Copyrights for classic-era games

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Gio
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Copyrights for classic-era games

#1 Post by Gio » Sat Nov 05, 2022 7:03 pm

I'm converting some classic-era PAW/Quill games to DAAD, and I'd like to know what sort of legal waters I'm treading in.

My first project is "The Jade Necklace" by Jack Lockerby, published by Zenobi Software.

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Strident
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Re: Copyrights for classic-era games

#2 Post by Strident » Sun Nov 06, 2022 12:08 am

In many cases, the people who wrote the games are out there to ask permission. The games still belong to them.

In that particular case, the copyright on the game is owned by Jack & Roger's family and/or John Wilson's family; with both Jack and John being deceased.

I do, as I've said elsewhere, get slightly twitchy when people start doing ports of these sort of adventures; which I feel a little protective of, given I met many of these guys and was part of that community back in the day.

Creating bad ports is very easy... There are lots of broken, bad ports of Quilled and PAWed games to other platforms out there... that really don't do the original games justice. However, it's a lot more time consuming to do *good* ports of the games to DAAD, that aren't just some sort of "because you can" exercise and respect the time put into creating the originals.

So, I would ask, why do you want to port the games?

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Gio
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Re: Copyrights for classic-era games

#3 Post by Gio » Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:03 pm

Strident wrote: In many cases, the people who wrote the games are out there to ask permission. The games still belong to them.
This I understand. I mainly started this thread to help with that; I figured a thread was a better way to start the conversation than a creepy DM from nowhere.
Strident wrote: So, I would ask, why do you want to port the games?
A deep, pointed question. I have indeed seen you ask it elsewhere, so it's not an unexpected one, either.

I don't have any particular reason; I'd be lying if I said I did. Still, I wouldn't port a game I didn't like, and I definitely agree with your premise for asking. I've spent some time comparing the three different versions I know of (C64, ZX: Quill'd, and ZX: PAW'd) to try and find the best way to fit them together into a unified DAAD-ian whole, and I plan on continuing in that vein.

I hope that helps with the twitches a bit.

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