Licence for ports?

Hi,

Sorry for my poor English.
I want to kindly ask You for advice.
I'm 8-bit Atari XL/XE computer fan. But we have no Dizzy games for this good computer :sad:
So my colleague Atari programmer try to port Dizzy ZX Spectrum version to Atari.
It is not so hard technicaly (he ported Knight Lore earlier!). But what about copyrights?
As I know copyrights for Dizzy have Codemasters and Oliver Twins. I asked Codemastets Business Development Department but I never recieved the answer :/

We want to partial use original ZX code and graphics.
We want to publish our Atari version online for free, but simultaneously we want to make and sell 50-100 copies of Atari memory cartridges with this game. We don't want to make money but materials costs.

So - what we should do?

Thanks a lot for Your advice
--
nosty

why don't you just download the dizzy remakes and play them?

Also.. you wouldn't be allowed to 'sell' them.. from what i understand.

Thanks a lot. It is bad news {yolkfolk}:tired:
But now I know that I can't do it without clear licence from Codemasters.
Thx!

Licencing permission is a tough subject with Dizzy.
Both parties involved need to be in total agreement in a decision for anything to happen.
Codies can't say yes without The Oliver Twins.. and likewise Olivers can't say yes without Codies.

You can by all means port the code to other systems as this would come under a 'remake' almost interms of what you are doing.

A big no no would be to sell your 'product' on for financial gain. Distributing any product featuring Dizzy would be Illegal .. so while you could get away with distribution for free of your 'fangame' you can not as you hoped to build your game onto a physical memory block and sell to others. If however you are mearly giving away your fangame in this form for free then this should be ok.

Hope this helps and I hope this doesnt confuse people :tongue:

Dizzy

I think there's a big difference in working on a 3d-version of Dizzy, and working on a port for an obsolete platform like an 8-bit Atari computer. I'd be very surprised if Codemasters or Blitz got upset about that, unless they had nothing better to do :smile: Obviously if Dizzy ever was re-incarnated on a modern platform, there's a good chance it'd be in a 3D environment, so it's perhaps more understandable that a fan-made 3D game is going to cause them some concern. Personally I take the view that any fan-made projects should be allowed to continue so long as there is no monetary aspect to them.

As far as memory cartridges go, how available are these things? Is it possible that anyone who wants one could send the blank resource to you, and you would put the game on it free of charge? If they were only providing money for return postage, that seems fair enough.

And it should be possible for one guy to port an existing Dizzy game to Atari 8-bit I would imagine, it's not too big a job for one person. I've got a near complete Dizzy game engine that I made myself for the C64, designed to be sort of a middle ground between the ZX style and the Amiga style (i.e. 1-bit backgrounds on black, but with multiplexed C64 sprites, and 50fps).

[quote data-userid="8" data-postid="61337"]

Codemasters / Blitz Games are very strict on this subject, and you’ll be extremely lucky if you get a pleasant message from them…

When Spid3r and Mozzy we’re making ‘Dizzy 3D’ they got told if they continued to develop the game, they may be taken to court (or something along those lines) And that was even going to be a freeware release

I’d defiantly wait for a response from them before hand, you may find yourself in trouble otherwise!

Anyway i hope this has helped!

[/quote]

this was not the case. we were never hastled, we just got jobs.