Most of the programs referred to on my download page are rewrites of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, and include copyright code which was written by Matthew Smith for the long-since dissolved companies Bug-Byte and Software Projects.
Matthew Smith has said that he doesn't have a problem with people making modified versions of these games:
He visited my website in 1999, and expressed his approval in a private email. In a private email of 31st August 1999, he gave me his permission to post disassemblies of MM and JSW, provided that they include the line "(C) 1983,1984,1999 Matthew Smith - all rights reserved" at the top and bottom of the file.
In Issue Seven of Retro Gamer magazine, he is quoted as saying: "I personally don't have a problem with it at all. But there are legal complications with the copyright law as it stands, where you are either forced to protect something fully or abandon it. So if I start actively encouraging modding then it is in a sense giving up any rights I have to it. But with the case of Jet Set Willy it's very complicated, and nobody should be worried if they're making mods. I wish them luck basically."
If you have a problem with this and you want to kill my joy in releasing such games on the Internet and everyone else's pleasure in playing them, then, after calculating the heartbreak you will cause in what's left of the community of Spectrum fans, let me know and - provided you can convince me that your authority with respect to the copyright is genuine - I will remove the offending material from my website, and you will be as the man who shot Bambi.
Please consider carefully the following factors before you make such a threat and thus condemn your soul to eternal damnation:
I am making no financial gain out of this whatsoever - I'm only in it for the joy of writing Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy games, and why shouldn't I share them with anyone who wants them?
Spectrum software is no longer on sale in shops, so I'm not hurting anyone financially by distributing such material now. Nor am I making it significantly more accessible than it already is - there are plenty of other websites that freely distribute copyright Spectrum software, and I don't hear of any complaints (except from certain companies who have explicitly denied distribution of their software, such as Ultimate and Codemasters). The Spectrum scene survives and thrives on a culture of free distribution.
I am not harming anyone's economic interests by making Spectrum-emulator games available for downloading - if anything, it's `free advertising' for Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.
Am I any more violating copyright by writing my own Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy games than I violate Sun Microsystems' copyright by writing Java programs?
Equally, if you hold the copyright of Tolkien's estate and feel that I'm violating it by releasing Manic Miner: The Hobbit and Jet Set Willy: The Lord of The Rings, then you can tell me where to stick them, but you will bitterly disappoint all the Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy fans, and also fans of Tolkien computer games.
To prove that your authority with respect to the copyright is genuine, you must furnish me with the following information:
an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;
a description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site;
your address, telephone number, and email address;
a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner's behalf.
The rooms, graphics and other gubbins that I write myself in creating these games are my own copyright. However, being a nice reasonable person in such matters, I have no objection if you wish to redistribute them (free of charge) - in fact, I'd be honoured, and glad to see them exposed to a wider audience!
I also have no objection to you reusing any portion of my work here to create your own free games, providing you state that you have done so (including details of precisely what you have `stolen'), and please also have the courtesy to let me know, as I would be very interested in anything that follows from my work!
In either event, you must state that the (appropriate portion of the) code you release was written by me (either "Broadsoft" or "Andrew Broad") - failure to do so may be construed as plagiarism.
No portion of any Broadsoft game (or other program) is to be reused in any software that is sold for money. If it is, I will take legal action.
Copyright in text of the notes I release with my games also rests with me. The names and concepts of We Pretty, Goodnite Luddite and Kari Kri�n�kov� belong to me, so if you're thinking of writing any games, novels, TV adaptations &c. based on these, please discuss it with me first!
