Copyright Infringement

[NikitaSadkov]

Yay! You’re on the list now:
https://github.com/saniv/free-game-art/blob/master/foss-copyright-infringement-records.md

[Weebo]

Nice find! For those interested in the details, see:
– https://github.com/Deceth/Battle-City/issues/76

It looks like Battle City may use sounds from Command and Conquer. If anybody is interested in helping out, there are a few things we can do.

– We can look into this to see what is the license for these sounds, is there a way to obtain permissions to use the sounds, or if we can distribute them under a different license.
– I doubt C&C used sounds from Battle City, but hey, you never know, anybody know the release dates for both?
– We can work on new sounds (Just like ObiWoz created a new default graphics skin for the game)!

Nikita brings up another good point about the license. The assets should probably not be under GPLv3 for those we didn’t create. The assets are on GitHub mostly as a way to make sure everything was bundled with the source code to preserve the game for anybody who wanted to keep working on it. That said, this remake project created the source code, but not all graphics and sounds. Some sounds and some art come from the original Battlecity by Codehammer. Although we were given permission to use these, if CodeHammer did not have permissions in the first place, then that’s another story…

Given that both projects date back to the mid 90’s, have no commercial value, perhaps a fair use license could be applicable in this case (tbd). For example, the version of Command and Conquer referenced has been released as freeware and EA has given others permissions to release remakes of other earlier versions per the wiki page.

For further digging, there are many links within the following site to free legacy files, but licensing info is not clear:
– https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic

Also, on the Reddit Command and Conquer page, there are links to “Collection of various files for all c&c games, including freeware versions of Tib Dawn, RA1 and Tib Sun”
– https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/

So.. it looks like the old sound files from Command and Conquer would fall under freeware at this point, but we would need to find that info specifically, then license the assets appropriately, (i.e. not GPLv3).

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Weebo.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Weebo.

[Weebo]

Also… we should confirm which files are from Command and Conquer as a first step…! =p

Nikita, any info you can share on the specific files and version of Command and Conquer?

[rileyw]

I’ve been talking CodeHammer history with Chris Pointon, one of the original CodeHammer employees, on Twitter. I can ask him or James Everard about copyrights on these assets.

Nikita does suggest keeping a record of where assets originate. We could go down this route.

Nikita, any additional info that you can share would be helpful.

[Author]

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