ummm..weird question on legal stuff (Full Version)

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Unhappy -> ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/23/2008 9:30:39 PM)

Hi,

If I could get some sort of 'official' response that would be cool.

I am currently working on a game that is sort of a clone of an existing game. I am doing this as a learning exercise to see what I am able to accomplish. I am doing this based solely on the appearance of the game and my experience playing without examining the code. I do not intend to include all of the features available in the existing game (ex. no save game, no multiplayer, no internet play, not including all of the features in the existing game etc.) I only started recently...and there is a very high likelihood that I will be unsuccessful or just get bored and quit (though going well so far). So my question is...how unlawful is this and if my project reaches fruition - would I be able to make it available to others for evaluation or not? (free of course).

I'm really just testing the boundaries of my, quite limited, capability.

Thanks. Weird post but comments appreciated.



JudgeDredd -> RE: ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/23/2008 11:22:28 PM)

I imagine it's not illegal at all as long as you do not make money from it or make it public. If it goes public and/or you make money from it, you could be in trouble.

That's not an official response. [:D]



Feltan -> RE: ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/23/2008 11:40:32 PM)

Unhappy,

In order to be prosecuted, the person who owns the rights to the original game has to prove:

1. Your product has similar form or function to theirs., and
2. You had (or could have had) access to their original product.

That's it.

It is not a very heavy burden to prove. Access to source code and reverse engineering does NOT need to be implied or proved -- although that would make things much worse. The courts are full of IP (Intellectual Property) cases because of this, and many many more get settled simply because knowledgable defendents don't want a court to decide things.

Of course, if you aren't charging anything for your knock off, and have no real money to begin with, they probably aren't going to sue you. But just because you aren't charging doesn't get you off the hook. Imagine a person making a mirror copy of, say, Microsoft Word and handing it out for free -- not charging money wouldn't prevent a battalion of lawyers from landing on your doorstep.

Regards,
Feltan



Brigz -> RE: ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/24/2008 12:44:33 AM)

I'm not a lawyer either but....

Proceed with what you want to do. If your project comes to the attention of the holder of a copyright then they will do one of two things. Either remain silent or contact you. If they contact you it will usually be a "cease and desist" order in which case they are giving you notice that you are infringing on a copyright. In that case you should obey. If they do nothing and never contact you that is considered an affirmative response and you can do what you want until they do contact you. It would be very unlikely that you would be sued for a project like this that has no monetary gain. In almost all cases they would inform you that you are infringing on a copyright and await your response before they would go to the trouble of initiating legal proceedings. Especially if you are not receiving or have received any monetary gain.

Again, I'm not a lawyer but my suggestion is not to worry about it.



Unhappy -> RE: ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/24/2008 5:17:31 AM)

Hi, thanks for the replies.  While you may not be 'lawyers' the responses sound pretty informed to me so I will proceed.  Basically, I am trying to recreate an interface that I think might be appropriate to other games, based on an existing one.  So if I can recreate the existing one I will proceed with something new.  Thanks very much.



Arctic Blast -> RE: ummm..weird question on legal stuff (12/24/2008 10:09:19 PM)

I wouldn't imagine there would be too much of an uproar unless you decided to try and make a commercial product from your work.



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