What's the legal status of Doom II ?

They can simply replace the Doom 2 WAD with the FreeDM one, the engine itself should be free to distribute since ID themselves released the source code to it.

fraggle said:

I dropped Jason Scott a note about Doom II; hopefully he'll take it down.

It appears Doom II has been taken down... but Heretic, Wolfenstein 3D etc. are still there :P

EDIT: but the "download" option seems to have disappeared, and the site now says "stream only". That's an improvement.

Probably most things on archive.org are "illegal" in the sense that they're still copyrighted. If everyone played by the book, then a lot of stuff would end up lost forever. Doom isn't in such danger, but why act like a bunch of busybodies and do the work of our kapitalist jew overlords? What's next, are you going to send emails to "abandonware" site owners? (good luck with that!) And the irony behind all this is that Doom was still selling despite its availability on archive.org. None of this makes any sense, except some kind of special brainwashing by the IP cabal.

Eh, I'm fine with this sort of thing so long as it takes the old "abandonware" approach in which things are only freely mirrored if they're not sold anywhere and are otherwise impossible to obtain "legally." Seems like they're instead going for "mirror it until someone tells us to stop," which sorta achieves the same goal, though a bit more research would've helped. No need for Doom to have been on that list.

Funny, though, the two big examples I used to use for this sort of thing (Strife and System Shock 2) are back on the market now. Word. :P

hex11 said:

Doom isn't in such danger, but why act like a bunch of busybodies and do the work of our kapitalist jew overlords?

Don't do that again.

Linguica said:

Don't do that again.

I call it as I see it. If you don't like it, then ban me. I don't care...

hex11 said:

Probably most things on archive.org are "illegal" in the sense that they're still copyrighted.

Isn't archive.org a US federal government-run program? I wonder what that means for any kind of publicly available, copyright-protected materials.

MetroidJunkie said:

They can simply replace the Doom 2 WAD with the FreeDM one, the engine itself should be free to distribute since ID themselves released the source code to it.

That's a pretty good idea. The original version of the 1.9 DOS executable* was available from the shareware version of Doom 1 as well, so there's pretty much no concern as far as distributing commercial stuff while still using the original executable.

*not the Ultimate Doom or Final Doom forks

hex11 said:

Doom isn't in such danger, but why act like a bunch of busybodies and do the work of our blankity blank overlords?

I don't see how you can be a fan of the game and not want money from sales of the game to go to id Software.

AlexMax said:

I don't see how you can be a fan of the game and not want money from sales of the game to go to id Software.

The overwhelming majority of people who made doom no longer work at id. Really they aren't getting much of anything either way.

AlexMax said:

I don't see how you can be a fan of the game and not want money from sales of the game to go to id Software.

I've been a fan of plenty of things and cared nothing for the parent company/author. It's not like Id is even Id anymore.
I'd rather hand my money directly to the original Id team. Those responsible for Doom.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone who worked on Doom even work for Id anymore?

Inkie said:

The overwhelming majority of people who made doom no longer work at id. Really they aren't getting much of anything either way.

I didn't say anything about the original authors, merely the current owners of the IP. If you want more Doom, dollars from Doom in their pocket is how you vote with your wallet.

Besides, when some of the original members were there, they made Doom 3, while the current group (with no original members) seems to be, by all appearances, going back to the series roots.

Well, if ID wants any pointers for this new Doom game, they need only look at the Rise of the Triad and Shadow Warrior remakes.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVaCi9Te1Lw#t=01m25s


Not perfect by any means but at least they focused on trying to retain the original's gameplay style.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrw95DuVphc#t=02m04s


Just as long as they don't attempt to splice different styles together, Duke Nukem Forever tried that and it didn't exactly turn out favorably.

Sodaholic said:

Isn't archive.org a US federal government-run program? I wonder what that means for any kind of publicly available, copyright-protected materials.

What? I think you might be confusing it with the Library of Congress.

hex11 said:

I call it as I see it.

You need a prescription.

Yeah.... being Anti-Semitic doesn't exactly contribute to conversation nor does anti-capitalism, which is ironic since I'm guessing you're using Windows right now, an OS produced by a Capitalistic system. Or, if not, then at the very least you're on a forum dedicated to a video game produced under the Capitalistic system.

MetroidJunkie said:

nor does anti-capitalism, which is ironic since I'm guessing you're using Windows right now, an OS produced by a Capitalistic system.

I'd argue that Windows became and stayed the dominant OS mainly through anti-competitive, monopolistic practices which go against the principles of capitalism.

You can certainly make that argument but it's still a Capitalistic system that it exists in. You won't find this kind of technology in a Socialistic society, it's the drive for profit that inspires true innovation. Besides, they still have to at least act like they're being competitive. They may have a monopoly on the software but, if they take it for granted, they're going to lose it.

MetroidJunkie said:

Shadow Warrior remakes . . . trying to retain the original's gameplay style.

Not hardly.

Well, it retained the same kind of old fps fun, to me at least. The swordplay is a bit more intricate than it was in the old Shadow Warrior but I honestly had a lot of fun with it.

andrewj said:

I'd argue that Windows became and stayed the dominant OS mainly through anti-competitive, monopolistic practices which go against the principles of capitalism.

It doesn't go against the principles of capitalism. It goes against the principle of the free market. The principle of capitalism are private property and capital accumulation; getting to a position where you have the ability to accumulate more capital forever without being threatened by poorer upstarts is called "winning at capitalism". It also destroys the free market, which is why you need to have Big Government stepping in and regulating the hell out of that so that you can prevent people from winning at capitalism and destroying the free market. But of course what really happens is that the people who have won at capitalism are claiming that government and regulations are killing the free market, and they've managed to convince pretty much everyone who matters that the free market is defined as an anti-competitive oligopoly where the government doesn't exist.

The answer to this thread, is that free access to Doom II is as restricted as getting into a reluctant, conservative girlfriend's pants, and it will remain so no matter how much you pressure her -unless you buy her an engagement ring, ofc. Then, maybe. :)

Randy87 said:

Just out of curiosity, does anyone who worked on Doom even work for Id anymore?

Tim Willits (made maps for UD episode 4 + master levels for DOOM II) is probably the most important person in id Software right now. He's the main guy responsible for their titles' design

Kevin Cloud (an artist for Doom and Doom II) is also still there, currently having the position of lead artist and co-owner of the whole company.

So YES - there are still guys in id Software who worked on Doom back in the day. In fact, they occupy very important positions.

Patrol1985 said:

Kevin Cloud (an artist for Doom and Doom II) is also still there, currently having the position of lead artist and co-owner of the whole company.

According to Giant Bomb he's the Executive Producer and I suspect ceased to be a co-owner when Zenimax acquired the company.

Patrol1985 said:

Tim Willits (made maps for UD episode 4 + master levels for DOOM II) is probably the most important person in id Software right now. He's the main guy responsible for their titles' design

Kevin Cloud (an artist for Doom and Doom II) is also still there, currently having the position of lead artist and co-owner of the whole company.

So YES - there are still guys in id Software who worked on Doom back in the day. In fact, they occupy very important positions.

Don't forget Donna!

On 6/9/2015 at 6:48 PM, Linguica said:

No, it's not legal.

I think it may be legal, because it's open source now.

The source code is open source, the game is not.

Also, did you not even bother to read the message at the bottom before posting?!