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Recreating Yserbius, TNT (The Next Thread)

Macros

Active Members
#21
Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Home of the Underdogs was not profiting when they were forced to take down some abandonware titles.

All the peer to peer music swappers also were not profiting when the RIAA filed suits against them.

Monetary gain is not a prerequisite for infringement.

The way the intellectual property laws works, if the rights holder becomes aware of infringement, they are somewhat obligated to act. Failure to act can in some cases be interpreted in a court of law as a forfeiture of rights.

So regardless of whether someone really cares or not, you can find yourself in litigation just because they lawyers don't want to set a precedent of neglect.

I would not be worried about some suit at AOL wanting to mark their territory. I would be worried about a law firm tasked by the SPA to aggressively discover and attack any infringement of their member publishers' properties on that basis.

You could be right and nothing happens. I've seen it happen to others and just wanted to make sure you guys were aware.

It wouldn't hurt to check with a lawyer to get a professional opinion of the personal risks.

Best Regards,
Macros
 

Tiger

Active Members
#22
True, but the RIAA were acting on behalf of the musicians... And I can see how it's hurting the business. I think though there's a blanace though too, that there's extremes. In this case though, we're just remaking a classic. No biggy. Just like http://www.agdinteractive.com/ did with other Sierra titles.... Sierra could go after them I'm sure, would they gain anything from it though? Prolly not... Same here, would AOL come after us? I doubt it... Half the AOL exec's were replaced during the merge, the YS title prolly got lost in the basment with Milton... Still, like you, I'm no lawyer.... Just saw the artical and thought it was interesting...
 

Macros

Active Members
#23
Well, as I said, the danger isn't with an AOL exec. Its with a watch dog organization like ESA/IDSA (like http://www.the-underdogs.org/partdeux.php) on a search and destroy. Its the same things as the RIAA, the content creators didn't file suit.

If something did happen, It would likely be an SPA agency that comes after you since INN is no longer an active business unit at AOL.

I don't know anything about the KQ knockoffs. It could be they have permission, or they used all their own content, or any other number of things the public would not be aware of. Though the parody item is probably fair use. In either case, just because they didn't have permission (if that's the case) is not a defense for others who infringe.

But at any rate, my point is only to be careful and not to dismiss the risk as non-existent. Just think about it, weight the risks, and mitigate them where you can. You guys don't have a corporate veil to shield you, any action would be directly against the involved individuals.

Best Regards,
Macros
 

Tiger

Active Members
#25
According to that Myth thing... Still lyable...<Shrugs> I didn't intend to start this indepth of a discussion... lol :oops: Regardless, I REALLY doubt we have anything to worry about....
 

Macros

Active Members
#26
Well, there's a number of different pieces of intellectual property involved.

There is the artwork, the software, the music, the story, and the franchise (Yserbius world including Ys, Fates, Cawdor, etc.)

The software is not an issue, that will certainly not be used.

The artwork and music, if distributed without permission, you are infringing. If you use your own, you own it, no issue.

As for the story and franchise, that's like if you made your own game based on Star Wars without permission. Someone would have the right to force you to stop and to seek damages if warranted.

With Ys, its very unlikely you will have trouble. If you do have trouble, it will most likely simply be a cease and desist.

If Ybarra had left Matrix Online and was secretly working with AOL on "Yserbius II: Return of the Volcano", and you release a game which damages their market opportunity, then there would be grounds to get nasty. But short of that unlikely example, I think the worst you are looking at would be a "stop that please."

I'm not a lawyer, but we've spent a lot of money on them over the years and I'm just sharing some of the advice we received on the various IP issues.

Again the only reason I mentioned it was so that you guys would be aware of things, not to suggest you stop.

Best Regards,
Macros
 

Beamer

Inactive Members
#27
You may also want to contact the people that did the Kings Quest VGA remake and see if they got any responses from Sierra or interested parties. Even Macros and I talked about modifying certain aspects of the Emp engine and making the 16 or so maps that comprised YS. In the end though we opted not to persue that idea so we would never risk getting into trouble over the copyright issues. Damn shame to see good intellectual properties rot sometimes due to a large company having the rights.
 

slohand

Yserbian
Staff member
#31
Huh?

that would not be possible really, it would get out and people would be knocking the door down,, i mean do you realize how many peeps played YS? since it was created? alot i am sure. that would be counter productive to the cause i think. the idea would be to get the client off the ground create the game and go into major overhaul from then on. modifying as we went along first lets give the world Yserbius as they remember it and then lets as Yserbians and members make it a better place. lets dont try to compete with the EQ'd DAOC's or even SOE or Blizzard lets make Yserbius what we want it to be, This time we will hold the power to decide what happens. if there is a mass movement to change or add or remove and otherwise modify the Game we will have that power. Lets dont so much worry about the Game as we do the Community it created and the Community just the mention of the name Yserbius is creating now before the Game is out there... we will deal with the AOL's and sierra's if it ever comes up. I have a old motto "ya cant get blood out of a turnip". nother one is "baby steps" SLo
 

Tiger

Active Members
#32
Re: Huh?

slohand said:
we will deal with the AOL's and Sierra's if it ever comes up.
Agreed! I really doubt we have anything to worry about... Even less to worry about from Sierra, since they don't hold the rights at all... BTW, Mac mentioned,
Macros said:
Well, there's a number of different pieces of intellectual property involved.

There is the artwork, the software, the music, the story, and the franchise (Yserbius world including Ys, Fates, Cawdor, etc.)
Well... Thats actually, in my oppion, not true... We won't have to worry about the ingame 'stuff', like art work, music, code, ext as the programmers MORE THEN LIKELY, signed a contract with Sierra saying, "Anything you make is ours (Sierra)". And since Sierra sold all their rights to AT&T, then to AOL... :?
 

hicksman

Inactive Members
#33
yeah i'm going to have to agree with Tiger on this. I would be willing to bet that all of the intellectual property belongs to AOL instead of being fragmented across individual contributors.

Ken Williams thinks AOL sucked it up so they could hold patents on certain aspects of the interface and such. If we get any legal hassle, its going to come swiftly from the top of AOL.

However, i think that the chances of that are unlikely because we're not posing competition to AOL's market in any way and we're not working for profit.

Fan made projects get killed because the owning company is usually coming out with a similar product and wouldnt want a free product coming to market before they do. That could be shown with Alien Doom getting killed because *forgot what company* was coming out with Aliens Vs Predator.

So unless AOL is designing a dungeon hack MMORPG :roll: , or we inadvertantly use a part of YS that was strategically patented by AOL and is still being actively used, lii think we'll be ok.
 

Macros

Active Members
#34
Tiger,

In your opinion it is not true that there are several different pieces of intellectual property?

There clearly are. There is artwork. There is music. There is code. And there is the Yserbius story.

Of course the rights are held by AOL or whoever acquired them from INN/TSN who acquired them from Ybarra et al.

That designers, programmers and artists all signed agreements conveying rights to the production studio is more than "MORE THAN LIKELY", it is a virtual certainty.

I never said anything about the rights being held by separate entities.

I am not sure where you got that idea.

Best Regards,
Macros
 

Tiger

Active Members
#35
Sorry Mac, I misunderstood what you were saying about the diffrent aspects of the copyprotected material. I thought you ment that because others created it, that they still owned the rights to the content. And I said More then likely because I'm not a lawyer, nor did I work for Sierra, so I didn't sign any contract...
 

Akyla

Inactive Members
#36
My two cents that has nothing to do with any of this:

It pleases me (not like it matters much to anyone but me) to see that you guys aren't internet fools and can sit here and talk about these kinda things. Not argue, apologize, swallow pride, etc. Yada yada, I'm bad with words. But just seeing how you hold convos on a forum tells me that you guys are the ones for this job. And to that I congratulate you all.

/me (un)patiently waits for the release.

Edit: My stinky avatar won't show. Is it only me? It meets all requirements and I tried another I think I'm just jynxed. Wait, nevermind; go back to important conversations that I don't get. ^^
 

Tiger

Active Members
#37
Thanks... I think.... :wink: Ya can open a support ticket, or PM Slohand, and maybe he'll upload your avatar....
 

Macros

Active Members
#38
I have no desire to rekindle this thread, but I came across this pretty interesting post supposedly by Ken Williams over on the Sierra site in response to queries by the FauxInn project

http://www.sierragamers.com/bbs/BBSTopicPage.asp/t/3538/p/1

It seems relevant so figured I'd add it to the record here.

Post by Mr Williams below.

Best Regards,
Macros



---------------------------------

(re: Source of images) Jason:

Good luck with your FauxINN project! You can't imagine how much I wish INN existed -- just so I could play it. I really miss it... Yes ... you have my permission to "borrow" the images from here of INN for your site. Factually speaking -- all images are/were of Sierra copyrighted material ---so, it's not clear that anyone, other than possibly Sierra owns them. I have no right to "give" you anything (or, for that matter, to have it myself).

Speaking of lawyers... here's something interesting...

Recently, I spent an hour on the phone with lawyers for American Online. Apparently, they somehow wound up being the owners of INN. You cannot imagine what a pioneering effort INN was. The Internet did not really exist yet, and modems were barely running at 1200 baud (some people were just starting to have 2400 baud).

I had the foresight to patent what we were doing. Apparently, AOL understand that owning the patents on key aspects of multi-player games is important and called me recently to ask about the patent. I'm listed as the inventor, along with a few other Sierra folk. AOL has been working on getting the patents through the filing process for over 10 years! I had no idea this was going on. I remember filing the patents, and that they were very broad (we really were first in MANY ways).

The key thing to know here is that AOL understands the value of the patents, and that they are close to being issued. I doubt that your faux INN project is "in their crosshairs" .... but, it is possible that many other, larger, "infringers" are...

-Ken W[/url]
 
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