Author Topic: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)  (Read 30959 times)

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Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
Honestly, if we don't want to get shut down in a year or two like many other projects have seen happening before, we really ought to have the license.
I'd definitely chip in some money to make it happen, besides I've been modding and playing for years and am finally making some real progress, I don't want to get some C&D or get sued right when I'm about to release stuff. I'm really serious about this concern.

We all realize that this IP bundle isn't just going to change hands for less than half a million, right?
And aren't a lot of these games still being sold on steam and gog.com? Wouldn't they involve royalities? Who would even start receiving these if the community as a collective buys this?

I dont want to be the one that rains all over the parade but it feels like there are way too many unknowns here and way too much optimism.

Also why would we be shut down? Other companies aren't shutting down modding.
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[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 
Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
What? A lot of mods have been taken down by rights-holders. I expect whoever gets the licences will continue ignoring HLP, and really that's about the best we can hope for: a continuation of the status quo.
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
With companies I specifically meant game companies. Like say, bethesda and valve and so forth.
Not rights holders cracking down on star wars and battlestar galactica stuff and the like because they threaten ip's.

Freespace based campaigns and things that aren't based on existing ip's really won't be in any danger of getting suddenly shut down...
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
With companies I specifically meant game companies. Like say, bethesda and valve and so forth.
Not rights holders cracking down on star wars and battlestar galactica stuff and the like because they threaten ip's.
What, game companies like Nintendo?
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<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

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* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
Freespace based campaigns and things that aren't based on existing ip's really won't be in any danger of getting suddenly shut down...

Well Wings of Dawn would survive, as would The Antagonist. But almost everything else in this community is a derivative work of someone else's IP.

We all realize that this IP bundle isn't just going to change hands for less than half a million, right?

It depends what exactly is in the bundle. From the PDF it looks like Freespace 2 is in the same bundle as Earthworm Jim, which, given that it is also a TV show, would almost certainly **** us over.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2016, 09:57:32 pm by karajorma »
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
What, game companies like Nintendo?
Yes, every game company is like nintendo.  :doubt:
When I listed valve and bethesda as the examples, logically nintendo would be the next in line, known for their vibrant pc modding community and their relaxed attitude towards people using their IP's.

Well Wings of Dawn would survive, as would The Antagonist. But almost everything else in this community is a derivative work of someone else's IP.
The majority is Freespace's ip, made with the mission editor included with the retail release running on an incredibly heavily modified open source version of the original engine.
I'm no law expert, but it seems to me like a new owner of the freespace ip would be on really shaky grounds, legally, to shut this down.
And its not like we're making money off of this either.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

  

Offline karajorma

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
I doubt anyone would shut down the FS2 modding scene. It's a PR disaster for absolutely no gain. As you say, we make no money from it and add value to the IP by making it more likely people will want to buy and play FS2 again. The biggest risk is probably FS port. I can see someone deciding that it is harming sales of FS1 / Silent Threat. 


They would actually legally have the right to do so for any mod using altered versions of any FS2 asset or based on the FS2 storyline. Again, FS port is a special case as they can actually provide a logical argument as to why it is harmful to their profits. Furthermore, even if they don't have the legal right, who is going to challenge a C&D? HLP couldn't get away with just ignoring it and doesn't have the cash to challenge it.


So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
What, game companies like Nintendo?
Yes, every game company is like nintendo.  :doubt:
You say that like Valve isn't just as much of an exception to the norm.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
Derek smart
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:jaw: why haven't I bought this....
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Offline Crazy_Ivan80

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.

I wonder what it would cost just to pose a few questions regarding cost and how static those bundles are? Maybe specific items could be decoupled.
Asking, after all, is usually free. With "no" being the baseline answer a "yes" might be a welcome surprise.
And with crowdfunding being a thing, there might be a meager amount of options open to HLP.

(edit: ooh lol: only 149 of my posts survived over the years. :D )
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Offline The E

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
(edit: ooh lol: only 149 of my posts survived over the years. :D )

Actually, all 1020 of them are preserved, but since most of them fall into GenDisc, they're not counted towards your postcount.
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
AdmiralRalwood, I'm not really interested in argueing with you, if all you are going to do is make snappy single sentence posts. Feel free to explain to me how you think valve is an exception to the norm. The norm being that most game companies don't go out of their way to actively shut mods down and in a lot of cases actually support mods to various degrees.

I doubt anyone would shut down the FS2 modding scene. It's a PR disaster for absolutely no gain. As you say, we make no money from it and add value to the IP by making it more likely people will want to buy and play FS2 again. The biggest risk is probably FS port. I can see someone deciding that it is harming sales of FS1 / Silent Threat.

They would actually legally have the right to do so for any mod using altered versions of any FS2 asset or based on the FS2 storyline. Again, FS port is a special case as they can actually provide a logical argument as to why it is harmful to their profits. Furthermore, even if they don't have the legal right, who is going to challenge a C&D? HLP couldn't get away with just ignoring it and doesn't have the cash to challenge it.

So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.
Yeah agreed with all that.

Alternatively another good senario would volition aquiring the rights, even if they don't do anything with it, it'd at least be almost a guarantee that the modding scene would be left alone.
Hey, for all we know, they could be making a bid at this very moment...
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
AdmiralRalwood, I'm not really interested in argueing with you, if all you are going to do is make snappy single sentence posts.
I'm not really interested in arguing with you either, especially considering we don't seem to disagree on the basic premise that whoever ends up owning the FreeSpace IP is incredibly unlikely to spontaneously shut us down. I'm just confused at what appears to be an abnormally optimistic view of game companies that does not match my experience at all. When faced with fans remaking one of your games from scratch, in what could be considered direct competition with your own enhanced version, "the norm" is most certainly not to say, "Sure, go right ahead! In fact, we'll even let you put it on our storefront. Actually, let's go one step further and let you sell it on our storefront, so you guys get compensated for all your hard work."

Valve is incredibly nonstandard in that regard. I only mentioned Nintendo because they leapt to mind because of their recent crackdown on AM2R; they're far from the only example.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 
Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
I think we'd be less likely to get hit with a crackdown since everything we do is firmly in the 'mod' territory of requiring a purchase of the original game, rather than fan remakes.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
Yeah, what we do here is almost entirely in the vein of fan-created patches and custom mods/expansions, which have historically been perfectly safe from rights-holder actions.  (Hell, even Nintendo allowed Project M to exist unmolested.). The fact that we not only encourage, but actively require, purchasing the original retail title in order to play the upgraded content puts us in a vey good place as far as I can see.  The major difference between us and the likes of AM2R, or that big Pokemon project, or the Chrono Trigger thing a few years back, is that the latter were all offering either free complete remakes or full sequels of already-existing commercial properties that are actively being sold.  While I personally believe that projects like this only benefit the original franchises by serving as free advertising and hype-generation, it's easy to see why companies take issue with them.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
I brought this up before and I'll ask again... What legal ground would someone have against a modding community that exists around officially released "modding" tools?

FRED is arguably the backbone of what we do here. It came with the game! And, as originally released, the only option was to make missions related to the Freespace IP. What's the legal argument against that?

Everything else we do is added on top thanks to the legally maintained SCP. Could the source code be legally closed now? How could a rights holder shut down what is very much not their code in many ways?

Then there's the DMTools. Weren't those also released by Volition?
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
I'm not really interested in arguing with you either, especially considering we don't seem to disagree on the basic premise that whoever ends up owning the FreeSpace IP is incredibly unlikely to spontaneously shut us down. I'm just confused at what appears to be an abnormally optimistic view of game companies that does not match my experience at all.
Hah, I can't remember the last time I've been told that my view of the game industry/companies is 'abnormally optimistic'. It's usually the opposite.
Its just in my experience, the majority of game companies are generally pretty cool with mods, and if they provided any mod tools themselves with the game, it's literally supported and I've never heard any crack downs on remakes or whatnot with provided mod tools.
From what I can tell, 90% of all the crackdowns are generally from companies like nintendo that dont want any modding or ip infringment of any kind. Or rightholders of big franchises like BSG, Star wars etc. whereas a lot of games these days directly support modding through steams workshop.

When faced with fans remaking one of your games from scratch, in what could be considered direct competition with your own enhanced version, "the norm" is most certainly not to say, "Sure, go right ahead! In fact, we'll even let you put it on our storefront. Actually, let's go one step further and let you sell it on our storefront, so you guys get compensated for all your hard work."

Valve is incredibly nonstandard in that regard. I only mentioned Nintendo because they leapt to mind because of their recent crackdown on AM2R; they're far from the only example.
I'll absolutely give you that Valve is special in that regard. (I think its mostly because Valve is swimming in money and just doesn't give a ****. Also Gaben.)
But to me it feels like the perception that fans remaking a game from scratch getting cracked down on all the time, is skewed because of nintendo. A lot of fans seem to like remaking old nintendo classics because nintendo refuses to do it. And new games in nintendo franchises nowadays tend to have a dumb gimmick that negatively impacts the game in a way (like the recent star fox).

edit: I typed that and then only clicked that vampire masquerade link after.
Now, while I would like to point out that Activision is a ****ty evil money grubbing publisher, I can't deny your point. I may have to adjust my abnormally optimistic view on this a bit.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
I brought this up before and I'll ask again... What legal ground would someone have against a modding community that exists around officially released "modding" tools?

FRED is arguably the backbone of what we do here. It came with the game! And, as originally released, the only option was to make missions related to the Freespace IP. What's the legal argument against that?

Everything else we do is added on top thanks to the legally maintained SCP. Could the source code be legally closed now? How could a rights holder shut down what is very much not their code in many ways?

Then there's the DMTools. Weren't those also released by Volition?
Yeah I'm wondering about that too, volition released the engine as open source. Like half the engine (I assume, I have no clue) as we use it now, isn't even original code anymore. Even if you get the freespace IP, doesn't mean you'll somehow end up owning all the code that the SCP wrote. And how can you legally make something not open source anymore?
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
The codebase is completely safe.  It was :v:'s to open-source in the first place, and it's a completely separate entity than the actual FreeSpace IP.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Interplay IP being sold (including Freespace)
Even then.. how would an IP owner have an legal ground to stand on when saying "I'm sorry, but you can't make stories with FRED2, anymore."

Now i'm not saying the legal copyright system is full of rational thinking individuals... but following that through, a rational person might have a hard time arguing that we have to stop doing the same with FRED2_Open.

Worst case scenario, I think, is that the MediaVPs get put in a shaky spot with FSPort given that the issues surrounding upgrading [copying] old models. But even then, a rational thinking person can clearly see how little benefit that would be to any future use of the Freespace IP.
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.