Put the wish list for porting projects HERE...

[me262]

ok, i did some research, and found out a few tidbits of information. First, ip assets are treated like any other property during a bankruptcy trial to try to pay off creditors. Then, the owners of those rights can lose the rights to their assets if they dont keep registering their ip. Although i dont think that's 100% accurate, since IP usually expires like 70 years after the creator's death. Dont know whats in the case of companies. Under the Intellectual Property Bankruptcy Act in the usa, debtors cant just ignore license contracts with licensees, but i dont think that applies here. Games are sold, not licensed to, like business productivity programs. There are situations where the rights revert back to the employees that created the work, but only when there was a specific agreement on that. ? think we would need to find out if intracorp was in debt when they folded, and who they owed money to, and if IP rights were sold, or transfered to those creditors as payoff.

The whole point of a License Key is that you really have been licensed to use the product.
It's the same way with Windows, you don't buy it, you pay for the right to use it.
Businesses pay tons yearly for their software. In the case of my former job it was 10,000 a year for rental control software, and the company included the source code with it.
IP really does need to be overhauled here in the US... 70 years is too long for software the rate it's going. IIRC this is the same way with getting photos at a studio, although no one realizes it.

[Chris]

The whole point of a License Key is that you really have been licensed to use the product.
It's the same way with Windows, you don't buy it, you pay for the right to use it.

Not all places treat it as such. In other countries, and even some places in the US, when you buy a product in the store, you buy it.. end of discussion. The piece of paper hidden in the box, or the text file that pops up on installation, that says otherwise is null and void. Just because they *say* you are a licensee doesn't mean you actually are.

Could you imagine if it wasn't? If you lost a Windows CD, you'd be liable for losing Microsoft's property. Or heck, if you just wanted to get rid of the CD, you can't. You can only send it back to where you got it from. And if it ever got damaged, you'd legally have to reimburse them for it.. after all, it wouldn't be your CD.

IP really does need to be overhauled here in the US... 70 years is too long for software the rate it's going.

It's only death+70 years for individuals (and Disney). For company-owned IPs, IIRC, there's a 20-year limit (which is still too long; MPEG-1 is still under the 20 year limit with its patents/IPs).

[RobbieAB]

Didn't AutoDesk lose a case on just that basis in New York recently?

The judge said that it didn't matter what AutoDesk claimed, the customer paid them money, and was handed a disk with software on it, as such it constituted a sale and not a licensing, so he could resell the disk if he wished. As AutoDesk weren't claiming he had tried to keep a copy of the software when he sold it on, they had no case in court against him for selling it on, even though it was "forbidden by the EULA".

[curaga]

Okay people, I managed to track down the Linux demo of Raptor

http://www.itnews.com.au/Download/16032,raptor-linux.aspx

Max resolution 640x480. It actually ran quite nice on my P3, no lags or anything in sight. Starting straight at "Veteran", nostalgic heaven

I had some trouble unpacking, it uses old command form for tail. And after changing it, checksum didn't match. So, just extract it manually:
tail -n +169 raptorshr.sh | tar xvz

It then needs libSDL-1.1 compiled, but after that runs great. If only it had higher res etc Svartalf, play some.

[xav1r]

So, regarding the former intracorp games, i think the most likely scenario is that intracorp "owns" the rights to those games on paper, but in reality no one does. They are in reality public domain. Unless intracorp owed money when they went boom and a court sold the rights to those games to their creditors, which is unlikely with intracorp. Can the court keep the IP rights of those games if they didnt sell it to someone else? Could that be the situation ? dont they have to transfer the ip ownership to someone eventually?

[Svartalf]

I'm thinking either a copyright lawyer (BLAM!) or a bankruptcy lawyer (BLAM!).
(Tagon shot those drones, we'll need another lawyer. Thank you Svartalf for turning me onto the Schlock Mercenary webcomics. (Although nothing beats the sight of Schlock eating the lawyers and wearing the necktie.))

You only get to shoot Collective Drones- and only if you're a member of Tagon's Toughs (Since they're carrying out a Court ordered Sanction against the Partnership Collective for being extremely naughty Lawyers in the said Court...).

But I would think it might not be a bad idea to check into this further.

[Svartalf]

? think we would need to find out if intracorp was in debt when they folded, and who they owed money to, and if IP rights were sold, or transfered to those creditors as payoff.

They were in a bankruptcy, from what I was able to gather from online scuttlebutt from people that were trying to do the same sorts of things we're trying right now but for MacOS instead- which means if they shuttered their doors, they went into a Chapter 7 situation at some point. Assets are not usually transferred to creditors but are usually sold and the proceeds are given to the creditors. Unless the creditors specifically ASK for the assets in question, they're sold in the aforementioned manner, and if they don't sell, I'm not wholly sure what happens to the assets. The company doesn't get to keep it. The Court doesn't keep it, doesn't WANT it, and it's my understanding they can't anyhow.

[xav1r]

They were in a bankruptcy, from what I was able to gather from online scuttlebutt from people that were trying to do the same sorts of things we're trying right now but for MacOS instead- which means if they shuttered their doors, they went into a Chapter 7 situation at some point. Assets are not usually transferred to creditors but are usually sold and the proceeds are given to the creditors. Unless the creditors specifically ASK for the assets in question, they're sold in the aforementioned manner, and if they don't sell, I'm not wholly sure what happens to the assets. The company doesn't get to keep it. The Court doesn't keep it, doesn't WANT it, and it's my understanding they can't anyhow.

So they are effectively public domain. Unless someone at intracorp had the rights transfered prior to the bankrupcty to someone outside the company, which didnt. The game's code and assets are there, in public domain limbo, waiting for a port to be done

[xav1r]

It's so silent here, you can hear a pindrop...

[RobbieAB]

Svartalf is busy I think, and without his occassional input...