Copyright and the Demo Scene
14 comments
·March 14, 2025JoshTriplett
warpspin
> Taking a guess based on the text in the cited intro, I wonder if the problem wasn't one of copyright, but one of credit.
Might be true. Not familiar with Amiga scene but the following actions were always mostly ok in the European C64 scene, provided credit was given to original author:
* Re-using music in whole
* Re-using fonts
* SOMETIMES re-using small parts of graphics
It always was not ok and considered "stealing" to re-use complete demo routines though for example.
People did get away (reputation wise) with re-using code routines for tools, though, provided credits where given and the re-released tool somehow improved on the original.
Another thing which many people disliked for example was re-using "instruments" from music, even when melodies changed. While the players were mostly open tooling, specific instruments/sounds for those players still had to be crafted first and I witnessed a couple of conflicts when people reused the instruments.
Nothing was written in stone, though. A concept such like licenses did not exist.
chrismcb
It was rare to reuse graphics, even fonts. But music was a bit more reusable with credit of course. It also depended on your group, but most groups had an artist, not every group had a musician.
aleph_minus_one
This sounds like an important aspect.
Another one that in my opinion distinguishes the scene behaviour from the classical copyright system is that the latter allows the copyright holder to use the state violence to squeeze out damage payment from copyright infringers.
Applying this kind of violence seems not to be accepted in the scene.
darkmighty
In my view cracking is great because it democratizes games for those who can't afford them. If you can afford it (and the game+company is good), then buy it. That's how you can kind of be for-cracking and for-commercial games at the same time.
Personally, it would be great if everything was free and everyone used good judgement to pay creators. But I admit maybe a large chunk would just pay nothing, including some wealthy people who could well just chip in. While enlightenment doesn't come...
alnwlsn
Related, and a personal favorite of mine: DEF CON 18 - Jason Scott - You're Stealing It Wrong! 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles
msephton
A great read. Even today in the indie game developer scene there's a huge range of opinion about what constitutes borrowing, copying, stealing, ripping, and grifting.
Animats
Not to be confused with the "demoscene".[1]
zfxfr
I have been into the demoscene for the last 25 years and never heard of this website demoscene.info. It looks like the kind of website a domainer will make to "increase" the price of a low value domain name.
crtasm
https://www.demoscene.info/miscellaneous/ the logo in the footer seems to show it's made by the same people who run Evoke
crtasm
That's the demoscene the article is referring to. What makes you think otherwise?
6stringmerc
Fascinating read and I’ve no sympathy for a scene that eats itself based on its own “copyright does not exist” mantra. No wonder Timbaland ripped them off. Good to get a lesson in the community.
6stringmerc
Strange to see this comment from days ago get listed as 2 hours ago.
What gives?
ziddoap
It's called the second-chance pool.
Interesting posts that don't get a lot of attention go into the pool, and are re-injected to the (lower part of the) front page. Timestamps (of the post & the comments) get updated when this happens.
Taking a guess based on the text in the cited intro, I wonder if the problem wasn't one of copyright, but one of credit.
Even in a group that doesn't care about copyright at all, it'd be tacky to copy someone else's code and not credit them, or to pretend it's all your own work.