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Hozer Videogames Stealing Again / PLEASE READ


neotokeo2001

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spudsatarigames (Hozer) has listed a copy of Wolfenstein on EBAY. After they were selling Santas Helper last year I contacted them and was told that they didn't know it was my game they were making copies of. I was told that if they wanted to make copies of any of my games in the future that I would be contacted first. Well, I wasn't contacted and since they mention Robert and I in the listing then they obviously know it is our work. I have never asked for royalties from anyone for selling my hacks/games and I don't think an e-mail is too much to ask. They even used an old label that I made.

 

0fa2_1.JPG

 

Auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wolfenstein-An-Atari-2...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Most everyone here knows the history of Hozer/Randy so I won't go into that.

Please report this item to EBAY to get this auction pulled.

 

If things like this continue to happen I will never release another BIN. I don't profit off of these games/hacks and I refuse to allow other people to do so without at least contacting me first.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Scott

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Looks like he's got about 10 auctions going: including hacks by Tim Snider, Edtris, and claims he has the last stock of Marble Craze and Space Treat that he made when Paul and Fabrizio discontinued his services and moved to AA.

 

Can these guys confirm this or is he lying about that too?

 

As much as I would like some of these unique items, I can't bring myself to buy from him. :|

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Ill report it too but what category in the report auction screen did you use?

 

 

I used:

 

Counterfeits and copyright violations

Bootlegs and counterfeit media

Backup software or video games

 

They really don't give you the correct options to pick from. Anything that you use that flags the auction is fine.

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Just for the record here is an e-mail from spudsatarigames that I received December 16 in relation to Santas Helper:

 

Hello Steve,

 

Its Kieran here from spudsatarigames. I took Santa's Helper off eBay after receiving your note in order to see if I can work it out with to sell your game with your permission.

 

First of all I am not some hardcore business, but I sell Atari 2600 games for fun and to earn some extra cash from time to time. I asked Randy (Hozer) to make the carts knowing that no one was actively selling them. As you know the ROM is freely available from multiple places on the web and so I did not think there would be any problem. Obviously, in this case, I was wrong and I apologize.

 

I purchase the carts from Hozer at cost of parts, and so he is not making any profits from our deal. I would like to know if there is a way I can sell this cart with your permission on eBay? What would it take to work out a deal with you? Of course, if you don't wish for me to sell your hack I will honor your request.

 

I look forward to hearing from you about this matter

 

Kieran

 

He states my name in the auction but I have never received a message concerning Wolfenstein. As anyone who has ever sold my games knows, I have a very steep price for selling my hacks.

1. Ask me first

2. Send me a copy

Thats it. I know it is a steep price to pay but I'm not budging! :roll: As I stated before, I offer these games at cost, Not For Profit and then most only in Limited runs of 20-30 cartridges.

 

In the case of Wolfenstein and a few other games I have made agreements with specific websites that they be sold only through that website. I know that the majority of my games are hacks and that I have no legal recourse in protecting those hacks, But he also does this with legitimate homebrews. My recourse is that I can stop offering the BIN files of my games to play on emulators. I would prefer not to do that but I will if need be.

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Just to prove that he is also using my old label art as well.

 

WolfCart50.gifWolfenstein.JPG

 

I post small versions of all of my labels and from the quality it looks like he just blew up the small image and added that Hozer face to it. I know for a fact that it is my label. If you look closely under the Wolfenstein logo you will see some areas of black that are a different shade. You will see some squiggles and splotches. My old monitor had trouble displaying different shades of black so I wasn't aware that those areas were visible. Of course the label on EBAY has the same marks.

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So wait a minute....Isn't a "hack" basically a stolen game anyways? Do you actually ask Activision for permission when you hack one of there games? Original works are one thing but a hack is no more yours than his. Do you or can you actually copyright any of these games? You just change a few things and use someone elses code, what gives you ownership of it? I'm just saying this seems kind of silly, it's like Froggo and Ultravision suing each other over ownership of games that were not theres to begin with. Can someone tell me why this is stealing and releasing a hack yourself isn't? artwork is the only thing I can see....

Edited by Crazy Climber
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So wait a minute....Isn't a "hack" basically a stolen game anyways? Do you actually ask Activision for permission when you hack one of there games? Original works are one thing but a hack is no more yours than his. Do you or can you actually copyright any of these games? You just change a few things and use someone elses code, what gives you ownership of it? I'm just saying this seems kind of silly, it's like Froggo and Ultravision suing each other over ownership of games that were not theres to begin with. Can someone tell me why this is stealing and releasing a hack yourself isn't? artwork is the only thing I can see....

Randy, is that you? :roll:

 

Look, we've been over this before...it doesn't matter. neo isn't interested in legal mumbo-jumbo and shouldn't have to go that route (even if it was his own unique game and he was able to). Whether it's a homebrew or hack, the simple fact is that neo put his own effort into it. Hozer shouldn't be selling it without even asking his permission. Unfortunately, he has been using that silly excuse that you just did for years to justify making profit off of other people's work (legal or not).

Edited by PingvinBlueJeans
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Can someone tell me why this is stealing and releasing a hack yourself isn't? artwork is the only thing I can see....

Thinking strictly legal you may be right, but morally there is a HUGE difference. We are all members of the same community, sharing the same hobby. We should respect each other.

 

So stealing the work of someone being part of that community is IMO much worse than using more than 20 year old, abandoned games of companies who do not care to base your creative work on it.

 

The Atari 2600 and its games are part of ancient computer games history. Accusing someone who creates hacks based on them and sells them for small profit, is IMO like calling an archeologist who digs out egyptian mummies a grave robber.

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So wait a minute....Isn't a "hack" basically a stolen game anyways? Do you actually ask Activision for permission when you hack one of there games? Original works are one thing but a hack is no more yours than his. Do you or can you actually copyright any of these games? You just change a few things and use someone elses code, what gives you ownership of it? I'm just saying this seems kind of silly, it's like Froggo and Ultravision suing each other over ownership of games that were not theres to begin with. Can someone tell me why this is stealing and releasing a hack yourself isn't? artwork is the only thing I can see....

Randy would have no incentive to sell these hacks if the people hacking them did not add something of value to the original games. In the case of Wolfenstein, a significant amount of work was done by Neotokeo as well as Robert M. This isn't just a simple graphics hack, they spent a lot of time on it and made a ton of changes to basically turn it into a new game.

 

Legally do those doing the hacking have a leg to stand on? There is nothing illegal about hacking the games, but distribution of those hacks is another issue. Technically the *new* coding, artwork, etc. is copyright those who worked on it, so what Randy is doing is illegal in that sense (discounting the fact that he's selling a hacked game and the original game is copyright yet another party).

 

Setting aside the fact that any legal battle over this would just be silly, does that make what Randy's doing right? Hell no. If he wants any respect in the classic gaming community then he wouldn't blatantly use others' work for his benefit without their permission. His downfall in the community began many years ago when he pissed off Thomas Jentzsch to the point where Thomas felt he had no other recourse than to start a similar thread about Randy here on AtariAge for much the same reasons.

 

..Al

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So wait a minute....Isn't a "hack" basically a stolen game anyways?

If the original author does not allow to publish it, then it is stolen as soon as you publish it against his will. But this is not the case for most hacks and I think it is ok to publish everything where the original author has no more interest to protect it in any way.

 

Do you actually ask Activision for permission when you hack one of there games?

Can you give an example where somebody is stupid enough to publish hacks of games where the copyright holders are still interested to protect their property ?

 

Original works are one thing but a hack is no more yours than his.

Completely wrong. The original work is property of the original author. And the changes to this work are property of the one that changed it. Its is not as you say that nobody is owning anything. Both are owning their part of the work.

 

Do you or can you actually copyright any of these games?

Nobody has the money to really effectively copyright something in the hobby area, or ? I think it would be quite possible to copyright the modification to a game in case the original author agrees. Nobody would do it because it is not practical.

 

You just change a few things and use someone elses code, what gives you ownership of it?

If you change a single byte, you are the owner of this change, at least that is my opinion. Of course you don't own the original code. That is not the point. the point is, that the modification takes time, a lot of time, and that this work is owned by the author of the hack.

 

Can someone tell me why this is stealing and releasing a hack yourself isn't?

Yes, I can tell you: If you take something, where the owner does not care that you take it, because you ask or he is no longer interested, then that is not stealing. But if you steal the modification, knowing that the author of the modification does not want you to use it, that IS stealing. Do you (want to) understand the difference ?

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Yeah I figured this kind of response - lol

Selling homebrews is one thing but selling someone elses hacks and conversions I could care less about. Sorry, just the way I feel. I do not think of those as peoples games, they are hacks of games that were already made, but then again I don't like Hacks. I don't own any and probably never will so it really doesn't matter since I won't be purchasing any of them. To me they are just games that I already own. Every hack I have ever owned felt no different then the original game to me, just had a few different shapes thats all. Go ahead and start the onslaught of attacks but to me a HACK is not an original game :) It is not even close.

If anyone feels they must say something back about this just PM me, I don't like online arguments so I am not going to bother coming back to this topic at all. Go ahead and take some free shots at me if you like since I won't be reading them, no hard feelings hopefully but I think hacks are open territory and if Hozer wants to sell them I personally don't care.

 

JUST FOR THE RECORD I AM AGAINTS THE SALE OF OTHER PEOPLES HOMEBREW GAMES THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILIBLE FOR SALE :) :) :)

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Every hack I have ever owned felt no different then the original game to me, just had a few different shapes thats all. Go ahead and start the onslaught of attacks but to me a HACK is not an original game :) It is not even close.

Not every hack is as simple as you are making them out to be. Some have significant programming involved where the end result IS something that feels very different than the original. Wolfenstein is one of these hacks. Other examples include the 7800 titles Pac-Man Collection, Space Duel and Asteroids Deluxe, none of which you'd know was a hack of an earlier title unless someone told you. I agree that most hacks are relatively simple in nature, but that is not always the case, and the more involved hacks do entail a great deal of work.

 

..Al

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Just to prove that he is also using my old label art as well.

 

WolfCart50.gifWolfenstein.JPG

 

I post small versions of all of my labels and from the quality it looks like he just blew up the small image and added that Hozer face to it. I know for a fact that it is my label. If you look closely under the Wolfenstein logo you will see some areas of black that are a different shade. You will see some squiggles and splotches. My old monitor had trouble displaying different shades of black so I wasn't aware that those areas were visible. Of course the label on EBAY has the same marks.

 

First of all, I don't agree with either the hacking of copyrighted material, or the distribution of programs without permission.

 

But what I can't understand is how neotokeo2001 could complain that Randy stole his label art, when his label art was taken directly from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

 

I wonder what the people at id software would think about this thread.

post-357-1205619144_thumb.jpg

Edited by rolenta
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Yeah I figured this kind of response - lol

Selling homebrews is one thing but selling someone elses hacks and conversions I could care less about. Sorry, just the way I feel. I do not think of those as peoples games, they are hacks of games that were already made, but then again I don't like Hacks. I don't own any and probably never will so it really doesn't matter since I won't be purchasing any of them. To me they are just games that I already own. Every hack I have ever owned felt no different then the original game to me, just had a few different shapes thats all. Go ahead and start the onslaught of attacks but to me a HACK is not an original game :) It is not even close.

If anyone feels they must say something back about this just PM me, I don't like online arguments so I am not going to bother coming back to this topic at all. Go ahead and take some free shots at me if you like since I won't be reading them, no hard feelings hopefully but I think hacks are open territory and if Hozer wants to sell them I personally don't care.

 

JUST FOR THE RECORD I AM AGAINTS THE SALE OF OTHER PEOPLES HOMEBREW GAMES THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILIBLE FOR SALE :) :) :)

 

No offense, but this is cheap. if you don't want to discuss, then don't post. It is obvious that you don't care about other peoples work, and that is cheap as well :) You just repeat the stupid opinions that you already expressed, but don't directly answer to anything I said. Great job, really.

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Selling homebrews is one thing but selling someone elses hacks and conversions I could care less about. Sorry, just the way I feel.

You didn't ask for feelings, you asked for arguments. No arguments will change your feelings, unless you want to really discuss the topic.

 

I do not think of those as peoples games, they are hacks of games that were already made, but then again I don't like Hacks. I don't own any and probably never will so it really doesn't matter since I won't be purchasing any of them. To me they are just games that I already own. Every hack I have ever owned felt no different then the original game to me, just had a few different shapes thats all.

 

Go ahead and start the onslaught of attacks but to me a HACK is not an original game :) It is not even close.

Sure, there is a huge difference of the work required between creating a hack and creating an original game. Still there is alway SOME work required and therefore it is still stealing.

 

If anyone feels they must say something back about this just PM me, I don't like online arguments so I am not going to bother coming back to this topic at all. Go ahead and take some free shots at me if you like since I won't be reading them, no hard feelings hopefully but I think hacks are open territory and if Hozer wants to sell them I personally don't care.

You don't have to care personally, but being part of a community, you should respect that the community cares.

 

JUST FOR THE RECORD I AM AGAINTS THE SALE OF OTHER PEOPLES HOMEBREW GAMES THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILIBLE FOR SALE :) :) :)

Why are you making a difference here? If the author decides that he (maybe just temporarily, how do you know?) doesn't want to continue selling his game, why should this be allowed to be stolen then???

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No offense, but this is cheap. if you don't want to discuss, then don't post. It is obvious that you don't care about other peoples work, and that is cheap as well :) You just repeat the stupid opinions that you already expressed, but don't directly answer to anything I said. Great job, really.

Funny, how we had exactly the very same thought here. :)

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