Re: Old games and copyrights


Thu, 23 Mar 1995 20:28:19 GMT

whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:

>[RE: Permission to reproduce Over-Mind.]

>Well, they're obviously within their rights to say that. Of course, I'm
>still not going to buy any of their games if that's the way they treat
>their customers.

Oh, come on. No company has any obligation to "treat its customers" so
well as to give away the rights to their games just because a customer
bought a copy.

What the original author got in response to his request for a release of
copyright is a standard-issue copyright policy statement. It probably
came from some low-level corporate flack who was in no position to give
up rights on any Avalon Hill product. If a person in power had a chance
to think hard about it, sure, there's no reason they shouldn't take part
in the project proposed. But I don't think there's any way you can _expect_
it.

The original letter to "Monarch Avalon" made a case for why they should let
him port the game. No rational person could disagree with the logic. But
the guy whose job it was to read and answer the letter may not have been
able to deviate from corporate legal policy, drawn up by the lawyers.

(Furthermore, they probably have some kind of deal with the guy who
originally wrote Empire Of The Overmind -- someone who may not be with
them anymore. They'd have to renegotiate his contract to do something
like this.)

- David Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu