Quote:
Originally posted by bjbrains2002@Mar 5 2006, 10:30 PM
"Hillary Clinton, Joe Leiberman and a lot of other Democrats and a few Republicans" Punch/alex/whatever you are calling yourself, the republicans (Jack Thompson) are more anti free-speech than the democrats.
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It's really stupid to try and play that point down party lines; both parties suck in this regard. The Republicans currently are extremely conservative religiously and trump up and ban the "anti-Christian" in everything while the Democrats believe that they exist solely to legislate the upbringing of the nation's youth. Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman both believe that it's the government's job to restrict free trade in the interests of preventing games
they deem inappropriate from falling into the hands of anyone (they just use "the children" as political leverage).
Quote:
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Originally posted by gregor+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (gregor)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Edit: interesting laws we have on photocopying books. as long as you use it for your own purposes and dont' make more than 3 coppies everything is legal. also you are not to copy the whole book but only max 70% of it. hmm imagine simlar law for games...[/b]
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That law isn't specific to xeroxing as I recall, and either does itself cover games/digital works or there exists another that does. Even the evil DMCA contains provisions for such things. You are legally entitled to create backup copies of works (including games) you own proper license to, but are required to do so yourself from copies you actually own. Protection mechanisms coupled with the DMCA complicate this for newer games using things like StarForce, but that's a separate issue.
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well in this case copyrights are basically right of intelectual property. so by using games you would be using ideas, knowledge and work of someone else without even paying for it.[/quote]
Intellectual Property
does not exist. It's a very ill-defined, abstract idea used by lawyers to shroud what's actually being discussed. There is copyright, trademark, trade secret, and patent; but no "Intellectual Property." It's just as deceptive as calling copyright infringement "theft" and intentionally so.
Quote:
Originally posted by Eagle of Fire
The ESA is only a workforce company. They didn't create the rules they enforce, they don't decide what to do. They do what they are told to do, because they are paid to do it. And it's perfectly legal.
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Wildly incorrect. The ESA is as much a "workforce company" as it is a lobbying group. The ESA (and the SPA, SIIA, SPA, IDSA and every other name it's used over the past two decades) has been a major political group on capitol hill since it was created. The ESA exists to make money and the amount it makes is directly predicated upon the profits of it's members. The ESA doesn't give a damn about morals because it is a
company. Companies don't have emotions and they certainly don't have morals. Liking or not liking the ESA is immaterial.
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That out of the way, something that has always bugged me has reappeared in this thread several times. These games, much as I love many of them myself, were created by people and are owned legally by someone/something. Just because you've played them does not earn you some partial ownership. You have no more right to these games than you do your neighbor's car.
It is the right of the copyright holder to refuse to make available these older titles.
That said, I fully support the limits imposed upon the length of copyright and feel the indefinite extensions pushed by Disney every few years (think Sonny Bono copyright act) are ludicrous. However, a vast majority of abandonware titles still fall under the terms of the classic copyright laws. These games are a part of modern culture and should be preserved, but very few -- if any -- of the complaints raised here have anything to do with
preserving; they have everything to do with
enjoying.
Food for thought.