Licensing question

All right, let met get my thoughts in order...

I'm trying to get a gaming club together at my school. Some friends in a city north of here did it, and it's going really well for them. So I spoke with the head techie, and he said that regarding network traffic, older games should be fine. But he did mention that I needed licenses to distribute these games to whoever comes to the gaming meets.

Obviously, one of the games I want to play is Doom. I know that the engine itself is completely free, but I'm not so sure about the idea of 'temporary distribution'. That is, I want to lend the game to other people for about two hours a week (the duration of a meet). Is it legal to lend Doom 2 to someone? Or would we all have to *cough* own the game beforehand?

You coughed because you don't actually own Doom, didn't you?

When in doubt, don't. In these situations it's better to be safe than sorry. Temporary distribution? That's still distribution. It's not like you each need to buy a 60$ game here. Doom 2 is a measly 10 dollars on Steam. Are you all really that broke?

Now I guess if you were just lending one copy of Doom 2 to one person, that would be a different story. My friends and I trade games all the time, but your school might have a problem if you put it on everyone's flash drive, even just for a couple hours.

Krispavera said:

You coughed because you don't actually own Doom, didn't you?

When in doubt, don't. In these situations it's better to be safe than sorry. Temporary distribution? That's still distribution. It's not like you each need to buy a 60$ game here. Doom 2 is a measly 10 dollars on Steam. Are you all really that broke?

Now I guess if you were just lending one copy of Doom 2 to one person, that would be a different story. My friends and I trade games all the time, but your school might have a problem if you put it on everyone's flash drive, even just for a couple hours.

Yes, I registered on the Doomworld forums and review new WADs without actually owning the game. I'm that skilled.

Thank you for your other bits of advice.

Doom 2 should be cheap enough you could buy a few copies to give out (Maybe even put a donation cover charge on the club, to pay for that expense). As long as you legally own the copies and have purchased each, I don't think giving them away causes any violations.

Of course, you could also shareware Doom 1 and use it for DMing, even run some pwads off the shareware too.

eargosedown said:

Of course, you could also shareware Doom 1 and use it for DMing, even run some pwads off the shareware too.

Pwads are not allowed with shareware Doom. Versions since 1.4 even refuse to load them, and so do all source ports, since they might be in trouble if they didn't.
Even DEU refuses to work with the shareware IWAD.

Yeah, I'd just tell everybody that they'd need to buy Doom 2 in order to play on the network, give out the link to Doom 2 on Steam, it's just $10 and gives them an immediate game download...

You might still need to help some people with getting a source port, or even just setting up DOSBox for multiplayer if that's what you want.

Sure $10 isn't much, but there's a huge conceptual difference between paying nothing and paying anything. Most people in your gaming club won't be willing to dish out $10 up front for a game they perceive merely as an old novelty. Instead of scaring them all away by evangelizing that Doom is so much more than that I'd look for free alternatives, which do exist. You could use the Freedoom IWAD as a base and load a pwad over it that replaces most graphics, and use a port with custom player skins, and no one will be the wiser.

I remember back in high school my teacher put Quake II on a shared drive and we all had to run it from that drive over the network. It's a gray area for sure.

Does everyone absolutely have to own a game to use it? I never understood that. And always assumed that no.

Giving people access to the game for the purpose of LANs or something... I mean come on, I don't care if its illegal or not here, I'm asking it: Do you think its wrong? I certainly don't.

Is it wrong if they get out with the game in their hands? Absolutely.

There is nothing gray to me about this, but its really about what lines you want to cross, and what lines you actually -can- cross. I wouldn't hesitate, though.

Jake250 said:

Giving people access to the game for the purpose of LANs or something... I mean come on, I don't care if its illegal or not here, I'm asking it: Do you think its wrong? I certainly don't.

Legally? Yes. Morally? No.

If want to be on the safe side, just have everybody at least pretend they own the game when they come... don't even worry about if they pirate the game on their own (don't ask don't care; there's no CD keys or anything for the engines to check anyhow).

Jake250 said:

Does everyone absolutely have to own a game to use it?

It depends on the license agreement. Many games allow a multi player game over LAN with only one game purchased. Some may even allow installing it on multiple computers and run single player games at the same time for private use, but usually they don't.

Have you considered using FreeDoom's FreeDM resources? It's intended to be an Open Source multiplayer IWAD for Doom ports.

It's ugly, but it works.

http://www.nongnu.org/freedoom/


And yes, Jake, pirating Doom is morally wrong. If not for the open philanthropy of John Carmack in opening not only his mapping formats but source code, Doom would not be anywhere near as popular as it is now and the world of games would be a very different place. The least we can do is respect that in turn, and not pirate the guy's games.

LogicDeLuxe said:

Pwads are not allowed with shareware Doom. Versions since 1.4 even refuse to load them, and so do all source ports

Surprisingly, not all source ports refuse to run them, however I can't tell you which ones don't, else I'd have to shoot you afterwards. I'll just say that instead of refusing to use the -file parameter altogether, you just get (eventually) texture and sprite errors.

I'm considering writing ID and asking for some sort of license, similar to the ones that some organizations (schools and libraries) use to show movies to the public for non-profit.

Abyssalstudios1 said:

I'm considering writing ID and asking for some sort of license, similar to the ones that some organizations (schools and libraries) use to show movies to the public for non-profit.

That's probably the best solution.

I'd reckon they'd even be down for it:
Hey if more people experience DMing or Coop, they might enjoy the game a lot and go buy it for themselves!

This YouTube video shows the first few levels of FreeDoom and gives you a good idea of how it differs graphically from Doom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4qFRHsfgk

I wouldn't call it ugly, just different.

Jake250 said:

Does everyone absolutely have to own a game to use it? I never understood that. And always assumed that no.

Who owns the game isn't an issue so long as the number of installs or copies running doesn't exceed what the licence permits.

Giving people access to the game for the purpose of LANs or something... I mean come on, I don't care if its illegal or not here, I'm asking it: Do you think its wrong? I certainly don't.

The school's IT staff don't care what you think since it could be their jobs on the line if the gaming club floods the network they're responsible for with warez. While the workstations would be re-imaged after club meetings it might be necessary to maintain a game server as part of the network, which means the software on it would have to be beyond reproach in the event of a snap audit.

Is it wrong if they get out with the game in their hands? Absolutely.

Agreed. USB ports could be disabled in the "gaming club" configuration.

There is nothing gray to me about this, but its really about what lines you want to cross, and what lines you actually -can- cross. I wouldn't hesitate, though.

You can cross as many lines as you like if it's your network, don't expect someone else to bear that responsibility.

Abyssalstudios1 said:

I'm considering writing ID and asking for some sort of license, similar to the ones that some organizations (schools and libraries) use to show movies to the public for non-profit.

A site licence would be a good move, it'll save you the inconvenience of having to account for a pile of disks and/or receipts.

The EULA that comes with the game in a text file or at the start of the installation process answers most of your concerns or should at least be your starting point.

Jake250 said:
I mean come on, I don't care if its illegal or not here, I'm asking it: Do you think its wrong? I certainly don't.

Try to avoid questions and statements of this sort here. Keep in mind, also, that were you were to get any moral support here for illegal activity from Doomworld members, it wouldn't help against any trouble with school authorities.

EDIT: Wrongly attributed quote.

If you're not willing to pay a mere $10 to get it off Steam, use the shareware version or Freedoom.

myk said:

A quote from me...

Wait, what? I didn't say that...

And it's just as well you didn't - see what happened to the poster. ;-)

GreyGhost said:

And it's just as well you didn't - see what happened to the poster. ;-)

Yeah, but for a different reason altogether.

Abyssalstudios1 said:
Wait, what? I didn't say that...

Whoops, sorry about that!

I've edited my post.

Maes said:

Yeah, but for a different reason altogether.

I knew that! <goes back to sleep lurking>

I remember a couple games in the history of time that have only required the server, or maybe every 1st/3rd/etc. player added, to possess a game disk, "unofficially" permitting and passively encouraging use of temporary unlicensed copies by the other players as a sort of convenience thing. DOOM is not one that states such in its license, but I know it has historically been used this way in a lot of places too ;)

Quasar said:

I remember a couple games in the history of time that have only required the server, or maybe every 1st/3rd/etc. player added, to possess a game disk, "unofficially" permitting and passively encouraging use of temporary unlicensed copies by the other players as a sort of convenience thing. DOOM is not one that states such in its license, but I know it has historically been used this way in a lot of places too ;)

Noted.