Hrm....he says he hasn't tested it, but there was a remake of the game, and Lowe supposedly worked with them on it. You'd think they'd have jumped to at least examine the original source. Or maybe they explicitly decided not to check if the IP rights were owned by a different company than the one that owned the copyright for the code itself.
Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
11–20 of 130 posts
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#12Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
Unfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively increases it again.
Yea that's what confuses me. Is he even legally allowed to sell this stuff? Should he even still have that stuff?! This gets into sketchy legal ground.
I wish he had contacted the German company he claims currently owns the rights and just asked if he could post it all up for free. It's not like it's going to hurt sales on platforms like GoG if they still have it up. He's already gotten some of the rights back for LSL1 at least when he did that remake (which honestly isn't all that great). He could have posted all the code and then sold the originals too; so it's in the commons and one person gets to be a collector and everyone wins.
So .. EA doesn't own this? I thought Sierra was owned by EA (or got bought by some company that got bought by EA). I know The LSL rights went to some other company for a bit who produced the two PC/PlayStation Larry games (the university and movie one. Honestly I liked the University one; don't know why people hated on it. It was funny).
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#13Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
Well you're free to do this bit of charity after buying it yourself.
Well no, he says in the post he doesn't own the IP. The winner could post it, but it'd probably have to be as a torrent or from a country that won't enforce the IP/copyright.
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#14I am interested but not enough to pay over $1000. I actually hope that some (well all) of this code makes it to the computer history museum.
If rare video game market is anything like I think it is, this will disappear into a jealous "private collector". You'll never ever see the source code because they feel that dumping or providing digital copies of the disks would degrade the value of their collection. And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.
> And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.
I don't know if "I don't have a copy of King's Quest 3 source code" counts as suffering.
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#15Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
Unfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively increases it again.
Doesn't IA have an explicit copyright exemption for some purposes? See: their playable copies of some games.
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
If rare video game market is anything like I think it is, this will disappear into a jealous "private collector". You'll never ever see the source code because they feel that dumping or providing digital copies of the disks would degrade the value of their collection. And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.
> And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness. I don't know if "I don't have a copy of King's Quest 3 source code" counts as suffering.
The public suffers anytime knowledge is lost.
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#17I'm suddenly reminded of Betrayal in Antara. Man, that game was weird.
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#18Semi-OT: Anyone who knows who holds the copyright and/or source code to Sierra's Earth Siege 2, please contact me by the email in my profile! I'd be really happy if someone can shed a light here...
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#19Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out of it.
Unfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this code legally. The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively increases it again.
how does it work when the copyright is unknown or what happens if a company/trademark folded (that might have held the copyright) does the company who reastablishes the brand get the ip?!
I mean if the game was published under Sierra Entertainment 19xx and the company folded, is it still legally unforceable, even if the new company is now activision?
Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness. I don't know if "I don't have a copy of King's Quest 3 source code" counts as suffering.
The public suffers anytime knowledge is lost.
Will the public suffer from not knowing what this comment said a century from now?