quote:
Original post by HarryCquote:
IF YOU TAKE ONE WORD, NO MATTER WHO OWNS IT ANYWHERE EVER LIKE SAY THE 5 LETTER WORD "BLOOD" WAS OWNED BY SOMEONE AND THEN YOU TAKE ANOTHER WORD LIKE THE 6 LETTER WORD "NEEDLE" AND MADE THE WORD "BLOEDLE" THEN THAT WORD, ASSUMING PEOPLE CAN OWN WORDS WHICH THEY CANT ANYWAYS WOULD BELONG TO WHOEVER MADE IT REGARDLESS OF WHAT WORDS IT WAS MADE WITH AND WHERE IT CAME FROM!
Correction: you can''t copyright a single word. You are free to trademark a single word though (I''d love to see you start a computer company named AppleSoft or MicroSerf).
However, for things that you can copyright, your statement is blatantly false. You could not, for example, take half of a Beetle''s song and half of a Brittany Spear''s song, paste them together, and claim "ownership". In fact, forget 50%, just try using a few second sample from a copyrighted song in a song of yours.
Copyright law, like any law, is never a "one rule fits all" type of situation. That''s why you have lawyers, courts, and judges. Never, ever, rely on legal advice you didn''t get from a lawyer.
FFS you ass.
Did i say song, no.
Did i say clip of song, no.
Did i say anything else in the english language and beyond, no.
Did i say anything more than the original fucking example given by the post which this has to do with, no i didn''t.
HENCE why i fucking wrote what i did, i didn''t refer to any of the above except the original question about that one thing that one guy was looking to do, you fuck wit.
He was looking to combine, one word with anouter word, we have established that the original word was not copy writed or trade marked and that the resulting word would be a brand new word no one on earth owns hence the discussion about that is well and truly over and one with, stop posting about it or go make a spam thread for it ffs.
People like piss me off dramatically and if i could i would send the lot of you to hell for eternal torment for annoying me with pointless crap.
quote:
Original post by orionx103quote:
Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
[OT]You guys are all whiny bitches. Wait, make that "bitches".[/OT]
Hahahaha.
I''m a grammar Nazi, I realize, but I usually don''t bitch about it unless I''m called out by someone who can''t spell for shit. I didn''t spam the thread, I asked a question and debated the answer.
You spammed, just admit it so we can all get on with our lives.
quote:
Original post by Damocles
The problem is that international copyright laws are left deliberately vague so that they can be applied to many different situations. I believe the law regarding any dispute over copyrighted material goes something like:
If it is deemed by the adjudicating body that the material is of a sufficiently modified nature that it no longer brings to mind the original work, then it is free from copyright infringement.
So basically you are allowed to take someone''s work and manipulate the bejesus out of it until it no longer reminds everyone of the original. A very good case being Andy Warhol''s prints of the campbells soup tins. The design of the tins was copyrighted work, but because he took them and modified them into a work of art that made the viewer think about the artistic nature of the work and not the soup tin design, he didn''t break the law.
The figure someone quoted above of 30% different is complete rubbish. Nowhere in the copyright laws (international copyright, a lot of US states and various countries like to adopt their own laws to screw people over) does it give a precise amount, it is always left to the adjudicator. This is because it''s almost impossible to quantify certain things like works of art. Sure you can run differential analysis on them, but that doesn''t represent an arbitrary viewers idea of what they see.
and back to games:
As a general rule of thumb, every game idea out there is free to be copied. You could make a game where players fight it out online in a death-match arena using a combination of weapons incredibly similar to Q3''s weapons, and you''d be allowed to.
As mentioned above, almost all video game media gets copyrighted. Every image, sound effect, piece of music, piece of code, everything. Typically only the main names get trademarked. EG they might trademark the name Quake but not the name Strogg. (They probably did tm strogg, but it''s just an example).
So as long as you don''t infringe on copyrighted media and trademarked names you are fine. In the case of Square trademarking the individual names of the crystals/meteria - highly unlikely. Especially as the names are very vague and it would be hard for them to prove they are "trading" off of those names. They are but a small component of the game.
As for patents - yes it is technically possible to trademark ideas (and god knows, everybody tries) but very few people ever-make them stick. Case in point, the makers of Tony Hawks attempted to patent the game mechanic of "Unlocking features by completing tasks of a skill based nature". This didn''t hold water and was later altered to only be applicable to skateboarding genres and skateboarding tricks. Even with that patent they would have a hard time suing you for making a skating game where you unlock features by completing tricks because the law generally frowns upon any patents/copyrights where it is harmful to creativity (after all, this is what the original laws were designed to protect. The creativity not the artist)
As mentioned above, patents have to have a very descriptive form, typically involving rules. Board games are usually patented because they are based off of rules and so are dead easy to quantify and protect. Computer games on the other hand are very free form in their nature and can take on many nuances that would vary from any patented rules, making the patent null and void.
Basically, when it comes to ideas, feel free to rip-off, er I mean "be inspired by" any game you play. Just don''t try and rip off their media. Same goes for trying to profit off of likeness - if you try and trade with a logo that is similar enough to someone else''s to be obvious, you can get sued.
Weee that was a long post :D And probably brimming with typos
Thanks for that.
I see that you are indeed correct in your thinking and i did just check over my lawyer m8s computer archive for this kinda thing and your right in your entirety.
Right everything answered, all sorted and some of you can stop purposely being jackass''s just to piss me off now while we all move on.
*curtains come down and applause rises up from the stands*
