important projects that might make more money.
|
| But also, I kind of think it becomes a thing where it's too
| small potatoes for anybody senior enough to actually approve
| all of the legal stuff to care enough to make happen. Sure,
| it's basically free money, but it's not a lot of free money.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Also, it's not clear who actually owns the thing -- the
| original game was developed by Monolith Productions and
| published by Fox Interactive (PC) and Sierra (PS2). Following
| the tree of deals, there's a bunch of different big
| corporations that could have a claim on the IP:
|
| - Fox Interactive was eventually sold to Vivendi, but most of
| their library was listed as owned by 20th Century Fox, which
| has since been acquired by Disney
|
| - the second and third games in the series were published by
| Sierra, who over the years have been owned by Comp-U-Card,
| Vivendi, Activision, and eventually Microsoft
|
| - Monolith Productions were eventually purchased by Warner
| Bros., who shut the studio down earlier this year
|
| Just from that list, there's a huge list of media
| conglomerates that could have an ownership claim: News Corp,
| Disney, Vivendi, Warner Bros., Microsoft
| mrandish wrote:
| Yeah, just reading that list of corporations and the long,
| twisted IP ownership trail, I'd estimate figuring out who
| has which rights would take at least a year and a couple
| hundred grand in legal costs to get each potential
| stakeholder's attorneys to locate, review and analyze the
| documents and issue a binding legal opinion.
|
| I've actually been the "business decision maker" in some
| similar multi-law firm licensing confusion. It was a
| situation where my company had no significant financial
| stake in the outcome and was just trying to be the 'good
| guy'. In fact, all the big companies were aligned on being
| willing to just help out the small company trying to get
| the thing to happen. Despite that sincere intent all
| around, it was basically impossible to do what they needed
| without significant expense or even potentially creating
| new liability for ourselves where there was none. The moral
| being: don't just assume "we can't have a nice things
| because of big company assholes". That's sometimes the case
| but not always. There are execs out there who'd be happy to
| 'do the right thing' if they can. Over probably a dozen
| similar situations, there were only a couple were I was
| able to help a good thing happen - despite actively trying
| to find a way to make it work.
| zerocrates wrote:
| The potential that you spend the money/time just to end up
| proving that you _don 't_ own it is I think the main blocker.
| mrandish wrote:
| I agree with your points and would add one more: the TFA
| gives a second-hand recounting of what the various company's
| lawyers supposedly told the potential reboot licensor and
| quotes the erstwhile licensor's conclusion they were
| basically threatening legal action. But this isn't consistent
| with the companies also indicating they weren't sure what
| rights they may have (if any).
|
| However, it IS consistent with a thing prudent lawyers would
| typically do when discussing an unknown future hypothetical.
| They'd reserve their client's rights should the client later
| discover they have grounds and wish to pursue it. Depending
| on how it's phrased, that could be confused with a 'legal
| threat', but I suspect the lawyers may have just been careful
| to not unintentionally relinquish any future rights.
|
| I'm basing this on being involved in similar licensing
| discussions between lawyers. While some lawyers and clients
| are assholes, not all are. Even if they were trying to be
| 'good guys', it's not clear they could be in this situation.
| Since they don't even know if they have any rights, they
| don't have grounds to grant any kind of permission (and doing
| so in the absence of having any rights could make their
| client liable - at least in theory).
| dylan604 wrote:
| We just saw an explosion of streaming platforms because of
| their version of 2). Instead of continuing to license to
| Netflix for a percentage, they decided to spend all of the
| time/money to develop their own streaming platforms in hopes of
| keeping _all_ of the proceeds. Maybe they have internal dialog
| looking at this same comparison which has not settled out yet.
| The streaming platforms have shown rolling your own is not a
| guaranteed panacea.
| toast0 wrote:
| Many of these get stuck in contract hell. The original
| developer may have had licensed software or assets and at the
| very least needs to find the agreements and understand how they
| work for new distribution. It's not uncommon for those
| agreements to have been time limited, but if you want to renew
| now you need to find the current successor/rightsholder and
| negotiate.
|
| Also, the developer/publisher/distributor/etc may have had
| revenue sharing agreements with various parties. Those need to
| be found and understood too. Sometimes those are in % of gross
| income, % of net income, % of sales price, or a fixed amount
| per copy sold. If anything needs addressing, you've got to find
| those parties or their successors and negotiate. You should
| also find those parties anyway, to pay royalties they're due,
| but if you at least set up an escrow account, you'll be
| prepared when they find you.
|
| I would hope games contracts are a bit more forward looking
| now, and try to address these things, but 25 years ago, you
| would still get old games at computer surplus stores... A
| handful of developers would put out old games collections, but
| most games never came back.
| jeffwask wrote:
| Game Publishers hoard IP like Smaug. I can't even begin to
| catalog the IP's in the EA, UBI, and Activision's vaults. In
| many cases, the original creators can't even get the time of
| day to ask to use the IP.
| teddyh wrote:
| What companies hear is, in effect, "Please make it easier for
| me to create a competing product and take away business from
| your existing IP:s that you are trying to create mindshare
| for."
| mattfrommars wrote:
| off topic: My goodness, anyone feel the UI/UX of the website to
| be really refreshing? I've lately been digging
| compact/industrialized looking UI vs 'touch'/comfort view that
| take up way too much real estate.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| No One Lives Forever is a game
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Operative:_No_One_Lives_Fo...
|
| Usual insanely wordy paragraphs and endless linked text hiding
| everything on TechDirt.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| This was a fun series of games. They are especially fun if you've
| watched some of the source material they're constantly
| referencing and alluding to, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (the
| 1960s one, not the 2010s movie), Get Smart, etc. Still holds up.
| zeppelin101 wrote:
| I only played the first one, because the second one was more
| finnicky and required newer hardware. But I must say, NOLF 1 is
| one of the best and most unique FPS games ever. It should be far,
| far more famous than it is.
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| I remember buying NOLF--it was at retail, in a big box off the
| shelf at Media Play. I knew nothing about it, it just caught my
| eye, and the description on the back sounded interesting. I miss
| that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world
| tends to smother serendipity.
|
| It was an excellent game. The idea of a continuation of the
| series is appealing, but a lot of modern adaptations really
| stink, so maybe it's better off in the amber of nostalgia.
| PeaceTed wrote:
| I did discover a lot of great stuff like that. The funny thing
| is that there were a few titles that I discovered, absolutely
| loved and yet apparently were considered bad games. Oh well, I
| saw the good side of it.
|
| One that I grabbed for $10 was Adrenix, a 'Descent' clone that
| has very few mentions around and reviewed fairly averagely. I
| loved it!
|
| As for modern adaptions of games, if they can do it either like
| 3D Realms retro style like with Ion Fury, or go into the full
| re-imagined space like they did with Doom 2016. But any middle
| ground seems to lead to disappointment.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I got it as a pack-in with a video card. I didn't expect it to
| be anything good, being a pack-in. Talk about being wrong...
| jeffwask wrote:
| There is a team working on a "Spiritual Successor".
| Goronmon wrote:
| _I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online
| world tends to smother serendipity._
|
| I don't really miss the time of having to choose games this
| way. If you lucked out it was great, but you were also
| potentially putting down upwards of $50+ bucks in 1995 dollars
| on a game that you might end up really disliking.
| caycep wrote:
| this is true of a lot of indy films...I remember a talk by this
| one director, Joe Swanberg, who mentioned a lot of his early
| movies are in limbo and unwatchable because no one can figure out
| who has the rights...
| TMWNN wrote:
| Reposting my proposals regarding copyright:
|
| Any content, once published/distributed/broadcast in the US, that
| is not made readily available to the public going forward loses
| copyright protection. This includes revisions.
|
| * A film, TV show, sound recording, book, or any other
| copyrighted content must, once made available for public
| purchase, always remain available. If the only streaming service
| willing to pay to stream your movie has the smallest market
| share, too bad; the market has spoken on the value of your
| content. An ebook can fulfill this purpose for a print book;
| streaming can fulfill this purpose for a theatrical or physical-
| media film. But it must be available to maintain copyright.
|
| * Compulsory licensing should apply; if Netflix wants to pay the
| same amount of money as the above-mentioned small market-share
| streaming service for the film, Netflix must be allowed to do so.
| The film's rights owner can demand more, raising the price for
| all, but if every outlet refuses, the film immediately goes into
| public domain. This process is reversible, but it would set a
| ceiling to prevent the owner from setting a ridiculously high
| price to prevent its availability.
|
| * If a Blu-ray of a film or TV show has excised or modified
| scenes for whatever reason, and the original isn't also made
| available (whether on a different "theatrical cut" release, or as
| a different cut on the same disc), the entire original version
| immediately goes into public domain.
|
| * If NBC posts _Saturday Night Live_ skits on YouTube that have
| removed "problematic" scenes[1] without explaining the
| differences--a diff file, basically--the entire original skit
| loses copyright protection.
|
| Separate issue, but also very worthwhile:
|
| * Streaming services must make all data regarding their content
| available in some standardized format. Consumers should be able
| to use one application to access all content they have access to.
| The creator of SmartTube (a very nice YouTube-compatible player)
| should be able to add the appropriate API support to search for
| and play Netflix/Prime Video/Disney+/Paramount+ content.
|
| The above applies to software, too. Legalize abandonware!
|
| [1] Something I understand already happens
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Makes me wonder if a good way to "reign in" on copyright abuse
| and abandonware is to require copyright holders to pay a tax
| based on some kind of formula.
|
| More importantly: If no tax is paid, after a reasonable amount of
| time, (1-3 years,) the work is considered abandoned and
| _automatically moved to the public domain._
|
| Even more importantly, if the work isn't available for general
| consumption (rental and physical), at a reasonable cost, without
| a subscription / ads, no copyright claims can be perused for non-
| commercial piracy. (IE, it would become totally legal to torrent
| a TV show if it's stuck in a streaming service that requires ads
| / a subscription.)
| gwd wrote:
| Georgism [1] but applied to copyright: If you want to extend
| your copyright past, say, 15 or 20 years, then you need to
| estimate the value of that copyright and pay tax on it. You can
| name any value you want, but someone can then buy it at that
| value.
|
| Maybe there can be different rules for copyrights owned by
| humans vs corporations; 5 years free for corporations, 20 years
| free for humans. Or maybe longer for humans, I dunno. But
| having corporations sit on IP just because they can is
| ridiculous.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
| thfuran wrote:
| >If you want to extend your copyright past, say, 15 or 20
| years,
|
| If you want to extend your copyright past 20 years, too bad.
| Come up with something new; that one's public domain now. Or
| it should be at any rate.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I agree in principal.
|
| That being said: I think reforming copyright should allow
| fair use and incentives for curation. There's nothing wrong
| with the Beatles' heirs curating the Beatles recordings for
| streaming, and remastering them; as long as there's no
| prosecution for torrenting needle drops of old Beatles
| records, torrenting rips of old Beatles CDs from the 1990s,
| and making a streaming service of such recordings (the old
| ones, not the remasters) without needing permission of the
| heirs.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| So they can't release a sequel, but they could make a new game
| that has suspiciously similar vibes and call it "Some people
| eventually dies or something".
| aidenn0 wrote:
| It seems like one could negotiate a price for "possible rights,"
| no? I.e. I pay you $X and you relinquish any rights you may or
| may not have to me.
| kristianp wrote:
| That Bobby Banilla story is nuts. So instead of paying $5.9m in
| 2000, the Mets decided to defer the payments for 11 years! And
| also to stretch them out over 25 years! Didn't the Mets realise
| that just paying the full amount (with interest) 2 or 3 years
| later cost them a lot less. On the other hand, $1.1m is probably
| peanuts in terms of Mets expenses these days.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bonilla
|
| On the other hand there are claims this allowed the Mets to free
| up cash flow in the short term and also allowed them a draft pick
| in the next season.
|
| https://ftw.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/07/01/new-yor...
| expedition32 wrote:
| I had to pirate Xenosaga and emualate a PS2.
|
| The reality is that the vast majority of entertainment is
| ephemeral. A videogame or movie get it's 5 minutes of fame. There
| are a few weirdos like me who want to play a 20 year old
| videogame but how much money can you get out of that and is it
| worth the trouble?
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