'No One Lives Forever' turns 25 and you still can't buy it legitimately

They would need to prove that they have the rights to it to win court, yes. The chances of Activision actually pulling the trigger and suing if you made a remastered version are definitely less than 50-50. They'd have to actually have owned the rights in the first place, they still have the documentation to prove it, and that they'd find a suit a profitable idea? Let's say it's a 1/3 chance. That means if you publish it, you'd have a 2/3 chance of not getting sued by Activision, that can have a positive E(V) if you just go ahead and YOLO it.

But the killer is that WB and Fox (now Disney) also are sitting out there as maybe rights-holders. Let's say that each of them also has a 1/3 chance of suing and that they are all independent. Now you have a 8/27th chance of not getting sued- less than 1/3. So the expected value has to be twice as large as with a normal, single company situation to justify the increased risk of lawsuit from one of three companies. And so no one pencils out the choice as a good one, compared to the opportunity cost of working on some other game with a clearer rights situation.

> Does Activision have to produce this piece of paper once they sue to establish standing?

Yes, but see below.

> If Activision's version of this piece of paper was chewed up by rats in the 90s, does their ownership stake vanish in a puff as well?

No, but complex. Legally the contract is still valid, but they still need to show the court what the details are. All parties to a contracts get a copy, and so Activation can legally force other people who should have a copy of the contract to produce it, any copy is enough (or several partially rat eaten copies may be enough to reproduce what the original said). Activision has all the time they want to find copies of the contract (unlike trademark, copyright isn't use it or lose it), so you are risking the above for a long time. Sometimes enough testimony in court of we did have a contract is enough - when it is obvious there must have been a contract at one time the court will put together obvious details which might be enough to sue. In this case the 3 parties can agree that while they don't know who as rights between the 3 of them the rights must be contained and so they can agree to a 3-way split for purposes of going to court - even if it latter turns out only one party had rights, that party agreed to the split (though if you years latter can prove a 4th party has rights they can sue the other 3).

Of course if rats did eat all copies of the contract the lawyer fees to figure this out are likely more than the game is worth and so it probably isn't worthwhile to sue, so practically it may be as if they no longer have rights to the game just because they can't afford to enforce it. This is a very risky take though and so nobody should risk it.

So you can't buy it, but you can play it, and the source is available. Is this really a problem? I know the article mentions this in passing, but preservation & the ability to actually play a 25 year old game is more important than its capitalization, IMO.

The source is only partially available; they released the source code of the game logic, but the engine was not included in the source release. You'd need to reverse engineer & remake the engine to make any major improvements to the game, such as porting it to new platforms.

I'm in the speedrunning community[0] for NOLF and just want to chime in on the amazing work that haekb did (I believe the "community-driven project" is only them) for these games[1]. They made both NOLF and NOLF2 a lot more accessible to people casually picking up the game, as there was a lot of jank and configuration needed otherwise to get the games running in a good way on modern systems. In addition to fixing jank, they actually fixed tons of bugs and added other QoL and fun stuff like a jukebox in the menus to listen to the (great) soundtrack. Some stuff - like how if you have certain USB devices connected, the game will just flip out - still remains, but that's just a part of the _voodoo_ with old games like these.

Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.

It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)

The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!

They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)

Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]

[0]: https://www.speedrun.com/nolf <-- you'll find a link to the game here as well

[1]: https://haekb.itch.io/ <-- here you'll find all the lithtech stuff they made

[2]: https://youtu.be/q2PxxbJydBU <-- this is just one of many examples

[3]: https://spawnsite.net/

I'm torn about whether I'd want a direct continuation. It has similarities to the changing tone of the spy shows/movies and their satires that inspired it in that things change over time, and the reception to the feminism angle would be different now. A sequel would likely mean moving the time period on again which has additional challenges.

I could definitely see starting over with a reboot, which would also give the studio involved a chance to dodge all the rights issues by doing a 'spiritual successor' and renaming everything. 25 years later you're likely trying to attract newcomers much more than you are fans of the old games that want specifically more NOLF. I'd also be interested in a cold war era spy thriller that played it straight, real spy history has a lot to pull from that could be weaved into an intriguing story to play through, and NOLF did touch on some of the issues around spying like taking advantage of people.

This. This was such a charming game series.

I've long thought copyright should only apply if the work is available for sale, or they are actively preparing another printing so they can sell it again in the near future.

When Microsoft was first looking to do a remaster of Goldeneye from N64, even they couldn't manage the legal trouble of that one.

Microsoft had the original development team, Nintendo had the software and Activision had the James Bond License. Microsoft was willing to develop it for both Xbox 360 and Wii but they simply couldn't get the rights between all three straightened out.

If those three, companies that are no strangers to handling legal issues cannot figure out, it doesn't look good for smaller titles like this.

It's one thing when a work disappears because no one owns it or no one cares but it's even more frustrating when the rights do exist, yet the legal spaghetti around them is so tangled that nobody can or will do anything

Another discussion from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10710973

Totally agree, buying makes sense if it helps the creator(s), if it is not possible or it is tainted, I'd say go to the high seas and enjoy.

No, the opposite. To be protected by copyright, sources must be uploaded to a Library of Software.

Downside: Movies will be made to not last; Software will be made to be incompatible with everything on a 10-year timeframe; and the country who enabled this open mindset will displease its copyright owners who will move to the other countries.

One downside is it would motivate companies to get intellectual property registered under a trademark with indefinite protection rather than copyright. Even with our current lifetime + 70 year protection we have companies like Disney getting characters registered as a trademark.

3. They believe the IP may have potential that you won't exploit to the fullest.

In other words, they believe that they may be able to do more than you with it, if they ever get around to it.

If your potential market is tiny--and lets be honest, the market for an unpirated version of this is quite small,most people sufficiently interested have pirated it already--then keeping it out of the public in favor of some unknown potential later is a consideration.

I think it's basically just "this is complicated, complicated means corporate lawyers, corporate lawyers are expensive enough and the potential profit is small enough that it's not worth it." It's not just "will this be net positive," either. There's an opportunity cost. Those corporate lawyers are needed for other important projects that might make more money.

But also, I kind of think it becomes a thing where it's too small potatoes for anybody senior enough to actually approve all of the legal stuff to care enough to make happen. Sure, it's basically free money, but it's not a lot of free money.

We just saw an explosion of streaming platforms because of their version of 2). Instead of continuing to license to Netflix for a percentage, they decided to spend all of the time/money to develop their own streaming platforms in hopes of keeping all of the proceeds. Maybe they have internal dialog looking at this same comparison which has not settled out yet. The streaming platforms have shown rolling your own is not a guaranteed panacea.

What companies hear is, in effect, “Please make it easier for me to create a competing product and take away business from your existing IP:s that you are trying to create mindshare for.”

But big media companies don't operate on rationality alone... they operate on bureaucracy, ego, and fear of liability

I imagine there is a legal/admin cost, to locating the paper contract in Iron Mountain/wherever. So if they wait for the game to go ahead anyways, they could wait and see if its a smashing success, then sue and have a budget for tracking the docs down. Perhaps a lawyer could explain if sending a “cough up the docs in 60 days or we are invalidating your claim” would work.

Game Publishers hoard IP like Smaug. I can't even begin to catalog the IP's in the EA, UBI, and Activision's vaults. In many cases, the original creators can't even get the time of day to ask to use the IP.

Many of these get stuck in contract hell. The original developer may have had licensed software or assets and at the very least needs to find the agreements and understand how they work for new distribution. It's not uncommon for those agreements to have been time limited, but if you want to renew now you need to find the current successor/rightsholder and negotiate.

Also, the developer/publisher/distributor/etc may have had revenue sharing agreements with various parties. Those need to be found and understood too. Sometimes those are in % of gross income, % of net income, % of sales price, or a fixed amount per copy sold. If anything needs addressing, you've got to find those parties or their successors and negotiate. You should also find those parties anyway, to pay royalties they're due, but if you at least set up an escrow account, you'll be prepared when they find you.

I would hope games contracts are a bit more forward looking now, and try to address these things, but 25 years ago, you would still get old games at computer surplus stores... A handful of developers would put out old games collections, but most games never came back.

From what I remember of the game (played it on an Amiga), it also was very close in tone to the Austin Powers series of films.

I wonder if I should spend some time trying to get it running on my Steam Deck - there's a couple of Reddit threads around getting it to work.

I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.

I don't really miss the time of having to choose games this way. If you lucked out it was great, but you were also potentially putting down upwards of $50+ bucks in 1995 dollars on a game that you might end up really disliking.

I did discover a lot of great stuff like that. The funny thing is that there were a few titles that I discovered, absolutely loved and yet apparently were considered bad games. Oh well, I saw the good side of it.

One that I grabbed for $10 was Adrenix, a 'Descent' clone that has very few mentions around and reviewed fairly averagely. I loved it!

As for modern adaptions of games, if they can do it either like 3D Realms retro style like with Ion Fury, or go into the full re-imagined space like they did with Doom 2016. But any middle ground seems to lead to disappointment.

There is a team working on a "Spiritual Successor".

I got it as a pack-in with a video card. I didn't expect it to be anything good, being a pack-in. Talk about being wrong...

You can still do this. I regularily go to used game shops looking for old console games just based off the box art. They range from $1 - $5 so it's not much lost if the game ends up bad. I make sure to not search for reviews or more info. It's always a fun surprise.

> I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.

I miss it too. I used to read computer game magazines as a kid. I recently re-evoked that feeling by subscribing to a linux magazine. Maybe there are still game magazines out there but i’m too lazy to look.

Georgism [1] but applied to copyright: If you want to extend your copyright past, say, 15 or 20 years, then you need to estimate the value of that copyright and pay tax on it. You can name any value you want, but someone can then buy it at that value.

Maybe there can be different rules for copyrights owned by humans vs corporations; 5 years free for corporations, 20 years free for humans. Or maybe longer for humans, I dunno. But having corporations sit on IP just because they can is ridiculous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

I also fell into that rabbit hole, went here: https://neilpaine.substack.com/p/classic-post-bobby-bonilla-...

Good stuff.

Not that interesting really as this is about people wanting to play an excellent old game but there is no legal method to do so due to the actions of corporations. With AI, the corporations are hoovering up lots of copyright content so that it can be "repackaged" as AI output without wanting to attempt to do so legally.

You could figure it out, but if you're the one getting sued, it's going to cost you a lot of money to pay their lawyers to prove that you didn't have the rights, and someone else did.

If none of the company has any document to prove ownership, because according to the article they lost them, how could they win a lawsuit?

A "defend or lose it" rule would have bad consequences, I suspect, except for certain types of lawyer who might benefit enormously.

I think it might be better if the recipient of such vague threats were able to themselves initiate a court case to clarify the matter. The party making vague threats might be ordered by the court to either produce their evidence within six months or give up their claim by granting a public licence or whatever.

But it's hard to see all the consequences of rules like that and there are plenty of lobbyists able and willing to provide bad advice to legislators.

"It's not stealing if you refuse to sell it to me" is a pretty sketchy line of thinking in my opinion

Sooo if you don't defend it, you lose it

You say “unknowing” as if that’s a defense, but last I check you could still be charged with a crime even without being aware of it before hand. The punishment would likely be more lenient if you can convince the judge effectively that you had no knowledge, but you’re still going to court if caught.

The reason the viewer in your example is not liable though is because there is no reasonable expectation that viewers should (or even could) verify that Netflix held the rights to season 1. The license that the viewer has to access any media is between them and Netflix, not between them and each individual media rights-holding company.

Sorry for the tangent.

Deathloop really nails that offbeat spy-thriller vibe

So if I write a piece of software that does the job I designed it for, and you decide you want it to do something else, you should be handed the source code and right to redistribute it? Simple like that?