_The Doctor__ Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 (edited) oh my what will I do, there's a sticker that says warranty will be voided if I remove it over the screw! Edited January 8, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 I'd argue getting the top off the Atari and removing the shielding to look at the chip was not reasonable examination by an average user. There needed to be a © notice on the label on the bottom of the Atari. There isn't The copyright notices are for the contents of that specific ROM rather than the entire machine, so i'd expect a good lawyer would make the argument that the notice is on view when looking directly at the IC it actually applies to. How did companies like Zilog or MOS protect the rights on their processors within other manufacturer's computers if they weren't directly visible...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Requiring end-users to compile the final program is "above and beyond" and should never be part of the install/setup procedure. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 If they have to ask, they're not gonna understand the answer. How on earth do you expect to guide someone who hasn't ever done it through the compilation ? Even if they did, given the dependency and environment jungle, you need to be proficient in linux commandline anyway, hence you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. No, it's not. Barriers of entry can be great for weeding out certain groups. Fat&Flashy Icon Clickers is one such group. I'm all for keeping them contained within the boundaries [perceived or not] of their playground. Just half ? I have to say, I envy you your experience with Mac users ! That's not exactly true in U.S of A, though - is it ? Anybody here can sue anyone else for any reason. My friend has been a victim of this in a tenant-landlord court last 2 years. All that landlord has to do, is to show up, without lawyer (and any financial investment whatsoever), say some BS without backing it up, and then the endless legal process starts - postponing, witnesses, judges throwing the case to another judge, and about a dozen other things. Enough to make one's life completely miserable. And that's without an actual claim or investing any money. Now contrast the above with the company, who just eagerly acquired all Atari's IPs, spend a minor fortune on the lawyers, have their attorneys on retainer, and discover someone has the balls to distribute "their" IP (regardless of how courts ruled in past). The C&D is the least of the worries of the dev in question. The lawyers will step up, show how the dev in question is "just a disrespectful hacker", totally discredit him, and judge won't really have any other option than to agree with them. Sure there are appeals. Why on earth would the developer risk going through that ? Please don't say "for Mac users" Being a Mac user I resemble that remark! That is kind of the point though. I love old Atari stuff, I'd like as many people to experience my hobby as possible. I'm willing to go through a certain amount of pain to help them. Yes that is the rule in the USA, it' isn't in most other places but in the USA if you don't register your copyright you don't get to defend it https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf Copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium, but a copyright owner can take steps to enhance the protections of copyright, the most important of which is registering the work. Although registering a work is not mandatory, for works of U.S. origin, registration (or refusal) is necessary to enforce the exclusive rights of copyright through litigation. Applying a copyright notice to a work has not been required since March 1, 1989, but may still provide practical and legal benefits. Notice typically consists of the copyright symbol or the word “Copyright,” the name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication. Placing a copyright notice on a work is not a substitute for registration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Why not set up a web page offering them for download and claim they're Public Domain? See what happens.. I'm going to put them up for download on my website and claim them to be PD. I'm going to pull together all the discusson about this into a statement about why I think they are PD and puth them on a page with it. we shall see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 The copyright notices are for the contents of that specific ROM rather than the entire machine, so i'd expect a good lawyer would make the argument that the notice is on view when looking directly at the IC it actually applies to. How did companies like Zilog or MOS protect the rights on their processors within other manufacturer's computers if they weren't directly visible...? The companies who bought the MOS or Zilog chips were the 'typical user' it would be reasonable for them to see the notice on the top of the chip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 (edited) You can't do that without the permission of the people who posted here in deference to the state law of each individual as well as getting permission from the owners of this forum.... insert lawyer bla bla bla bla here.... :) \O/ \o/ \O/ \o/ \0/ oh and furthermore, we move that said thread be in it's entirety be stricken from the record and suppressed for the same reasons as are set forth in... sorry couldn't resist Edited January 8, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Requiring end-users to compile the final program is "above and beyond" and should never be part of the install/setup procedure. Don't you just love it when you hit a sourceforge page where they say we distribute this sofware as source, here are the build instructions. I found that just the other day for Atari++ http://www.xl-project.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 You can't do that without the permission of the people who posted here in deference to the state law of each individual as well as getting permission from the owners of this forum.... insert lawyer bla bla bla bla here.... :) \O/ \o/ \O/ \o/ \0/ I'm only talking about my statements. If I burn, I burn alone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 The companies who bought the MOS or Zilog chips were the 'typical user' it would be reasonable for them to see the notice on the top of the chip. Is that specifically stated in law and, if so, could the ROMs fall through any of the same loopholes if fabricated by third parties so Atari again become the "average user"? From what i can see your argument requires Atari to have screwed up in a pretty major way to the point where building a clone without legal issues would be viable... surely someone would've taken that baton if offered? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Don't you just love it when you hit a sourceforge page where they say we distribute this sofware as source, here are the build instructions. I found that just the other day for Atari++ http://www.xl-project.com Mmm.. I see they offer executable binaries of the builds. So they're vindicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 That's not exactly true in U.S of A, though - is it ? Anybody here can sue anyone else for any reason. My friend has been a victim of this in a tenant-landlord court last 2 years. That's a problem with your court system. Where I live, the side that loses pays the fees of both lawyers. There is no percentage (quota litis) but a schedule of fees that lawyers are entitled too and that depends on the value of the claim. This certainly isn't perfect either and might prevent people with little means from taking action, but it sure protects against frivolous cases. (Another argument against would be that lawyers have less "zeal" to win as their fees are covered whether they win or loose.) As for the Mac users, until recently they had a more powerful command line at their disposal than Windows users.... I doubt there's much of a difference in the "configure/compile" abilities of the average Win and Mac users. I don't understand why there's so much enmity in this thread. OP asked a question and asked for opinions on it. There's no harm in discussing legal issues as a non-lawyer as long as one understands that there is a difference in being right and getting a judge to confirm this. I do agree that the possibility to include everthing required to run an emulator in one package will make it more attractive and easy to use for newbies. I had to set up Commodore emulators and when you don't know the system it takes some googling to find "the right stuff". Not impossible, but definitely a step. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Mmm.. I see they offer executable binaries of the builds. So they're vindicated. Only for Win32 not for real operating systems so they are not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Is that specifically stated in law and, if so, could the ROMs fall through any of the same loopholes if fabricated by third parties so Atari again become the "average user"? From what i can see your argument requires Atari to have screwed up in a pretty major way to the point where building a clone without legal issues would be viable... surely someone would've taken that baton if offered? No it's not, obviously it's not. that's where a Lawyer would be expected to earn her money, arguing the definition of 'average user'. HP Screwed up in the same way. Lots of their early calculators have PD firmware as a result. Atari have ™ logos all over their hardware from that era, and the boxes and all the labels. No © symbols. Copyright is about IP, intellectual works, not products as such. I guess they didn't think of it at the time. They registered the © on the manual, and on some of the advertising. Nothing on rom code that is not specifically a program or game they sold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Being a Mac user I resemble that remark! Looks like your definition of average "Mac User" entails: - be proficient in compiling packages from linux command-line - be able to research a very specific package version to download that will work on your specific distribution (you recall that command this very moment?) AND architecture (you know which command to use to check for that) - uncompress the downloaded package, highly likely requiring you to install yet-another-decompression tool - spend 15 minutes going through the readme trying to find out why the configuration that you executed as per the readme doesn't finish the process, only to find a log file in obscure location that gives you a bit more hint on the "error compiling" that you got - spend 30 minutes on Stackoverflow till you figure out there's a broken dependency, because in past you installed a different program that left system in not 100% state (yet stable enough to run regular stuff) - uninstall the offended SW - find out that make clean does not really do proper clean (surprise !), so now have to start from scratch - repeat the process above for all missing link in the dependency chain (usually quite a few) Now, I could be wrong, but I would swear the above to me sounds like "average software engineer", not "average user/gamer" ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Yes is does... well... yes it DID. Back before 1989, if you didn't stick a copyright notice on something, it was pubic domain. We see all this through the lens of todays copyright abuse and hyper protective IP laws and how aggressively companies protect their copyrights, it hasn't always been that way. While not an expert in US law, I really doubt this. Look, if you write a novel, and somebody else takes it and publishes it without asking you for permisssion (which may include a payment to you to get such a permission),then this is a copyright violation. It does not have to state "this is copyright by myself". This is implied. You cannot just take an artifact somebody else generated and then do with it what you like. At least, this is what the law states in Germany about artifacts. It is a little bit different from the US system, but not *that* much different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 You need to approach this kind of stuff when no one gives a sh*t... like when Hasbro was approached (Jaguar stuff)... you don't do it when they have a sh*t storm of stuff going on and don't know how it will affect things.... wait for the bear to be sleepy... and pillow talk it... don't poke it when it's wide awake and hungry! Except that the ROMs are no longer owned by Atari or Hasbro. So no danger from those parties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Looks like your definition of average "Mac User" entails: - be proficient in compiling packages from linux command-line - be able to research a very specific package version to download that will work on your specific distribution (you recall that command this very moment?) AND architecture (you know which command to use to check for that) - uncompress the downloaded package, highly likely requiring you to install yet-another-decompression tool - spend 15 minutes going through the readme trying to find out why the configuration that you executed as per the readme doesn't finish the process, only to find a log file in obscure location that gives you a bit more hint on the "error compiling" that you got - spend 30 minutes on Stackoverflow till you figure out there's a broken dependency, because in past you installed a different program that left system in not 100% state (yet stable enough to run regular stuff) - uninstall the offended SW - find out that make clean does not really do proper clean (surprise !), so now have to start from scratch - repeat the process above for all missing link in the dependency chain (usually quite a few) Now, I could be wrong, but I would swear the above to me sounds like "average software engineer", not "average user/gamer" ... It's actually two commands typed at the command line: /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" brew install atari800 An average user should be able to copy and paste two lines... :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Atari have ™ logos all over their hardware from that era, and the boxes and all the labels. No © symbols. Copyright is about IP, intellectual works, not products as such. I guess they didn't think of it at the time. They registered the © on the manual, and on some of the advertising. Nothing on rom code that is not specifically a program or game they sold. No, copyright *is not* on IP. That is exactly wrong. Copyright is about artifacts, not IPs. If you want to protect IPs, then you need to patent your stuff. These are really two orthogonal concepts. Without a patent, anyone can create a mechanism that is a work-alike of your artifact, i.e. uses the same technical idea, Copyright applies not to a technical ideas, but patents do. See for example MPEG or JPEG reference softwares (see for example www.jpeg.org - you also find my name there, this is my profession): This software is, as far as *copyright* is concerned, free software. Yet, it includes algorithms that are patented. So yes, you can copy the software as you like (it is under BSD license), but cannot apply it without getting a license from the respectible IP owners (which is what patents are about). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 Mmm.. I see they offer executable binaries of the builds. So they're vindicated. Not "they". "Me", and no, I'm certainly *not* offering Atari ROMs there. I'm offering Os++ and Basic++ ROMs there. Which are not identical, but work alike (or, actually, better - I hope). The *IPs* Atari had (if any) run out after 25 years, so that's done - one can use the same technical ideas by now. Also, Atari and neither Oss holds the copyright anymore, so that risk does not exist either. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Looks like your definition of average "Mac User" entails: - be proficient in compiling packages from linux command-line - be able to research a very specific package version to download that will work on your specific distribution (you recall that command this very moment?) AND architecture (you know which command to use to check for that) - uncompress the downloaded package, highly likely requiring you to install yet-another-decompression tool - spend 15 minutes going through the readme trying to find out why the configuration that you executed as per the readme doesn't finish the process, only to find a log file in obscure location that gives you a bit more hint on the "error compiling" that you got - spend 30 minutes on Stackoverflow till you figure out there's a broken dependency, because in past you installed a different program that left system in not 100% state (yet stable enough to run regular stuff) - uninstall the offended SW - find out that make clean does not really do proper clean (surprise !), so now have to start from scratch - repeat the process above for all missing link in the dependency chain (usually quite a few) Now, I could be wrong, but I would swear the above to me sounds like "average software engineer", not "average user/gamer" ... It's a fair cop the command is just "git clone -depth=1 https://github.com/atari800/atari800.git" it's just the latest version then you find libpng and sdl are required so install mac homebrew so copy and paste the command line on the homebrew homepage https://brew.sh to compile youll need xcode and the command line tools so install them then 'brew install automake sdl libpng' autogen ./configure make sudo make install or... you could just install xcode command line tools homebrew then 'brew install atari800' and it will do the sdl/libpng for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 It's actually two commands typed at the command line: /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" brew install atari800 An average user should be able to copy and paste two lines... :-) Copy paste ? Sure. Troubleshoot ? Definitely not. How many times have you downloaded a package with bombastic statement :"just this one command to install", only to find out you [obviously] need many many more ? Sure. On that particular developer's combination of tools and libs and updates, it's just that one command. But that's false advertisement. Yes - occasionally, you luck out, and the package tool you use will actually manage to install the dependencies for you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 While not an expert in US law, I really doubt this. Look, if you write a novel, and somebody else takes it and publishes it without asking you for permisssion (which may include a payment to you to get such a permission),then this is a copyright violation. It does not have to state "this is copyright by myself". This is implied. You cannot just take an artifact somebody else generated and then do with it what you like. At least, this is what the law states in Germany about artifacts. It is a little bit different from the US system, but not *that* much different. That's true now... it wasn't true before 1998... that's the point. that was introduced when the USA adopted the Bern Convention rules about it. Before that... no notice, no copyright Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 (edited) Copy paste ? Sure. Troubleshoot ? Definitely not. How many times have you downloaded a package with bombastic statement :"just this one command to install", only to find out you [obviously] need many many more ? Sure. On that particular developer's combination of tools and libs and updates, it's just that one command. But that's false advertisement. Yes - occasionally, you luck out, and the package tool you use will actually manage to install the dependencies for you. Was just going to point out the need for xcode and the command line tools Edited January 8, 2018 by Mr Robot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 No, copyright *is not* on IP. That is exactly wrong. Copyright is about artifacts, not IPs. If you want to protect IPs, then you need to patent your stuff. These are really two orthogonal concepts. Without a patent, anyone can create a mechanism that is a work-alike of your artifact, i.e. uses the same technical idea, Copyright applies not to a technical ideas, but patents do. See for example MPEG or JPEG reference softwares (see for example www.jpeg.org - you also find my name there, this is my profession): This software is, as far as *copyright* is concerned, free software. Yet, it includes algorithms that are patented. So yes, you can copy the software as you like (it is under BSD license), but cannot apply it without getting a license from the respectible IP owners (which is what patents are about). Yes, sorry, I made a mistake there when I said IP. I meant 'published works' and was trying to shortcut the typing, typoed in the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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