Copyright

[tnash]

Newbie question... what's the general advice on copyright for games we have remade/demade for the BBC, and particularly posting them here as very non-commercial releases

I'd like to share my version of Zynga's Drop7, not because it's a great piece of programming but because it's a fun game, I want to see if anyone can beat my score, and also would be great to get hints from the experts on improving the graphics and speeding up the game logic. Is it best to contact Zynga first? Would they care or even respond?

Back in the early days of course you could just change the title slightly (Bop7!) and put some legs on the main character but things have changed!
Thanks all
Tom

[fizgog]

I think IMHO as long there is no money being made, then I'm sure they don't care especially given as the machine you are targeting is from the 80's

[gfoot]

Knowing the industry, if you contact a company like Zynga they will just tell you not to do it, in the strongest terms - or ignore you. It won't reflect on what they can or can't enforce, and the person answering will have no sympathy for what you're trying to do, as for them - if they do pay any attention which I doubt - there is no positive value in what you're doing.

I can't give legal advice but my understanding is that copyright applies if you copy some aspect - such as code, graphics, the story, or specific level designs. The less faithfully you copy, the less likely you are to infringe. You don't want to have to argue it in court though, regardless.

I also think it's not commonly possible to protect game mechanics themselves - they don't fall under the scope of copyright, and patents are a thorny issue for this sort of thing, I believe it's gone both ways in the past.

Again, not legal advice, but so long as you have no resources to actually pay any settlement, it will not be worth their while to pursue you (the cost of their legal team is high compared to your ability to pay any damages or costs). I suspect the worst you'd get is an order (informally, not a court order or anything legal like that) to stop distributing your clone (which may just be sent to your ISP or whoever is hosting your downloads), in the unlikely event that they actually noticed you at all.

[tnash]

Thanks very much for the detailed discussion. It looks like there's been an unofficial PICO-8 version up since 2017 which is a good sign that no-one would notice or care!

[Beebson]

I think IMHO as long there is no money being made, then I'm sure they don't care especially given as the machine you are targeting is from the 80's

I would advice to take some care, if the target machine from the 80´s starts and ends with Nin...do, especially if game characters´names are M..io and L..gi. I think everything´s fine as long as there is no money being made, though, but I am not sure about that with that mentioned company. If you are making any money, even just getting the production costs back, then you are in trouble with them. Atariage was forced to stop selling Atari 2600 port of their well known game. Changing the game name didn´t help at all.

[Rich Talbot-Watkins]

Yeah, Nintendo is quite famously litigious - most remakes seem to end up with cease and desist notices. Best bet is probably to change the graphics and characters, even if the game mechanic is flagrantly identical!

https://www.cbr.com/most-infamous-ninte ... shutdowns/

[PJTech]

Back when I was at school, "Granny's Garden" was an especially popular (and difficult) educational game. I went looking for it and it seems that the original publisher still sells a more modern version and guards the copyright of the 80s original as well.

It's such a pity that some of these companies won't release the rights to antique software from which they no longer make any revenue, whilst other companies have been amazing - even releasing the original source code in some cases.
I think a lot of this has to do with company lawyers being fiercely protective of their 'intellectual property' as if it were still a current product.

[fizgog]

I think IMHO as long there is no money being made, then I'm sure they don't care especially given as the machine you are targeting is from the 80's

I would advice to take some care, if the target machine from the 80´s starts and ends with Nin...do, especially if game characters´names are M..io and L..gi. I think everything´s fine as long as there is no money being made, though, but I am not sure about that with that mentioned company. If you are making any money, even just getting the production costs back, then you are in trouble with them. Atariage was forced to stop selling Atari 2600 port of their well known game. Changing the game name didn´t help at all.

This is another reason why I won't go beyond a technical exercise in learning to code for this game and have moved on to something else


Then again if it's good enough for Nin...do, it should be good enough for the rest of us

https://digg.com/gaming/link/nintendo-s ... WnQ8zW7acJ

Code from the game in question

Code: Select all

3F30:  50 52 4F 47 52 41 4D 2C 57 45 20 57 4F 55 4C 44  PROGRAM,WE WOULD
3F40:  20 54 45 41 43 48 20 59 4F 55 2E 2A 2A 2A 2A 2A   TEACH YOU.*****
3F50:  54 45 4C 2E 54 4F 4B 59 4F 2D 4A 41 50 41 4E 20  TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN
3F60:  30 34 34 28 32 34 34 29 32 31 35 31 20 20 20 20  044(244)2151
3F70:  45 58 54 45 4E 54 49 4F 4E 20 33 30 34 20 20 20  EXTENTION 304
3F80:  53 59 53 54 45 4D 20 44 45 53 49 47 4E 20 20 20  SYSTEM DESIGN
3F90:  49 4B 45 47 41 4D 49 20 43 4F 2E 20 4C 49 4D 2E  IKEGAMI CO. LIM.