Description of problem: ArtSoft and Fedora are distributing sampled loops from copyrighted music by Alan Parsons, Tangerine Dream, and others, while listing the license as GPL. When my son began playing this game the other day, I noticed the music straight away, having physical copies of the Pyramid and Exit albums in my music collection. However, there was no place I could find in the documentation, website, or interface that said ArtSoft were licensed to legally include those sample loops, or redistribute them under the GPL. I am not the first to make this observation: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/05/msg00544.html The problematic files in question install to: /usr/share/rocksndiamonds/music/mus_classic As a workaround for users who want a pure FOSS Fedora, simply replace the wave files in that directory with your own, and update the text files as appropriate. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rocksndiamonds-3.2.3-1.fc7 How reproducible: Completely. Install Rocks and Diamonds from F7's RPM, you get copyrighted music from before there was even a GPL... yet the game is licensed GPL? Steps to Reproduce: 1. sudo yum install rocksndiamonds 2. rocksndiamonds 3. Choose "info screen" and "music info", and scroll through the screens identifying each clip while it plays. Actual results: Clearly identified music clips from "Network 23" by Tangerine Dream, "Exit" and Voyager from Alan Parsons "Pyramid" play, and are identified in the interface, with no clear listing that ArtSoft is licensed to redistribute these clips as GPL. Expected results: Fedora packages follow the packaging guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines especially the section under "Emulators" Additional info: According to the ArtSoft website, the goal of Rocks and Diamonds is to recreate the look, sounds, and gameplay of several copyrighted games, specifically Boulder Dash, Emerald Mines, and others. Regardless of whether the graphics were sourced from those original games, or created from scratch, this game may qualify as a derivative work under U.S. law. If so, I think that may qualifies it as an emulator in any case, whether or not it included the copyrighted music clips. I don't think this can ship in Fedora as-is, which is a pity, because my son loves the game very much and seemed to become instantly hooked on it. But, maybe it is enough to repackage the game without the problematic music clips or any problem artwork? The game has a level editor and a wide base of user-built levels and contributed content, which could possibly be distributed with the core code instead of levels that emulate copyrighted games?
Unless the artwork is directly copied from those other games, it is fine, as US law has upheld that "game look and feel" is OK to copy, as long as it is not an exact copy, and that copyright/trademarks are not misused. The music is a much bigger issue, and I've started an effort to either get permission from the artist or have it replaced with Creative Commons licensed sound samples. See: http://spot.livejournal.com/271177.html Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
There's a free music what can be used (fedora.ogg). http://people.redhat.com/stransky/linda/ It was composed by Martin Linda and it's copyrighted under Creative Commons license.
rocksndiamonds-3.2.3-2.fc7.1 has been pushed to the Fedora 7 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.