Esa Questions

[Unknown Hero]

Here you can post any questions you are asking yourself about ESA.

1.Can we open a petition to get back those games?
2.Can we pay ESA to let us host those games again?
3.What would happen if we didn't remove those games?



And please, don't close this topic! :ok:

[Rogue]

I know answer only on number 3.

ESA would contact local USA authorities, which will force our host to shut abandonia down.

They at least now are contacting sites first, as they used to contact hosts before, and got smacked as some sites had permissions from developer to host games. (Such happened couple of years ago with Back2Roots.org)

[Omuletzu]

I don't think any of the first two stamenets stand either, as ESA is payed to keep a close eye on the abandonware scene.So you would have to overpay the the company that has a contract with ESA.Even in this case, i doubt ESA will let you host the games they protect.Also signing a petition wouldn't do much.

[Sebatianos]

A petition wouldn't help at all. In fact it might even worsen the situation. A company that has the copyright would see that a lot of people want the game and might decide to put these games up for sale again - thus it would be even harder to download them (and I don't think they'd put the games out on the global market again - probably just US & Canada, so we still couldn't get them in Europe).

To pay ESA... Well as I understand it ESA is just suporting the copyrights - I don't think they have them. So we'd actually be bribing them to look the other way. We'd need the authorisation form the company that made the game (or the one tha tbought the copyrights).

No 3 - I don't even wanna know! As Kosta is the owner of the site and he has Croatian citizenship (at least I'm fairly certain he has it), that this would mean the site falls under Croatian laws and the international treaties that Croatian has signed. But even if this would give us a loop-hole it would still create numerous problems as this is an international comunity. So some people could leagaly download the games, while others couldn't. We'd have to prevent visitors form countries that need to respect ESA to get the games, as otherwise this could actually be seen as smuggling the games into a certain country... It's extremely complicated really - so unless laws change...

[Rogue]

Seba,
in the case of number 3, it matters where server with web site is located. In this case I believe it is in USA, and in that case, it is under USA copyright laws.

[Titan]

Originally posted by Anubis@May 12 2005, 07:45 PM
Seba,
in the case of number 3, it matters where server with web site is located. In this case I believe it is in USA, and in that case, it is under USA copyright laws.
second that.. it's where the servers are LOCATED that matters..

[Sebatianos]

Nuby & Titan:
Not quite.
The server on which abandonia is doesn't own abandonia - it only hosts it. So they might prevent the hosting on abandonia on this server, but that's about it. Abandonia could be moved to another server... And even if the server would be let's say in Iran (I believe they didn't sign all the copyright treaties) it wouldn't make it any more or less legal.

It's just that if the server would be in such a country ESA would have a harder time (if not impossible) to prevent the downloads.

But just a fact an illegal activity can't be stopped doesn't make that activity legal.

[bahman]

Originally posted by Sebatianos@May 12 2005, 06:51 PM
Nuby & Titan:
Not quite.
The server on which abandonia is doesn't own abandonia - it only hosts it. So they might prevent the hosting on abandonia on this server, but that's about it. Abandonia could be moved to another server... And even if the server would be let's say in Iran (I believe they didn't sign all the copyright treaties) it wouldn't make it any more or less legal.

It's just that if the server would be in such a country ESA would have a harder time (if not impossible) to prevent the downloads.

But just a fact an illegal activity can't be stopped doesn't make that activity legal.
Perhaps you don't know all story regarding Iran. As far as I know the main reason that Iran does not accept copyright is that a part Irainan wealth which was invested in Ameraica was confescated after the revolution. The approximate vaule of the invesment was around 10,000,000,000 or so and 30 years past since then.

[TheChosen]

2.Can we pay ESA to let us host those games again?

So thats why The-Underdogs is still alive......

[Maikel]

option 4. You gotta let go and be happy no other charges where made against us.


I vote for 4.

[The Fifth Horseman]

decide to put these games up for sale again
That would be GOOD, wouldn't it? Personally, I'd really enjoy more to buy a fully legal game with box and manual then to download it illegally from the net - but _of_course_ such option is not possible.

[robotangel]

Originally posted by Anubis@May 12 2005, 06:08 PM
as some sites had permissions from developer to host games.
See the quote.

Why not ask the developers of the games. Maybe we can host the files again or sell the games.

[hessekopp]

:angry:
ALSO JUNGS MAL GANZ EHRLICH UND AUF DEUTSCH!

*removed for flaming AND for being in German. English only, dude.*
(and some of us DO understand German, so don't try to bypass with open flaming like that :angry: )

[robotangel]

Go and open your own board, you can speak german there as lot as you want.

What did he wrote?

Ach übrigens: Viel Spaß dann damit (By the way: Have fun with it).

[Tom Henrik]

Originally posted by robotangel@May 13 2005, 11:42 PM
What did he wrote?
If I wrote it down here, it would be kinda pointless to remove it from up there.
Don't you agree? :ok:

[Yobor]

I'm sorry, I'm still actually crying over losing Crusader: No Remorse. :cry:

So ESA wrongfully thought we were hosting all of their games without permission?

[robotangel]

I understand. :ok:

edit: No, I'm sure that they didn't thought that. But, if i understood this right, they said that the admins have to remove everything that could be protected.

[BeefontheBone]

My understanding (from reading the forum) is that there were one or two titles on the site which are ESA protected which we hadn't realised was the case, and they assumed we'd done this deliberately and withdrew the permissions we had to host a whole bunch of other titles, so every game produced/published by an ESA member or their subsidiaries has been removed.

[Tom Henrik]

How many times do I have to say this?

1. We HAD permission from ESA (not any companies) to host the games on the site.
2. Some games that were ESA protected got updated on this site. Games we did NOT ask permission for. This was done because we didn't KNOW that the games in question were in fact ESA protected. (The list of companies ESA protects is confusing at best).
3. ESA noticed that we had a number of games they HAD NOT authorized. They took this as an insult from our part - that we didn't bother to ask about these games. They believed we did this on purpose. And honestly... I completely understand them. I would've done the same thing if I was in their shoes.
4. Because of this they closed the gentleman's agreement that we had with them. That was why they told us to remove every game connected to them. Which is what we did.
5. We MIGHT be able to clear up this mess, but it will take time. And the fact that some of you people are starting lynching-mobs against ESA, or propose that we LINK to other sites where the games can be downloaded, does NOT help the dealings we have with them.



Just relax and let this entire thing calm down. Games were removed from the site. So what? The site still lives, and as long as that is the situation we will be able to update new games and make other deals.


EDIT:
Beef, it was more like 15-20

[BeefontheBone]

Well, I was close except with the numbers. Why do we need to keep repeating this then? I obviously had picked up the thread of what happened, so why shouldn't everybody else've got it?

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Well this is very interesting.

I'm wondering how many games are left on the site?
190?

EDIT Beef you have to remember that not everyone on here has english as their primary language, and so they can miss some details when reading things.

[A. J. Raffles]

Originally posted by Iron_Scarecrow@May 14 2005, 10:16 AM
not everyone on here has english as their primary language, and so they can miss some details when reading things.
But shouldn't two days of reading all those threads have been enough to get a general idea of things even if English doesn't happen to be your first language? I mean, those ESA-threads are all over the forum by now...

[Iron_Scarecrow]

I only heard about this for the first time about an hour ago, have they really been around 2 days?

Oh well. Still how many games are left? or has this too been answered?

[A. J. Raffles]

Why should the number of games have changed? :huh: Or do you mean downloads? Let me see... *starts counting*

Edit: 289?? That sounds wrong.

[Tom Henrik]

It has sorta been answered:

220 games were removed.....

We have (taken from the main site):
Number of games:
479
Number of extras:
317
Game songs:
187

479 - 220 = 259 games that are downloadable.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Yes I meant downloadable, sorry for not making that clear.

I never check the main site I had no idea how many games there were.

[Yobor]

Doesn't this free up a lot of server space?

[A. J. Raffles]

Sure, but that's been discussed as well, actually: http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5263

[BeefontheBone]

CLOSE IT! For the love of Benji, CLOSE IT!

[a1s]

don't close it! in the name of mistra, don't close it!




































close what by the way?