[Scummvm-devel] Discworld distribution. How to proceed?
Travis Howell
kirben at optusnet.com.au
Tue Apr 26 02:41:50 CEST 2016
Actually James Brown (Ender) handled the legal work at the time, as
shown by the fax attached in the first message. The fact we are relying
on correspondence over ten years old is worrying, especially when the
Discworld rights have completely changed in the meantime.
This isn't a flamewar, or ill-informed at all, it is simply common
sense. We can't legally make a freeware release based on permission from
someone who has passed away, and no longer holds any legal rights due to
death. There was not even any official license issued at all, as stated
in the first message.
The fact there was no actual freeware release is the important point,
because the rights holders have changed, and that permission no longer
applies at all. I don't know how you can even argue that point.
If we make a freeware release of Discworld 1 & 2 now, we have nothing
from the current rights holders of Discworld, to show we have permission
to make these games freeware, and completely leave ourselves open to
legal issues.
On 26/04/2016 9:31 AM, Paul Gilbert wrote:
> Well, Sev is the one who's been the contact for all previous
> discussions, so if he's confident that it meets all relevant UK legal
> requirements, then that should be good enough for us. Since none of us
> are lawyers (that I'm aware of), it's going to be pretty pointless to
> get into a flamewar of our own ill-informed viewpoints of how foreign
> intellectual property works (unless you happen to be a UK resident, in
> which case it's local laws). And the document he provided was pretty
> specific. As far as I'm aware, again IANAL, the fact that freeware
> distributions weren't publicized or publicly available doesn't magically
> stop them being authorized freeware. The only relevance I'd see for the
> current rightsholder is if they decided to revoke the previous
> authorization, as SimSaw asked.. I'm presuming they could, since
> freeware isn't the same as public domain, but it's all academic since
> they haven't in any case.
>
> Paul.
>
> On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 7:06 PM, Travis Howell <kirben at optusnet.com.au
> <mailto:kirben at optusnet.com.au>> wrote:
>
> The point is there was no actual freeware release of Discworld 1 & 2 in
> the past, or even license offering rights. The previous chance of
> freeware release would have only been possible as long as Terry
> Pratchett was alive.
>
> Games (i.e. Betrayal at Krondor) have only been offered for free for
> limited time in the past, due to rights changes too.
>
> Any future freeware release of Discworld 1 & 2 would require permission
> from the current rights holder (Rhianna Pratchett) to be covered
> legally.
>
> On 26/04/2016 3:34 AM, SimSaw at gmx.de <mailto:SimSaw at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > is anybody here familiar with copyright in the UK? If Terry Pratchett
> > put Discworld 1 and 2 in a sort of freeware state, I am not quite sure
> > if the heirs can undo the freewaring.
> > Discworld 1 and 2 being freeware in all localised versions would be
> > really fantastic, so I'd be glad if this idea wouldn't be given up so
> > easily. Probably some more research and asking might be required.
> > For uploading freeware games in general I would also suggest using
> > Google Drive. From what I read it is allowed to have several accounts.
> > Regards
> > Simon
> > *Gesendet:* Montag, 25. April 2016 um 16:20 Uhr
> > *Von:* "Travis Howell" <kirben at optusnet.com.au
> <mailto:kirben at optusnet.com.au>>
> > *An:* "Eugene Sandulenko" <sev at scummvm.org <mailto:sev at scummvm.org>>
> > *Cc:* "scummvm-devel.lists.sourceforge.net
> <http://scummvm-devel.lists.sourceforge.net>"
> > <scummvm-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
> <mailto:scummvm-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>>
> > *Betreff:* Re: [Scummvm-devel] Discworld distribution. How to
> proceed?
> > It would have helped if you had clarified the Discworld 1 & 2
> rights in
> > initial message, with further proof of expiration dates for previous
> > licenses.
> >
> > I still don't see how any of this helps though, considering Terry
> > Pratchett passed away last year, and the rights have passed to his
> > daughter (Rhianna Pratchett) now.
> >
> > On 25/04/2016 11:25 PM, Eugene Sandulenko wrote:
> > > Hi Travis,
> > >
> > > First of all, there is much more than that fax, there is a
> multi-year
> > > correspondence with Colin Smyth, sir Pratchett's agent.
> > >
> > > Second, the rights got returned to about 2005, just by
> > > the end of that year.
> > >
> > > And fax is a legal document in UK.
> > >
> > >
> > > Eugene
> > >
> > > On 25 April 2016 at 15:11, Travis Howell
> <kirben at optusnet.com.au <mailto:kirben at optusnet.com.au>
> > > <mailto:kirben at optusnet.com.au
> <mailto:kirben at optusnet.com.au>>> wrote:
> > >
> > > A freeware release of Discworld 1 & 2 would require much more
> proof,
> > > than that fax alone. That fax only states Terry Pratchett give his
> > > permission, but did the games rights actually revert back to him?
> > >
> > > Discworld 1 & 2 were developed by Perfect 10 Productions/Perfect
> > > Entertainment, and part of a multi-game license to Sony
> > > Entertainment. Are we sure Sony Entertainment no longer have the
> > > rights for Discworld 1 & 2? did they only have limited rights for
> > > the games, time wise?
> > >
> > > I would be especially careful, after noting there was a court case
> > > about Discworld Noir, based on that multi-game deal with Sony
> > > Entertainment.
> > >
> > > On 25/04/2016 9:38 PM, Eugene Sandulenko wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Team,
> > >
> > > After all of these years and some consultations around, I
> > > finally came
> > > up to the conclusion that we could release both Discworld games
> > > as freeware.
> > >
> > > This is all based on a fax from 2005, I am attaching a copy
> > > which I am
> > > going to distribute instead of the license file. Per Colin
> > > Smythe in our
> > > correspondence with him: "It is our policy NOT to give an official
> > > licence if we have already stated that we have have effectively
> > > granted
> > > freeware."
> > >
> > > Now, we're coming to a different area. Finding a way to
> > > distribute the
> > > game. The games are pretty big, almost 2Gb combined. We were
> > > asked to
> > > limit our monthly bandwidth consumption, which makes putting the
> > > game
> > > straight away a bit problematic.
> > >
> > > Moreover, another big game is coming to be freewared, that is the
> > > Hopkins FBI, which is another chunk of versions of about 5GB
> > > worth of data.
> > >
> > > Thus, after talking around, I have an idea of putting up our
> torrent
> > > server, and limiting it, say, to 500kb/sec. That will give us
> > > 1.3Tb of
> > > monthly traffic, which is well beyond our thresholds. Also. I
> > > can help
> > > from my home with a more speedy upload bandwidth. But the main
> > > idea is
> > > that the users will be helping each other, especially during the
> > > peaks
> > > after we announce the availability of the games.
> > >
> > > Additionally, I could put the files on the sf.net <http://sf.net>
> > > <http://sf.net> <http://sf.net>, and
> > > thus, offer both the direct link and .torrent file from our site.
> > >
> > > So, what do you guys think, should it be the way to go? Or we
> > > could just
> > > put it on the sf.net <http://sf.net> <http://sf.net>
> <http://sf.net> and not
> > > mess with the torrents at all?
> > >
> > >
> > > Eugene
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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