Hey, i was wondering... i have been working on a game that uses quite some puzzles of another game. Now, the apperace and gameplay of both games is TOTALY different, except that the puzzles are identicly. I have added to these puzzles other things, like new objects, and the puzzle is at the end only "a part" of the level. But still... somewhere i did sort of copy the intelectualy property (the puzzle) of someone else... that aint legal is it? so i tried to contact the person but he doesn't reply at all, it seems his project died. On the otherhand, there are so many sokoban clones and pacman clones... but i guess they do use different levels. What are your thougds on this? cause im not sure about it and i dont want todo anything illigal. If he would respond we could maybe arrange royaltees or something.
Copyrights on intelectual property?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Copyrights on intelectual property? This discussion came up recently somewhere. Might have been these forums, but it might have been the IndieGamer forums or somewhere else. I believe ( but check, don't take my word ) that the bottom line was that level design could not be copyrighted.
Why don't you make your own levels? Avoids any confusion.
You can't be good at all things ;).. eventualy, when things don't clear up, that is what i might do. But i hope my puzzles will be good enough... i would need a testgroup i guess.
Anyway, i thoughd it would be an interesting thing to know.
Anyway, i thoughd it would be an interesting thing to know.
Write a level editor and get testers to make some levels.
whos gonne test or make levels for me?
I'm sure puki will if you send him all your media and source code...
You can't copyright gameplay. The sprites, the characters, the dialog, the logos, the music, and things like texture maps and so on can be protected. But the design of the levels can't be. Nor should they be.
Games borrow from eachother. It would be like if... Chess copyrighted the chess board and sued Checkers.
Games borrow from eachother. It would be like if... Chess copyrighted the chess board and sued Checkers.
im sure puki will when i do that, haha.
In law, nothing is absolute. You can only weigh the possibility that you will be sued. Copyright laws are fuzzy first of all, and second of all it costs a LOT of money to sue somebody.
Chances are, you won't be sued for this, if that's what you're worried about. But if what you're worried about is pissing someone off, then you'll have to ask yourself how much of this other person's work you've borrowed, and how obvious it is that you've borrowed it.
I've only heard of a few cases where people have been sued over a game. Actually scratch that. I've only heard of a few cases where people have been THREATENED with being sued. And even fewer where there was an actual settlement out of court. And I can only think of one actual case where it was simply the result of gameplay being similar. And that was between two big companies, so there was an incentive to go to court. That was a Simpsons game that copied Crazy Taxi exactly, not very long after Crazy Taxi came out.
One other recent case I can recall though, which didn't just involve gameplay, was someone copied Geometry Wars on XBOX live exactly, gameplay, graphics, and everything...
Yet even doing that, all they got was a demand that that take down the game... which they did.
If you're not copying a big company's game so closely that it is a virtual clone, then you're probably in the clear. And even then at worst you'll be lucky to get a take down notice. Of course, in law, nothing is certain.
Chances are, you won't be sued for this, if that's what you're worried about. But if what you're worried about is pissing someone off, then you'll have to ask yourself how much of this other person's work you've borrowed, and how obvious it is that you've borrowed it.
I've only heard of a few cases where people have been sued over a game. Actually scratch that. I've only heard of a few cases where people have been THREATENED with being sued. And even fewer where there was an actual settlement out of court. And I can only think of one actual case where it was simply the result of gameplay being similar. And that was between two big companies, so there was an incentive to go to court. That was a Simpsons game that copied Crazy Taxi exactly, not very long after Crazy Taxi came out.
One other recent case I can recall though, which didn't just involve gameplay, was someone copied Geometry Wars on XBOX live exactly, gameplay, graphics, and everything...
Yet even doing that, all they got was a demand that that take down the game... which they did.
If you're not copying a big company's game so closely that it is a virtual clone, then you're probably in the clear. And even then at worst you'll be lucky to get a take down notice. Of course, in law, nothing is certain.
thanks for you reply :)
it just came to my mind that the game BestFriends of Retor64 has been copied by Nick. However, i know that was a legal deal, i beleive Nick actualy asked Mike to make it for them right?
Well, i guess i will try to reduce the ammount of puzzles being used out of his game when the author doesn't reply. I don't really like to copy stuff anyway :\
I think it is has some very good puzzles tough, and it would be pitty if that got lost.
it just came to my mind that the game BestFriends of Retor64 has been copied by Nick. However, i know that was a legal deal, i beleive Nick actualy asked Mike to make it for them right?
Well, i guess i will try to reduce the ammount of puzzles being used out of his game when the author doesn't reply. I don't really like to copy stuff anyway :\
I think it is has some very good puzzles tough, and it would be pitty if that got lost.