Random Gaming Thoughts

[MrPopo]

or cutting off the tag on your own mattress.

[RCBH928]

Unfortunately it seems that no one knows who owns the NOLF rights. Nightdive tried to figure it out once but failed.

So...does this mean its in the public domain ?

I don't feel guilty pirating them at all. I mean, how can you support the developers for it? You don't support them when buying it on ebay, you support the random person on ebay that's selling it.

I think one member here mad an argument how pirating software that is no longer being sold is actually contributing to piracy and hurting the developer. I think his argument was that if the consumer knew that this software he buys today is not going to be worth anything tomorrow (people pirate it) then he is unwilling to pay the developer for it, at least not as much. Ex. A guy buys a PS5 game day-1 for $60, because he knows he can sell it again for $30 used. If he was unable to sell it for anything, then he will not pay $60, more like $30 ending up hurting the original publisher/developer.

My idea of it is that if right holder owner still sells the software/media on modern systems I will buy it. I recently bought Diablo II from Blizzard and it worked as if I was in the year 2000. On the other hand, a game like The Adventures of Batman & Robin on Genesis, I have to find a working cartridge+shipping, a working genesis+shipping, and even then it might not connect to my TV because it does not have RF/Composite input. I will pay more in setup and shipping than the game itself!

[MrPopo]

Unfortunately it seems that no one knows who owns the NOLF rights. Nightdive tried to figure it out once but failed.

So...does this mean its in the public domain ?

Not how public domain works. The rights are owned by someone and those get held for a period of time before going public domain. And that period of time is many decades.

[PretentiousHipster]

It's funny because archive.org, a public domain website, has abandonware games on it. Doesn't help with establishing the grey area of it.

[MrPopo]

The Internet Archive is not a public domain site. It's a repository of information, much of which is in the public domain. Its content is supplied by users and it relies on content owners deciding whether or not to request things to be taken down. As an example, users uploaded a ton of Nintendo Power scans and Nintendo requested they be taken down.

There is nothing legally grey. It's more like jaywalking; it's never legal to do so, but 95% of the time no one is going to do anything about it.

[RCBH928]

Unfortunately it seems that no one knows who owns the NOLF rights. Nightdive tried to figure it out once but failed.

So...does this mean its in the public domain ?

Not how public domain works. The rights are owned by someone and those get held for a period of time before going public domain. And that period of time is many decades.

Well, if they don't know who the right holder is, then they can't sue me as I owe something to no one! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I understand the difference though. I believe that anyone who has created something has the rights for it forever as it is his work and investment, so long as he makes it available for purchase. Honestly, even if he does not make it available on the market its his right to do whatever he wants with it including forbid people from it.

EDIT: Just checked on ebay and they go for around $30. Very fair for a discontinued game available only physically, can I really just pop in the CD and it will load on Windows 10 no issues?!

[PretentiousHipster]

This actually reminds me of something that happened in a private movie torrent site I'm in which I won't mention the name of, or the director involved in it. The website has a nickname by a few people I know calling it a UNESCO archive because of the films there, making an effort to only have stuff on there that's difficulty, or even impossible, to watch through legal means.

It definitely made an interesting point of discussion.

At one point there were a collection of short films by an avant-garde director. He somehow found out about it and complained. His stuff is not available in home video, and his point was that it should only be seen through legal means, which in his case, means retrospective screenings in theatres. A valid point, as an artist can do whatever they wish for with their art imo. But then another point came in that I honestly didn't know if I agreed with or not. Not everyone lives in those artsy fartsy cities. Basically if you don't live in places like New York, Toronto, Paris, or London, you're pretty much never going to see those films. Why make them so restrictive? It can't really be seen through a profit standpoint because you can't make a profit doing such as a strategy as retrospectives only.

The conclusion of it is funny, I guess. The director died a few years later, so the torrent site allowed his work to be uploaded.

[marurun]

Under current US (and most worldwide) copyright laws the copyright holder not only is allowed to control distribution of a work, but also to deny distribution of a work. One of the arguments that companies like Nintendo make is that their older works could potentially act as competition against their newer works. Whether this is true or not, that is their call to make. I think works should be allowed to remain available in some form or another to audiences, but copyright unfortunately doesn't favor this interpretation. The only grey area is for abandoned copyrights. In these cases, libraries, archives, and other similar institutions may create copies of and provide limited access to works that may still be protected by copyright only if access is otherwise unavailable AND the copyright holder is unable to be identified after a good faith effort.

[RCBH928]

At one point there were a collection of short films by an avant-garde director. He somehow found out about it and complained. His stuff is not available in home video, and his point was that it should only be seen through legal means, which in his case, means retrospective screenings in theatres. A valid point, as an artist can do whatever they wish for with their art imo. But then another point came in that I honestly didn't know if I agreed with or not. Not everyone lives in those artsy fartsy cities. Basically if you don't live in places like New York, Toronto, Paris, or London, you're pretty much never going to see those films. Why make them so restrictive? It can't really be seen through a profit standpoint because you can't make a profit doing such as a strategy as retrospectives only.

The conclusion of it is funny, I guess. The director died a few years later, so the torrent site allowed his work to be uploaded.

I actually really love the fact that mega-corporations decided to release their older titles for cheap prices through channels like GOG.com. The return they are making on these games is probably less than their petty cash, but it gives the consumer a reasonably legal access to the titles. I believe it killed piracy of these games and created a win-win situation. I think the idea was that, make a little better than make nothing. I also think its a PR tactic to make your game library accessible and to create customer loyalty to their brand.

As for the director, I think the idea was about "class". Basically "My films are made to be watched in the theater!". I can see his point.

One of the arguments that companies like Nintendo make is that their older works could potentially act as competition against their newer works. Whether this is true or not, that is their call to make.

This is completely true, you are competing for the consumer attention. The more the consumer spend his time playing SNES and NGC games, the less likely he will buy a Switch and a Switch game. While I completely agree, I don't like it because it protects Nintendo's interests and bans me from playing older games I want to play. Yet Nintendo did release many of their works again multiple times?!

[opa]

What sucks is even when a forgotten title gets released on a digital distribution platform, you don't necessarily get the version you want. For example, I think you'd have to pirate the EGA version of Loom as the gog/steam versions are the CD update (iirc).