Vivendi & ESA
 

Well I dont know where to put this so im putting it in here. Im wondering since Vivendi is no longer a member of the ESA what happens to the characters associated with the games like King's Quest and Space Quest? Are they still copyrighted? Since there is alot of people who are making fanmade games like SQ7 I wonder if those people are allowed to continue to work on their project with out Vivendi breathing down their necks? If any one can lay any info on this I would appreciate it.

Just because Vivendi is not a part of the ESA anymore does not mean that its games become abandonware all of a sudden.

You'll hear people use the phrase a lot, calling ESA the "watchdogs" that's exactly what they are, they make sure that a company's assets and licenses are protected, but they don't uphold those things themselves.

Vivendi needs to either go kaput or freely make their games public domain in order for them to become abandonware.

I don't see where the belief that the ESA is the only thing keeping a company's games from legitimately being abandonware comes from, I think that needs to be made clear more often.

Well, I don't see where the belief that there's such a thing as "legitimate abandonware" comes from either. :amused:

If Vivendi released their games as Public Domain, they'd qualify as Freeware, not Abandonware.

Anyway...
All those characters are every bit as copyrighted as before. ESA membership doesn't have anything to do with the presence or expiry of copyrights.

One of the definitions of "LEGITIMATELY" is "in accordance with established standards" so in theory, the phrase LEGITIMATELY ABANDONWARE would mean that the games would not be up to the standard of what we consider to be abandonware. Don't give me that crap.

BP has a point. Nothing stopping Vivendi from coming after someone with the same passion (or more) than the ESA does. We do need to proceed cautiously. If it were me I would definitely stick to the same aging rules that were used before.

And let's not forget that certain titles are for sale as well.

I guess it wouldnt be too difficult to prove at a court of law, how a fan who made Space Quest 7 caused a decrease of sale for a Space Quest Space Adventure pack (or something) that the copyright holder was selling. Might not be true, but it could stand up in the court of law. So if you're asking about freeare fan made games, because you'd like to make and publish one - I suggest you change your characters and the title (Cosmic Quest with Willy Rogerco, or something).

i thought that's the only reason.. since they don't support it niether

Well, even if they wouldn't support the game and it wouldn't be for sale anymore... and the company wouln't be part of ESA, we might still not host the game. If the copyright holder for a game would contact Abandonia.com and express his wish that we remove a download link to a game - and even a review, Abandonia would do that. The copyright holder is the one who has the control over the game (for 95 years - after that it becomes public domain by default).

So abandonware isn't a legal class, it just basically means games that nobody minds if they are up for download - although it's illegal.

Thanks for the info guys.