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Ultima I Remake Abandoned
Posted by Steven Wu on Saturday, January 04 @ 18:04:18 EST Oddities
According to EvilAvatar.com, an independent developer's remake of Ultima I has been discontinued due to the "tedious process" of negotiating with Electronic Arts, the copyright holder of the series. Sadly, this is not a case of renegade programmers attempting to sneak one past the big guys--the developers actually got permission from Richard Garriott, the creator of the Ultima series, and repeatedly contacted Electronic Arts after beginning the project.

This story raises a related issue: as most of the readers of this site are aware, one dispute over the copyrights of software deals with the concept of abandonware: the (illegal) distribution of old software that is no longer being supported or released by the copyright holders. What frustrates computer users is that copyright holders continue to enforce their claims on this old software, even though they are making no money off of them, and even though there are no plans whatsoever to re-release the software. Of course, matters are made more complicated by the fact that (a) much old software is part of a franchise or series that may still be continuing (including Ultima), and (b) software makers do occasionally re-release their products (such as Lucasarts; there's even a release of the old Ultima games). But even aside from the thornier issue of copyright, you have to wonder what harm Electronic Arts could possibly foresee in the release of a more attractive Ultima I, especially after the latest entry in the series disappointed so many fans.

 
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"User Login" | Login/Create an Account | 7 comments | Search Discussion
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Re: Ultima I Remake Abandoned (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, January 04 @ 18:55:55 EST
Reminds me of a little known clone of The Legend of Zelda.

It was started years ago, and is still quite popular, but it walks the line of copyright laws, mainly because the default quests are copies of the original game, even though no Nintendo code is included(therefore no roms). This clone also includes the ability to make fan games based on an enhanced Zelda 1 engine, and allows people to use copyrighted graphics(such as the Japanese BS Zelda graphics).

There was a small spat in which a few people told Nintendo about this, and although Nintendo didn't care it worried the lead programmer.


While it is a different case, it still involves abandoneware, and many of the same issues.


[ Reply to This ]

Sierra Remakes (Score: 1)
by JamesGrimmelmann on Saturday, January 04 @ 22:09:22 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.laboratorium.net
Tierra [www.qknowledge.net], meanwhile, has abandoned development on "Royal Quest" in order to concentrate on its VGA remakes of the old Sierra adventures. (Interestingly enough, Sierra was itself in the remake business for a while -- Space Quest and Hero's Quest both got the VGA remake treatment.) Royal Quest was to have been an adventure game very much in the King's Quest mold, only just different enough to steer clear of Sierra's copyright and trademark rights.


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Re: Ultima I Remake Abandoned (Score: 1)
by GMHenninger on Sunday, January 05 @ 18:14:12 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.ingenuitas.org
This is a copy of a post I made on my blog [dram.teamslack.net]. I didn't change it at all, so there is a link to the story which is quite useless if you are already here. But I thought the ideas were important (or at least interesting) and therefore I should share. While reading this article [research.yale.edu] over at LawMeme [research.yale.edu] I realized something. The reason that "copyright holders continue to enforce their claims on this old software, even though they are making no money off of them, and even though there are no plans whatsoever to re-release the software" is because those copyrights still have value, at least to the accountants. Copyrights are an intangible asset that have value even if they aren't making money at all. Maybe I'm just a bit slow and everybody else has realized this all along, but this is the only reason to hold on to old copyrights. If you wanted to fix this problem the best way to do it would be to change how the accounting is done. Right now there is pressure on the accounting industry to change their practices, maybe some people should get together and lobby to change how intangible assets are recorded (or do away with them all together).


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Re: Ultima I Remake Abandoned (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, January 06 @ 16:06:32 EST
Time for compulsory licensing, a la mechanical
rights for music?

I've bought re-released Infocom (Zork, etc) games.
I wish other companies would offer legit versions
of their ancient stuff, even if they don't provide
ways to play it on modern hardware. The MAME project
(and others like it) show that open source emulators
are doable.


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