Re: Superdrive 2000?

On 04/06/2018 21:45, Jim Brain wrote:
>> But, the game was significantly different, not just a minor addition.  As well,
>> the writeup notes they did not overlay any of the code, they just put their ROMs
>> alongside.

In super missile attack they took the original missile command roms, 
removed the multi language code and test mode and inserted their own.

Jiffy DOS c64 roms take out the tape code and inserted their own.

The Jiffy DOS transfer routines are significantly different.

>>    Atari's beef was not the copyright infringement, but that people who
>> stepped up the cabinet had an expectation they were playing an Atari game, not a
>> third party game.  If GCC had offered replacement artwork and such, so that the
>> game could not be immediately recognized as a Missile Command, the suit might
>> have been much weaker.

Atari threw everything including the kitchen sink into the case & the 
artwork was easily solved as GCC did offer to produce artwork during the 
case. I don't think they produced any because they stopped producing 
super missile attack as part of the agreement they signed with Atari.

The copyright was the main claim and it's pretty strong. GCC thought so 
too, because for the next game they didn't include any copyright code.

>>    As it was, it's an ironic suit, in that the solution to
>> it was to hire GCC to do Ms. PacMan, which itself spawned a suit from Namco over
>> mis-appropriation of the Pac Man license Namco gave Bally/Midway.

Atari had a habit of going into court with a good case and then leaving 
court paying the other party money. According to GCC the deal was only 
offered so that they would sign a contract with Atari, they don't 
believe Atari actually expected them to produce any games. They only GCC 
to sign the restrictions, but GCC had a signed agreement and so they 
made the most of it.

The agreement annoyed Atari developers, because GCC were allowed to use 
the 68000 in their games while Atari's own arcade developers were told 
it was too expensive and had to make do with 6809.

> That is why I say they did not get a license to the ROMs, as such a license
> would have allowed CMD to create a clone drive, which CBM did not want.

The copyright is a right to produce copies, the law doesn't get involved 
with whether your customers have an existing copy or not. Fair use 
requires the end user to make the copy.

So they would need a defacto license to copy the code from the roms, 
even if what they signed didn't explicitly say it was a license. It's 
unlikely that agreement was transferable, but I personally would want to 
see it.