Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Creash on January 07, 2007, 04:45:41 am
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Hey folks,
Wasn't sure what forum this would fit best on, but I thought since you guys work so closely with Volition material and have to consider the legal aspects of using their work and such, you'd be the best.
Anyway, I constantly boast to my friends in guilds I'm members of in various MMROPGs of how Freespace 2 is by far the best space flight-simulator in gaming history to come since the epic arrival of Wing Commander III (which defiantly set the standards for a new age). However, problem is it's been out of circulation so long you can't find it anywhere accept on 'less-than-legit' looking website who have a stand-alone version, but say it runs like crap compared to the original.
I was curious that if somewhere out there one can find a legal and high-quality FS2 downloadable version that I could forward on to my friends to show em' how great it really is. I am going to direct them to 'The Babylon Project' and 'Wing Commander Saga Prologue' for now since those they can snag without problems, but it's best to see the original first to get a true feeling of where those games came from.
If you have any thoughts, feelings, or potential leads, just post em' below. "Good hunting pilots." :pimp:
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Legal, no. For reasons I explain here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/FAQ/general.html#Legal).
Non-shady looking. Well there's plenty of links on this thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,38195.0.html) :)
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I can vouch for the quality of the Online Installer mentioned on that thread.
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i'm sure you vouch for it, considering you wrote it.
its fine if you don't have a problem running .jar files and you are working from a base retail install. otherwise it is rather flawed. alternatives are in the works. If you want to actually understand whats going on and not waste a crapload of time downloading stuff you dont want/need see here. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,38195.msg896412.html#msg896412)
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Thanks for the feedback folks. I am really eager to get some of my guildies into Freespace 2 and then maybe some of the stand-alone games made via Hard-Light. Hell, I could make some amazing online missions to bring them into the fold with a bang :lol:
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i'm sure you vouch for it, considering you wrote it.
True, but I also know it works, and it's just the files off of the original CDs.
its fine if you don't have a problem running .jar files and you are working from a base retail install. otherwise it is rather flawed.
1. We're talking about different Installers here. I'm talking about the FS2 Installer (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,43905.0.html)(which is an exe and installs retail FS2), whereas you are talking about the FSO Installer (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42854.0.html)(which installs FSO).
2. the FSO Installer is no longer is .jar only. It also comes in .exe now (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42854.msg906819.html#msg906819).
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You tell 'em Turey. And keep up the good work.
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If the CD links on karajorma's otherwise fine page were any good I wouldn't have started my own collection.
For the many people who haven't checked:
Swantz's : DOWN
Freespace Zone : DOWN
Game Warden: DOWN
and another one I don't think is listed there,
NukeLOL: DOWN
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That's a pretty bad tally. I was expecting most of those to simply be bandwidth issues as no one has commented here to tell me that they were taking them down.
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I don't know if they're bandwidth related, but the error messages I get seem to indicate otherwise, and I've been checking for some time. FS1 should be back up tomorrow on MediaFire. It's a fantastic hosting site, but so was FileHo (I've given up on them). Hopefully it will last a while.
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That's a pretty bad tally. I was expecting most of those to simply be bandwidth issues as no one has commented here to tell me that they were taking them down.
mine should still be up,assuming mydatabus hasn't capped my secondary account as well. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,38195.msg885225.html#msg885225)
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Excellent.
Question, that's 2+GB , so it looks like the iso's weren't compressed at all, but you said you used 7zip. My three FS1 iso's compressed to less than 1GB using 7zip, and FS2 should do likewise.
So did you compress, or just use 7zip to break the iso's into pieces?
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Excellent.
Question, that's 2+GB , so it looks like the iso's weren't compressed at all, but you said you used 7zip. My three FS1 iso's compressed to less than 1GB using 7zip, and FS2 should do likewise.
So did you compress, or just use 7zip to break the iso's into pieces?
I honestly don't remember. I put those up a while ago.
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I added your link to my guide, thanks!
<edit> Turey, I just compressed the iso of disc 1 of FS2, and the results were dramatically different from FS1. The iso was 607 MB and the 7zip was 615MB! Yikes!
No compression at all!
They must have changed to a completely different scheme. Sorry if I casted doubt.
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it's not always possible to compress ISO's. Remember that a great majority of the files in the .cab file are already compressed to take up as little space as possible.
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If I am not mistaken Creash was trying to ask if there is a way to play FS2 Open without having a copy of the original FS2. I know the answer is no for now but is that planned to change?
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If I am not mistaken Creash was trying to ask if there is a way to play FS2 Open without having a copy of the original FS2. I know the answer is no for now but is that planned to change?
FreeSpace Open needs the files in FreeSpace 2. things like the Retail Installer above let you get the files needed by FreeSpace Open and FreeSpace Open itself, all at once. That's as close as you're going to get to not needing FreeSpace 2 (with the exception of Total Conversions which don't use any of the retail files.)
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If the CD links on karajorma's otherwise fine page were any good I wouldn't have started my own collection.
For the many people who haven't checked:
Swantz's : DOWN
Freespace Zone : DOWN
Game Warden: DOWN
and another one I don't think is listed there,
NukeLOL: DOWN
Mine's down? o.o
Also, nukelol=me.
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Well, what I meant to say was, all the sites are up, but the CD links they contain are all down.
FS1 iso's are now available in my sig, FS2 iso's will be tomorrow.
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Well, what I meant to say was, all the sites are up, but the CD links they contain are all down.
FS1 iso's are now available in my sig, FS2 iso's will be tomorrow.
No, my CD links work just fine...
EDIT: Or maybe not... Fixing....
EDIT2: Fixed :)
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Ill upload my CDs for FSZ now, im not doing anything important anyways.
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Cool, Hunter dude. I've upped FS1 and FS2 now as well.
Swantz has fixed his links.
Now yours will be up.
All these links are or will be in my guide.
That's some excellent redundancy!
<EDIT> In Freespacezone, only two of the six links work. I re-added nukelol, thanks Swantz.
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only 2 of the six links work because I HAVENT FINISHED UPLOADING YET.
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Sorry, I forgot that was your site...<skulks away..> :(
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I'll be watching this thread. I'm waiting for FS1 disc 1+2 to be reuploaded on Freespacezone. I got fast downloads when I got FS2 disc 1+2+3. I already have Silent Threat from ZmaN's FTP a while back.
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While we have all the hosts here in one thread - I thought I'd make mention that
the FS2 manual has been rather difficult to locate for those that bought via eBay
or are downloaded.
The copy available via HOTU the link appears dead as does the one from
replacementdocs.
So if someone had a copy of that to put with the CD files, that'd be great.
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Once again, from my sig:
Learn it:
Download all the manuals at once from MediaFire (http://www.mediafire.com/?6ydyukmnnff).
Print out the Keyboard chart on one page and fold it into a pyramid, uh, triangle, uh, three sided table tent thingie.
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Both FS2 and the FS2 Manual are available at www.the-underdogs.net
FS2's copyright has long since expired, as has the company that issued it, so technically, distribution of FS2 is perfectly legal.
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It's up to you, get one FS2 manual from HOTU or
FS1 manual
FS1 reference card
FS2 manual
FS2 reference card
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FS2's copyright has long since expired
In Soviet Russia, copyright expires. In Capitalist America, Copyright expires YOU!!
IN all seriousness, they COULD still sue all of us for it. It hasn't expired.
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They can't afford to pay their own apartment that they have HQ in... what makes you think that they can actually hire a semi-descent lawyer? You could hire a hobo and beat em in court! You could go alone!! Seriously... they can't afford to sue you; Freespace2 has been distributed quite a few times more then the actual discs were ever distributed.
No pure 'legal' download... point em toward nukelol or freespacezone.
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Interplay might not sue you but there's a damn good chance that if you post the link on another forum you could get banned for posting warez.
That's why its better that people are aware of the legal issues.
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They can't afford to pay their own apartment that they have HQ in... what makes you think that they can actually hire a semi-descent lawyer? You could hire a hobo and beat em in court! You could go alone!! Seriously... they can't afford to sue you; Freespace2 has been distributed quite a few times more then the actual discs were ever distributed.
I didn't say they would sue you, just that they could.
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Technically they can sue you... nobody has yet knocked on the door of HotU or any other distrubution site. This game was released about 8 years ago now... its not been in a store for about 5+ years. They've not made a penny off the Freespace Franchise in a long while... they made the mistake of sending out too few copies and giving piss-poor advertising. If they could strike a deal with the SCP team or someone else... perhaps they could start making copies of Freespace 2 + SCP 3.6.9 Final?
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ShivanSpS torrent (http://www.torrentbox.com/download/41728/fs2scpfullpackv15c_Shivansps.zip.torrent) has always worked for me. Sure it's crammed with a lot of Windows litter(Thumbs.db), ShivanSpS pilot files and mods I didn't ask for but that's easy to correct.
And it's easier on Linux to just unzip and move the *.vp and data directory to whereever you want them...
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torrents and most p2p file sharing is disallowed by my ISP; it says no hosting of servers.
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torrents and most p2p file sharing is disallowed by my ISP; it says no hosting of servers.
You should still be able to use my installer, as it uses http for its downloads.
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torrents and most p2p file sharing is disallowed by my ISP; it says no hosting of servers.
You should still be able to use my installer, as it uses http for its downloads.
You're probably the one to ask... once we're using SCP, none of the retail's registry entries are need anymore, are they? I'm just thinking I've been using ISOs of the discs for ages when really I should make an ISO of my FS directory installed.
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You're probably the one to ask... once we're using SCP, none of the retail's registry entries are need anymore, are they? I'm just thinking I've been using ISOs of the discs for ages when really I should make an ISO of my FS directory installed.
All the registry entries it needs can be created by the launcher automatically.
Just make sure to zip up your folder before you burn it, otherwise you get read-only errors, even after you copy them over.
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I spoke with a friend of mine who is a copyright lawyer. He looked over the EULA and was made aware that the source code was released several years ago and had this to say.
He said that if someone was ever going to make a stink about .ISOs being downloaded and somehow was considering a lawsuit, the case would depend on one of two things. Both the letter of the law (the strict meaning of the EULA) or what Interplay's "clear intentions were"
If it's the former, we're covered. The EULA definitively says that it's okay to make copies for "friends and acquaintances" The legal definition of "acquaintance" is pretty darn loose. Reading the "about us" section of a website would make you an acquaintance of the people running the site, for example. If you made a post here and someone responded with "Hi, here are some FS2 .isos", they'd be acquaintances. It would NOT be illegal nor should it be considered warez.
If it's the latter, it gets a little less bulletproof, simply because Interplay took you to court, but my lawyer friend said that when the source code to a game is released, it would make a very very very hard case for Interplay to prove that it did not intend for people to freely download the game.
So on either front, people are covered. It's not a matter of not getting caught (which no one would, a bankrupt company is not going to waste resources on a lawsuit for the downloading of an 8 year old game) it's simply not illegal. Interplay and Volition made the awesome choice to make FS2 absolutely free to anyone who wants it.
So if you find an .iso somewhere, download it. It's completely legal. I'm not telling people to post them here, because the mods still say .ISOs are warez, and they're in charge, not me :)
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If it's the latter, it gets a little less bulletproof, simply because Interplay took you to court, but my lawyer friend said that when the source code to a game is released, it would make a very very very hard case for Interplay to prove that it did not intend for people to freely download the game.
So on either front, people are covered. It's not a matter of not getting caught (which no one would, a bankrupt company is not going to waste resources on a lawsuit for the downloading of an 8 year old game) it's simply not illegal. Interplay and Volition made the awesome choice to make FS2 absolutely free to anyone who wants it.
Uh, no. The code for the engine, and the content for the game, are two entirely separate entities. Releasing the source code has absolutely no bearing on the distribution of the game's content. The copyrights on the code for the engine, and the copyrights on the content that went into making the game, are mutually exclusive. Your lawyer friend should be well aware of that.
Secondly, Interplay has nothing to do with it. It's Volition that owns the copyright on the content, and the copyright on the majority of the code for the engine. The didn't release all of the code, since they didn't control it, anything that wasn't owned by Volition was ripped out of the source release. Also, there are two different EULAs: one hardcopy (in the manual), one electronic (in the installer itself). The hardcopy version DOES NOT contain the "friends and acquaintances" statement. In fact, it expressly forbids distribution of the game. How that plays out in a court of law I don't know, but it's something that has to be considered by anyone who is attempting to iron out the legality of downloading.
And, on more than one occasion, one or more Volition employees have directly stated that the content of the game is NOT free, and that it is NOT legal to put up for mass download. I not sure that said Volition employees ever went to law school, but their statements would be pertinent in a court of law. And that, again, is something anyone attempting to determine the legality of downloading will have to account for.
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Yep. I'd have to agree with Taylor on this one.
Although not yet a common practice quite a few companies have released the source code to their games while retaining distribution rights on the game data. In fact this isn't even the first time Volition has done it as the company they used to be part of did it with Descent 1 & 2.
The idea is that people port/improve the game and they sell more copies of the game than they otherwise would do.
So the release of the source code should not automatically be taken as proof that a company has relinquished their rights to the game. If FS2 was still commercially available they'd probably have made a fairly nice bit of cash out of the SCP.
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Kara; the point is with the release of the SC was that it still is Volition's game engine; the rights to Freespace and Freespace2 belong to Interplay. Interplay manufactures the game; they are in a bit of debt, and can no longer produce copies of an unpopular 8-year-old space-shooter; the last good game of the era.
Volition has every right to release their source-code on the Freespace engine; Interplay can't do anything about it. We make no profit off of the SCP, so as long as we continue to make no profit, we are allowed use of the code.
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No. Agentbolt's point was that the game is legal to download. It isn't.
My point was simply to give an example of why a company might release the source but keep control of the data. In court all V would have to do is claim that they were trying to do that (or simply get some free publicity for an old game of theirs) to shoot down any argument that they intended for the game to be freely distributed.
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karajorma can correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is that Interplay only owns/owned the distribution rights to Freespace2. All of the copyrights have always remained with Volition. Volition doesn't have the ability to distribute new copies of Freespace2 as a game, and they can't go to another publisher to distribute new copies, but they still have all of the copyrights on the content and can enforce them at any point that they wish. So, technically the distribution of the game data violates not only Volition's copyright on the content, but also Interplay's distribution rights. Double whammy.
The original FreeSpace is an entirely different matter though, and I'm pretty certain that it's totally illegal to distribute the content of that.
And Interplay gave up on Freespace2 long before they had debt issues, so that really is not a valid point.
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I'll certainly concede the point that Volition could turn around and say that they were merely releasing the source code as a publicity thing to sel more games. The chances of them doing that are roughly zero, but they could, so that kind of shoots up my argument that it's ironclad. My lawyer buddy might need to do more homework on this.
However, the argument:
Uh, no. The code for the engine, and the content for the game, are two entirely separate entities. Releasing the source code has absolutely no bearing on the distribution of the game's content. The copyrights on the code for the engine, and the copyrights on the content that went into making the game, are mutually exclusive. Your lawyer friend should be well aware of that.
Is kind of missing the point. My friend is not pointing to the Source Code's release as a legally binding precedent for distributing the game. It was simply pointed out that it'd be a tough sell to claim for Volition to back up that they never wanted people to get free copies of the game after releasing their source code. He also stated it was less ironclad an argument. It's solely pointed out as a common sense argument.
The LETTER of the law is absolutely on the side of anyone distributing .ISOs. An .ISO is a copy of a CD. The EULA specifically states that the software (copyrighted materials AND everything else would be included under such a broad definition) may be copied to distribute to friends and acquiantances. The legal defintion of the term "acquaintance" is VERY broad. It doesn't even mean someone you personally know, it just means someone you have knowledge of. "To be acquainted with". Yes, there are two EULAs. Interplay and Volition could not cry foul and claim one EULA was more valid than the other if it ever went to court, whichever EULA the user was aware of would be the one considered. If he/she was aware of both, then there'd be no legal mechanism to protect Interplay/Volitions assets and enforce the no copying one, it'd be the judges decision, and again it'd go back to a common sense argument of what Interplay and Volition intended for their software after abandoning it, going bankrupt, and releasing the source code in the eight years since it was released. As for Volition employees saying that the game is not intended for mass downloading, that would depend on who they are. If they're coders or rank and file folks, their opinion on what Interplay and Voltion's intent was would be legally meaningless.
Past that, if you still disagree, you can always PM me and I'll give you my friend's email and you can argue it with him. I'm clearly not a lawyer so I'm simply passing on what he told me. And hey, he's human, he could be horribly wrong. It seems pretty simple to me though. Certainly no one's ever gotten busted for getting their grubby mitts on an .iso yet. And again, I stress, I am NOT advocating posting anything like that here. It's against the board rules regardless of any arguments on its technical legality. But if you find a Freespace 2 .ISO somehwere, legally speaking, there is zero chance of you ever getting into any trouble for downloading it. By the letter of the law, it's not illegal. This is a lawyer saying this, not me.
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Is kind of missing the point. My friend is not pointing to the Source Code's release as a legally binding precedent for distributing the game. It was simply pointed out that it'd be a tough sell to claim for Volition to back up that they never wanted people to get free copies of the game after releasing their source code. He also stated it was less ironclad an argument. It's solely pointed out as a common sense argument.
No. The argument is that if you give someone the blueprints to your house, it's obvious that you didn't give them your actual house as well. That is common sense and directly applies here. Volition only gave us the blueprints, not the house. Except for those of us who actually paid for the game in the first place, no one has any try legal right to possess the game data. And no court of law bordering on sanity would conclude otherwise by Volition's act of giving us the source code.
The EULA specifically states that the software (copyrighted materials AND everything else would be included under such a broad definition) may be copied to distribute to friends and acquiantances. The legal defintion of the term "acquaintance" is VERY broad. It doesn't even mean someone you personally know, it just means someone you have knowledge of.
Exactly the point, you don't have knowledge of the people doing mass downloading. The only chance you have to possibly meet the deffinition is if everyone who has the file up for download requires that each downloader sign a guestbook or something, with verified identity, before being given the download link.
"To be acquainted with". Yes, there are two EULAs. Interplay and Volition could not cry foul and claim one EULA was more valid than the other if it ever went to court, whichever EULA the user was aware of would be the one considered. If he/she was aware of both, then there'd be no legal mechanism to protect Interplay/Volitions assets and enforce the no copying one, it'd be the judges decision, and again it'd go back to a common sense argument of what Interplay and Volition intended for their software after abandoning it, going bankrupt, and releasing the source code in the eight years since it was released.
Again, Volition didn't abandon the game, they still own the copyrights, they just can't distribute new copies. "Awareness" of the EULA makes little difference as far as I know. It depends on which one came first. If the printed version was finalized after the installer was, then the printed version takes precedence. The simple act of opening the box the game came in and putting the disc in your computer would have been an agreement on your part to the terms of the printed EULA, whether you ever actually read it or not.
As for Volition employees saying that the game is not intended for mass downloading, that would depend on who they are. If they're coders or rank and file folks, their opinion on what Interplay and Voltion's intent was would be legally meaningless.
Their opinion, regardless of their legal-minded status, holds more meaning than either yours or mine. And probably more so than your lawyer friend's as well. None of us are privy to the particulars of the rights between Interplay and Volition. The exact meaning and intent of the EULA statement has never been clarified. To all of this, only the opinions and interpretations of Interplay and Volition hold any real weight on this matter. No 3rd party can give a truely valid opinion with just the facts that we have.
Putting the game up for download is illegal, by the letter of the law. Legality isn't a grey area, something is legal or it is not, there is no inbetween. Until Volition and/or Interplay comes forward and officially states that downloading the game is legal, no one really has a leg to stand on. Period.
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karajorma can correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is that Interplay only owns/owned the distribution rights to Freespace2. All of the copyrights have always remained with Volition. Volition doesn't have the ability to distribute new copies of Freespace2 as a game, and they can't go to another publisher to distribute new copies, but they still have all of the copyrights on the content and can enforce them at any point that they wish. So, technically the distribution of the game data violates not only Volition's copyright on the content, but also Interplay's distribution rights. Double whammy.
I've heard two different explainations. The first is basically what you state and the second is that Volition have to sign over some of their IP rights in the publishing deal to Interplay (certainly something is stopping :v: from simply making FS3 and getting THQ to publish it). I very much doubt we'll ever know what exactly what is going on as contracts like this tend to stay secret anyway.
It doesn't really matter who holds to the rights to the data though as neither party has stepped forward and given permission for that stuff to become freeware. AFAIK you're also completely right that putting the game up for download is a violation of Interplay's distribution rights.
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Interplay is as dead as SCO. They've just managed to figure it out without Monty Pythonesque Black Knight style hystrionics.
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Interplay is as dead as SCO.
Doesn't really matter, because Interplay's rights still exist. They are in bankruptcy, which means that someone else could come along and purchase the distribution rights, and then enforce them. Just because Interplay doesn't currently have the resources to enforce their rights, doesn't mean that someone would let it slide too.
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Nobody wants to buy Interplay. Last I saw, they were about a half million in the hole, and that was a few years ago. The only people with any possible current interest in buying Interplay might be :v:, so as to get the rights they need to finally complete the FS series.
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And what if people simply wait for Interplay to go into receivership and simply buy up the assets when they do?
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I live in Argentina, there is a lack of some "internet" laws here... basically, only is illegal if i make copy's, and sell it for profits.
So, they have to come and get me here hahaha, xD, a year ago, egosoft discover that i have a wares copy of is game, they banned me from they forums and she told my that they going to request infomation to my ISP and forwarded to legal authority's... haha i still waiting....