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[kOS]

look at the other ESA topics. do nothing. be patient. play in downloadable games

[Tom Henrik]

ESA protects any company for the entire time an ESA member continues its membership.

Meaning:
ESA will protect Ubisoft, as long Ubisoft keeps paying them to do so.

[Zxby]

ok i got it, a "burner" = someone who burns the games to cd for distribution. sounds illegal...

Your description of the adding a game without the file makes sense. no need to go through all that hastle. thanks,

PS, thank you for a great site. projects such as this helps keep old games alive.

[Grand Dad]

Look I may be dense or ignorent but what and who the devil is ESA? And how are they protecting those companies which 'extinct' e.g. Microprose, Sierra etc?

[Doubler]

ESA
The ESA protects all it's members against piracy.
They do permit some sites (by agreement) to host some of their games which are clearly abandoned.
Abandonia used to be one of them, but due to an unfortunate misunderstanding in which Abandonia unknowingly hosted some games they did NOT have permission for, their agreement was terminated.

[BeefontheBone]

Those companies you mention were bought by other companies, or sold the rights to their game titles/series when in liquidation, and those companies are now members of the ESA (this is in fact more and more common with the current industry trend toward a few large publishing companies such as EA - the only potential hope is for independents like Darwinia or new distribution methods like Steam, which have their own pros and cons - for instance, indies tend to be breeding grounds for innovation, but never make any money due to lack of advertising budget, and Steam is in some ways helping VALVe monopolise the distribution of their software, and hence control the price, though it is incredibly useful for preordering titles, multiplayer and news/patch announcements).

[Chris]

Originally posted by Grand Dad+Jun 1 2005, 08:43 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Grand Dad @ Jun 1 2005, 08:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Look I may be dense or ignorent but what and who the devil is ESA?[/b]

Well, to my knowledge the ESA is nothing more than a private company (or association) of lawyers, whose business it is to protect the copyrights of software companies who pay them. They might hold good connections to government (especially in the U.S.) but they remain private. Their main purpose is that of a watchdog, which cares for it's customers rights. They have all the right to do that... and they also have the means.
The whole abandonware-sector is just side-business to them, however. New games have much more pericular potential and are therefore more important to them.

Originally posted by Grand Dad@Jun 1 2005, 08:43 PM
And how are they protecting those companies which 'extinct' e.g. Microprose, Sierra etc?

<!--QuoteBegin-ESA
*
United States copyright law provides important protection to ensure that video and computer games continue to be enjoyed by the millions of people who play them.* Without the protections of copyright law, the long hours of work by programmers, software engineers, writers and animators and the millions of dollars invested by publishers to bring a top game to market would be lost to piracy.* The ESA's Intellectual Property Policy Department serves the public policy needs of video and computer game companies on a variety of domestic and international intellectual property issues.[/quote]

That's the official ESA statement, regarding the protection of copyrights of intellectual property. Actually, at least the U.S. law provides 70 years of protection for these issues. That's the basis the ESA relies on. Copyrights are just commodities, that may be sold or bought. Therefore many copyrights are held by companies, which bought up smaller developers and want to have their rights asserted, no matter if they might benefit from them, or not.

That's my sight of the ESA, as I've experienced them so far. If someone has another view, I'll stand corrected. :whistle: At last, the people at ESA are just doing their jobs, as everyone else. Some of their actions may be questionable from our p.o.v., but are absolutely correct by the laws of the U.S. and many other countries.

I hope I was of some help, G.D.


But this topic should not lead to another discussion of laws and ESA's rights to assert them. Everyone interested in this matter should use the search-function.

[BeefontheBone]

My understanding is that they have quite strong connections with the US government, in the sense that they're a not insignificant lobby group representing a large number of big companies in a fast-growing industry.

[Flop]

Originally posted by Bobbin@Jun 2 2005, 03:14 AM
Actually, at least the U.S. law provides 70 years of protection for these issues.

I don't want to start a debate here, I just want to clear something up. It's true that US laws provides 70 years of copyright protection (after the creators death), but in the case of corporations it's actually 95 years (after the product was first released. According to international law it's 50 years after the death of the creator, but any country is entitled to extend that period as they see fit (and many, including USA and the EU have done so).

This is pretty minor, admittedly, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[Grand Dad]

Be that as it may...they are only protecting the so called rights of the bigger companies, BUT what about all those "long hours of work of programmers, writers, software engineers, animators etc"? What benefit are they getting? Are they being paid for their past efforts? This all nonsense...they were simply kicked out and get jobs elsewhere...why couldn't Vivandi and the other Corps. keep them on and let them continue their excellent efforts? And why aren't these Corps. putting the old products on the market :bleh: :crazy:

I know, I know that all our arguements are a futile exercise.

Happy Gaming with what you have!!!