I've been thinking about something for a while now, ever since I started trying to get an Amiga emulator working a few years ago. I downloaded the software, and then downloaded a bunch of the old demos and games I loved so much all those moons ago. I eagerly loaded and configured everything... And then I discovered that the emulator didn't come with the Amiga Kickstart ROM. (Basically the kernel of the entire Amiga OS.)

Why didn't the emulator software come with it? Simple. Amiga still owned the rights to it, and was threatening any sites that posted the ROM with charges. The ROM's are at least 12 years old, and have absolutely no commercial value any longer, and never will again. It's 100% pure nostalgia for guys who were around back in the day, and want to run old demos and software.

After much huffing and puffing and blowing down of houses, I managed to find an old friend of mine who had an image of the ROMs and I was off and running, to my eternal glee.

Why do companies do things like this? You'd think that they'd be pleased if someone wanted to run their old games or demos and check them out again. But they don't seem to. Abandonware sites get sued and shutdown all the time, for having ancient warez online. Tribute games get threatened if they use the name of a game that's 15 years old for a noncommercial project. Personally I think that lawyers just get paid far too much money, and have to keep themselves busy to justify it. And of course, companies are concerned, I suppose the fact that someone else is distributing their software, even if it's not for profit and even if it's not being made anymore.

Now, I'm not a lawyer or anything... I have some vague idea about the legal entanglements that such a law would involved. I propose an amendment to the copyright laws that applies only to computer hardware and software. After a set amount of time, it becomes public domain, to be freely distributed by anyone. I think it's time the people stopped looking at software in the same light as movies and books. There's no way in hell you'd still be selling a piece of software 10 years after it's release. Probably not even 5 years after. (Mac games being the exception, since they only seem to release a new game every few years for those damned things.)

Now, we'd have to have exemptions on the software that could be distributed. Mostly I'd like to just see this law apply to games since I know that some companies, for example time clock manufacturers are still using the same crappy old DOS programs they developed 10 years ago, and other companies *cough*Microsoft*cough* are still using components from previous Operating Systems and utilities.

I'd like to see it specified that after XX (five? ten?) years, any and all computer video games and perhaps other software becoming public domain, with the clause that they may not be distributed in a media that must be purchased, and that the technology and or code could not be used or modified for commercial purposes of any sort. The original owner also retains the rights to the name, trademarks and technology for future use.

This way, people such as myself don't have any problems getting their old crap to play around with, and the companies don't lose anything either.

Rune responds:

It'll never happen. The problem is that the law mostly treats all software the same way (well, except for viruses). Content like books and entertainment have copyrights on them (usually the law is something like the copyright is in effect until like 50 years after the original author of the work dies). Some form of similar copyright (with a much shorter period) would probably work well with entertainment software but it's harder to legally make distinctions between entertainment software and business software. Microsoft would never release Windows 1.0 for example (and not only because it would be ridiculous to do so....Hell, it's only been like 10 years since Windows 3.1 was released).

What companies should do is just release the game and the code for the game after the game is no longer commercially viable and there is no further use for the game concept. Some companies do this, id software, for example, has released the source code for Doom through to Quake 2 (I think that even the source code for the original Wolfenstein was released under the GPL).

In order for more companies to release their software there has to be some reason for them to so. I suspect that the reason why a lot of companies choose not to release is because they are not sure if the game is no longer commercially viable (i.e. new markets such as cell phones and Gameboys can make old games profitable again or the company could decide to make a re-make of their game and they wouldn't want the old game competing with it or a modded version (upgraded etc) to compete with it). They also have to watch out for potential legal problems such as liability.

The other problem is that of branding... if a company decides to make a franchise out of a game they usually don't want others using their intellitectual property and branding. They want to be the exclusive provider of content for that brand. (i.e. You wouldn't expect Sega to release the original Sonic game or Nintendo to release the original Mario game for these reasons). Examples of this happening were where the Aliens Quake mod for Quake 1 was sued and then shut down by Fox (it was a great mod too). This is where the term 'foxed" came from (used to describe a mod being shut down by the owner of the intellectual property). The mod authors eventually signed an agreement with Fox to develop further content with them but I don't know if anything became of that. A couple years later however the first Aliens VS Predator game came out. I don't think that this was a coincidence..... Fox clued in after the Aliens Quake mod that people wanted a First Person Shooter game version of Aliens. Authors of the Duke Nuken maps for Quake 3 also ran into problems with 3D Realms after releasing their maps. This was especially a problem because they had re-used original texture content from Duke Nukem 3D in the new maps.

Still, releasing the source code for games (for mods etc) and allowing the intellectual property of copyrighted works to be used in fan projects and mods is a good idea that poses little legal risk to the company as long as they get to approve anything that is released. You probably wouldn't want people to go around distributing games or mods that use your intellectual property in an inappropriate way or a way that damages your brand and your reputation. An example of this is Lucasfilm, who often reviews and approves the use of a lot of fan-produced material.

Releasing an old game is a goodwill gesture towards fans of that game and it keeps the game alive. It's a "thank you for playing our game and supporting us" move. If I were a game author I'd be proud to release the game and source code of a game that I'd worked on partly because I'd be amazed that people still loved it enough to be playing it so many years after it had been released.