[Inquisitor]

People are fond of quoting the EULA in the FS2 installer from 8 years ago, believing it gives them carte blanche to give away FS2 to anyone who meets the dictionary definition of "acquaintance"

This is the one they refer to, its in the clickthrough on the installer itself, from the retail CD's:

This software product, FreeSpace 2 (the "Software"), is
intended solely for your personal noncommercial home entertainment
use. You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the
Software, except as permitted by law. Interplay Productions and
Volition, Inc. retain all rights and title in the Software including
all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives
thereof.  You are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license
to create derivative works of this Software solely for your own
personal noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly
display such derivative works to the extent specifically
authorized by Interplay in writing. A copy of this authorization, if
any, will be provided on Interplay's World Wide Web site, located at
http://www.interplay.com, or by contacting the legal department of
Interplay Productions in the US at (949) 553-6655. The Software,
including, without limitation, all code, data structures, characters,
images, sounds, text, screens, game play, derivative works and all
other elements of the Software may not be copied (except as provided
below), resold, rented, leased, distributed (electronically or
otherwise), used on pay-per-play, coin-op or other for-charge basis,
or for any commercial purpose. You may make copies of the Software
for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use and to give to
friends and acquaintances on a no cost noncommercial basis. This
limited right to copy the Software expressly excludes any copying or
distribution of the Software on a commercial basis, including,
without limitation, bundling the product with any other product or
service and any give away of the Software in connection with another
product or service. Any permissions granted herein are provided on a
temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any
time. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Modem and Network Play. If the Software contains modem or network
play, you may play the Software via modem transmission with another
person or persons directly without transmission through a third party
service or indirectly through a third party service only if such
service is an authorized licensee of Interplay. For the purposes of
this license, a third party service refers to any third party service
which provides a connection between two or more users of the
Software, manages, organizes, or facilitates game play, translates
protocols, or otherwise provides a service which commercially
exploits the Software, but does not include a third party service
which merely provides a telephonic connection (and nothing more) for
modem or network play. Authorized licensee services are listed on
the Interplay Productions World Wide Web Site located at
http://www.interplay.com. This limited right to transmit the Software
expressly excludes any transmission of the Software or any data
streams thereof on a commercial basis, including, without limitation,
transmitting the Software by way of a commercial service (excepting
those specific commercial services licensed by Interplay) which
translates the protocols or manages or organizes game play sessions.
If you would like information about obtaining a pay-for-play or
commercial license to the Software, please contact Interplay
Productions in the US at +(949) 553-6655.  Nothing in this paragraph
is intended to prevent you from downloading the Software from
Interplay's Web site or from commercial service providers authorized
by Interplay to provide the Software to you.

Acceptance of License Terms. By downloading or acquiring and then
retaining this Software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of
this limited license. If you acquired the Software and do not accept
the terms of this limited license, you must return the Software
together with all packaging, manuals and other material contained
therein to the store where you acquired the Software for a full
refund and if you downloaded the Software, you must delete it.

Trademark and copyright (c) 1999 Volition, Inc.  All rights reserved.

However, this EULA below gets installed from the retail CD's (mine are 8 years old). There was a big deal (tm) a number of years ago when they realized the "old" EULA was in a click through on the retail installers and the new one was actually installed after the fact. But this in fact, the actual EULA. The Gametap installer and readme also have this EULA.

Please note the "friends" clause is absent from this version. They realized their mistake, and they rescinded that authorization almost immediately.

SOFTWARE USE LIMITATIONS AND LIMITED LICENSE

General Product License. This copy of FreeSpace 2 (the "Software") is
intended solely for your personal non-commercial home entertainment use.
You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the Software,
except as permitted by law. Interplay Entertainment Corp. and its
licensors retain all right, title and interest in the Software including
all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives thereof.
The Software, including, without limitation, all code, data structures,
characters, images, sounds, text, screens, game play, derivative works and
all other elements of the Software may not be copied, resold, rented,
leased, distributed (electronically or otherwise), used on a pay-per-play,
coin-op or other for-charge basis, or for any commercial purpose.  Any
permissions granted herein are provided on a temporary basis and can be
withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any time. All rights not expressly
granted are reserved.

Modem and Network Play. If the Software contains modem or network play,
you may play the Software via modem transmission with another person or
persons directly without transmission through a third party service or
indirectly through a third party service only if such service is an
authorized licensee of Interplay. For the purpose of this license, a
"third party service" refers to any third party service which provides a
connection between two or more users of the Software, manages, organizes,
or facilitates game play, translates protocols, or otherwise provides a
service which commercially exploits the Software, but does not include a
third party service which merely provides a telephonic connection (and
nothing more) for modem or network play. Authorized licensee services
are listed on the Interplay Entertainment Corp. World Wide Web Site
located at http://www.interplay.com. This limited right to transmit the
Software expressly excludes any transmission of the Software of any data
streams thereof on a commercial basis, including, without limitation,
transmitting the Software by way of a commercial service (excepting those
specific commercial services licensed by Interplay) which translates the
protocols or manages or organizes game play sessions.

Acceptance of License Terms. By downloading or acquiring and then retaining
this Software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of this limited
license. If you acquired the Software and do not accept the terms of this
limited license, you must return the Software together with all packaging,
manuals and other material contained therein to the store where you acquired
the Software for a full refund and if you downloaded the Software, you must delete it.

This is not a discussion of copyright law, but I am darn tired of people justifying the "I can give it to anyone I like" stance.

Granted, Interplay is defunct, and you are unlikely to get into any material trouble, but that doesn't make you all armchair lawyers. If you provide the original Interplay VP's for download, you do so at your own risk. And while EULA's themselves have all sorts of legal issues that people can ponitificate on, just because EULAs may generally be invalid doesn't mean they can't get you on other grounds. The US law is a fickle thing, and as things like the DMCA have show, the law tends to favor the business, rather than the individual.

Please stop telling people here that its perfectly legal unless you can back it up with a law degree and some case law.

I think this probably belongs in the Wiki.

[Shade]

I think this probably belongs in the Wiki.

It does. Give me 10 minutes and it will be.

[Edit] http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Freespace_2_EULA_Issues. Linked to from the FS2 and SCP pages.

[Nuke]

he who has the dough to pay the court fees usually wins.

but then again the law means nothing if its not enforced.

and just because it hasnt been enforced doesnt mean it wont be in the future.

[Inquisitor]

Indeed, this is an "at your own risk" deal. My personal pet peeve are the nearly decade old justification for the "give it to anyone because that's what (one of) the EULA(s) says.

I'll dig out my wiki login, we can probably remove my sarcastic commentary from the wiki entry itself.

[Shade]

I considered that, but for a page called "Freespace 2 EULA Issues" they are actually quite appropriate They emphasize the message, and it does need emphasizing. Just quoting the two EULAs and pointing out that the second is the correct one wouldn't do much to alleviate the problem.

[karajorma]

My point of view has always been that you've got no legal protection whatsoever if you're offering the game for download. The EULA at best gives you the start of a defensive case but if you think that having a partial defence case means you have carte blanche to do something then you're an idiot.

I probably should change the FAQ a little though. Some people have been twisting the original intention (to point out you're probably safe if you download the game) to mean that you're safe to put the game up for download.

[RazorsKiss]

As the one who IS putting the game up for download, via turey's installer - I understand the risks - and I'm doing it anyway. 

The funny part is, I don't even play FS2, and don't like it - never have.  I do, however, like y'all, and I like the engine.

Given that I'm one of very few I know of that would be targeted with these posts - I'm a bit confused  

But, hey - I get your drift. 

I'm remaking a retail game as an open-source game for my mod - so... I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.   

I really don't see anyone but my webhost getting annoyed about me doing so, however.

It's an old, old game.

[karajorma]

The target is not those who are putting the game up. They know the risks. It's the legion of people who keep insisting that there ARE no risks and that the game is freeware cause of the source code release or cause it's abandonware or cause of the EULA.

You know, idiots.

[Inquisitor]

What kara said

If you DO get a cease and desist, please let me know, I would dearly love to find a legal way to get the game released in a more consumeable form.

[MP-Ryan]

What kara said

If you DO get a cease and desist, please let me know, I would dearly love to find a legal way to get the game released in a more consumeable form.

Has anyone tried contacting Interplay about making the game free-for-download or putting old copies up for distribution since there is a fanbase and probably a few hundred people who would want a retail copy?

[Inquisitor]

Yes, repeatedly.

[G0atmaster]

I have a legal question about this.  It says "Any permissions granted herein are provided on a
temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any
time. All rights not expressly granted are reserved."

Does that mean that anyone who's gotten it from a friend or acquaintance or given it to one while the first EULA was intact is now committing a crime since it's changed?  Also, it doesn't say anything about the first EULA being subject to change without notice.  So does that mean you've just doomed us all by calling it to attention?

IANAL, but I hate it when companies try to pull fast ones.

[Inquisitor]

I am not a lawyer, so I can't answer definitively.

Both EULA's have the "right to revoke at any time" (look at the last couple sentences of the first paragraph) and while some lawyers question the legality of that clause and osme case law calls that legality into question, there's lots of stuff that grants the companies things based on their ownership rights, etc, and the law (in the US) does seem to have gotten friendlier to the rights holders since 1999. I'd ask a lawyer if you were worried about it.  The short answer is, I believe, if you "gave it to a friend" you might, technically, have a problem.

I have been "calling attention to it" for going on 8 years, so this is not new. I just got tired of seeing it posted and reposted as an excuse. If they ever decide to excercise their rights, people who distribute the game to folks who aren't "really-truly" their chums might have some explaining to do. Dictionary definitions notwithstanding.

As with all things, folks need to take responsibility for their actions.

This is not really meant to be a discussion, nobody here (last I checked) is qualified (under law) to debate it meaningfully. The original post are the facts as they are, with a hint of sarcasm from me. Take them as you will.

People who copy software will copy it regardless of whether its "allowed." So meh.

[karajorma]

Besides the point of this thread was not to deal with cases of people copying for a couple of friends they've known for years.

 It's to deal with the idiocy of people were trying to claim ISO downloads were 100% legal even upon receiving a C&D from Interplay on the grounds that you've said everyone in the world is your friend so the EULA makes it legal.

[Grizzly]

Where is the thing where it says that it may not be copied for NON-commercial thingies? I don't see that anywhere...

[Shade]

Please note the "friends" clause is absent from this version. They realized their mistake, and they rescinded that authorization almost immediately.

[jr2]

Erg.  Enough... when I get home I'm going to WinMerge the EULA from the install screen and the EULA that gets put in your hard disk.  I can post a screenshot of the results.

[jr2]

Umm... sorry for the double-post, but where do you find the EULA that gets installed on your hard disk?  I can't seem to find it ATM.  I've got & saved the one displayed in the install screen, but I can't find the other.

[karajorma]

It's part of the retail install. (or the 1.2 patch perhaps. I might have patched that folder before taking that snapshot).

[jr2]

Ya... where in the retail install?  In the license agreement shown while running setup.exe?  I thought that was the old one that got superseded by one placed into your installation directory.