Legal Stuff

Legal and Copyright information

F.A.O. Codemasters, Rare, Capcom and other "denied distribution" copyright owners:

"Please don't sue me. I bought the original Speccy tape and I'm just emulating the game and having a bit of nostalgic fun. I'm not intending to infringe your copyright(s). Oh - any chance of producing some [new] Dizzy / Sabreman games for the Gameboy Advance please?"

*Ahem* Whilst the above sentence is a bit weak, it does represent a truth; playing copies of games you don't own is illegal. It's copyright theft. Thankfully, within the Spectrum emulation scene there are lots of enlightened copyright owners who allow their games to be distributed on sites such as the World of Spectrum. There's a whole lot of information about what is (or is not) illegal when it comes to emulation on the WoS site (click here to take you to their Copyrights and Distributions Permissions page).

I don't agree with copyright theft; all the games I own for my games consoles and computers (Amiga, iBook, Gamecube, GBA as well as my Spectrum) are legitimately bought. Whilst I certainly believe that software companies have the right to protect their intellectual property, I don't think the ESA (formally ISDA) has been particularly smart when it comes to the Spectrum.

I appreciate the work that the WoS has done in trying to contact the various software companies (or copyright holders) who produced Spectrum games, to get as many games authorised. But surely, common sense must prevail? Unless [as a software company] you are planning to re-use the game characters, sprites and other component parts of a game, is there any point in steadfastly refusing to allow people the chance to play games from a hardware platform that's been commmercially 'dead' for at leat ten years?

Rare (formally Ultimate Play the Game) have done this - they have released a new Sabre Wulf game for the Game Boy Advance. However, would it not be a smart move to say to gamers - here's the original version of Sabre Wulf [as a free download] on the original platform(s) [Spectrum, C64 & Amstrad - released about 20 years ago]. It's hardly going to hurt sales of the newest version.

Anyway; I'm waffling now. As TRB isn't distributing any games, you'll still see reviews of games which distribution has been denied (for example Rock Star Ate My Hamster).

And finally. Whilst I do not own the copyrights to any of the games featured in TRB (regardless of what I think of them) or any of the programs or hardware mentioned, I *do* own the copyright to the reviews and opinions given. And the composition of the logo(s). Nothing more, nothing less. If you (as a copyright holder), believe I have infringed your intellectual property rights, please let me know. The email address is at the top of the page (under 'feedback').