Originally Posted by SteamUser
Originally Posted by blazed


Right... Garriot loved them, and what would have happen if he didn't? Do you happen to know if the modders asked him if they could do a mod based on his work?
<SNIP another load of semi-truths>



Before you start lecturing, realize that (indeed, infamously) Garriott doesn't own the TM / rights to the Ultima series. Origin Games does, and that's owned by EA.

Electronic Arts has allowed numerous fan games to release, free of charge, including remakes of their existing games. However, they have never GRANTED permission for these games, as that would imply some legal relationship that they cannot afford to see exist. So fan games exist in a sort of 堵rey area? neither actively encouraged nor purposefully destroyed. That is a big difference over some other game studios, who guard their intellectual property from even their own fans...

For all intents and purposes, EA owns everything having to do with the Ultima franchise, except the character of Lord British, which is retained by Richard Garriott. This includes all of the game titles, artwork, music, characters, descriptions, etc. Copyright law is difficult to sort through, because it does provide rights for advertising, review, and fair use, which can be extremely confusing.

http://lycaeum.ultimacodex.com/fan-games/


Modding the D:OS engine to do a remake of Ultima VII would fall under the T&C of the two mods I linked - because you're using someone else's engine.

On the other hand, if you're merely porting / providing a 'working platform' to allow old games to work on a system, you'd follow the route of something like the Exult project, where you require the original source files from disk (*ahem*). GOG games still carries it.

That said, Exult is no longer being developed, suffers from game breaking bugs, and probably doesn't play nice with Windows 8. Ultima IV-VI are still available (GoG again), however neither Lazarus nor the U6 project have been impacted.

So, Ultima VII & Serpent Isle would be a grey area - however, re-imgagining it under the D:OS engine would more than likely be perfectly ok.

Originally Posted by blazed
You basically disregarded copyrights, just because you disagree or ain't making money.


No, I did quite the opposite. Next time - instead of arguing, how's about five mins of research, eh?


We all know that some companies won't pursue fan base projects based on their titles, thanks for clearing up the obvious.

Doesn't changed the fact that is still under the discretion of the Copyright owner, they may change their minds at any time and shut down the whole thing, change of heart so to say. Also they won't take kindly for any profits off the project either.

Definitely a bad idea to waste time on such mods, why risk it? Why be so desperate to ride of the back of another title than to come up with something original? You can make similar themes/gameplays why do you insist on the exact same characters/stories, etc.?

You are encouraging people to work on something that is a "grey area" as if the term itself isn't bad. Many businesses are not OK with grey areas, eBay for example doesn't allow grey area items. I've had the pleasure of selling perfectly legal items that ebay did not deem fit due to grey area.

I've also done Anime reviews on YouTube, No adds no profits, with a Fair Usage disclaimer, under fair usage law I was allowed to review something and put in highly editted clips of the anime. However that did not stop the Japanese companies from flagging my reviews off YouTube within a week, I recieved 3 strikes my YouTube account was terminated, YouTube decided I didn't own the copyrights so my arguement was null. They don't care about "fair usage".

You are also going way too deep in that Ultima shit, which I don't care enough to research, so no thanks, don't need to bring one specific title to a copyright argument. If thats the case I can point out the lotr mod that got wiped with a C&D letter, or any other similar case.

Last edited by blazed; 29/07/14 10:03 AM.