VOGONS


Legality

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Reply 20 of 34, by leileilol

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Yeah well, name a company that still puts out DOS gaming machines in the commercial market.

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long live PCem

Reply 21 of 34, by dosquest

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Gog, scumvm

Reply 22 of 34, by leileilol

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those aren't machines.

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long live PCem

Reply 23 of 34, by Barry_Purplelips

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Good luck finding something like that.

Reply 24 of 34, by collector

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Vogons wrote:

Emulation may still be illegal if there's a commercial interest, stolen code or not. Take Connectix VGS for example.

Except that the PC was developed as an open standard.

Reply 25 of 34, by Dominus

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Vogons wrote:

That's why I used "may still be" rather than "is", and more importantly, don't forget Sony actually won (at some point) with injunction and all. It wasn't till Connectix was already fried that they were actually granted the right to continue developing and selling VGS, and that was over a decade ago, when piracy wasn't as much as problem as it is today so laws tended to be a lil more relaxed on the subject. Not a single copyright problem with DosBox as far as I know, but emulation in general can be a slippery slope.

So Sony did not win after all... Sure anybody can sue anybody over anything, that doesn't make anything illegal. It's unfortunate when someone like Sony sues you but even today they rather settle their big beef with Geohot outside of court than risk a lengthy battle in court...

Reply 27 of 34, by Barry_Purplelips

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Dominus wrote:
Vogons wrote:

That's why I used "may still be" rather than "is", and more importantly, don't forget Sony actually won (at some point) with injunction and all. It wasn't till Connectix was already fried that they were actually granted the right to continue developing and selling VGS, and that was over a decade ago, when piracy wasn't as much as problem as it is today so laws tended to be a lil more relaxed on the subject. Not a single copyright problem with DosBox as far as I know, but emulation in general can be a slippery slope.

So Sony did not win after all... Sure anybody can sue anybody over anything, that doesn't make anything illegal. It's unfortunate when someone like Sony sues you but even today they rather settle their big beef with Geohot outside of court than risk a lengthy battle in court...

Action was in fact taken against Connectix and they lost money to that, it didn't just die off at the "suing" stage. Bottom line, it's mostly safe, but you never know when something's going to come back and bite you in the ass. You can't take enough precautions.

Reply 28 of 34, by bloodbat

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dosquest wrote:

Gog, scumvm

Gog uses Dosbox...

Reply 29 of 34, by Dominus

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Vogons wrote:
Dominus wrote:
Vogons wrote:

That's why I used "may still be" rather than "is", and more importantly, don't forget Sony actually won (at some point) with injunction and all. It wasn't till Connectix was already fried that they were actually granted the right to continue developing and selling VGS, and that was over a decade ago, when piracy wasn't as much as problem as it is today so laws tended to be a lil more relaxed on the subject. Not a single copyright problem with DosBox as far as I know, but emulation in general can be a slippery slope.

So Sony did not win after all... Sure anybody can sue anybody over anything, that doesn't make anything illegal. It's unfortunate when someone like Sony sues you but even today they rather settle their big beef with Geohot outside of court than risk a lengthy battle in court...

Action was in fact taken against Connectix and they lost money to that, it didn't just die off at the "suing" stage. Bottom line, it's mostly safe, but you never know when something's going to come back and bite you in the ass. You can't take enough precautions.

Yeah I worded it wrong, the "even today" should have been just "today". That Sony sued Connectix isn't something I dispute and when someone as large as Sony sues you, you lose money, a lot of it, even if you win the case in the end. Like I said, anyone can sue anyone over anything.

Reply 30 of 34, by megatron-uk

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bloodbat wrote:
dosquest wrote:

Gog, scumvm

Gog uses Dosbox...

....and Lucasarts (and others) have used scummvm.

My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net

Reply 31 of 34, by catchaserguns

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If Macintosh has a program that emulates a PC so you can run windows on a mac. Ergo you can have a dos emulator. Every PC ever made had a form of dos. I wonder if Apple has to pay royalties to Microsoft because of that emulator. (The answer is) probably not because the emulator emulates the machine itself. You still have to install Windows. So many different computers had their own form of dos back in the 80s its pitiful. As long as Dosbox uses code that is Public domain or some other freeware license its totally legal. I wonder if Microsoft ever contacted the creators of Dosbox. Iwilling to bet they probably already have and haven't made a fuss so we are safe on that.

Reply 33 of 34, by Freddo

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megatron-uk wrote:
bloodbat wrote:
dosquest wrote:

Gog, scumvm

Gog uses Dosbox...

....and Lucasarts (and others) have used scummvm.

When did Lucasarts use ScummVM?

Reply 34 of 34, by Qbix

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Ah another derailed thread.
*closed.*

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!