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Message: 4705

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 11/03/2005

Subject: Re: JSW's current copyright

 

Daniel wrote:

In the text files accompanying his games, including the latest one
("Party Willy"),

Party Willy is my latest /JSW/ game (released in April 2004).
My latest /game/ is Manic Miner: Neighbours - Allana Truman
(released in November 2004).

Andrew Broad says that the copyright of Jet Set Willy is currently
owned by Jester Interactive (since 2001).

But between releasing Party Willy and releasing MM:N-AT, I learned
that Jester Interactive owned only a licence to make commercial
MM/JSW games, and that the Software Projects copyright was owned by
Tommy Barton (cf. Messages 4259 and 4277 of this Group).

However, in his latest interview, Matthew Smith says that Advanced
Mobile Solutions currently owns the rights to Jet Set Willy.

I would assume that Matthew knows best.

I hope it does not affect us either way, but just out of
curiosity:
does anyone know for certain what the legal situation of JSW is?

This has always been a confusing issue for us, but in practice
nobody should be bothered about us offering unofficial sequels as
free downloads, and I haven't heard of any threats of litigation
regarding the distribution of *Spectrum* MM/JSW games in the nine
years since I discovered the Spectrum-emulation scene.

A further complication is the copyright of the /character/ of Miner
Willy, as distinct from the copyright of the games. Perhaps it's
Advanced Mobile Solutions who own the former, and Tommy Barton who
owns the latter?

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/

P.S. I now expect to remain in full-time employment until the end of
May, so my plans to start writing JSW:Afrikaan and MM:Outside are
still on hold.

 

 

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