DrCode's letter to Electronic Arts

[Karl Garrison]

Well, since everything was deleted, i guess we'll have to re-start all of the threads that were interesting.

DrCode, would you mind putting the content of the letter you sent to EA back in this thread? Was it a paper letter or an email?

Is anyone else worried about big, mean EA lawyers attempting to shut down this project?


-Karl

[Stephan]

I am, since I think we all know EA's stance on things like this.

[drcode]

Dear Mr. Brown:

After seeing the Wired.com article about Ultima remakes, I've decided it's
time to contact you about my project, Exult.

This is an attempt to create a new game engine for Ultima 7. Unlike other
projects, I believe that ours is of benefit to your company, for the
following reasons:

1. A user is required to own and install an original copy of Ultima 7, as
Exult will not run without the data files. Therefore, many of our users are
buying the Ultima Collection so they can play Ultima 7 with Exult.

2. The version of Ultima 7 that Origin/EA is currently selling is a DOS
program which is not particularly easy to run on modern computers. Exult is
a multiplatform engine, and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, MacOS X, and even
SparcStations.

3. Ultima 7's graphics are primitive by today's standards. Exult displays
Ultima 7's artwork with anti-aliased scaling, providing a much more modern
look.

I hope that you will take a positive, or at least neutral, approach to our
project, and, perhaps, consider distributing Exult with one of your 'Classic'
or 'Collection' Ultima products.

[drcode]

Yes, I have been worrying. And I haven't heard anything back yet.

[calimonk]

Well i must say its a good letter overall.

I wouldn't know why they would should exult down, it is doing EA no harm. I'm into the Lucasarts scene, and as some of you might know lucasarts have closed down quite some projects (fan games). I've talked to some of the lucasarts employees and its not really 'them' forbidding the games, its more their legal part of the company, which somehow doesn't look at the efforts people are making to get lucasarts more popular. Kinda disapointing.

I hope that the legal department of EA isn't like the LEC legal company because they frankly don't look at what people do they just stop everything that has anything to do with their companies games etc.

[Stephan]

Heh. The guys at EA are worse than the LucasArts people, that's for sure. But who knows? Maybe they'll prove me wrong this time.

[suraimu]

The question is - if they don't like it, where are you guys gonna get
new hosting for us to hide in private?

[fliptw]

exult isn't distrubiting any of the game's orignal materials. so there is nothing to worry about on the copyright front.

exult is more of an emulator

[karlos]

Actually, I believe they could classify Exult as a "derivative work" of Ultima 7, and still prevent its distribution. It also may not matter whether or not it would hold-up in court, since I'm sure none of the Exult developers would want to face a legal battle with EA if they insisted on shutting this project down.


-Karl

[Dominus]

and a grey matter are also some of the improvements to the games like Paperdoll in BG as it uses some modified art from the original SI.

[J.J]

Hmm I just got this of wirednews.

Ultima I: Reborn is being remade by a group of fans known as Peroxide.

Most of the group's eight members are programmers and artists living in Denmark. The group also has members living in Germany, Brazil and the United States.

The group took the storyline of the original game, but is retelling it with a modern 3-D engine that members created. They have also added new story elements to make the game more complex.

The team is doing it both for fun and education.

"We are all Ultima fans who enjoy working on the building process of a game," said Ralph Damiani, an artist working on the project. "But there is also professional interest, since we are all learning a lot and opening a way for careers in the gaming industry."

Ultima I: Reborn will be available for free when it's released some time next year.

However, Peroxide has no contract with Electronic Arts, which bought the game in 1992 from the original publisher, Origin Systems.

The Peroxide team did contact Richard "Lord British" Garriott, one of the original developers of the game.

Garriott granted his permission to remake the game as long as there was no financial gain, according to Damiani.

Electronic Arts, however, hadn't heard about the Ultima project and would like to have a word with the Peroxide developers.

"EA owns the rights to Ultima and all of its characters, and in this case, no permission was requested or granted," said Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz."

Just because the game will be offered as a free download doesn't change intellectual property rights, said Brown.

[Xane]

href="http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,47624,00.html"

Im quite shocked, your only doing this now! I thought you had that settled as good as possible? I hope your not draining 2 years of work...

But it seems EA would atleast be willing to talk: "would like to have a word". And your doing really cant be called harmful. Instead you've been very careful about those legal issues. I cant believe your good Attitude want be earning you some major respect.

[Dominus]

We (Jeff) did contact them two years ago but never received any reply and the person he contacted doesn´t work there anymore.

[drcode]

Yes, that's right. I exchanged a few letters with Carly Staehlin, who used to work at Origin, going back to June 2000. She mentioned forwarding my letters to 'legal', but nothing ever came of it one way or another.

Also, for the first year of its life, Exult wasn't intended to be a full game engine, but just a demo for showing U7 landscape using XLib.

And I still haven't heard back from them (as expected).

[Xane]

Dont let your Fish...err...Wale jump from the Hook. Bring it home...

[Stephan]

They're probably busy preparing the Armageddon spell as we speak. I heard that they've been in contact with the Wisps...

[Xane]

How sneaky! Time to let the Avatar mob em up!

[comat0se]

Xane,

When people say "I'd would like to have a word with you," it usually has negative connotations. Something that a teacher might say to you in grade school after they caught you doing something wrong. Doesn't usually mean "let's open up lines of communication." =(

[drcode]

There were some funny comments on Slashdot about this issue. In particular, at least one person noted that Toto was a character in W of O, not the author, as R.G. was of Ultima.

Now if Peroxide had claimed that they'd gotten permission from Shamino, Mr. Brown would have had a more valid point.

[Xane]

comat0se,

Thanks, indeed i wasnt to sure about the phrase, but theres still "word" in it, which does imply some sort of talking. IMHO its a rather harmless phrase, which you would use when talking to a naughty boy. Not something you juridical threaten your opponents with.

[A. Freed]

Keep in mind that it's not necessarilly a bad thing if you never hear back from EA. It's always possible that their legal people are perfectly willing to let Exult slip by, but don't want to make an official statement that could be construed as 'sanction.'
I'm not a lawyer, though, so this is complete speculation.
(On the third hand, Exult shouldn't violate any copyrights, any more than, say, Moslo should, since it only acts on the original files without containing any copyrighted material itself.)

[Paulon]

A note about Peroxide's permission from RG:
They got it back when he was still at EA, so it counts for more than permission from someone no longer connected to the Ultima series in any legal manner.

The text of Telemachos' email and Garriot's reply was posted to rgcud, and can be found via Google at
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Richa ... tofanet.dk