Question for 80s and 90s software developers that released games and apps through publishing houses:
Did you retain the copyright for your code?
A few people have very kindly offered me the code for their old Psion software, which is amazing. However, some of them have commercial releases through software houses, and they're worried that releasing their code as open source would cause them legal issues.
AFAIK (and, of course, IANAL) publishing works similarly to the music industry. A record label might own the recording, but they don't own the song.
I'm not going to go into the whole "no one's going to care anymore" argument. That might be the case, but it also might not. It only takes one vindictive copyright troll to mess up someone's life.
(P.S.: Boosts welcome!)
[#]retrocomputing #retrodev #retrogaming
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@thelastpsion hey, also not a lawyer, but as most things, copyright is a national thing; you'll have to specify where these people are.
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@funkylab Good point. These developers are all in the UK, through UK software houses.
My question is more about the contracts that these independent developers had with software houses and distributors. Fire example, did those contracts stipulate that all copyright was handed over to the software house.
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