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Also even if it is a ground up rewrite, the look and feel still matters. Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts (even if you call it an OpenBirk)
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So they were not "pressured" but Atari contacted them and they proceeded to make this decision based because they "needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests". That sound indistinguishable from being pressured.
I think they're saying Atari didn't threaten them but they both understood that they could have. Honestly it sounds like Atari were trying to be nice. Like "you technically aren't allowed to do that, and we could just set our lawyers on you, but we'd like to not do that while also making money on our re-release". This seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise to me.
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Atari own all the IP and copyright. While OpenTTD is open source, it's basis is really that the original game was reverse-engineered, originally using the original assets, and then rebuilt. Also all the map data etc is owned by Atari, so you need to have a 'genuine' copy to access all the levels etc.
What copyright? OpenTTD doesn't copy any code or assets from the original game. It is a ground-up rewrite. There is no copyright violation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also even if it is a ground up rewrite, the look and feel still matters. Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts (even if you call it an OpenBirk)
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Without knowing the rev share it could be exploitative. If OpenTDD is being sold commercially Atari shouldn't be taking all the money from all the hard work that people have put into the project over the years.
Thing is, they own it. They have every right to cease and desist, I assume, and haven't. That's generous compared to most companies reactions already.
No, they don't. They own the game data, and the original game engine. They don't own the reimplemented Open Source game engine.
OpenTTD did not have to do anything here. It sounds like they had a very positive interaction with Atari, in which Atari is providing them with some support and collaboration, and in exchange for that, OpenTTD agreed to formalize the requirement for "you need to own the original game data" by having people on game stores purchase the original game through them before getting OpenTTD through them.
That seems like a pretty reasonable approach. It should be held up as a good model for collaboration. But it shouldn't be treated as "they have every right to [demand a] cease and desist".
> a compromise would be needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests (which of course they are entitled to pursue as the rights holder) No, fuck 'em. They had nothing to do with developing the game, and in a sane copyright structure a thirty-year-old work would be public domain by now.
Atari is releasing an inferior product and needs the superior community one delisted. The remaster cannot compete, simple as.
it is neither being delisted, nor was it requested to be. As far as rights holders exercising their rights, this is about the most collaborative way it could have gone. Not every rights holder is a John Carmack.
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Look and Feel in computers and how it interacts with copyright is hardly something new https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/assets/articlePDFs/v03/03HarvJL...
And Sony vs Bleem (or the IBM BIOS reimplementation) already set a precedent so that doesn't really matter anymore. Look at Wine. Or Exegutor. Or DOSBox. All of them totally legal reimplementing either prior look and feel and functionality.
I'm no expect, but Chris Sawyer style games certainly provided a unique overall impression to me. Whether it needs to be a registered design or not I couldn't say, but it's not going to be cheap to find out.
More recent battles have relied on Trademark and Patent law rather than Copyright, but "Look and Feel" is still a legal grey area
So they were not "pressured" but Atari contacted them and they proceeded to make this decision based because they "needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests". That sound indistinguishable from being pressured.
Indeed. It sounds like they were further pressured to say they were not being pressured.
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Thing is, they own it. They have every right to cease and desist, I assume, and haven't. That's generous compared to most companies reactions already.
> Thing is, they own it. No, they don't. They own the game data, and the original game engine. They don't own the reimplemented Open Source game engine. OpenTTD did not have to do anything here. It sounds like they had a very positive interaction with Atari, in which Atari is providing them with some support and collaboration, and in exchange for that, OpenTTD agreed to formalize the requirement for "you need to own…