So say someone decides to produce a remaster of NOLF. Does Activision have to produce this piece of paper once they sue to establish standing? If Activision's version of this piece of paper was chewed up by rats in the 90s, does their ownership stake vanish in a puff as well?
If the potential victory from a lawsuit is $20K and Activision estimates it will cost them $50K to find this piece of paper, is the company relatively safe from a lawsuit?
The source is only partially available; they released the source code of the game logic, but the engine was not included in the source release. You'd need to reverse engineer & remake the engine to make any major improvements to the game, such as porting it to new platforms.
I'm in the speedrunning community[0] for NOLF and just want to chime in on the amazing work that haekb did (I believe the "community-driven project" is only them) for these games[1]. They made both NOLF and NOLF2 a lot more accessible to people casually picking up the game, as there was a lot of jank and configuration needed otherwise to get the games running in a good way on modern systems. In addition to fixing jank, they actually fixed tons of bugs and added other QoL and fun stuff like a jukebox in the menus to listen to the (great) soundtrack. Some stuff - like how if you have certain USB devices connected, the game will just flip out - still remains, but that's just a part of the _voodoo_ with old games like these.
Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.
It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)
The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!
They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)
Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]
I loved NOLF and NOLF2. I was actually thinking about pulling them off the shelf and loading them up again the other day. I had no idea that the rights around them was such a mess.
Copyright kills works when rights cannot be negotiated, usually because the rights holder is not to be found, but in this case because the situation is just "complicated".
When Microsoft was first looking to do a remaster of Goldeneye from N64, even they couldn't manage the legal trouble of that one.
Microsoft had the original development team, Nintendo had the software and Activision had the James Bond License. Microsoft was willing to develop it for both Xbox 360 and Wii but they simply couldn't get the rights between all three straightened out.
If those three, companies that are no strangers to handling legal issues cannot figure out, it doesn't look good for smaller titles like this.
It's one thing when a work disappears because no one owns it or no one cares but it's even more frustrating when the rights do exist, yet the legal spaghetti around them is so tangled that nobody can or will do anything
But seriously, the way the copyright system prevents people from preserving and re-experiencing works as soon as the "rightful owner" stops caring about them is a travesty. I say that when an IP becomes orphaned, stops being claimed by a new rights-holder, or some time after it stops being sold/used, it should be forcibly removed from the grip of copyright and opened up for everyone to use. Otherwise, we're heading to a world where only a slim subset of well-performing properties are being offered, while the rest lie in a gigantic graveyard of things-someone-owns-but-will-never-use instead of being potentially put to use by someone who would actually care.
One downside is it would motivate companies to get intellectual property registered under a trademark with indefinite protection rather than copyright. Even with our current lifetime + 70 year protection we have companies like Disney getting characters registered as a trademark.
I struggle to understand why the (potential?) rights-holders are so intransigent about this.
If a company came up to me and said "We have interest in reviving an IP of yours. We will take on the development costs, we will take on all the risk, all you have to do is say yes and you will get a fixed percentage of every sale"--that seems like an easy win-win, does it not? The only reasons I would imagine you would say NO were if:
1) Concern that the company will do a crappy job and tarnish the brand's reputation (which, fair, but Nightreign studios and/or GOG seem to have a pretty solid track record on this)
2) Your company's bean-counters are both so greedy and risk-averse such that their thinking is, "We only wish to allow something if it will be a guaranteed hit...but if it is a guaranteed hit, we want to do it internally so that we get to keep all of the profits!" In which case, the requirements are almost impossible to satisfy, since there is inevitably some level of risk undertaken during the remaster/re-release effort.
We just saw an explosion of streaming platforms because of their version of 2). Instead of continuing to license to Netflix for a percentage, they decided to spend all of the time/money to develop their own streaming platforms in hopes of keeping all of the proceeds. Maybe they have internal dialog looking at this same comparison which has not settled out yet. The streaming platforms have shown rolling your own is not a guaranteed panacea.
Many of these get stuck in contract hell. The original developer may have had licensed software or assets and at the very least needs to find the agreements and understand how they work for new distribution. It's not uncommon for those agreements to have been time limited, but if you want to renew now you need to find the current successor/rightsholder and negotiate.
Also, the developer/publisher/distributor/etc may have had revenue sharing agreements with various parties. Those need to be found and understood too. Sometimes those are in % of gross income, % of net income, % of sales price, or a fixed amount per copy sold. If anything needs addressing, you've got to find those parties or their successors and negotiate. You should also find those parties anyway, to pay royalties they're due, but if you at least set up an escrow account, you'll be prepared when they find you.
I would hope games contracts are a bit more forward looking now, and try to address these things, but 25 years ago, you would still get old games at computer surplus stores... A handful of developers would put out old games collections, but most games never came back.
Game Publishers hoard IP like Smaug. I can't even begin to catalog the IP's in the EA, UBI, and Activision's vaults. In many cases, the original creators can't even get the time of day to ask to use the IP.
What companies hear is, in effect, “Please make it easier for me to create a competing product and take away business from your existing IP:s that you are trying to create mindshare for.”
> I struggle to understand why the (potential?) rights-holders are so intransigent about this.
> you will get a fixed percentage of every sale"--that seems like an easy win-win, does it not?
It's really not an easy win-win. Entertainment falls into the attention economy, so if you're giving rights to some low-value IP away for pennies but it winds up getting popular, that's lost revenue elsewhere that might be more valuable.
On top of that these media corporations are borderline militant with defending their vaults of IP because it's the only way to distinguish themselves in a crowded landscape. Exclusivity is essentially the only way they can compete, and giving away rights for peanuts is not in their interest.
These companies default to saying "no" and when you add in the complexity of finding documents that may not exist, it's not hard to see why it'll never happen.
See, there's the difference. You, as a sole person, can easily decide giving permission or not. But they, as a group of employees, contain not a single one whose job description is "give away stuff". There isn't some keeper of the back catalogue who could confidently say "yeah, no problem". Who knows, perhaps some skunkwors division has just sunk a few million into reviving the IP. It all falls up towards the CEO and that level is rarely bothered with pittances like some inherited old license. And chances are even they would not dare, because ultimately they aren't the owner, their employer is and who knows what they would like to happen to the IP
off topic: My goodness, anyone feel the UI/UX of the website to be really refreshing? I've lately been digging compact/industrialized looking UI vs 'touch'/comfort view that take up way too much real estate.
This was a fun series of games. They are especially fun if you've watched some of the source material they're constantly referencing and alluding to, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (the 1960s one, not the 2010s movie), Get Smart, etc. Still holds up.
Austin Powers references and parodies the same material, though leans a bit more toward the old Bond movies. NOLF may have referenced Austin Powers as well, but clearly pulls from a lot of the older material.
I only played the first one, because the second one was more finnicky and required newer hardware. But I must say, NOLF 1 is one of the best and most unique FPS games ever. It should be far, far more famous than it is.
I remember buying NOLF--it was at retail, in a big box off the shelf at Media Play. I knew nothing about it, it just caught my eye, and the description on the back sounded interesting. I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.
It was an excellent game. The idea of a continuation of the series is appealing, but a lot of modern adaptations really stink, so maybe it's better off in the amber of nostalgia.
this is true of a lot of indy films...I remember a talk by this one director, Joe Swanberg, who mentioned a lot of his early movies are in limbo and unwatchable because no one can figure out who has the rights...
Any content, once published/distributed/broadcast in the US, that is not made readily available to the public going forward loses copyright protection. This includes revisions.
* A film, TV show, sound recording, book, or any other copyrighted content must, once made available for public purchase, always remain available. If the only streaming service willing to pay to stream your movie has the smallest market share, too bad; the market has spoken on the value of your content. An ebook can fulfill this purpose for a print book; streaming can fulfill this purpose for a theatrical or physical-media film. But it must be available to maintain copyright.
* Compulsory licensing should apply; if Netflix wants to pay the same amount of money as the above-mentioned small market-share streaming service for the film, Netflix must be allowed to do so. The film's rights owner can demand more, raising the price for all, but if every outlet refuses, the film immediately goes into public domain. This process is reversible, but it would set a ceiling to prevent the owner from setting a ridiculously high price to prevent its availability.
* If a Blu-ray of a film or TV show has excised or modified scenes for whatever reason, and the original isn't also made available (whether on a different "theatrical cut" release, or as a different cut on the same disc), the entire original version immediately goes into public domain.
* If NBC posts Saturday Night Live skits on YouTube that have removed "problematic" scenes[1] without explaining the differences—a diff file, basically—the entire original skit loses copyright protection.
Separate issue, but also very worthwhile:
* Streaming services must make all data regarding their content available in some standardized format. Consumers should be able to use one application to access all content they have access to. The creator of SmartTube (a very nice YouTube-compatible player) should be able to add the appropriate API support to search for and play Netflix/Prime Video/Disney+/Paramount+ content.
The above applies to software, too. Legalize abandonware!
Makes me wonder if a good way to "reign in" on copyright abuse and abandonware is to require copyright holders to pay a tax based on some kind of formula.
More importantly: If no tax is paid, after a reasonable amount of time, (1-3 years,) the work is considered abandoned and automatically moved to the public domain.
Even more importantly, if the work isn't available for general consumption (rental and physical), at a reasonable cost, without a subscription / ads, no copyright claims can be perused for non-commercial piracy. (IE, it would become totally legal to torrent a TV show if it's stuck in a streaming service that requires ads / a subscription.)
So they can't release a sequel, but they could make a new game that has suspiciously similar vibes and call it "Some people eventually dies or something".
That Bobby Banilla story is nuts. So instead of paying $5.9m in 2000, the Mets decided to defer the payments for 11 years! And also to stretch them out over 25 years! Didn't the Mets realise that just paying the full amount (with interest) 2 or 3 years later cost them a lot less. On the other hand, $1.1m is probably peanuts in terms of Mets expenses these days.
The reality is that the vast majority of entertainment is ephemeral. A videogame or movie get it's 5 minutes of fame.
There are a few weirdos like me who want to play a 20 year old videogame but how much money can you get out of that and is it worth the trouble?
56 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 59.4 ms ] threadIf the potential victory from a lawsuit is $20K and Activision estimates it will cost them $50K to find this piece of paper, is the company relatively safe from a lawsuit?
There's also a community-driven project [3] keeping it playable on modern hardware - however, it hasn't seen any activity in several years.
If you haven't played or heard of NOLF before, I highly encourage checking it out. It's a fantastic title, even after all these years.
0: https://web.archive.org/web/20020217233624/http://pc.ign.com...
1: https://web.archive.org/web/20010720053220/http://noonelives...
2: https://github.com/osgcc/no-one-lives-forever
3: https://github.com/haekb/nolf1-modernizer
Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.
It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)
The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!
They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)
Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]
[0]: https://www.speedrun.com/nolf <-- you'll find a link to the game here as well
[1]: https://haekb.itch.io/ <-- here you'll find all the lithtech stuff they made
[2]: https://youtu.be/q2PxxbJydBU <-- this is just one of many examples
[3]: https://spawnsite.net/
Microsoft had the original development team, Nintendo had the software and Activision had the James Bond License. Microsoft was willing to develop it for both Xbox 360 and Wii but they simply couldn't get the rights between all three straightened out.
If those three, companies that are no strangers to handling legal issues cannot figure out, it doesn't look good for smaller titles like this.
I also remember reading articles in Game Developer magazine about how sophisticated the AI in NOLF2 was. Wish I could find that article
Relevant: NOLF Revival Edition (same as mentioned in the article and quoted article, but actual link):
- https://archive.org/details/no-one-lives-forever-trilogy
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43146581
But seriously, the way the copyright system prevents people from preserving and re-experiencing works as soon as the "rightful owner" stops caring about them is a travesty. I say that when an IP becomes orphaned, stops being claimed by a new rights-holder, or some time after it stops being sold/used, it should be forcibly removed from the grip of copyright and opened up for everyone to use. Otherwise, we're heading to a world where only a slim subset of well-performing properties are being offered, while the rest lie in a gigantic graveyard of things-someone-owns-but-will-never-use instead of being potentially put to use by someone who would actually care.
Source code and materials etc can remain trade secrets if desired?
And all IP with a movie as well - including characters. This would stop a studio from forever milking the same piece of IP forever.
If a company came up to me and said "We have interest in reviving an IP of yours. We will take on the development costs, we will take on all the risk, all you have to do is say yes and you will get a fixed percentage of every sale"--that seems like an easy win-win, does it not? The only reasons I would imagine you would say NO were if:
1) Concern that the company will do a crappy job and tarnish the brand's reputation (which, fair, but Nightreign studios and/or GOG seem to have a pretty solid track record on this)
2) Your company's bean-counters are both so greedy and risk-averse such that their thinking is, "We only wish to allow something if it will be a guaranteed hit...but if it is a guaranteed hit, we want to do it internally so that we get to keep all of the profits!" In which case, the requirements are almost impossible to satisfy, since there is inevitably some level of risk undertaken during the remaster/re-release effort.
Also, the developer/publisher/distributor/etc may have had revenue sharing agreements with various parties. Those need to be found and understood too. Sometimes those are in % of gross income, % of net income, % of sales price, or a fixed amount per copy sold. If anything needs addressing, you've got to find those parties or their successors and negotiate. You should also find those parties anyway, to pay royalties they're due, but if you at least set up an escrow account, you'll be prepared when they find you.
I would hope games contracts are a bit more forward looking now, and try to address these things, but 25 years ago, you would still get old games at computer surplus stores... A handful of developers would put out old games collections, but most games never came back.
> you will get a fixed percentage of every sale"--that seems like an easy win-win, does it not?
It's really not an easy win-win. Entertainment falls into the attention economy, so if you're giving rights to some low-value IP away for pennies but it winds up getting popular, that's lost revenue elsewhere that might be more valuable.
On top of that these media corporations are borderline militant with defending their vaults of IP because it's the only way to distinguish themselves in a crowded landscape. Exclusivity is essentially the only way they can compete, and giving away rights for peanuts is not in their interest.
These companies default to saying "no" and when you add in the complexity of finding documents that may not exist, it's not hard to see why it'll never happen.
See, there's the difference. You, as a sole person, can easily decide giving permission or not. But they, as a group of employees, contain not a single one whose job description is "give away stuff". There isn't some keeper of the back catalogue who could confidently say "yeah, no problem". Who knows, perhaps some skunkwors division has just sunk a few million into reviving the IP. It all falls up towards the CEO and that level is rarely bothered with pittances like some inherited old license. And chances are even they would not dare, because ultimately they aren't the owner, their employer is and who knows what they would like to happen to the IP
Usual insanely wordy paragraphs and endless linked text hiding everything on TechDirt.
I wonder if I should spend some time trying to get it running on my Steam Deck - there's a couple of Reddit threads around getting it to work.
It was an excellent game. The idea of a continuation of the series is appealing, but a lot of modern adaptations really stink, so maybe it's better off in the amber of nostalgia.
Any content, once published/distributed/broadcast in the US, that is not made readily available to the public going forward loses copyright protection. This includes revisions.
* A film, TV show, sound recording, book, or any other copyrighted content must, once made available for public purchase, always remain available. If the only streaming service willing to pay to stream your movie has the smallest market share, too bad; the market has spoken on the value of your content. An ebook can fulfill this purpose for a print book; streaming can fulfill this purpose for a theatrical or physical-media film. But it must be available to maintain copyright.
* Compulsory licensing should apply; if Netflix wants to pay the same amount of money as the above-mentioned small market-share streaming service for the film, Netflix must be allowed to do so. The film's rights owner can demand more, raising the price for all, but if every outlet refuses, the film immediately goes into public domain. This process is reversible, but it would set a ceiling to prevent the owner from setting a ridiculously high price to prevent its availability.
* If a Blu-ray of a film or TV show has excised or modified scenes for whatever reason, and the original isn't also made available (whether on a different "theatrical cut" release, or as a different cut on the same disc), the entire original version immediately goes into public domain.
* If NBC posts Saturday Night Live skits on YouTube that have removed "problematic" scenes[1] without explaining the differences—a diff file, basically—the entire original skit loses copyright protection.
Separate issue, but also very worthwhile:
* Streaming services must make all data regarding their content available in some standardized format. Consumers should be able to use one application to access all content they have access to. The creator of SmartTube (a very nice YouTube-compatible player) should be able to add the appropriate API support to search for and play Netflix/Prime Video/Disney+/Paramount+ content.
The above applies to software, too. Legalize abandonware!
[1] Something I understand already happens
More importantly: If no tax is paid, after a reasonable amount of time, (1-3 years,) the work is considered abandoned and automatically moved to the public domain.
Even more importantly, if the work isn't available for general consumption (rental and physical), at a reasonable cost, without a subscription / ads, no copyright claims can be perused for non-commercial piracy. (IE, it would become totally legal to torrent a TV show if it's stuck in a streaming service that requires ads / a subscription.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bonilla
On the other hand there are claims this allowed the Mets to free up cash flow in the short term and also allowed them a draft pick in the next season.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/07/01/new-yor...
The reality is that the vast majority of entertainment is ephemeral. A videogame or movie get it's 5 minutes of fame. There are a few weirdos like me who want to play a 20 year old videogame but how much money can you get out of that and is it worth the trouble?