Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Saturday December 01 2018, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-copies-of-each-will-he-sell? dept.

Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection—then puts it on eBay

Al Lowe, one of Sierra On-Line's seminal game creators and programmers, has been sitting on a pile of his original games' source code files for over 30 years, fully convinced that they are worthless.

Gallery: Taking a look back at some choice Sierra gaming moments"I’m 72 years old, and none of my kids want this junk!" Lowe said in an interview with YouTube personality MetalJesusRocks (aka Jason Lindsey, himself an ex-Sierra developer and a friend of Ars). "Does anybody?"

Lowe is about to find out, as the developer has begun posting eBay listings for his entire source-code collection. (You read that correctly. The whole shebang.) The sale's opening has been accompanied by a MetalJesusRocks video (embedded below), which offers a 12-minute tour of backed-up files, original game boxes, original hint books, and more.

As of press time, Lowe has listed auctions for the first two Leisure Suit Larry games' source code, with bids already climbing (both well above the $400 mark after they went live). Lowe indicated to Lindsey that more games' code will follow on eBay, and this will likely include a stunning treasure trove: Lowe's other Leisure Suit Larry games, King's Quest III, Police Quest I, and Lowe's games based on Disney franchises Winnie The Pooh and Black Cauldron.A truly graphic adventure: the 25-year rise and fall of a beloved genre

What's more, Lowe also has original backups of his complete programming pipeline, including the Sierra utilities that converted plain-text, ASCII commands to interpreted code. When pressed about how curious users could peruse these disks' files, Lowe plainly responds, "It's a text file! Put it in Notepad."

[...] Lowe's listings clarify a few things: first, he has not tested any of these disks, and second, owning these disks is not the same as owning the legal rights to freely or commercially distribute their contents. "Realize that, while you’ll have my data as of the day of Larry 1’s creation, you will not own the intellectual property rights to the game, the code, the art, or anything else," Lowe says in the LSL1 listing. "Nor do I. The IP rights were sold over and over again, until they are now owned by a German game company."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MrGuy on Saturday December 01 2018, @05:12PM (3 children)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Saturday December 01 2018, @05:12PM (#768664)

    You are allowed to sell any physical item that you own.

    Ay, there's the rub.

    If I own a blank ream of paper, of course I own it and can sell it.

    Now I take that ream of paper, put it in a photocopier, and photocopy J.K. Rowling's manuscript for her upcoming book. Can I still sell it? Or does putting someone else's intellectual property on it no longer make it fully "owned by me"? I can't separate the "thing I own" (the paper) from the "thing I don't own" (the copyrighted story owned by the author). I've commingled my property with someone else's, which means I can no longer consent to sell it.

    A floppy disk with someone else's data on it is not appreciably different (except, of course, I can wipe it and then return it to the unencumbered state).

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Saturday December 01 2018, @06:44PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Saturday December 01 2018, @06:44PM (#768690)

    If you are selling it as scrap paper then yes. If you are selling it as a book, no, or at least not really.

    Practically speaking, the way it works with floppy disks on eBay is that any user-created copy is only worth the value of the media. Usually around $0.50-$1.00 per disk depending on physical quality. This works out and nobody frets over licensing because when buying a software title, collectors want factory original disks, not crufty copies. Someone who buys a large floppy disk lot is most likely going to reformat any crufty copies anyway.

    In some cases, possession of a factory original disk, manual, and possibly serial numbers, does represent proof of license and support. Read through the 9000 page EULA to be sure. Such titles can sell for quite a bit, especially if a company needs CYA licensing proof to use some legacy system.

    In general, licensing and support are irrelevant as most collectors just want to put things on pedestals rather than production use, and any support has long since expired.

    Every now and then someone will try to sell a crufty copy with a hand written label asking an absurd amount of money. These people are simply idiots.

    Now this case is a little different because they are not just selling a disk - they are selling a historical artifact with "provenance". Provenance is something that most eBay items lack. In other words, it symbolically represents a historical event and you can prove who owned it, where it was, and how they used it. I mean, who wouldn't want to touch a famous person's floppy? :P

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 01 2018, @10:23PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 01 2018, @10:23PM (#768743)

    It's not a problem. If the copywrite prevents him from making copies and selling them, this is irrelevant because this copy was made in accordance with copyright law for several reasons.

    The first reason: when he made it, it wasn't yet protected under copyright. It could be argued that per his agreement with Sierra the code was protected by copyright as he typed the characters, but even in that case any copies made pursuant to the performance of his job were with consent of the copyright holder at that time. We don't discuss these things when we write code because it's presumed (correctly) that writing the code we were asked to write was permissible.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2018, @03:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2018, @03:00AM (#768799)

      The thing is he admitted that he walked into his job with a box of blank floppies and copied it.

      It is probably a 'work for hire' sort of situation. It would be like me going into work and making a copy of my code at work. Then taking it home. Then selling it. They would take me to court and sue me into oblivion. Rightfully so too. It is their code. They paid very well for it.

      Here is the rub though. Will anyone in the german company that now owns it give a flip about it? It is their code though. What Al is doing is fairly legally 'grey' (not really it is fairly established what happens). The only difference here is the amount of time it took him to do it. Plus it is for something kind of historically interesting. But more than likely not his. The first couple of games maybe are his. But the rest are probably not.