13 replies to this topic

[seerofdeath]

Why is it that when a game is protected by copyrights that no one tries to collect money from the public to purchase it and change it to a freeware release??????

[A. J. Raffles]

seerofdeath, on Feb 3 2006, 06:24 PM, said:

Why is it that when a game is protected by copyrights that no one tries to collect money from the public to purchase it and change it to a freeware release??????

Because the rights to a game are usually far too expensive for such a collective buy-out to be a realistic scenario?

[seerofdeath]

Say to buy the rights for a specific game is $1 million usd, that would mean that in $10 increments one would need 100,000 donations. With the power of the internet that goal is achievable isn't it?

[DeathDude]

Generally game rights aren't that cheap and remember that a company who owns the right has the power to decline a group of people like from the internet from buying the rights, plus no company would sell of their rights to a group of random people on the net in the first place.

[A. J. Raffles]

seerofdeath, on Feb 3 2006, 06:32 PM, said:

Say to buy the rights for a specific game is $1 million usd, that would mean that in $10 increments one would need 100,000 donations. With the power of the internet that goal is achievable isn't it?

Well, no offence, but I wouldn't rely on the "power of the internet", as you put it, too much. Finding 100,000 people who'd be willing to donate $10 each isn't all that easy. I for one wouldn't be willing to donate money to such an uncertain cause.

[Tom Henrik]

I've considered this myself, but the drawbacks are as follows:

1. How would this deal be made?

- Yo! Company dude! If I manage to collect a million bucks, will you sell me the rights for game X?
- When?
- Oh, I dunno. Could be tomorrow, could be 15 years from now, but as soon as I get that million, I'll let you know.
- Uhm... I don't think so.
- Darnit. Why not?
- Because I can't make a deal on "if's". I need something concrete. Say company B want to buy the rights for 5 millions two days from now, I wouldn't be able to sell to them, because I have agreed to wait indefinately for you to gather a fifth of that amount. Bad business. Unless you can give me something concrete... - no deal.


2. If people donate for something they want something in return. Most games can be downloaded illegally from somewhere, which means that many people won't donate money in order to release a game as freeware. Only the most moral of people would do so - and they are few. And you would need to find a lot of them.


3. If, by some event, the deal doesn't work. Say the aim of the donations was to buy the rights for UFO: Enemy Unknown, and release it as freeware. When the amount of money has been collected, the company doesn't want to part with the rights. (Seeing as many people have donated to release the game, it means there is a market for it, and they want to get in on this deal, by launching the game commercially with new add-ons, for instance.)

You would then face the issue of having a lot of money, and a lot of pissed off donators. Some of them will demand their money back - will you give it to them? If so, how can you? Have you kept organized donator records? Maybe you can try to use the money to buy another game, but... people donated to release UFO: Enemy Unknown, not Alley Cat. People are going to be upset, and feel cheated.


However you look at it, it will be a road filled with agony for whoever runs it.

The idea is good, but the idea is based on finding the right amount of moral people (who have a die-hard love for the game you want to release), and to manage to get the company to agree to your terms, and then hoping everyone plays nice.

[Eagle of Fire]

The idea is flawled on itself assuming companies do wish to part with their rights... Which they of course don't.

[A. J. Raffles]

Eagle of Fire, on Feb 4 2006, 05:51 AM, said:

The idea is flawled on itself assuming companies do wish to part with their rights... Which they of course don't.

Oh, I think most of them would if the price was high enough. But they'd of course prefer selling them to one person or one company rather than a bunch of fans, most of whom are still in their teens, so it would probably pose a legal problem as well. And I suppose most of them would be sold not individually but as part of a bundle: if the rights for UFO were up for sale, for example, they would most likely be part of a bundle of rights to the entire X-Com series (which would mean the buyer would purchase the right to make a sequel as well).

@Tom: I think the possibility of getting those games illegally elsewhere would not the only reason to keep people from donating: there is also common sense. If you knew a project was highly unlikely to succeed and you knew you were unlikely to be refunded your money if it wasn't, would you donate?

[Flop]

If the freeware community could actually manage to get together that much money, I'd prefer it to be used for doing some lobby work, to change the grotesque copyright laws...

[BeefontheBone]

In the case of UFO, of course, the rights are strictly for the X-Com name and the original 3 games - the last two UFO games (and a third in the works) are not in any way connected with the owner of the rights to X-Com (except that some of the devs are involved), which would be an extra complication - perhaps not the best choice of example Your point is obviously valid, though.

[seerofdeath]

obviously i've missed putting the point across, the idea is to create a company that devotes it's resources to purchasing old game copyrights and freely distributing those games that are protected by the "grotesque copyright laws" and in doing so said company could start a revolution in copyright law itself thus starting the lobby as previously mentioned.

[Tom Henrik]

Meet Liberated Games

[A. J. Raffles]

seerofdeath, on Feb 5 2006, 02:17 AM, said:

obviously i've missed putting the point across, the idea is to create a company that devotes it's resources to purchasing old game copyrights and freely distributing those games that are protected by the "grotesque copyright laws" and in doing so said company could start a revolution in copyright law itself thus starting the lobby as previously mentioned.

Yes, I know what you mean, and it's a very noble idea and all that, but it still wouldn't work. First of all, creating a company isn't as easy as that, because you need to sort out the legal business. And of course the financial bit would need to be sorted out as well: unless this company found some way of actually making money, it would be entirely dependent on donations (in which case it would be more of a charity, really) in order to get those "resources" you're speaking of.

[seerofdeath]

thank you Tom that's what i'm talking about