The Commodore brand

Tim Janssen · 14 July 2003, 13:06

This topic is quite causing quite a commotion in the Commodore 64 community:

Quote:

Ironstone and Tulip invite the Commodore community to join the official Commodore C64 web-portal. Currently there are about 300 commercial websites that use the name Commodore or Commodore 64 without having a license from Tulip. Tulip will not allow unauthorised use of the Commodore brand.

Read the full article here. Read the thoughts of the C64 community at Lemon64 Forum.

I am really getting sick of companies who are trying to squeeze out every last penny of Internet initiatives. Every time when individuals come up with creative, informative sites or shrines a big pesky corporation comes up claiming a percentage because they have the rights on a logo/name/colour/phrase/idea whatever.
Tulip owns the Commodore brand name and logo. I think they bought the brand back in 1997, put some PCs on the market with a Commodore sticker on it, and that is it! I know they ran into financial difficulties the past few years and this is their final last gesture before their inevitable death. But this claim is the saddest case I have ever seen. I am ashamed I live in the same country as those Tulip perps.

What are your thoughts about this?

IFW · 14 July 2003, 13:12

We see this everyday about the miggy... nothing new there

Parsec · 14 July 2003, 15:31

From the article on The Register, perhaps it is not as bad as it sounds:

Quote:

However, Melbourne was keen to stress that the company (Ironstone) isn't going to put the squeeze on the many fan sites. Non-commercial sites will be allowed to continue just as they are, he pledged. "The C64 has only stayed alive because of the fans," he added.

Whilst I'm not supporting what they are doing, they say they're only after the commercial sites, which are making money off a brand they now own. Al least they're not going to try and shut down all the not-for-profit stuff like some greedy organisations would...

What commercial sites are they talking about though? It sounds like the main people who will be affected are the developers who sell (rather than give away) C64 emulators

Parsec · 14 July 2003, 15:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Parsec
From the article on The Register, perhaps it is not as bad as it sounds:

Have just read the Lemon64 discussion maybe it is bad

IFW · 14 July 2003, 15:40

No it is more likely about C= One and things like that, using original/enchanced hw design rebuilt with today's hw.

unrelated:
"(rather than give away)"
Any author can charge for his/her work it is his IP, not anyone else's to decide. Some people need the money to have the time to develop, some don't.
If you don't consider yourself lucky.
Some may encounter a situation in their life to either ask money or kill the project.
It is work like anything else, and you expect money for your work so it is safe to assume that others do the same...

e.g. the guy responsible for ccs64 is living on a low income, and if you can afford you should register it if you find it useful. If not, don't use it.

7-Zark-7 · 14 July 2003, 16:18

I'm with you Tim, I'm rather suspicious of their motives regardless of what they claim. Despite the labor of love from the emulation community, it does seem rather coincidental they suddenly bob up like this without warning.

I read an interesting comment though-they surely couldn't claim any royalty/ownership over 99% of the games out there, as CBM were NOT a publisher ala Sega/Nintendo, & don't have any right to claim anything on them. (apart from the handful CBM made themselves, which you'd count on one hand)

If there's nothing for the emualtion community to worry about, why go spreading fear & panic over "unauthorised use"?

Antiriad · 14 July 2003, 18:06

Who made this thing then? Tulip? Got two of these! Bought em about a year ago. Sad to see a once great name reduced to being used to brand PC accessories

Antiriad · 14 July 2003, 18:08

Unknown_K · 14 July 2003, 18:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim Janssen
This topic is quite causing quite a commotion in the Commodore 64 community:

Read the full article here. Read the thoughts of the C64 community at Lemon64 Forum.

I am really getting sick of companies who are trying to squeeze out every last penny of Internet initiatives. Every time when individuals come up with creative, informative sites or shrines a big pesky corporation comes up claiming a percentage because they have the rights on a logo/name/colour/phrase/idea whatever.
Tulip owns the Commodore brand name and logo. I think they bought the brand back in 1997, put some PCs on the market with a Commodore sticker on it, and that is it! I know they ran into financial difficulties the past few years and this is their final last gesture before their inevitable death. But this claim is the saddest case I have ever seen. I am ashamed I live in the same country as those Tulip perps.

What are your thoughts about this?

If they own the name they can protect it from other people using it. If its ok for people to plaster Commodore all over their websites then why cant I start a shoe company and plaster NIKE all over mine?

Akira · 14 July 2003, 18:22

I know Tulip will KILL the brand (Retroman's example above is really a great example, that's mean man! Commodore CD furniture!), however, I DO feel happy that those fuckers that sell PCs under the Commodore brand get nailed. Here some twats sell lame PC clones under the Commodore brand, and they have the nerve to claim "The Comomdore is back, but more powerful". Give me a fucking break!

I justhope these shitheads dont get ballistic over sites like Lemon. Nevertheless, the commodore community is too fucking strong for them, everyone all across demo groups would smother Tulip to death.

ant512 · 14 July 2003, 23:10

What stinks most of all is the way they pretend to be promoting the C64 scene and helping C64 fans.

"We're in discussion with some random company, of whom you have never heard, who want to resurrect the Commodore brand! We'll prosecute everyone else using the Commodore name! And, you know what? Us getting lots of money from lawsuits will benefit *you*. Don't you feel special?"

Bunch of crap. They've noticed that they have IP that they can exploit, and they're announcing this under the pretence of helping what's left of the Commodore fanbase.

I don't think that SCO are going to get away with it ("Oh no! I've suddenly realised that we're a crap company whose products can't compete with anything else on the market! How can we restore our flagging business? Lawsuits!"), and I from the response I've seen so far, Tulip aren't fooling anyone either.

If we're lucky, the Commodore curse will strike (Commodore, Escom, Viscorp, Amiga Technologies, and it looks like Amiga Inc are going to same way) and Tulip will end up bankrupt within a year.

I hate leeches, vultures and grave-robbers.

jmmijo · 14 July 2003, 23:21

Quote:

Originally posted by ant512

I hate leeches, vultures and grave-robbers.

So tell us how you really feel

I do agree with you on this, there is so much IP crap going on in the world now it makes you wonder if the common good and public domain will ever see the light of day again

Dizzy · 14 July 2003, 23:37

Quote:

Originally posted by ant512
What stinks most of all is the way they pretend to be promoting the C64 scene and helping C64 fans.
bla bla bla bla bla bla...
I hate leeches, vultures and grave-robbers.

Wow who peed on you cornflakes.....

In Denmark TULIP is a Slaughterhouse (making Bacon etc)

ant512 · 15 July 2003, 00:19

Hey, it might turn out that I've just spent too much time reading Slashdot, and Tulip might deliver some sort of exciting retro-themed hardware and software.

jmmijo · 15 July 2003, 00:43

Yeah, and monkies might fly outta my butt too

Unknown_K · 15 July 2003, 00:55

Quote:

Originally posted by jmmijo
Yeah, and monkies might fly outta my butt too

Are we talking monkeys with wings like in the wizard of oz, or monkeys using a 727 passenger jet?

jmmijo · 15 July 2003, 01:02

Neither, just generic ASS monkeys

Dizzy · 15 July 2003, 01:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Unknown_K
Are we talking monkeys with wings like in the wizard of oz, or monkeys using a 727 passenger jet?

depends on the size of your ASS.

I prefer to spank my monkey

(pathetic joke)

jmmijo · 15 July 2003, 01:53

Sigfrodi · 15 July 2003, 04:41

Is Tulip the same brand that built computers during the 80's?

The stuffs Antiriad showed are rather weird!

Such a shame to use Commodore's name this way.

Some may think that it's better than nothing, but I really don't!

Anyway, there's that website under construction :

http://www.commodore.net/

It has the Commodore logo. Anybody knows what it is?

IFW · 15 July 2003, 07:00

I've read the official press release.
It is basically saying - translated from English to English

- that what you found so far on the internet for free for the C64 you'll be paying for big time very soon. It will also turn c64 emulators into branded products or pursue them legally. Same goes for any hardware addons or machines like C=1.
The only point they are making is to have a royalty from anything sold for c64, pretty much like the gif patent fiasco. (we use png now, but you just can't turn yor c64 into something else so changing to png won't happen this time)
And to turn free communities into dead-cow-milking opportunity.

The rest is an encouragement to potential investors and/or shareholders pointing out that the c64 fan base is easy to milk, and anyone not joining will be shut down, so no chance of getting anything for free anymore.

This is true of course if it happens before Tulip goes bust - hopefully before they can pull it off.
Even if it happens I suggest not to pay for any such "service" (like downloading cracks) as you are encouraging and paying for legal actions against "unofficial" sites if you do, and attract further financial interest. This will spread faster than a virus in that case, and soon you'll find you are paying for Spectrum, Atari, and even ZX81 programs too.
If you want to pay for anything c64 buy c64 addons, support poor emulator authors with shareware fees like the CCS64 guy, register scene/new/remastered/enhanced games like Newcomer and help dumping and scanning projects.
Or find the original authors of the games and pay them directly, they were quite often ripped-off, and all the ip belongs to them for real.

Actually we have discussed this possibility in caps several times, and my opinion was that it is going to happen.
I wish I was wrong

http://www.tulip.com/aboutus/corp_article.asp?nid=109

note: this is my personal opinion others may join it though

7-Zark-7 · 15 July 2003, 07:06

As for protecting the brand name....hands up all those who were even aware that there were still Commodore products out there?

Yes it might still be a registered trademark, but if you were trying to sell computers today,would you use a brandname thats' associated with either old '80's 8bit computers, or vaguely recalled being a '90's company that went broke during the death of the home-computer market & subsequent rise of the modern all purpose Wintel desktop market that exists today?

Commodore the worldwide entity.(& the "classic" Amiga),both IMO died in 1994,as a recognised computer format/competitive force.

IFW · 15 July 2003, 07:11

Commercially dead, yes.
But if you can turn all the hobbyists, nostalgic fans into a money printing machine you are in El Dorado. The C64 is a very good test case for this.

Unknown_K · 15 July 2003, 07:54

Unless tulip has alot of cash for going to court it will be hard for them to make any cash going after c64 sites and people using the name. If you ever noticed the companies that protect their name the most are the ones with alot to lose like disney, sony, nintendo, Microsoft, etc.

The real problem will come when tulip goes under after winning a court case or 2 and some large corperation buys them out who has the cash to really fuck anybody who is left using the commodore name.

Still I dont see much money to be made from all of this except for liscencing the name to other people, which is the whole reason to own the commodore name in this day and age.

Somebody owns the patents, name, and copyrights to every old defunct computer maker that walked the face of the earth. The patents will run out, the copyrights and name wont be worth anything unless you protect them legally (which is what tulip is doing).

I think in a few years all the rom and 8/16 bit traders will have to go underground again because of stuff like this.

Twistin'Ghost · 15 July 2003, 08:09

Anytime corporate parasites see people having fun, it becomes important for them to take it away and attempt to extract money from it. Think of the punk kid at the beach that feels he must knock over the sandcastle that the nice kid has spent hours building. Each day sees the realisation of the dream coming true: that the joy and freedom that kicked off the internet web boom would be replaced by commerce. This Tulip incident, in a nutshell, is simply trying to remove the existing hobby community base, replace them or convert them into robots that will spend their money at this new portal on the exact same thing they previously were getting for free, followed by Tulip laughing all the way to the bank. Oddly, the very community that they believe will be making them rich is the community that they are alienating right this minute. Who else is there that cares about old CBM games except for the retrogaming community? And they believe they can take away these people's community and those users will turn around and reward their actions by pumping money into their greed box?

Are people really that dense? I guess we shall see.

7-Zark-7 · 15 July 2003, 08:10

I was busy posting when you'd already posted IFW, doesn't sound at all good,as much as I feared. What gets me is how in being a comercially "dead" product as you said, they couldn't have cared less, but after years of work from the true fans,(like the developers of CCS64 & VICE etc.),the guys who created the tools/format for preserving the old games,& the guys who helped build the retro-community like Kim Lemon's Lemon 64 site,& created from scratch & basically for virtually no personal gain, these parasites,(in their own minds),sensing a financial opportunity suddenly come along & wave a big legal stick threatening pay us,or get sued/shut down.

They've contributed absolutely nothing to the retro/emulation community,& then expect they can tell it how it's supposed to behave? It's an insult to the entire C64 community!

Much less they would certainly have no claim to any revenue from any games,what an insult that would be to the Manfred Trenz, Andy Braybrooks,Sensible Software's, Apex Software,all the guys who worked at System 3 etc. just to name a few. (And for the smarties out there, whilst I might have a few d64 images, I also have several original C64 titles bought from the 80's & 90's, so nerr!)

Here's hoping they go belly-up,I'm sure the retro C64 scene will not react kindly to this.
Geez,what next? Will Amiga Inc. suddenly walk in on BTTR & tell them they're not allowed to release old Amiga games,(despite gaining original author's permission),or claim CAPS as their own?

IFW · 15 July 2003, 08:33

They try to tone it down now, claiming the press release was unauthorized... however once you see the true face of the devil you'll never forget.
It is possible that the company behind this has better intentions than Tulip, as they claim now seeing the strong reactions from the community, but it reminds me the "good cop/bad cop" plays somehow.
Rest assured a company like Tulip that used to sponsor Sky News among others do not allow any "unauthorized" press release to slip.
So that claim is is obviously fake for anyone knowing how such corporations work.

Unknown_K · 15 July 2003, 08:36

Quote:

Originally posted by 7-Zark-7
I was busy posting when you'd already posted IFW, doesn't sound at all good,as much as I feared. What gets me is how in being a comercially "dead" product as you said, they couldn't have cared less, but after years of work from the true fans,(like the developers of CCS64 & VICE etc.),the guys who created the tools/format for preserving the old games,& the guys who helped build the retro-community like Kim Lemon's Lemon 64 site,& created from scratch & basically for virtually no personal gain, these parasites,(in their own minds),sensing a financial opportunity suddenly come along & wave a big legal stick threatening pay us,or get sued/shut down.

They've contributed absolutely nothing to the retro/emulation community,& then expect they can tell it how it's supposed to behave? It's an insult to the entire C64 community!

Much less they would certainly have no claim to any revenue from any games,what an insult that would be to the Manfred Trenz, Andy Braybrooks,Sensible Software's, Apex Software,all the guys who worked at System 3 etc. just to name a few. (And for the smarties out there, whilst I might have a few d64 images, I also have several original C64 titles bought from the 80's & 90's, so nerr!)

Here's hoping they go belly-up,I'm sure the retro C64 scene will not react kindly to this.
Geez,what next? Will Amiga Inc. suddenly walk in on BTTR & tell them they're not allowed to release old Amiga games,(despite gaining original author's permission),or claim CAPS as their own?

All tulip wants is people using their commodore name illegally to pay a fee to do so (from what the article said).

Places like sensible software sell old used hardware and games, they are not using the commodore name for anything other the describing hardware/software which is legit.

Wether they contribute to the c64 scene doesnt matter one bit. Lots of crackers and websites contribute to the c64 scene in illegal ways (cracking and distributing somebody elses software). While millions apreciate the easy downloads very few would agree thats its all legal. They own the commodore name and can do whatever they want with it, thats all.

IFW · 15 July 2003, 08:45

I'd like to point out that C= (or Amiga for that matter) has always been an open software platform meaning you did not have to pay for developer licenses (unless you wanted some inside info from CATS), royalties from software sales etc.
They clearly think/claim this not to be the case by saying they own everything that were presented as a C= product, not just hw. It is a blantant lie and FUD.

7-Zark-7 · 15 July 2003, 08:56

@Unknown_K. There wouldn't even be a C64 scene today if not for these "illegal sceners". And my reference was that the original game authors/publishers are the copyright holders to those games,not these parasites,so why should they be entitled to claim any revenue for old C64games-they don't own them?!

How's this for vague, this is paraphrased from Lemon...........
......."I emailed both Tulip and Ironstone earlier today, asking the following questions:

* What action would you take against 'unofficial' Commodore 64 websites?

* Would you be prepared for the 'unofficial' websites to display something
like 'This is an unofficial C64 website' and/or 'Commodore is the
trademark of Ironstone', for example?

* An official C64 emulator is mentioned - Is this an existing emulator or a
new one?

* How do you plan on making money from 'classic games' when the rights
are with the programmers and software houses?

* Can you supply any further details on your plans?

Well this is what I got back:

Dear Lee,

Now that the news has broken regarding our license deal with Tulip we are very happy to have received a huge amount of email from the C64 community. So that we can give you an early response as to what we are planning to do and hopefully put right some of the misconceptions that are starting to appear we have prepared the brief statement below.

· The Directors of Ironstone have a combined video games experience of over 100 years and most of us have at some point built games for the C64. For example, our Creative Director has built over 30 games and our CTO has written over 36 games and 3 books on the C64. In fact, our CTO had the second machine ever imported into the UK. As a result our interest in C64 is based on our passion for this great system.

· The reason we’ve been prepared to put a lot of money into this deal is because we feel the C64 community, and the people who have kept the C64 alive for so long, deserve the support of the brand and technology owners. In other words, we want to work with you and support you.

We consider ourselves as very much on the side of the C64 community and not as a “faceless profit hungry organisation”, and because we believe that the community has done such a fantastic job of keeping the C64 alive, we’d like to enlist your help to inform everyone in the community of our intentions.

Finally, if you have any suggestions that you think will help us please let us know as the we can’t think of anyone better or more appropriate to help us bring the C64 brand back to prominence than the C64 community. Please send your suggestions to C64ideas@ironstonepartners.com.

Thanks again for your mail.

Kind regards.

The C64 Team at Ironstone.

I don't think it gives much info to be honest - It seems that they are keeping their cards close to their chests? They seem to have toned it down from their original press release, going on about 'official websites' etc.

Looks liek we will still have to wait for more details?
_________________
******LeeT TickerTape Issue Six*******
Hot - The Weather! Getting a N64 Emu & games
Rot - Guarded Plans from Ironstone & Tulip
Playing - Mario Kart (N64), Kokotoni Wilf (Spec)
***Tickertape back in two weeks!***

Last edited by LeeT on Mon Jul 14, 2003 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total"...................

:suspiciou

IFW · 15 July 2003, 09:01

And here is another press relese quoted. Read carefully clause 6 and combine it with $10m invested and draw your own conclusion.

"Hmmzz , i first read the news on Planet Multimedia, a magazine from my privider which is most of the time exact...
I can send everyone who's interested a copy , but its in dutch...

its say's
1) that the will com with there OWN emu...

2)That they bought the name commodore for 9.77 mil. Euro.

3)They allready tried to sell under the commodore name without succes

4)When there portal gets a reaseneble size they want to make hardware, but they didnt want to specify anithing at all to Planet Media exept for some Clothing like tshirts with probebly a commodore logo ...

5)They want to sell old games and that IronStone will greate new games.

6)the told Planet media that the problem is that we think al the games are for free now "

manicx · 15 July 2003, 09:13

Tulip=C*nts!

This is the worst thing I've even seen on the net. Does this mean that the C64 community will die? How about great emulators like winVICE? Bastards, I hate big companies who do not give a shit about communities. On the other hand, Commodore did exactly the same in the past

!

Antiriad · 15 July 2003, 12:02

Look. Stop panicking people. They only own the brand, not the hardware for fucks sake. They have no right to claim authors of the emulators or peeps who make C= periphials are breaching copyright.

At the end of the day, all it means is that all those Commodore 64 sites will have to remove the C= logo. In that way theyll go in line with other emulation scenes that similiarly cant use the companys logo of the machine they love.

So dont worry ok?

7-Zark-7 · 15 July 2003, 13:00

But they appear to be aiming at a lot more than just the old CBM logo,based on the information released to date, & I'd highly doubt that they're rumoured payment of $10million euro was purely for "the benefit of the C64 community".

Lets say hypothetically they'd released their own C64 emulator. How is it exactly fair that the established successful WinVice & CCS64 emulators/coders are then forced into a "pay up or be shut down" situation, talk about anti-competitive!

What would the Amiga community say if Amiga Inc. suddenly tried to shut down WinUAE,& instead insist everyone buy their own commercial product-based emulator for anyone in the Amiga community wanting to play their "classic amiga" gaming titles?

Antiriad · 15 July 2003, 13:43

Hmmmm, i think their lawyers are being over ambitious to say the least. I doubt they own the Commodore 64 brand. I very much doubt it. They say

"Tulip is the owner of the brand name Commodore. Through this partnership Tulip grants to Ironstone the exclusive rights to exploit the official Commodore C64 web-portal and use of the Commodore 64 brand name. "

They only mentioning owning the Commodore brand name. I bet if push came to shove they have no right to say they own the "Commodore 64" brand name.

Theres a difference. Albeit a small one. And they dont have the rights to the software, the OS or especially the computer games made for it.

Whoever sold them the C= name milked these ignorant idiots. Now theyre trying to save face by making up shit that they own other things when they dont.

Antiriad · 15 July 2003, 13:49

Theres a difference between buying the brand name and the assets. Still. I might be wrong - whats the details of what they own?

jmmijo · 15 July 2003, 16:45

Hmm, sounds like the same crap that SCO is trying to do to the Linux community

Unknown_K · 15 July 2003, 17:40

Quote:

Originally posted by jmmijo
Hmm, sounds like the same crap that SCO is trying to do to the Linux community

I wouldnt be surprised if some of the linux contributions were taken from other unix code. Once the competition is big enough to make it worth your time and money for litigation thats what happens.

Antiriad · 15 July 2003, 18:41

Garak on the Lemon Baord said the following:
"No, Tulip Computers _only_ owns the Commodore name and Commodore logo.

But, Gateway Computers owns all the 8-bit Commodore patents (which are expiring as we speak) and the technologies (ie Gateway owns the VIC and SID patents etc.).

As for Amiga... Gateway also owned all things Amiga including the name (not Tulip) but few years back a few people got together and bought the Amiga name and other Amiga rights from Gateway and reformed Amiga: www.amiga.com.

So, Tulip has the Commodore name/logo, Gateway owns all the 8-bit Commodore patents/technologies, and Amiga owns Amiga... it's all crazy if you ask me!

Garak"

So...my initial suspicions are correct. Tulip only own the Commodore name and logo AND NOTHING ELSE. Not even the Commodore 64! As such, they really are FULL of shit.

ant512 · 15 July 2003, 19:35

It's essentially a FUD campaign, or so it seems to me. Compare it with the SCO case. SCO have said that some mysterious code of theirs has been copied, but they won't tell anyone exactly which lines of code, which sections of Linux it affects, or indeed anything at all useful. They're just dangling the spectre of copyright infringement, particularly worrying to American companies at the moment, with that DRM, RIAA, MPA, etc, nonsense forever in the press, in the hope that companies, especially small companies, get scared and either buy the SCO build of Linux (which is, by all accounts, rubbish) or pay a licence fee.

Tulip seem to be doing the same thing. I'd guess that their aim is to scare the smaller sites and emulators out of existence, as they wouldn't be able to afford to fight a lawsuit (hands up everyone who's registered a C64 emu. Anyone?). They remove the competition, and so C64 fans have no choice but to buy the "official" emulator. For larger sites, they'd just need to win one court case for most of them to start shutting down too.

Hmm... I wonder what Gateway would say if they knew that Tulip, in writing a commercial C64 emulator, were trying to make money out of the C64 hardware IP?

Perhaps if the C64 scene rallies around and convinces the original games programmers not to sell their games to Tulip they'd have to reconsider their new scheme. However, I think enough copyrights or licencing rights must still lie with the publishers (who tend to want to exploit IP as badly as Tulip seem to) for Tulip to put together a large catalogue of licenced games.

14 July 2003, 18:06	#7
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	Who made this thing then? Tulip? Got two of these! Bought em about a year ago. Sad to see a once great name reduced to being used to brand PC accessories Attached Thumbnails

14 July 2003, 18:08	#8
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	. Attached Thumbnails

15 July 2003, 07:00	#21
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	I've read the official press release. It is basically saying - translated from English to English - that what you found so far on the internet for free for the C64 you'll be paying for big time very soon. It will also turn c64 emulators into branded products or pursue them legally. Same goes for any hardware addons or machines like C=1. The only point they are making is to have a royalty from anything sold for c64, pretty much like the gif patent fiasco. (we use png now, but you just can't turn yor c64 into something else so changing to png won't happen this time) And to turn free communities into dead-cow-milking opportunity. The rest is an encouragement to potential investors and/or shareholders pointing out that the c64 fan base is easy to milk, and anyone not joining will be shut down, so no chance of getting anything for free anymore. This is true of course if it happens before Tulip goes bust - hopefully before they can pull it off. Even if it happens I suggest not to pay for any such "service" (like downloading cracks) as you are encouraging and paying for legal actions against "unofficial" sites if you do, and attract further financial interest. This will spread faster than a virus in that case, and soon you'll find you are paying for Spectrum, Atari, and even ZX81 programs too. If you want to pay for anything c64 buy c64 addons, support poor emulator authors with shareware fees like the CCS64 guy, register scene/new/remastered/enhanced games like Newcomer and help dumping and scanning projects. Or find the original authors of the games and pay them directly, they were quite often ripped-off, and all the ip belongs to them for real. Actually we have discussed this possibility in caps several times, and my opinion was that it is going to happen. I wish I was wrong http://www.tulip.com/aboutus/corp_article.asp?nid=109 note: this is my personal opinion others may join it though Last edited by IFW; 15 July 2003 at 07:07.

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14 July 2003, 13:12	#2
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	We see this everyday about the miggy... nothing new there

14 July 2003, 15:40	#5
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	No it is more likely about C= One and things like that, using original/enchanced hw design rebuilt with today's hw. unrelated: "(rather than give away)" Any author can charge for his/her work it is his IP, not anyone else's to decide. Some people need the money to have the time to develop, some don't. If you don't consider yourself lucky. Some may encounter a situation in their life to either ask money or kill the project. It is work like anything else, and you expect money for your work so it is safe to assume that others do the same... e.g. the guy responsible for ccs64 is living on a low income, and if you can afford you should register it if you find it useful. If not, don't use it.

14 July 2003, 16:18	#6
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	I'm with you Tim, I'm rather suspicious of their motives regardless of what they claim. Despite the labor of love from the emulation community, it does seem rather coincidental they suddenly bob up like this without warning. I read an interesting comment though-they surely couldn't claim any royalty/ownership over 99% of the games out there, as CBM were NOT a publisher ala Sega/Nintendo, & don't have any right to claim anything on them. (apart from the handful CBM made themselves, which you'd count on one hand) If there's nothing for the emualtion community to worry about, why go spreading fear & panic over "unauthorised use"?

14 July 2003, 18:22	#10
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	I know Tulip will KILL the brand (Retroman's example above is really a great example, that's mean man! Commodore CD furniture!), however, I DO feel happy that those fuckers that sell PCs under the Commodore brand get nailed. Here some twats sell lame PC clones under the Commodore brand, and they have the nerve to claim "The Comomdore is back, but more powerful". Give me a fucking break! I justhope these shitheads dont get ballistic over sites like Lemon. Nevertheless, the commodore community is too fucking strong for them, everyone all across demo groups would smother Tulip to death.

14 July 2003, 23:10	#11
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	What stinks most of all is the way they pretend to be promoting the C64 scene and helping C64 fans. "We're in discussion with some random company, of whom you have never heard, who want to resurrect the Commodore brand! We'll prosecute everyone else using the Commodore name! And, you know what? Us getting lots of money from lawsuits will benefit you. Don't you feel special?" Bunch of crap. They've noticed that they have IP that they can exploit, and they're announcing this under the pretence of helping what's left of the Commodore fanbase. I don't think that SCO are going to get away with it ("Oh no! I've suddenly realised that we're a crap company whose products can't compete with anything else on the market! How can we restore our flagging business? Lawsuits!"), and I from the response I've seen so far, Tulip aren't fooling anyone either. If we're lucky, the Commodore curse will strike (Commodore, Escom, Viscorp, Amiga Technologies, and it looks like Amiga Inc are going to same way) and Tulip will end up bankrupt within a year. I hate leeches, vultures and grave-robbers.

15 July 2003, 00:19	#14
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	Hey, it might turn out that I've just spent too much time reading Slashdot, and Tulip might deliver some sort of exciting retro-themed hardware and software.

15 July 2003, 00:43	#15
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 51 Posts: 2,338	Yeah, and monkies might fly outta my butt too

15 July 2003, 01:02	#17
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 51 Posts: 2,338	Neither, just generic ASS monkeys

15 July 2003, 01:53	#19
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 51 Posts: 2,338

15 July 2003, 04:41	#20
Sigfrodi Registered User Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Lorgues (France) Age: 36 Posts: 31	Is Tulip the same brand that built computers during the 80's? The stuffs Antiriad showed are rather weird! Such a shame to use Commodore's name this way. Some may think that it's better than nothing, but I really don't! Anyway, there's that website under construction : http://www.commodore.net/ It has the Commodore logo. Anybody knows what it is?

15 July 2003, 07:06	#22
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	As for protecting the brand name....hands up all those who were even aware that there were still Commodore products out there? Yes it might still be a registered trademark, but if you were trying to sell computers today,would you use a brandname thats' associated with either old '80's 8bit computers, or vaguely recalled being a '90's company that went broke during the death of the home-computer market & subsequent rise of the modern all purpose Wintel desktop market that exists today? Commodore the worldwide entity.(& the "classic" Amiga),both IMO died in 1994,as a recognised computer format/competitive force.

15 July 2003, 07:11	#23
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	Commercially dead, yes. But if you can turn all the hobbyists, nostalgic fans into a money printing machine you are in El Dorado. The C64 is a very good test case for this.

15 July 2003, 07:54	#24
Unknown_K Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio/USA Age: 44 Posts: 1,367	Unless tulip has alot of cash for going to court it will be hard for them to make any cash going after c64 sites and people using the name. If you ever noticed the companies that protect their name the most are the ones with alot to lose like disney, sony, nintendo, Microsoft, etc. The real problem will come when tulip goes under after winning a court case or 2 and some large corperation buys them out who has the cash to really fuck anybody who is left using the commodore name. Still I dont see much money to be made from all of this except for liscencing the name to other people, which is the whole reason to own the commodore name in this day and age. Somebody owns the patents, name, and copyrights to every old defunct computer maker that walked the face of the earth. The patents will run out, the copyrights and name wont be worth anything unless you protect them legally (which is what tulip is doing). I think in a few years all the rom and 8/16 bit traders will have to go underground again because of stuff like this.

15 July 2003, 08:09	#25
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 22 Posts: 4,662	Anytime corporate parasites see people having fun, it becomes important for them to take it away and attempt to extract money from it. Think of the punk kid at the beach that feels he must knock over the sandcastle that the nice kid has spent hours building. Each day sees the realisation of the dream coming true: that the joy and freedom that kicked off the internet web boom would be replaced by commerce. This Tulip incident, in a nutshell, is simply trying to remove the existing hobby community base, replace them or convert them into robots that will spend their money at this new portal on the exact same thing they previously were getting for free, followed by Tulip laughing all the way to the bank. Oddly, the very community that they believe will be making them rich is the community that they are alienating right this minute. Who else is there that cares about old CBM games except for the retrogaming community? And they believe they can take away these people's community and those users will turn around and reward their actions by pumping money into their greed box? Are people really that dense? I guess we shall see.

15 July 2003, 08:10	#26
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	I was busy posting when you'd already posted IFW, doesn't sound at all good,as much as I feared. What gets me is how in being a comercially "dead" product as you said, they couldn't have cared less, but after years of work from the true fans,(like the developers of CCS64 & VICE etc.),the guys who created the tools/format for preserving the old games,& the guys who helped build the retro-community like Kim Lemon's Lemon 64 site,& created from scratch & basically for virtually no personal gain, these parasites,(in their own minds),sensing a financial opportunity suddenly come along & wave a big legal stick threatening pay us,or get sued/shut down. They've contributed absolutely nothing to the retro/emulation community,& then expect they can tell it how it's supposed to behave? It's an insult to the entire C64 community! Much less they would certainly have no claim to any revenue from any games,what an insult that would be to the Manfred Trenz, Andy Braybrooks,Sensible Software's, Apex Software,all the guys who worked at System 3 etc. just to name a few. (And for the smarties out there, whilst I might have a few d64 images, I also have several original C64 titles bought from the 80's & 90's, so nerr!) Here's hoping they go belly-up,I'm sure the retro C64 scene will not react kindly to this. Geez,what next? Will Amiga Inc. suddenly walk in on BTTR & tell them they're not allowed to release old Amiga games,(despite gaining original author's permission),or claim CAPS as their own?

15 July 2003, 08:33	#27
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	They try to tone it down now, claiming the press release was unauthorized... however once you see the true face of the devil you'll never forget. It is possible that the company behind this has better intentions than Tulip, as they claim now seeing the strong reactions from the community, but it reminds me the "good cop/bad cop" plays somehow. Rest assured a company like Tulip that used to sponsor Sky News among others do not allow any "unauthorized" press release to slip. So that claim is is obviously fake for anyone knowing how such corporations work.

15 July 2003, 08:45	#29
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	I'd like to point out that C= (or Amiga for that matter) has always been an open software platform meaning you did not have to pay for developer licenses (unless you wanted some inside info from CATS), royalties from software sales etc. They clearly think/claim this not to be the case by saying they own everything that were presented as a C= product, not just hw. It is a blantant lie and FUD.

15 July 2003, 08:56	#30
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	@Unknown_K. There wouldn't even be a C64 scene today if not for these "illegal sceners". And my reference was that the original game authors/publishers are the copyright holders to those games,not these parasites,so why should they be entitled to claim any revenue for old C64games-they don't own them?! How's this for vague, this is paraphrased from Lemon........... ......."I emailed both Tulip and Ironstone earlier today, asking the following questions: * What action would you take against 'unofficial' Commodore 64 websites? * Would you be prepared for the 'unofficial' websites to display something like 'This is an unofficial C64 website' and/or 'Commodore is the trademark of Ironstone', for example? * An official C64 emulator is mentioned - Is this an existing emulator or a new one? * How do you plan on making money from 'classic games' when the rights are with the programmers and software houses? * Can you supply any further details on your plans? Well this is what I got back: Dear Lee, Now that the news has broken regarding our license deal with Tulip we are very happy to have received a huge amount of email from the C64 community. So that we can give you an early response as to what we are planning to do and hopefully put right some of the misconceptions that are starting to appear we have prepared the brief statement below. · The Directors of Ironstone have a combined video games experience of over 100 years and most of us have at some point built games for the C64. For example, our Creative Director has built over 30 games and our CTO has written over 36 games and 3 books on the C64. In fact, our CTO had the second machine ever imported into the UK. As a result our interest in C64 is based on our passion for this great system. · The reason we’ve been prepared to put a lot of money into this deal is because we feel the C64 community, and the people who have kept the C64 alive for so long, deserve the support of the brand and technology owners. In other words, we want to work with you and support you. We consider ourselves as very much on the side of the C64 community and not as a “faceless profit hungry organisation”, and because we believe that the community has done such a fantastic job of keeping the C64 alive, we’d like to enlist your help to inform everyone in the community of our intentions. Finally, if you have any suggestions that you think will help us please let us know as the we can’t think of anyone better or more appropriate to help us bring the C64 brand back to prominence than the C64 community. Please send your suggestions to C64ideas@ironstonepartners.com. Thanks again for your mail. Kind regards. The C64 Team at Ironstone. I don't think it gives much info to be honest - It seems that they are keeping their cards close to their chests? They seem to have toned it down from their original press release, going on about 'official websites' etc. Looks liek we will still have to wait for more details? _________________ ****LeeT TickerTape Issue Six*** Hot - The Weather! Getting a N64 Emu & games Rot - Guarded Plans from Ironstone & Tulip Playing - Mario Kart (N64), Kokotoni Wilf (Spec) Tickertape back in two weeks!** Last edited by LeeT on Mon Jul 14, 2003 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total"................... :suspiciou

15 July 2003, 09:01	#31
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 41 Posts: 1,680	And here is another press relese quoted. Read carefully clause 6 and combine it with $10m invested and draw your own conclusion. "Hmmzz , i first read the news on Planet Multimedia, a magazine from my privider which is most of the time exact... I can send everyone who's interested a copy , but its in dutch... its say's 1) that the will com with there OWN emu... 2)That they bought the name commodore for 9.77 mil. Euro. 3)They allready tried to sell under the commodore name without succes 4)When there portal gets a reaseneble size they want to make hardware, but they didnt want to specify anithing at all to Planet Media exept for some Clothing like tshirts with probebly a commodore logo ... 5)They want to sell old games and that IronStone will greate new games. 6)the told Planet media that the problem is that we think al the games are for free now "

15 July 2003, 09:13	#32
manicx Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Athens, Greece Posts: 960	Tulip=C*nts! This is the worst thing I've even seen on the net. Does this mean that the C64 community will die? How about great emulators like winVICE? Bastards, I hate big companies who do not give a shit about communities. On the other hand, Commodore did exactly the same in the past !

15 July 2003, 12:02	#33
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	Look. Stop panicking people. They only own the brand, not the hardware for fucks sake. They have no right to claim authors of the emulators or peeps who make C= periphials are breaching copyright. At the end of the day, all it means is that all those Commodore 64 sites will have to remove the C= logo. In that way theyll go in line with other emulation scenes that similiarly cant use the companys logo of the machine they love. So dont worry ok?

15 July 2003, 13:00	#34
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,237	But they appear to be aiming at a lot more than just the old CBM logo,based on the information released to date, & I'd highly doubt that they're rumoured payment of $10million euro was purely for "the benefit of the C64 community". Lets say hypothetically they'd released their own C64 emulator. How is it exactly fair that the established successful WinVice & CCS64 emulators/coders are then forced into a "pay up or be shut down" situation, talk about anti-competitive! What would the Amiga community say if Amiga Inc. suddenly tried to shut down WinUAE,& instead insist everyone buy their own commercial product-based emulator for anyone in the Amiga community wanting to play their "classic amiga" gaming titles?

15 July 2003, 13:43	#35
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	Hmmmm, i think their lawyers are being over ambitious to say the least. I doubt they own the Commodore 64 brand. I very much doubt it. They say "Tulip is the owner of the brand name Commodore. Through this partnership Tulip grants to Ironstone the exclusive rights to exploit the official Commodore C64 web-portal and use of the Commodore 64 brand name. " They only mentioning owning the Commodore brand name. I bet if push came to shove they have no right to say they own the "Commodore 64" brand name. Theres a difference. Albeit a small one. And they dont have the rights to the software, the OS or especially the computer games made for it. Whoever sold them the C= name milked these ignorant idiots. Now theyre trying to save face by making up shit that they own other things when they dont.

15 July 2003, 13:49	#36
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	Theres a difference between buying the brand name and the assets. Still. I might be wrong - whats the details of what they own?

15 July 2003, 16:45	#37
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 51 Posts: 2,338	Hmm, sounds like the same crap that SCO is trying to do to the Linux community

15 July 2003, 18:41	#39
Antiriad The Sacred Armour Of Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sussex, UK Age: 34 Posts: 1,127	Garak on the Lemon Baord said the following: "No, Tulip Computers _only_ owns the Commodore name and Commodore logo. But, Gateway Computers owns all the 8-bit Commodore patents (which are expiring as we speak) and the technologies (ie Gateway owns the VIC and SID patents etc.). As for Amiga... Gateway also owned all things Amiga including the name (not Tulip) but few years back a few people got together and bought the Amiga name and other Amiga rights from Gateway and reformed Amiga: www.amiga.com. So, Tulip has the Commodore name/logo, Gateway owns all the 8-bit Commodore patents/technologies, and Amiga owns Amiga... it's all crazy if you ask me! Garak" So...my initial suspicions are correct. Tulip only own the Commodore name and logo AND NOTHING ELSE. Not even the Commodore 64! As such, they really are FULL of shit.

15 July 2003, 19:35	#40
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	It's essentially a FUD campaign, or so it seems to me. Compare it with the SCO case. SCO have said that some mysterious code of theirs has been copied, but they won't tell anyone exactly which lines of code, which sections of Linux it affects, or indeed anything at all useful. They're just dangling the spectre of copyright infringement, particularly worrying to American companies at the moment, with that DRM, RIAA, MPA, etc, nonsense forever in the press, in the hope that companies, especially small companies, get scared and either buy the SCO build of Linux (which is, by all accounts, rubbish) or pay a licence fee. Tulip seem to be doing the same thing. I'd guess that their aim is to scare the smaller sites and emulators out of existence, as they wouldn't be able to afford to fight a lawsuit (hands up everyone who's registered a C64 emu. Anyone?). They remove the competition, and so C64 fans have no choice but to buy the "official" emulator. For larger sites, they'd just need to win one court case for most of them to start shutting down too. Hmm... I wonder what Gateway would say if they knew that Tulip, in writing a commercial C64 emulator, were trying to make money out of the C64 hardware IP? Perhaps if the C64 scene rallies around and convinces the original games programmers not to sell their games to Tulip they'd have to reconsider their new scheme. However, I think enough copyrights or licencing rights must still lie with the publishers (who tend to want to exploit IP as badly as Tulip seem to) for Tulip to put together a large catalogue of licenced games.

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