From: Steve Judd (sjudd_at_ffd2.com)
Date: 2004-06-20 20:49:59
Hola,
On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Scott Julian wrote:
> I'm wondering how if at all it is possible for Tulip to enforce copyrights,
> trademarks and 'IP'.
I've been wondering the same thing. Some years ago a guy from Activision
asked on comp.sys.cbm for cracks of their old games (so they could release
their 15-game oldies pack). That is, the source codes were long gone, and
it was the online C= people -- who had been collecting, organizing, etc.
old games -- that made it possible for Activision to make some money off
of their old stuff.
I suspect the same is true of C=, Epyx, etc. When C= went under and
everything was auctioned off, some people were asking what happened to the
chip templates etc. (for the purposes of really understanding VIC and SID,
instead of reverse-engineering). My recollection is that nobody knew --
they are just gone, and nobody knows where. Tulip certainly doesn't have
them. My guess also is that they/Ironstone used cracked versions of
Summer Games in their thingie. Wonder where they got them from?
So, as a practical matter, it's not even clear to me what Tulip owns,
besides a few trademarks. I tend to agree with Rainer -- without the
efforts of people to reverse-engineer VIC and SID and such, Tulip would
have nothing. Without the efforts of Lemon etc. they would also have
nothing. Without an organized C= community that's kept things alive, they
would have nothing.
As a legal matter, how could you even prove ownership of something, be it
a reverse-engineered chip or a piece of software, if you don't have the
source code or templates? I ask out of ignorance; I just wonder how Tulip
would plan to argue in court that they own something they don't possess.
(I also find it hard to believe they'd want to spend a lot of money trying
to prosecute these things.)
Finally, if crackers etc. thrived in the 80's, when all this stuff was
clearly illegal and the technology was more primitive... well, good luck
to Tulip trying to close these things down. Heck, maybe all the old
swappers are rooting for Tulip as we speak.
Just some random thoughts...
-S
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