New pirate eBay goods: demo DVD

[EvilGuy]

gizmomelb wrote:
I agree that j_tramiel cannot sell the DVD as his own work, but he seems well within the law to charge a modest extra for his time, materials and effort for creating a compilation of public domain works.

By the looks of things its a DVD of video recordings of the demos. Big deal.

Then he has sat down and made a nice fancy front end for the DVD.

Video of the demos, the copyright there is questionable. It'd cost so much $$$ just to work it out in the courts that you'd be a nitwit to even try and sue.

.. and he'd own the copyright to the DVD front end, so if you did get his DVD and you did put it online, then "you" would be the pirate.

Either way, the DVD looked cool from the screen shots. Shame he won't produce it.

[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

[Savan]

@j_tramiel

Sell what the hell you want on ebay, ignore the high and mighty "amiga crusaders" on here. Next week the stalkers will move over to GPL violations,logo thefts and other petty things what turns them on..

[_ThEcRoW]

@AntonioX
Why don't you report these actions yourself and keep this thread out? Or do you want someone do it for you?. This thread got enough fuel for flames and you just are enlightening it.

[Hattig]

@Savan

He can't, the people with a thorny stick up their bums here will keep on reporting it as 'copyright infringement' to eBay and it isn't worth the hassle to him.

Yes, the copyright is owned by the creators. However they released these things quite some time ago, and it was always under the assumption that they would be spread wide and far. If there was such a thing as a Scene Licence back then, it would have been "Copy this to everyone you know so they can enjoy it, we're not liable for any damage, blah blah, blah, please keep original attributions intact".

[EvilGuy]

Yes, the copyright is owned by the creators.

Yep, and copyrights, like most of the other areas of IP are really only valuable if you enforce them.

And anyone who wants to enforce 10+ year old copyright on scene demos.. hehehe. Whilst they're throwing their money away they can throw some my way.  :-)

[Iggy_Drougge]

Bubble wrote:
I cannot believe that this s##t is still going on. How on earth can people still be complaining about this.

1: The guy is selling them for some profit, but it represents a lot of work and at the price he is hardly going to become a millionare.

He is worth approximately 2 GBP for pressing REC several times. Yes, that's a lot of work, compared to the hundreds of man-hours that have gone into each demo on the disc.

It's not distributing old stuff per se that makes people offset, it's people trying to make a profit off other people's hard works. No matter how much work people claim to have laid on making CD compilations of ROMZ or gamez or warez, it is fades in comparison with the original work of the authors.

[countzero]

Iggy_Drougge wrote:

He is worth approximately 2 GBP for pressing REC several times. Yes, that's a lot of work, compared to the hundreds of man-hours that have gone into each demo on the disc.

I think there are two different works here. The original demo makers effort to make a demo and this guys effort for finding these demos and making a compilation. And I don't see any point in comparing them. I don't think this guy is earning a life out of it. If you think the price is high you have all the right to make one compilation for yourself. The original demo makers have all the right to distribute their own work, but they don't. Why ? because it's not really worth it (profit-wise) and they probably have much important and timeworthy stuff to do right now.

It's not distributing old stuff per se that makes people offset, it's people trying to make a profit off other people's hard works. No matter how much work people claim to have laid on making CD compilations of ROMZ or gamez or warez, it is fades in comparison with the original work of the authors.

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

[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.

[motorollin]

"I'm looking for a pirate memory game..."

--
moto

[_ThEcRoW]

Sad, very sad. By the way, have the demos any type of licence like gpl or such nowadays?, because i think that those demos were published for free, so it's perfectly legal distributing it. As someone said in a post in this thread, remember the pd libraries and their postage fees? that's a similar situation.
But i know that certain people have too much spare time and have to spend it on anything.

[Lando]

_ThEcRoW wrote:
Sad, very sad. By the way, have the demos any type of licence like gpl or such nowadays?, because i think that those demos were published for free, so it's perfectly legal distributing it. As someone said in a post in this thread, remember the pd libraries and their postage fees? that's a similar situation.

Exactly.  It's identical.  PD libraries such as 17-bit and the hundreds of others used to sell disks at £1.50 - £2.25 each (actual cost of blank disks were about 15p each and postage was 17p 1st class, plus the cost of the jiffy).  That's about a 500% profit per disk.  17-bit made enough from "selling other people's hard work" (as one person here put it) to start up Team 17.

I wonder if the people complaining in this thread now were spending all their time 15 years ago scribbling letters to Amiga Format / Amiga Power et al complaining about their adverts and calling all the PD sellers pirates?

[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.

[paulvm]

I notice several of you users use icons for their characters on this forum from copyright images like southpark are {bleep}ing about copyright seem funny. You can’t say their using it for artistic reasons each post use same icon. 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? even the swag combines 2 copyrighted images of amiga. Is Amiga inc. getting their share? Just showing how copyright can goto far.

[motorollin]

I designed my avatar image myself.

--
moto

[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.