Can’t reach the site. There’s no way Paramount will let this slide, though. They already took down independent fan projects like that VR enterprise, no way they’re going to leave this stuff alone.
They did come back and work out a good deal (and props to the Roddenberry estate for doing that!) but the first reaction was issuing a takedown.
In this case, the fact that it’s using property under actual copyright from a third party (the game studio) rather than just being a fan recreation isn’t in the project’s favour. And to be fair, the author(s) state as much on the website.
I didn’t know they got to do the Orville. Unfortunately, I don’t have any VR access these days, but I’m glad they’re doing well!
From the point of view of Simon & Schuster (currently a subsidiary of Paramount, it seems): it’s an almost complete copy of the video game they sold. That’s a blatant copyright violation.
From the point of view of the website: the game is effectively abandonware. That’s not really a defence, but it may help reduce the fine to a reasonable amount (+lawyer costs) if this comes down to a lawsuit.
The new code written to implement the game itself in the browser should be perfectly fine; that’s probably a new work, and under some jurisdictions (EU for instance) reverse engineering for compatibility is practically always allowed. However, the original video files are not part of that, AI upscaled or not, and there’s no way hosting those can be defended.
To make this comply with the law, I would’ve taken this approach:
Use something like Chrome’s file system API to let the browser access the user’s copy of the files.
Provide a method to download the player code so you and others can play the game offline, in case the website is under heavy load or maintenance.
Completely unrelated: have the person who tracked down a DVD upload a copy of the abandonware DVD to the Internet Archive, for preservation purposes, independent of this project.
Have some AI-upscaled version of the source material appear on torrent sites appear on torrent sites a while after (completely unrelated to you, of course). Make sure the directory structure on-disk is the same as the original so it works with existing third-party players, of course.
The latter two people are most at risk of legal consequences. I don’t think the Archive upload would be that bad (they’ll probably DMCA the Internet Archive and be done after that), but the torrent would be harder. Luckily, there are tons of options of movie pirates to download such content. AtlA got an AI-upscaled version ages ago and it’s everywhere these days, so it can be done without the studio interfering too much.
If the people who upload the video files are unrelated to the person making the code to play the DVD’s video files, I don’t think Paramount would have any reason to issue a C&D. Maybe they could go after them for the domain name containing “borg”? That wouldn’t be too much of a problem, though, you could just use a different domain name or put the player in a subdirectory somewhere.
Can’t reach the site. There’s no way Paramount will let this slide, though. They already took down independent fan projects like that VR enterprise, no way they’re going to leave this stuff alone.
They were simply hired by the Roddenberry Estate to do it legit (VR for more devices soon): https://roddenberry.x.io
They also did this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096200/The_Orville__Interactive_Fan_Experience/
And for those who dig this sort of thing, their affiliate studio’s upcoming rad Starship Simulator game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332100/Starship_Simulator/
They did come back and work out a good deal (and props to the Roddenberry estate for doing that!) but the first reaction was issuing a takedown.
In this case, the fact that it’s using property under actual copyright from a third party (the game studio) rather than just being a fan recreation isn’t in the project’s favour. And to be fair, the author(s) state as much on the website.
I didn’t know they got to do the Orville. Unfortunately, I don’t have any VR access these days, but I’m glad they’re doing well!
Reasonable assumption, then I better go play it quick! (Btw, the site took very long to load, but now its working normally.)
Is there any way of backing this up in case of a C&D?
Theoretically.
From the point of view of Simon & Schuster (currently a subsidiary of Paramount, it seems): it’s an almost complete copy of the video game they sold. That’s a blatant copyright violation.
From the point of view of the website: the game is effectively abandonware. That’s not really a defence, but it may help reduce the fine to a reasonable amount (+lawyer costs) if this comes down to a lawsuit.
The new code written to implement the game itself in the browser should be perfectly fine; that’s probably a new work, and under some jurisdictions (EU for instance) reverse engineering for compatibility is practically always allowed. However, the original video files are not part of that, AI upscaled or not, and there’s no way hosting those can be defended.
To make this comply with the law, I would’ve taken this approach:
The latter two people are most at risk of legal consequences. I don’t think the Archive upload would be that bad (they’ll probably DMCA the Internet Archive and be done after that), but the torrent would be harder. Luckily, there are tons of options of movie pirates to download such content. AtlA got an AI-upscaled version ages ago and it’s everywhere these days, so it can be done without the studio interfering too much.
If the people who upload the video files are unrelated to the person making the code to play the DVD’s video files, I don’t think Paramount would have any reason to issue a C&D. Maybe they could go after them for the domain name containing “borg”? That wouldn’t be too much of a problem, though, you could just use a different domain name or put the player in a subdirectory somewhere.
Theoretically putting it on the Internet Archive’s software collection?