New pirate eBay goods: demo DVD

[Piru]

@keropi

Your personal opinion certainly is your own, but amiga.org doesn't tolerate copyright infrigiment or piracy.

(I'm not saying that this particular case would be, but it is a bit shady since money is asked)

[Piru]

@Tomas

So what should you then do when this said group does not exist anymore??

I'd say you'd still be allowed to redistribute the original release as long as you don't ask money for it.

Nowadays party rules often have a clause that any release made at the compos must be redistributable by the organizers / others. Naturally there weren't such agreements during the early days, though.

Taking charge for the shipping and media costs does not equal selling, since the person who is doing it earn zero profit for the job of transferring the demos to video.

IMO without permission it's either totally free of charge or no distribution. Reversed: If you want to ask money, you need to have permission.

Also this would mean that it would be just as illegal to host most of these older demos on the internet for free, as it does not state in the copyright that these files can be hosted on the internet medium.

I don't see what is wrong with hosting the demos on the internet free of charge.

The simple fact is that most demos are released in public domain for free

Free yes, but I can't remember seeing any Public Domain demos.

What about all the amiga magazines with demos cds back in the day?

They had permission, clearly, except...

They also released a bunch of PD stuff without asking for permission and alot of people actually bought the demo magazines for the demo cd/floppy disk.

PD stuff can be released without permission. But unless if someothing clearly states it's Public Domain, you can't treat it as such.

[Piru]

@ j_tramiel

Totally lost the plot there didn't you? I never claimed that I made the demos! I wasn't showing off anything, I was helping to spread great demos (which is what they were created for). I am using the Internet (ebay aint on a fu**ing BBS you know). I was only selling for the work I put into it.

Like I said, you are a hypocrite, you complain because I sell something I took the trouble to make, but if I offered it to you as a free download we wouldn't get a peep out of you. You are only {bleep}ing because you don't want to pay. Well if you don't want to pay for it, you aint getting it, simple eh?

So, if I understood you right: You have no problem of someone buying your DVD and putting the ISO available as download, or reselleing it as their own work with huge pricetag?

Good to know.

[Piru]

90% of the coders for these demos were involved in the piracy scene (cracktro's etc,) anyway.

Uhm, I have to disagree here. During the early days it was true mostly, but later on the scenes separated. Demoscene has been considered legal for aeons. Demoscene also has pretty low tolerance on loaning someone elses work (ripping, again much more common the early days).

Anyway: Two bads don't make one good.

I wasn't spreading the demos, I was spreading Video of the demos.

Makes no difference IMO.

You don't see the whole gorilla population queueing up to sue David Attenborough for making videos of them without getting their permission do you?

The problem here must be that the gorillas and humans can't communicate well enough. This should be no problem between demo compilation builder and demo authors (both are probably human).

Another problem might be that copyright law doesn't consider animals as individuals having rights. Dunno really, maybe it's possible in some countries. Go gorillas, sue the {bleep}!

[Piru]

@j_tramiel

You mean this perhaps?

[Piru]

@gizmomelb

I believe that by the sheer act of these demos being available through public domain collections, the authors have released (whether intentionally or not) their rights to ownership and thus stop anyone making copies of their works.

No they haven't. The only way you can waive the copyright is to specifically place the work under Public Domain. Someone including your work in some public domain collection does not make it public domain. There is no need to protect copyright, and it doesn't get revoked if you don't (Trademark and IP laws are another matter).

whether or not they have the copyright symbol somewhere in their production.

That is not required. Any work is automatically copyright by the creator (even in USA since 89 or so, that means most Amiga demos are covered).

See 10 Big Myths about copyright explained

[Piru]

I think if the original creators contact this guy and ask for their works removal, he should adhere and do so.

Again: No, that's the wrong way. You shouldn't sell something unless if you have license to do so (that is: written permission).

Otherwise I don't see any harm in what he's doing cause demos are meant to be public domain. Copying ROMs or games is a different matter in its entirety though.

Like pointed out before in this thread, demos are not public domain, unless otherwise stated.


For example scene.org's FAQ states:

Redistribution

We would like to create and sell compilations of music / demos that we downloaded from scene.org? Can you give us permission?

The International Scene Organization only has distribution rights of the works contained in its archive.

None of the works (songs, demos, graphics, videos) present on our archives are in the public domain. As such you need to contact yourself the respective authors to ask them specifically if they are willing to let you exploit their work commercially.

To do so we suggest you either read the contact info if present in the ftp directory, or from the archives and accompanying text files.

We know it can prove difficult sometimes to locate the copyright holders from the handles they leave with their file. You are then advised to try to reach them through the email addresses contained in readme files, or search their handle in http://ojuice.net's database.

[Piru]

By the way, have the demos any type of licence like gpl or such nowadays?

You need to check each particular demo individually.

BTW, here's some interesting demo licence talk:

http://www.scene.org/discussnews.php?item=275
http://www.scene.org/discusspoll.php?item=60

As you can see, this is no easy situation legally.

[Piru]

@paulvm

For that matter this site has serval pics from early amiga demos and screen shots of copyrighted material do you have all the written premissions required?

Most screenshots of games/demos fall into fair use category, I'd say.

even the swag combines 2 copyrighted images of amiga. Is Amiga inc. getting their share?

Pictures of hardware are copyright by the person taking the photo.

[Piru]

The pics on amiga.org. You need to make a distinction between actual copyrighted pictures, and pictures of copyrighted work (something else than a picture). These are two different things.

Naturally uploading copyrighted picture as-is is not fair use. However, screenshot of demo / game is.

A swag i was refencing the t-shirt amiga org is selling it contains 2 images copywrighted by Amiga inc. the checkmark and the ball. Amiga might allow to use logos on your website nonprofit, but selling a t-shirt is a profit business. no way it can be underfair use.

It is copyrigth infrigiment only if the images are really copyright someone else and there is no license to use them. Somehow I doubt amiga.org would be selling the stuff if there were any copyright/license issues... But following your own advice, you've already reported the infrigiment to Amiga, inc. right?

most writers used fake names and were involved in groups that cracked games at the time.

Irrelevant. This is no way connected to copyright of other works. Even if you're a criminal you don't lose the copyright of your own work.

If they used a fake name It would be near impossible to prove it is them now.

Actually even if you make your work under pseudonym, you're rewarded the copyright regardless. So, really, I don't see what the problem there is: It's the same anyway, you still need to prove you're the author...